Needing motivation and advice.

My original goal was to lose 80lbs so I KNOW you can do this!

Take a few days away from the Shred. If you're new to working out your muscles might need a little more rest between such intense workouts.

My suggestion would be to find activities you love to do that aren't as intense as the Shred. From my blog, here's how I figured out what activities I enjoyed:

"I love myself with exercise.

There was a time when we all moved our bodies for the joy of it. I don’t care who you are and how much you think you hate exercising. There was a time, even if you were only a few years old, where you loved to do SOMETHING that involved physical activity.

As time passed, I lost the love of movement because I bought into the idea that exercise had to be torture to be effective. Sure, going for a 30 minute walk probably doesn’t burn as many calories as a 30 minute run. But I won’t run since I hate running. I will walk because I love walking. See where I’m going here? DOING something I love is more effective than not doing something I hate.

I won’t go for that run. I will think about how I have to run later and dread it ALL DAY. Then, when it’s time to run, I will delay it as long as possible. If I do run for a few days or even a few weeks, I won’t stick with it because NO ONE WILL STICK WITH SOMETHING THAT THEY HATE. Nor should they.

I was at a point with exercise where I genuinely thought that I hated anything that involved movement and I had to relearn my love of movement. Anyone can do this. Here’s how I did it:

I was a dancer my entire life but stopped dancing after college. When I gained weight and stopped performing, the opportunities for me to dance were all but non-existent. I was inspired at my heaviest to start taking dance classes again. When I got into class, it was like coming home. Sure, I was out of shape and not one-tenth of the dancer I used to be, but dance is one of my greatest loves and my hours in class flew by.

I was busting my rump and sweating like a beast NOT because it would lead to more calories burned, but because to dance, for me, is my body’s ultimate form of expression. I have to dance or I will die. It literally POURS out of me.

So that was one night of the week. What about the other six? I would leave class each week WANTING to move more, but the urge to ‘exercise’ never hit me the other six days of the week. Why? I know now it’s because I needed to remember other activities besides dance that used to bring little Charmagne joy.

Quite by accident, I discovered that I love to bike ride. While on vacation in a beach resort, some friends and I rented bikes (I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I figured that if it was torture, it would only be one hour of my life). Much to my surprise, I LOVED it. When we returned from vacation, I was DESPERATE to own a bike. Once I owned that bike, I would wake up at 5in the morning (no lie) unable to sleep because I was so excited to hit the bike path. This love was the exact same love I had of bike riding as a child but had totally forgotten about.

Once I had dance and bike riding I knew I was on to something. I live in Buffalo and can’t ride year round so I had to dig deep and remember other activities I used to love.

In middle school, I couldn’t sleep the night before a roller skating party.

Growing up, you couldn’t keep me out of the pool during the summer months.

My senior year of high school, I went indoor rock climbing for the first time and LOVED it.

You get the idea. Do what you love (and trust me, you love something).

This has progressed into an exercise habit. Now, I try to move my body every day. I’m not obsessive about it, but have learned through listening to my body that moving on a daily basis makes me feel good. I sleep better. I wake feeling rested. I have a means to relieve stress. The list goes on. Life happens and some days there just isn’t time, but I don’t obsess over a missed workout because I’m going to have another work out tomorrow. And not because I have to, because I want to. Genuinely. I wasn’t always this way, but this has been my progression.

Some days I don’t feel like working out (GASP!). It’s true. But I know that I can’t trust my feelings. My feelings are a huge part of what got me into this mess in the first place. I can really only trust my body. When I don’t feel like working out, I check in with my body. What’s going on in my body? Is it fatigued? A little…how’s about I go to dance class anyway but take it easy tonight. I can always leave if I’m too tired to continue once class starts.

What always ends up happening is I get to class and feel energized. Some classes I have more energy than others, but my body isn’t a machine. It doesn’t operate on the exact same level every day. I have yet to go to class on a day that I ‘felt’ too tired to work out and abandoned ship in the middle of class (or regretted going).

Go. You can always leave. Your feelings are lying to you.

Bottom Line: Everything you do for yourself should be an expression of how much you love yourself."


YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

Charmagne