Slow is the new fast

If you’re on this site, and reading this article, chances are you’re looking for help. And chances are also you want to fix what’s wrong quickly, because you’re tired of it all.

If you’re a binge eater or bulimic, and have been struggling for years, you might feel quite discouraged, especially if your efforts to make lasting change aren’t working. That is, if the things that used to work just don’t work anymore.

The diet-binge syndrome (or restriction-binge syndrome) can wreak havoc on your spirit, as well as your body. And in my experience, both lived and with clients, the quickest fix is actually the slow and incremental one. It’s the one where you take one baby step, and then another, and another, and so on. And if you fall down, or fall backwards, you’re just falling back a baby step or two.

Who wants to hear that real change can take time?  Hardly anyone.

Chances are, this is not what you want to hear. Chances are, patience is not your strongest trait. A lot of current diet and weight-loss guidance is counting on that. They say lose x pounds by such-and-such a date, or learn how to eat right, or exercise right, or do whatever in just a few easy steps. They try to make it simple, because they know people want to see results quickly, to keep up their momentum. After all, we’re in a quick-fix society.

We’ve learned to expect quick fixes. And we keep falling for them. And failing with them.

So what I’m saying is all those quick fixes will probably work for a while, but are also probably not sustainable. Or maintainable. So you reach your goal, and because you’ve gotten there quickly, you haven’t learned what you’ve needed to learn along the way – the difficult stuff, the stuff that created or contributed to the problem in the first place. So, the changes don’t stay. So there you are, sinking to the bottom again. And all of this takes time, and energy, and costs a lot of self-esteem.

How much better to go at it slowly. Gradually. Learning what you need to learn along the way so that you no longer need to repeat the old behaviors. In the long run, this is actually the fastest way to sanity and recovery.

Slow – is actually fast, because it is thorough. And fast – is actually slow, because it is a band-aid that won’t last.

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