Author: steve

Posted on

You can’t go from couch to marathon overnight!

GET IT DONE: IN 25 MINUTES A DAY!You may have read the title of this article and said, “Duh.” I mean, who’d be stupid enough to think they could go from being a couch potato to a marathoner without at least a few months of training?

This logic also applies to half-marathon, 10k, and even 5k races. There are scads of websites devoted to helping people build up their bodies to the race they want to run.

We know this. It’s obvious.

Well, then, answer me this question: Why is it that I will turn people on to a high-intensity program like Shaun T’s Insanity or even his 25-minutes-a-day program, Focus T25, and they’ll do day one and then quit because … “it’s too hard”?

OF COURSE IT’S TOO HARD! YOU ARE OUT OF SHAPE! YOU HAVE TO WORK UP TO BEING ABLE TO DO IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH!

(I don’t mean to shout, but this attitude gets me riled up!)

If you were to decide that you have a goal to run a 10k (6.2 mile) race, you wouldn’t schedule the race for next weekend, would you? Hell no! You’d schedule it for 3 or 6 months down the road. Then you’d start training by running short distances, gradually increasing your mileage until you were ready to successfully complete the race.

That is the same approach we need to take to a high-intensity training program.

Take it slowly at first. Add extra breaks. Pause the DVD. In fact, I recommend that — at least at first — you do NOT pause the DVD. Just let it run. Take a break and jump back in when you are ready.

Don’t be discouraged if you can’t complete an Insanity routine. I’ve been doing Insanity for more than 2 years now, and I still cannot make it through even one of the DVDs at full intensity without stopping. I get closest to that with the “Pure Cardio” DVD, but still haven’t made it yet.

I remember the first time I did P90X’s infamous “Plyo X” workout. What a killer! But you know what? The day I was able to make it all the way through that workout without modifications and without stopping gave me a great feeling of accomplishment. It let me know that I really was getting into shape.

You are not going to go from couch to marathon overnight. Don’t expect that with your Beachbody program, either. In fact, I would suggest that any workout that a couch potato can complete all the way through right away is not really much of a workout. Stick with the stuff you can’t do now, because that is the only way to make yourself stronger and better.

Posted on

Are you on the later-when-I-have-more-time fitness plan?

Nobody has any extra time these days.

We go from one job to the next, we work with volunteer organizations, we take college courses, we attend luncheons and birthday parties.

Oh, and if we have children — I really don’t know how people with kids do it — we have all the activities related to them.

Not only that, but all these cool electronic devices we have — you know, the ones that are designed to make us more efficient — have kept us so connected that we barely have time to finish one conversation before starting another.

Hell, last night I was carrying on three conversations at once — one via Facebook chat, one via Google chat, and one via text. And I just wanted to relax!

So, yeah, even our free time is taken up with activities that weren’t possible 15 years ago, and that leaves us with less free time than ever.

What can we do about fitness, then?  We know we should get into shape, but we promise ourselves we’ll do it later. You know, when the kids are grown and out of the house. When we can finally quit that second job. When our favorite tv shows go on summer hiatus.

We are busy. How can we possibly squeeze a workout into our daily routine? This is a dilemma.

I hear some people say, “Just get up earlier,” but these people are often the amateur coaches whose idea of a motivational speech is screaming “YOU GOT THIS!” Hey, come on, we can only get up so early. Trying to get into shape on only 4 hours of sleep every night is not going to work for the vast majority of us, and, anyway, there is evidence that lack of sleep makes us fatter.

We could work out shorter. After all, even a daily 10-minute workout can help improve our health.  But there are surely psychological barriers to this, because, really? 10 minutes? And while it might improve our health, it’s not going to improve it nearly as much as a longer workout, so we may just think, “Why bother?”

Ultimately, how to fit a workout into our busy day comes down to the applying the same method we use to fit other activities into our busy day: prioritization.

