Small Changes, Big Impact

Walking home from my Pilates session today, I was thinking about my success with losing weight. Fifteen pounds may be the most I’ve ever lost. I can remember losing 10 lbs a few times with great effort and sacrifice and then feeling stalled, discouraged and having a hard time keeping up what I was doing (then of course I gained them back plus more). This time I’m putting in some effort but it feels more relaxed and rather than keeping up extreme diet habits, I’m building ones that I plan to keep on an ongoing basis. For instance, I have yogurt with my breakfast now and for an afternoon snack, I have an apple and a low-fat cheese stick. I have always enjoyed eating apples and yogurt, but instead of eating them randomly I now have a sense of where they best fit in during my day. I’ve also focused a great deal on exercising before with frustratingly little impact – sometimes I did two Spinning classes a day!

Now I’m doing lots of small things – diet, relaxation, exercise – and together they are having a big impact. It reminded me of the quote I have had on my email signature lately:

“Perhaps what we are called to do may not seem like much, but the butterfly is a small creature to affect galaxies thousands of light years away.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle

Within the complex system of my own body, the small efforts I’m making are like the butterflies whose movements can create big waves of change.