The Power of Making Up Your Mind: How Small Steps Lead to Huge Health Gains

We recently got to catch up with a good friend of the Reclaim Lifestyles team from across the pond, Jeff’s British buddy Neil, to talk about the incredible metamorphosis Neil has undergone in the last few years. When they first became friends, Neil was inspired by Jeff’s level of physical fitness, especially for a guy in his 50s. As for himself, let’s just say Neil was not in the best shape of his life. But a couple years ago, Neil made a decision. And that decision has led to a complete transformation, inside and out, that has not only changed Neil’s health, but his entire life.

The Before

Prior to 2023, Neil fit a fairly typical profile for a 57-year-old man in the U.K. He was overweight, had smoked most of his life, had recently had a full knee replacement, and his doctor wanted to prescribe some medications for Neil’s high blood pressure and high cholesterol. “Is there any alternative?” Neil wanted to know. The doc said: “I’m a realist, and at your age, the odds of you turning your life around are slim. So pills it is.” It’s a familiar tune: you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, right? But that didn’t sit too well with Neil. 

Several conversations later, and Neil was increasingly disheartened by the medical community’s attitude towards people like him. Too often, they’re written off as lost causes; instead of support to change habits, they’re given meds they’ll have to continue taking the rest of their lives, come what side effects may. 

Then, Neil caught a particular film on a flight that, for him, was a final straw: The Whale, the 2022 film starring Brendan Frasier as a morbidly obese English teacher. While the movie received plenty of criticism for its portrayal of obesity, Neil saw it as a wakeup call. It hit him as a powerful, poignant example of what can happen to a person who has been bombarded with messages of their own unworthiness and has thus learned not to love or believe in themselves. 

That combination—of the medications Neil was expected to take forever thereafter and the film—led him to take a good, hard look at himself. “As you get older, it gets harder to learn to like yourself,” says Neil. “But you have to believe in yourself. You have to say, ‘I am capable of doing things. I’m gonna give it a try.’” So Neil decided to believe in himself, and try. 

[Insert Rocky-Style Training Montage Here]

After his full knee replacement, Neil was told he’d never be able to run. But when he’d decided to make a change in his life, the easiest thing he could do right away was throw on a pair of old sneakers (not even proper running shoes), some shorts and a t-shirt, and get outside to jog. The first time he went for a run, “the little man in his head” was loud—you know, that voice that shouts horrible things in your mind whenever you try something new. “Everyone’s going to laugh at you! Old man running with a big belly! You’ll look like a sweaty fool about to have a heart attack! And what about that knee!?” But Neil said to that voice, “So what?” 

Getting over that voice certainly isn’t easy, but it is necessary. “It’s like an onion,” Neil explains, “The first few layers are thinner, you don’t take off much. The first couple times I went jogging, yeah, I felt stupid.” Running for Neil at the very beginning was a bit stop-and-start. “I’d run about 20 feet at a time. But the more you do it, the more momentum you build; the thicker the layers get that you’re peeling off the onion, and the less effect that voice in your head has. Because you’ve proven to yourself that you can do it. You just have to keep going to get past that first, hardest stage; grin and bear it in the beginning, and then—the magic happens.”

Starting simply can also help with getting past those first-time fears. Like we said, Neil threw on whatever pair of sneakers he already had—he didn’t go shopping for shiny new running shoes until a little later when he’d built some confidence. Going to the sporting goods store before you’ve begun to establish your habit can be more demoralizing than motivating, especially if you feel that there’s nothing there for you: maybe they don’t have your size, everything’s more expensive than you expected, or the technical information on a new sport is overwhelming. You don’t have to go out and buy a high-speed bike and cyclist get-up to be active. More than one person has run a marathon in Crocs of all things, so don’t let a lack of fancy footwear or other gear stop you from taking the first steps toward getting active.

If you don’t make up your mind to persevere despite that initial self-consciousness and self-doubt, it can stop you before you even get started. “The mean things that voice was shouting at me the first few times I went running—that’s how bad I felt about myself. People get to that place where they feel like they can’t even try to make a difference for themselves because they’re going to look stupid. Little do they know, now when I see folks out there trying, I feel like clapping! ‘You are what it’s all about!’ I want to tell them. I celebrate people trying.” 

From those old sneakers and running 20 feet to the shiny new running shoes and completing half marathons, Neil misplaced about 110 pounds. But while running was the first step Neil took toward a healthier lifestyle, it wasn’t the only one.

Choosing Better Fuel

As for diet, Neil didn’t follow any particular guidelines or program. No keto, no starving himself and subsisting on lettuce and celery, no weight-loss pills. He just started eating less of the stuff we all pretty much know we should eat less of—sugar, convenience foods, soda, bread, red meat, some dairy. Just by making those basic reductions and getting out to run consistently, the weight started falling off. 

Something critical Neil realized about his food choices: a lot of them had been driven not by a biological need, but by imagination. “The human imagination is a fantastic thing. It tells you when you’re hungry that In-N-Out is the only place that can satisfy you. It’s really nothing to do with your body. When my mind is pulling up an image of a double cheeseburger with fries and a milkshake, that’s not my body telling you it wants that. That’s my imagination. My body is saying it wants wholesome protein, natural foods, vegetables, whatever. It’s definitely not saying a double cheeseburger with fries.” Making that distinction has helped Neil make better decisions meal to meal to give his body the nourishment it actually needs and not just sate his imagination.

