New research tells us that in smoking cessation, there are two kinds of quitters. Those who stop right away and those who stop eventually. Amazingly, both end up as ex-smokers.
A substantial proportion of smokers who quit by the end of 12 weeks of treatment smoked in one or more weeks during the first eight weeks before achieving continuous abstinence… Researchers described this as a previously unreported and natural pattern of quitting. Had the delayed quitters quit treatment, continuous abstinence could have been lost for up to 45% of eventually successful people.
What is it they say? ‘The enemy of good is perfect.” In our strive for perfection, we fail more often at our goal than if we allow ourselves to be a little less than perfect.
It’s an important message for smokers trying to quit. You don’t have to do the program perfectly to end up an ex-smoker. You just have to persevere.
I suspect the same thing is true for dieters.
I don’t know about you, but in this arena I am definitely a victim of my own perfectionism.
Those who end up at their goal may not be the ones who never broke program, but they are the ones who persist with their diet and exercise program, whatever it is, through times on non-compliance and less than perfect behavior.
Important to remember as we enter the Thanksgiving holidays…
I’ll definitely second this notion; even if your motives are pure, dieting is not an easy thing to stick to and “relapses” (or whatever you’d call them) are extremely common. But yes, persistence is the key–even through those times when it seems like the scale won’t budge or the numbers are going in the wrong direction. I’d much rather see it through than wind up not deriving any benefits because I gave up on it.
I am happy when anyone quits smoking using any method! However, I really wish my mom and dad had quit before they had kids. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, so many of us reeked of cigarette smoke, and today we get the stats on passive smoking and lung cancer …