If we don’t fit exercise into our day, it’s simply because we don’t put enough priority on it. If we prioritized exercise higher than watching tv or going to a movie or working late — all of which may, indeed, deserve higher priority in your life — then we’d skip the tv, movie, and work, in order to get our workout in.

I remember my first post-superfat exercise program. It was walking. Simply walking. Not much of an exercise, to be sure, but at least it was something. I had a pedometer and tried to get 15,000 or 20,000 steps in every day. I have a sedentary job, so I had to devote a lot of time to walking. And I did! Most days I was walking for several hours.

The point is that I did have other things I wanted or needed to do, but I prioritized my walking. Hitting that goal number of steps was important to me, so spending the time to get it done was a priority.

That went on for quite some time, but, as you might expect, I didn’t see a lot of results from walking. And then I got busy at work. I could no longer walk for so many hours. I had to find a way to fit exercise into a shorter amount of time. That’s when I started P90X, which takes only about an hour a day, and that’s when my life changed.

Sure, you can be on a later-when-I-have-more-time fitness plan. But the fact is that for most people “later” never gets here. There will always be activities to fill our time.

So, if we don’t make time for fitness now,  give it the same priority we give to eating and sleeping, then it’s difficult to add it later, because our bodies deteriorate to the point where exercise is almost impossible.

I would encourage you to make “later” today, and start exercising now. Even if it’s just buying a pedometer and counting steps, you never know where those steps might lead you.

Posted on

How do you stay motivated?

One of the most common questions I get from people is, “How do you stay motivated to stick with your fitness and diet plans?”

I can understand why this is puzzling to people.

After all, finding an hour to work out 5 or 6 days a week, and eating mostly vegan, which is so different from the way most people eat — and the way most restaurants serve — well, those things present challenges. So what is it that keeps me from caving in when presented with a difficult situation?

There are several factors that motivate me.

There are people who look use me as an role model. This statement is not based in hubris. I write this blog to help others and I have clients via my Beachbody business, so I have to walk the walk, right? I have friends who often tell me that they wish they could eat better or work out more, so I like to set an example for them. (I also have other friends who make fun of the way I eat, which is cool — it’s done without malice — and, actually, I would agree that I do go overboard with some stuff.)

Perhaps you have people who look to you as a role model. Children or grandchildren? A spouse or significant other? Students?

I have personal pride in sticking with it. It’s a thing for me. Once I determine I am going to do something, and it turns out to be a good idea, I stick with it. I have been lucky —  unlike my brother – not to have been injured so badly that my workouts had to be put aside for a while. I don’t know how well I’d come back from that.

I think I’d be okay, because I know that diet is 80% of the battle, so not being able to work out for an extended period of time should not be an insurmountable obstacle, but I don’t want to test it.

As for eating right, that’s just a choice I make. However I am eating, whatever kind of diet is my current lifestyle — vegan, vegetarian, low-carb, paleo — that’s what I do. I don’t consider this difficult. I just do it, because I feel a certain pride in being able to stick with it.

How about you? Do you resolve to lose 15 pounds in 3 months, and then quit after a week or two? How does that make you feel? Probably not proud.

I don’t want to have to buy new clothes again. This is a big one for me. I’ve even resisted buying smaller clothes. I’ll wait until I need them, until I am sure I am staying at that size. It’s not all about the money, either. I simply dislike shopping for clothes. I am not sure why this is, but that’s probably a subject for deeper evaluation in a more private forum.

If you are like I was, as you get older, you keep buying bigger clothes. This seems natural. After all, as we age, hormones and activity levels change, and we fatten up. At a certain point, though, I reached my limit — I knew I had to do something. I mean, even if a certain amount of extra fat is part of getting older, certainly not this much fat, right?

Or, maybe for you, if you need nice clothes, it would be great not to have to spend thousands on a new wardrobe every year or two.

