Jenny's Journey
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I have a list of excuses...but it has been 96-103 degrees here and quite frankly I don't do that kind of heat. So it was my birthday week-end and there was a happy dance or two....um...after the strawberries, pound cake and ice cream...sigh. But I kept to good portions. I am actually now down to 241 but that seems to be the flux - good during the week...not so good on weekends. I went to the doctor yesterday for my annual check up and my knees are out of alignment now from the plantar fasciitis ...and this explains my bad bilateral knee pain, which basically scared the heck out of me and I need to get weight off my knees and feet.
Ah. Well that vent felt good to tell someone. Lol. I hide these type of things. I know...like TMI.
A pound a week loss...so about 12 pounds by Sept 1...goal 229
And now my new knee exercises....
And I did start back doing my arm weights and I did a few short walks but will improve!
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Official Sunday weigh in 241#
Yay! Now to continue and make it over this bump and into the 230's!
I will work on eating less sugar though...It has creeped into my diet lately and continue the exercises and walking. I finally lost my Fitbit for real this time in Vegas so I ordered a Vivio HR plus from Amazon a few days ago and a magnetic pouch to carry my phone along instead of telling my man friend to come search for me if I'm not back in an hour, cause I have no place for my phone. Lol.
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Jenny, it is so motivating to hear you speak about some of the same issues as I am facing. It seems my old habits are creeping into my new habits. i had a bacon cheese egg burrito this morning.....no telling how many calories that thing had. I am stuck at 154, I believe I am going to have to work harder on calorie intake to get the scale to move some more. Frustrating. I hope you can work through some of your knee issues.0
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Jenny....how are you?0
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I'm struggling! Up/down...on/off track....I can't seem to string enough positive choices in a row to gain momentum or make real progress. .....and s'more season not helping, lol. I read this article below and it touches on that ultimate deep feeling of maybe I don't feel like I deserve it, or I'm not good enough.....food for thought. Here's the article:
Before I started my weight-loss journey, I thought I needed to hit “rock bottom” to finally get enough resolve to do something about my weight and health.
There is truth to the old saw of “being sick and tired of being sick and tired” to make a significant change. But using that attitude to fuel weight loss can also backfire. For me, it was equating being fat with being a “loser.” Society and media nurture this belief. Body shaming is real, and it’s devastating.
Because I felt bad about myself, I had little energy for making healthier life choices. It seemed easier to order a pizza than prepare a healthy meal. I was too drained from feeling less than, unworthy, and not good enough to make positive changes.
To get to your ideal self, you have to love the eternal You—the You that you don’t ever see in the mirror but you feel deep inside.
A few weeks into my half-hearted attempt at weight loss, I was feeling pretty low. I wasn’t being consistent with eating well and I wasn’t exercising. I sat there ruminating about my situation.
I was 35 years old. I had so little energy I fell asleep on my couch after work every day. I went to see a blood cancer doctor on the advice of my family doctor. My blood work came back “healthy,” but I wasn’t. Over the last six years, I had gained 70 pounds from sitting at a desk, eating takeout, and never using my gym membership. I couldn’t buy clothes at the store anymore because they didn’t stock my size. I stopped getting my photo taken because I didn’t want to see what I had become.
I sat there feeling upset. I was too young to feel so old. The best years of my life were supposed to be ahead of me, but now I felt like a man out of time. Looking back, I guess I did hit rock bottom. But it was what happened next that ignited in me a true resolve to change.
I had a thought: I deserve to live well and be well.
It was simple, but that thought changed my life.
I repeated the thought aloud. “I deserve to live well and be well.” In that moment, I began to love myself unconditionally. I deserved to live well and be well.
How this one sentence inspired change:
When people love themselves unconditionally, they can tap into amazing powers.
These powers are helpful when it’s been a long day and a whole pint of ice cream seems like the only thing that could make the day bearable. When you live from a place of unconditional love, you can be present and say to yourself, “I don’t need this ice cream. I’m good.”