There Is No Holy Grail

Through his experience, Neil has learned that there is neither a silver bullet nor a Holy Grail to getting fit. There’s no magic pill that will get you to the “end point” faster and there’s no magical “end point” anyway. “You’re just trying to get to a place where you can like yourself, believe in yourself, and do something for yourself. You’re trying to find a place where you’re comfortable.” 

This mindset might sound a bit counter to traditional advice around setting goals, but Neil is a bit leery of goals when it comes to getting active. Or rather, he thinks (and we agree!) the goals you set should be more focused on consistency in whatever you’re doing than on how you look or what physical feats you’re capable of. “At the beginning, I didn’t set any goals. I just said, ‘I’m gonna try, gonna see what it’s like,’” says Neil. “Because sometimes when you have someone set a goal like ‘in six months, I’ll look like Brad Pitt, or run a marathon,’ and then six months go by and they haven’t met their goal, the last thing you want is for them to be so disappointed that they throw in the towel and give up.” 

Sometimes, especially when you’re just beginning a new way of living, the greatest goal you could set is just to start. And then the next goal is to do it again. And then again. And so on and so forth, until you have a solid habit formed and run 10 miles a day like Neil. Maybe then, go ahead and register for that half marathon, if that’s a goal that inspires you. 

Do Something You Love

Neil loves running “truly, madly, deeply.” Picking an activity you actually enjoy doing is pretty key for building a consistent routine. If you hate what you’re doing, how long can you expect to keep forcing yourself through it? Life’s too short to do workouts you hate when there are likely several other activity options you could have fun with instead. Dance, yoga, swimming, walking, the list goes on. So just because Neil fell head over heels in love with running certainly doesn’t mean that’s what you should do if you actually hate running.

For Neil, running doesn’t just make him feel good physically—it’s completely changed his mental health. “I was a basket case before I started,” Neil explains. “There are a lot of added benefits you don’t expect. My whole family has reaped the benefits, and my friends tell me that I’m a much more positive person.” We’ve touched on the mental health rewards of exercise in past blogs, but it always helps to hear from real people who have experienced the effects firsthand. “Running is almost meditative for me. It’s where I can sort things out and take some time just for myself,” says Neil.

Taking time for yourself can feel selfish, but in practice, it allows you to be a better partner, parent, friend, coworker, etc. for the people around you because you’re better prepared to give your best in all those relationships. But if you struggle with a lot of guilt around taking the time to exercise, you can do what Neil did: run at 4:30 AM. “I picked 4:30 AM because I wanted to get it done before my kids were getting up for school so I could be present for them then, because that was really important to me,” says Neil. 

His kids are 19, 16, and 15, and wanting to be around beyond these mornings before school is another big motivator for Neil. “I want to be around for their futures, I want to see them get married, settled down, etc.” And his family has been very supportive of Neil’s transformation. “My middle son has said to me, ‘Dad, I’m so happy you’ve done this.’ They know it’s not for vanity, I’m not suddenly gonna start strutting around in spandex trying to be hip. They’re proud of me, and I’m proud of me. The satisfaction you get from achieving something, especially a bit later in life, it’s so good for your self-esteem.” And when your self-esteem is up, the people around you are uplifted too. 

The Power of Progress

Getting past the first stages of starting something new is always going to be the hardest part. It does take a certain amount of managing expectations and reorienting goals around consistency rather than numbers on a scale or inches on a waistline. But before too long, if you keep that consistency up, you will start to see some metrics move. And when you’re looking at yourself every day, it can be hard to notice those changes until something makes you look back at where you started and you realize what’s changed. Maybe some clothes are too big now and you’ve had to buy a new outfit you feel really good in. Or your skin and eyes look clearer, or you have energy to do things you couldn’t fathom a few months prior. Once you recognize changes like these, you’re likely to feel significantly more motivated to keep up the progress. You’ve built momentum, and now you want to keep it going. What else can you do? How else can you change your health, your life, for the better?

While Neil’s journey doesn’t (yet) include Restart!, we know, and he knows, the importance of hearing stories like his. “There are loads of people in the world offering advice, telling you what’s better for you, but what really sells is when people see real examples of how things can change. If I can get one person to get off the couch and start having a walk each day, and their life becomes better, it’s worth it. I just want one person to look at me and say, ‘I’ve got those same things, I’ve smoked, I’m overweight, whatever, but look, he’s no different. He did it. He’s just a regular Joe. I can do it too,’” Neil explains. “And the Restart! app has delivered something that can help people like me do it, because it’s built on these principles of starting simply and focusing on consistency and making it really, really easy to just do something.” 

We are so thankful to Neil for taking the time to share his story with us and we’re so happy that he has seen such positive changes in his life thanks to that decision he made less than two years ago to see what he could do. The day after we spoke with Neil, he ran a 10K and beat his personal best finishing in 57 minutes. We can’t wait to see what he does next.

Ready to make a decision like Neil to change your health? To learn more about the Restart! app and how it can help you start your fitness journey, check it out here. Download it from the App Store or Google Play and get started for free with a three-month trial! Then pay only $24.99/quarter (that’s every three months!) to keep up your new habit with tailored workouts that help you build full-body strength, balance, and flexibility. Click here to navigate to the app store listings.