#196: Patience

"All great achievements require time." David Schwartz

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Are you a patient person? Or do you want results, NOW? Are you disappointed when a week's worth of workouts and eating sensibly only results in a small weight loss and clothes that are still too tight?

Remember that it takes time. The end results do not always follow the effort we expend. Haven't you had those days or weeks where you felt you had pigged out with your eating and slacked off on your exercise and the scale went DOWN?

How to explain it? Likely an accumulation of positive effort that's finally caught up with you.

"Success consists of a series of little daily victories." Laddie Hutar

It is too bad that results do not follow lock-step in proportion to our effort, but day by day, exercise by exercise, meal by meal, success is built.

Keep the big, long-term picture in mind. Don't hope for instant success like in the scam ads when they tout "Lose 14 pounds in a week without dieting or exercise."

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. We must put forth the work, often causing sore muscles, and we must control our eating, and we must do this constantly throughout every day and then, when we least expect it, results will appear. On the scale, in looser fitting clothes, from a compliment paid by a co-worker or friend.

Patience.

As Saint Francis de Sales said, "Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.

"Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly start remedying them - every day begin the task anew."