One of the reasons my first attempt at weight loss didn’t take was because I was too focused on the “whats” of dieting and not the “whys.” I already knew to eat more broccoli than french fries. But until I had a deep-rooted why for wanting to lose weight, the French fries would win over broccoli every time.
When I told myself I deserved to live well and be well, I committed to a philosophy that was necessary to press beyond the temporary discomfort of getting off the couch and going to the gym.
Believing that I was worthy of good health allowed me to address the negative self-talk that had plagued me my whole life and manifested as overeating. Believing that I deserved to live well and be well helped me to deal with moments with family when I had to assertively but politely decline to eat certain meals and desserts that no longer fit my model for nutrition. (This last part was especially hard because I am a notorious “people pleaser.”)
Getting off the couch and exercising is much easier when you believe you’re worth giving your body the exercise it needs to be well. It also makes overcoming weight-loss plateaus easier. Instead of feeling like a failure when I hit a weight-loss plateau, I looked at the situation as feedback. I shifted from cardio to high-intensity interval workouts. I adjusted the amount of fruit and starchy carbs I ate. I experimented with intermittent fasting. I gauged what worked, what didn’t, and I kept going.
Instead of getting swallowed up in negative self-talk and reverting back to my comfort zone of pizza and Netflix bingeing, I gave myself five minutes to feel sorry for my sluggish metabolism and then moved on.
It took me two years to lose my goal weight of 70 pounds. I’d like to think that if I knew then what I know now, I could have shaved that time in half. But that’s part of the journey.
I’ve come to understand that lasting weight loss is an inside job. That to get to your ideal self you have to first go inside and love the eternal You, the You that you don’t ever see in the mirror but you feel deep inside.
These days, when I coach clients on weight loss, I ask them to identify their “Great Why” for wanting to lose weight: the simple, emotional, powerful reason they want to live well and be well. My clients’ "Great Whys" are never to look good in a bikini or to have six-pack abs. It’s always something much more beautiful, simpler, and more powerful: like being around to see their kids grow up or to experience the fullness of life’s great adventures.
To me, that’s the real secret behind why people lose weight. Beyond the important health benefits, we lose weight because we want to feel a certain way about ourselves: confident, attractive, resilient, awesome.
I say, don’t wait to feel those feelings. Tap into those amazing feelings now, regardless of what the scale might say. We deserve to live well and be well. Right here, right now0 -
Great article. I loved the sentiment that "lasting weight loss is an inside job."
Cheers to a lifetime of healthy habits! We deserve it.1 -
Welcome to the Barking Up The Wrong Tree weekly update for July 17th, 2016.
This Is The Best Way To Motivate Yourself To Exercise: 4 Proven Secrets
Click here to read the post on the blog or keep scrolling to read in-email.
Workout motivation. You don't have any. You know exercise is good... and you still don’t do it. You're not alone.
We all want a magic pill that makes us smarter, happier, and better looking. Good news is the magic pill is here. Bad news is it's exercise.
Time to dump a bucket of solve on this problem and make you awesome. And we'll do it by listening to your favorite music, hanging out with friends and taking lessons from Seinfeld. Sound good? Cool.
Let's get to it...
The Magic Pill Is A Treadmill
Some will say they play Sudoku or brain-training games and that keeps their mind as quick and powerful as a jungle cat. Or they meditate. Or they take gobs of magic supplements. How do those fare in an IQ deathmatch against exercise?
Exercise wins by knockout in the first round:
The evidence for exercise boosting cognitive function is head-and-shoulders above that for brain training, drugs, nutritional supplements and meditation. Scientifically, on the current evidence, exercise is the best way to enhance your cognitive function.
When you exercise it boosts BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) which helps you learn faster. How much faster? As much as 20%.
Via Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:
“One of the prominent features of exercise, which is sometimes not appreciated in studies, is an improvement in the rate of learning, and I think that’s a really cool take-home message,” Cotman says. “Because it suggests that if you’re in good shape, you may be able to learn and function more efficiently.” Indeed, in a 2007 study of humans, German researchers found that people learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise, and that the rate of learning correlated directly with levels of BDNF.
