Welcome! and thank you for visiting my little home on the web. I would love to tell you more about my journeys in tech and running. I mostly write about what I learn from running long distances and building large scale web applications. I also enjoy reading your email responses.
Thank you, Chris
The subtle helpful advice from well meaning friends
Now that I run I’m noticing how my friends talk about fitness and diets. It is fascinating how the words we use shape our success. Failure is determined before the task is started.
I get told, “that diet can’t be healthy only really sick people have to eat that way.” Hmmm, if it helps sick people get healthy, does it help healthy people get even better? I like to look at the bright side of life.
“I could never do that diet, I like [sugar, carbs, energy drinks] too much to give them up.” Well, what about starting with just one meal next week? Discrediting an idea because the extreme case seems too difficult is a form of failure.
“People gain 10 pounds per decade.” This is a lot like dog food. The dog food bag says feed 3 cups/day for an 80 pound dog. The problem occurs when an 80 pound dog should be a 70 pound dog. When it eats 3 cups /day it soon becomes a 90 pound dog. The dog should be fed according to its ideal weight.
I made an exercise habit. I committed and executed. Now many of the invisible scripts are obvious to me. Before I ran regularly I was blind to them. It is a tough catch-22 to see the invisible script and do something about it.