The best results in my life, for achieving worth while goals, have all come from making something a daily practice. When I first woke up to the fact that I had made myself morbidly obese, I weighed 396 pounds at the age of 21, the thing that saved me was committing to a daily practice of writing down everything I ate and doing T’ai Chi Chih. I made the commitment to do these two things for 1,000 days. Finishing that thousand days made a fundamental change in my life, gave me a craving for physical fitness and helped me to shed the first one hundred of the excess pounds I carried. I also reclaimed my body, cleared an infection in my foot that had persisted for seven years and five operations, and gained a much larger engagement with life.
My struggles with weight continued, but in general got better. When I started Aikido I learned there was a program for living at the dojo, this is called being an Uchi-Deshi (disciple in the house) in Japanese. A year and a half later I moved in. That required a minimum of a one year commitment. I let my Sensei know that I wanted to stay until I had my shodan (first degree black belt.) I ended up taking my black belt exam after twenty months. My Sensei asked me about staying for an extra year to focus on teaching, and I decided to do that. Midway through the first year, through a mistake on my part, the requirement for Uchi-Deshi was changed from ten classes a week to twelve, with the additional requirement of making at least one class every day. So, once again I found myself having a daily practice. When I was training ten classes a week, and taking the weekends off, I was making very good progress. But, the simple shift to training everyday made a quantum leap in my progress. It was not quite like a rocket ride into the upper reaches of Aikido Mastery, nothing of the sort, but the difference it did make was nearly immediate, and very obvious to everyone I trained with.
By the time I was done with my term as Uchi-Deshi I was down to 185 pounds. My practice slacked off a bit, I only attended the dojo five days a week, and the weight began to come back on. Two years ago I was back up to 260. I got strict with my diet again, and the scale crept slowly back down, but I could feel myself losing the struggle. It was time for another commitment. I cut out all snacking and eat only three meals a day now. Plus, I cut out all sugar based foods – cakes, cookies, candies, confections, deserts. Also, I identified two trigger foods that I no longer eat: Pizza and Peanut Butter. I have not set any time frame on this way of eating, I simply make it a daily practice. This is how I have eaten for the last two years, and am back down to 190. The great thing about this practice is that I don’t have to consider the future, or the past, this is just how I am for this day.
Most recently I have re-taken a meditation practice into my life (along with my wife). And, you guessed it, it’s daily. I’ve been at it for about four weeks now, nothing earth shattering to report yet, other than the few things I have already blogged about, but it does feel a lot deeper than just meditating once in a while when the need/mood strikes me. I look forward to a good report in a year, or two.
