So…part of this whole weight loss mystery is the concept of momentum.  Something I’ve been trying to put my finger on for the last few months to incorporate into the film.

A simplification of Newton’s First Law of motion is…

An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. 

Or…objects tend to resist changes in their state of motion.

Sounds good, right?  Well, this really has a lot of relevance when it comes to all of the people we’ve been following in the film, who are trying to lose weight.  Especially in the early stages of change, so many things impact our ability to gain enough momentum to keep us moving in the right direction.

If we are used to eating poorly, living a sendentary life…watching TV every night - it is very difficult to change what we do…we are “at rest”.  We must overcome this initial state (some might call this a “rut”)…it’s not an easy thing to change…to overcome it we must see the value in change.

I’ve seen it so many times, and some of it is luck in the beginning, mainly because our minds often are not prepared to do everything right…we become inspired to try something new, something we might not normally do, and then we evaluate if it was worth it.

This initial period of time, that lasts for a week or two, seems to be a critical time period that will determine how successful we will be in the short term.  If we do not see the fruits of our labor within a short amount of time, we will surely question the reasons for change.

So if we have a man, who has done the same thing for nearly 20 years, without exercise, with poor eating habits - it is very critically important that if he does exercise every day for a week or two, that the results are positive enough to make us believe in the “work” we have done.  So I always have to cross my fingers in the beginning of any person’s journey, that they do spend enough time in the initial days doing things right - because this will give them the momentum to carry on.  Without this momentum, we are prone to falling back into old habits.

What I think it boils down to, is that if we are trying to lose weight, if we do not spend enough time making the right number of changes in the beginning, no matter how uncomfortable they might be, we may never generate the momentum that will keep us going.  So…there has to be a strong level of faith in the first 2-4 weeks of change, that the work involved is worth it — because ultimately we expect results from our efforts…and the degree of success in the beginning determines how much further we are willing to go.

So be prepared if you are embarking on something new, to give it your all in the beginning, much like going up a steep hill, we must get to the top of the first hill so we can use our momentum to get to the easier part (when we really believe in what we are doing).  And have at least a little patience for a couple of weeks.

Keep in mind, however, that we all tend to lose momentum, and have to muster up the strength and faith again to create more of it from time to time.  It varies from one person to the next, but it is somewhat cyclical I think.