Want to be happy? Exercise is as effective in treating depression as antidepressants. And if that ain't enough, people who exercised had a lower relapse rate than those taking meds.
Via The Happiness Advantage:
After four months, all three groups experienced similar improvements in happiness. The very fact that exercise proved just as helpful as anti-depressants is remarkable, but the story doesn’t end here. The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent!
But it doesn't stop there. Exercise makes you less likely to get sick. It makes you more creative. Getting to the gym boosts confidence and helps you sleep better at night. Like money? Exercising is connected to a 5-10% salary increase.
How does exercise have such incredible powers over such a wide domain?
Because exercise changes how you see yourself. It ain't all about biology and calories. It's about identity.
When I spoke to Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit, he said the identity effects of regular exercise have been shown to set off a cascade of positive behavior that can change your life:
When you start exercising habitually, according to studies, you start eating more healthfully. That makes sense. You start feeling good about your body. For many people, when they start exercising, they stop using their credit cards quite so often. They procrastinate less at work. They do their dishes earlier in the day. It seems to be evidence that for many people, exercise is a keystone habit. Once you start to change your exercise habits, it sets off a chain reaction that changes other habits as well.
(To learn how to get in great shape using only psychology, click here.)
Okay, you know the benefits. But how do you get the motivation to follow through? First, let's kill that awful dread you feel whenever you think about having to go to the gym...
1) How To Kill The Dread
Anticipating a visit to the gym can feel like anticipating a root canal. "I'm gonna feel awful. My heart will be pounding out of my chest, my lungs will be a lake of fire and the pain will be worse than a Pauly Shore double feature."
Fear not. There's a very simple solution to this, proven by science:
Stop thinking about the beginning.
Getting started is unpleasant and research shows when you think about exercise you give that too much emphasis:
People underestimate how much they enjoy exercise because of a myopic focus on the unpleasant beginning of exercise, but this tendency can be harnessed or overcome, potentially increasing intention to exercise.
It's the same problem you face with any kind of procrastination. You think about how uncomfortable it is to get started... and so you don't. Which is why a great solution to putting things off is a "dash."
You make yourself work on whatever you're dreading for 10 minutes... and often you realize once you get started that it ain't so bad.
Don't just think about the painful beginning. That's not fair. Think about how good you feel when you're making progress toward your goals.
(To learn the secrets to beating chronic procrastination, click here.)
Alright, you've killed dread by thinking about more than the crummy start. That's not too hard. You've done it before. But how do you get consistent about exercising regularly?
2) Make A Plan. (No, A Real Plan.)
Writing down a specific plan (that includes where, when, and how) makes a huge difference in whether you will build good habits.
When researchers just made people think about how much they planned to exercise, time at the gym increased 138%:
U.S. researchers studying personal habits found if people are asked in advance how much they plan to exercise, they will exercise more than those not asked... For example, the researchers asked college students how much they planned to exercise. Compared to the control group, those asked about future exercising did about 94 additional minutes, or 138 percent, more exercise than in the previous week.
I know what some people are thinking: Yeah, Eric, I've made exercise plans before and they didn’t work.
That's because you didn't think about obstacles. As the old saying goes, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." Problem here is the enemy is you. Luckily, you've faced this enemy on a daily basis.
Unleash your inner cynic for a second and ask yourself, "What is going to stop me from getting to the gym?" You probably know the answer. Now make sure your plan addresses that.
The study of “implementation intentions” shows you should create little “If-Then” responses to known stumbling blocks. For instance:
“If I feel too tired to go to the gym, then I will go and just do half of my usual workout.”
Can something this simple really make a difference? Oh yeah. "If-Then" plans boosted exercise compliance from 39% to 91%.
From Nine Things Successful People Do Differently:
Half the participants were asked to plan where and when they would exercise each week (e.g., “If it is Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, then I will hit the gym for an hour before work”). The results were dramatic: weeks later, 91 percent of if-then planners were still exercising regularly, compared to only 39 percent of nonplanners!
(To learn how to build good habits, click here.)
