I’ve always been an all-or-nothing kind of person. Moderation and I have never been particularly close. We’ve met a few times, exchanged pleasantries, and then gone our separate ways.
I’ve quit addictions at the drop of a hat, worn the same pair of pants nearly every day for years, and thrown myself into hobbies with the enthusiasm of someone who has just discovered the only thing worth doing in the universe. When something catches my attention, it tends to get all of it. I don’t so much dip my toes into the water as cannonball into the deep end and start looking for whatever lives at the bottom.
For the most part, I treasure this about myself. It’s responsible for some of the most interesting experiences of my life. When I decide to do something, I can become remarkably committed to doing it. Of course, the other side of that particular coin is that when I decide I’m finished with something, I can become equally committed to never thinking about it again.
This has historically made dieting and exercise a bit of a problem.
I’ve started countless programs over the years. Strict diets, ambitious exercise schedules, elaborate plans to become a fundamentally different human being by Thursday. And for a while, they would work beautifully. I’d follow every rule, hit every goal, and begin imagining the magnificent specimen of physical perfection I was surely destined to become.
Then something would happen.
I’d miss a workout. Eat something outside the plan. Get sick. Go on vacation. Some tiny interruption would appear in the otherwise flawless machinery, and the entire operation would collapse like a Jenga tower assembled by a drunk.
One missed day became two. One indulgent meal became a weekend. The weekend became a week, and before long I was right back where I’d started, wondering how something that had been going so well could disappear so quickly.
The problem wasn’t that the plans didn’t work. The problem was that they only worked as long as I was perfect.
Seven months ago, I decided to try something different. I started what I’ve been calling my Year of Health, with the fairly straightforward goal of becoming a healthier person. I began exercising regularly, changed how I ate, and eventually settled into a routine that has helped me lose more than sixty pounds. More importantly, I’ve developed habits that I actually enjoy.
I love my mornings on the stationary bike. I love the feeling of getting stronger and having more endurance. And, perhaps most surprisingly, I love not thinking about food all day. After decades of what felt like nearly constant snacking, the quieting of that particular noise has been an unexpected pleasure.
But the most important change might not have anything to do with exercise or food.
Recently, I fell and injured my leg. Nothing particularly dramatic, but enough to interrupt the cycling routine I’d maintained for months. My quad was sore, my knee was bruised, and riding the bike was no longer particularly comfortable.
A previous version of me would have found this devastating. Not necessarily because of the injury itself, but because of what it represented. The streak was broken. The routine was interrupted. The perfect little system I’d constructed was no longer perfect.
I know where that story usually goes. This time, though, something strange happened. I shrugged. I’ve decided that I’m going to be exercising for the next fifty years, or at least as many of them as I can get away with. Missing a few days on the bike suddenly seemed like a rather insignificant event in that timeline.
So I went for a walk. Then another.
I wasn’t trying to match the calories I would have burned cycling. I wasn’t attempting to maintain some arbitrary daily exercise expenditure or preserve a streak by finding a loophole in the rules. I just wanted to move around. Walking felt good. Being outside felt good. And I liked the idea of remaining active while giving my leg time to heal.
That was it. No elaborate contingency plan. No dramatic recommitment ceremony. No motivational speech delivered to myself in the bathroom mirror. I just went for a walk. And somewhere in all of this, I’ve begun thinking about a simple little philosophy: +1.
The idea is to do something today that makes tomorrow a little better. Not necessarily something bigger, harder, or more impressive than yesterday. Just something that moves things along.
Sometimes +1 is another mile on the bike. Sometimes it’s choosing a meal that better supports my health. Sometimes it’s taking a walk instead of sitting on the couch.
And sometimes +1 is recognizing that my leg needs another day to recover and having the sense to leave it alone.
That’s the part I never quite understood before. Progress isn’t necessarily a continuous increase in effort. It’s an accumulation of decisions that gradually change the direction of your life.
A missed workout isn’t a failure unless I decide it means the entire enterprise has failed. A meal doesn’t need to be perfect to be satisfying or nourishing. And one day of doing absolutely nothing doesn’t erase months of doing something.
I’ve spent much of my life treating personal goals like elaborate towers that must be protected from collapse. Now I’m beginning to see them more like paths. If I stumble, the path is still there. If I sit down for a while, it doesn’t disappear. And if I wander off occasionally, I can simply wander back.
And sometimes it’s worth looking around to appreciate how far the path has already taken me.
For decades, I considered weighing 225 pounds something of a dream. This morning, the scale read 232. I’m not quite there, but the remarkable thing is that I’m already living much of what I imagined that number would represent. I have new goals now, of course. The committee has never been known to run out of suggestions. But I’d hate to become so preoccupied with the next destination that I forget to enjoy the place I’ve finally arrived.
The strange thing is that none of this has made me less committed. If anything, it’s made commitment easier.
I’m still the same obsessive fellow who can wear the same pants for years and disappear down a hobby rabbit hole without leaving a forwarding address. That part of me isn’t going anywhere. I’ve simply stopped requiring every undertaking to survive an impossible standard of perfection.
I used to think consistency meant never missing a day.
Now I think it means knowing that I’ll return.
And after seven months of trying to become healthier, I’ve realized I don’t need to improve upon myself every single morning. I just need to keep participating in the process.
Tomorrow might bring another eighteen miles on the bike. It might bring a long walk, a little yoga, or an afternoon spent chasing my daughter around the park. It might even bring a day where the healthiest thing I can do is rest.
Whatever it brings, I’ll see what I can add. Just +1. Over a lifetime, I suspect those little additions become quite a lot.