Please play with your food (The Diet, Day 19)

I’ve been reading Born to Run this week. I’m a little disappointed that it hasn’t inspired me to take off running barefoot across the country yet, but since this was my first week back at work for the new school year that’s probably just as well.

It’s a good book. I’m enjoying it. I’m also inspired in my own way toward lesser pursuits than ultra-marathons. Mostly, I’m impressed with the point it makes about how the most successful marathon runners are the ones who just go out there and have a good time. In race after race discussed in the book, the person who got the biggest personal kick out of doing it, not only won, but experienced fewer injuries throughout the process of preparing to race and completing the race.

It’s all about the fun.

That made me think of the fun theory videos.

People change their behaviors for the better when the change itself is fun. People succeed long-term in changes for the better when they continue over time to just absolutely enjoy the heck out of themselves.

I thought about that tonight while I ate a plate of steamed broccoli. The broccoli itself was neither here nor there. It was neither a pleasure nor a problem. I liked it just fine, but I wouldn’t have run ten miles in the heat of the day to get to it.

Steamed broccoli might help me reach my goal of losing weight, but I’m not going to change my life for steamed broccoli alone.

If I want to make this happen, I’ve got to figure out what’s fun about it. I’ve decided that’s the secret.

Here’s what I have so far:

–Blogging about dieting is fun to me because I’m just weird that way. Blogging might do more to help me stick it out than anything else I can think of.

–The Wii is fun. The Wii can keep me from living an entirely sedentary life.

That’s all I have so far. I need more. That’s only enough to see me through until I hit a real struggle. Any old craziness could happen to throw me off the blog and the Wii. Though I surprise even myself some days with my stick-to-it-ness over the blog, I’ve always had commitment issues. The blog could go at any point. As I heard someone say today, “I’m one broken fingernail away from popping a cold one and walking off the plane.”

Clearly, I need to start playing with my food.

I’ll think about what that means and get back to you on it. For some reason the only thing that comes to mind right now is carving up celery sticks like Lincoln Logs and building a fort with them.

And wouldn’t that make a cool picture for the blog?