So you've overcome dread and you've made a plan that would make Patton proud. But how do you make yourself want to exercise like those disgustingly-exercise-addicted folks who seem so happy all the time? There's a trick...
3) Make It A Game
When I hear something over and over from very different sources, I take notice. And “make it a game” is one of those things:
What’s one of the things people who live through disaster scenarios have in common? They make survival a game.
Kids do better in school when it’s treated like a game.
How do Navy SEALs make it through their impossible training? They make it a game.
And making it a game is how Jerry Seinfeld got so funny.
Brad Isaac asked the comedian how he developed the discipline to write every day. Seinfeld made it a game.
From Lifehacker:
He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”
A simple calendar and a red magic marker can make all the difference when it comes to being funny -- or getting in shape.
(To learn what Harvard research says will make you happier and more successful, click here.)
Okay, but what if you're at the gym and you do feel sweaty and uncomfortable and awful? And nothing sciencey or all-smarty-pants that I write is gonna change that feeling. No problem. We have another arrow in our quiver. An emotional one...
4) Fight Feelings With Feelings
Specifically, we need to fight bad feelings with good feelings.
So listen to your favorite music. Sound silly? Wrong. Research shows it improves exercise performance and reduces your perception of discomfort:
The performance under Preferred Music (9.8 +/- 4.6 km) was greater than under Nonpreferred Music (7.1 +/- 3.5 km) conditions. Therefore, listening to Preferred Music during continuous cycling exercise at high intensity can increase the exercise distance, and individuals listening to Nonpreferred Music can perceive more discomfort caused by the exercise.
In fact, playing music from the happiest time in your life makes you happier anywhere. When I spoke to neuroscientist Alex Korb he said:
One of the strong effects of music comes from its ability to remind us of previous environments in which we were listening to that music. That’s really mediated by this one limbic structure called the hippocampus which is really important in a thing called “context dependent memory.” Let’s say college was the happiest time of your life. If you start listening to the music that you were listening to at that time, it can help you feel more connected to that happier time in your life and makes it more present.
Grit and willpower are great but what you need right now is a solid Spotify playlist.
(To learn what the music you love says about you -- and how it can improve your life, click here.)
Alright, future gym-rat, we covered a lot. Now is the time when we round it all up -- and learn the final super-tip that can make this all much easier and more fun...
Sum Up
Here's how to develop workout motivation:
Stop Focusing On The Beginning: Yeah, starting the workout sucks. But the other parts can be great.
Make A Plan: Make it specific. Write it down. And use "If-Then" to address obstacles before they happen.
Make It A Game: If a calendar and a magic marker can create a show like Seinfeld, it can get you to the gym.
Play The Music You Love: It's not just nice, it makes your workout better and has pain-go-bye-bye power.
Want to take all this to the next level? It's easy:
Plan a walk with a friend who likes to exercise.
Anticipating time with a friend kills the dread. Plus, you made a plan. And you added some good ol' peer pressure to the mix. Triple threat.
And your friends influence you. Spending time with people who don't exercise makes you more likely to be a couch potato:
Evidence suggests that the effects are caused primarily by friends who were the least fit, thus supporting the provocative notion that poor physical fitness spreads on a person-to-person basis.
Just doing this is enough to make you much happier. When Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard studied 5000 people around the world ages 18-80 they found people were happiest during three activities:
Socializing, exercise and sexy-time.
You've now set a time to do two of the three. (The third is, well, a different type of exercise.)
What are you waiting for? I've rambled enough and you've read enough. Email this post to a friend and plan a time to go for a walk. Yes, right now.
The easy prescription for a better life? Put one foot in front of the other. With friends.
Remember: every time you hit a share button an angel gets its wings. (Or, um, something like that.) Thank you!
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Are you still in for round 3? Hopefully, we'll see you weighing in on Sunday!1
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I'm in for round 3, just need to get my head in the game!!! .....does watching the olympics count? Go USA!!1
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Watching the Olympics could help get your head in the game! Motivation is motivation. Glad to know you haven't disappeared.
Where are you that it's so hot?0 -
Oregon....0