I’d like to stay off pharmaceuticals. This is really a great motivator for me. When my wife and I were on our Mediterranean cruise back in 2007, I had to take blood pressure meds with me, and pop them on a regular schedule. I truly felt like a little old man, and it was ridiculous to me.

Was this going to be my existence, living my life around my pill schedule?

Plus, my high-blood pressure is controllable with diet and exercise. Why take a medication when I can fix myself naturally.

(Btw, this is not to even mention how my doctors had tried to kill me with cholesterol medication.)

A 2006 study by the Institute of Medicine found that medication errors harm at least 1.5 million people every year.

Are you taking any medications that you wish you didn’t have to take? Wouldn’t you like to save that money, not make so many trips to the doctor, and just be free from those pills?

I enjoy not going to the hospital? Man, that place will kill you. Literally. 180,000 patients die every year because of errors in hospitals of one kind or another. 90,000 people die from infections they contracted while in hospitals. Every year! 

I personally received an infection from a hospital many years ago. I didn’t come close to dying from it, but I wonder how much worse it would have been, if I had not made it to my follow-up appointment, when the doctor asked me, “How long has that been infected?” (Gory details are available only by request.)

Has this ever happened to you or someone you know? Avoiding hospitals can lengthen your life.

I truly enjoy working out … now. I like the idea of taking control of my own fitness. I miss it when I don’t work out. Sometimes when I go three days without a workout, by that fourth day, I am really itching to go. Working out is part of my lifestyle, and I love it.

This is probably a tough one for many people, enjoying a workout. But, the thing is, once we get past a certain point, fitness becomes a habit. That point differs for everyone and how we get past it differs, too.

For me, it started with P90X. It’s a 90-day program, and I would not quit. The fact is, my results were so good I did not want to quit, but about halfway through, I started to wonder about what I was going to do once the program was over. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t do another round of P90X, because I’d been there, done that, and I get bored easily, so I really didn’t want to repeat the program. Fortunately, there are a lot of other workout DVDs available in this world, so I was able to keep things interesting and keep myself in the fitness game.

I thought that by writing this section of the article, it would hit me when it was that working out became a habit for me, but I really don’t know when it happened. I just know it happened.

If you don’t enjoy working out, maybe you are doing the wrong workout. Maybe you just need to pick a program and stick with it.

I understand how we get discouraged when starting a workout program. We are out of shape, the people on the tv are in super shape. They can do all the moves, while we can’t do any of the moves. It can be a bit disheartening. The bottom line is DO WHAT YOU CAN! Take a break while the DVD continues to run. You will be surprised how fast you find yourself able to — almost — keep up with those fitness fanatics.

Okay, so that’s how I stay motivated. How about you? What’s your motivation? Find it and focus on it, because your motivation is what will keep you chasing fitness and health for the rest of your life.

Posted on

You Can’t Change Yesterday

It seems as if so many of us spend a lot of time thinking about the past. We dwell regretfully on missed opportunities. We reminisce and wonder how things “might have been”. We sometimes bask in the glow of bygone successes — which wreaks its own brand of psychological havoc — but most of us, I think, are more like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, wondering how things might have been … if only….

Uncle RicoThe majority of that reminiscing is wasted time, I believe, but I’ll admit that looking back at the past can be constructive.

You’ve probably heard some version of George Santayana‘s “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Remembering my own history sure does keep me motivated not to repeat it.

  • I never want to drink like that again.
  • I never want to eat like that again.
  • I never want to sit around doing nothing like that again.

I have no regrets, though, for the stupid things I’ve done. I consider regrets to be silly and yet one more waste of time. Why?

YOU CAN”T CHANGE YESTERDAY.

(Not yet, anyway. Scientists are working on this issue as we speak. If they are still funded, that is….)

I just don’t believe in giving more than a cannot-be-helped passing thought to things I wish I’d done. That kind of thinking is not productive.

  • What if I’d never had that first cigarette?
  • What if I’d stayed in the Air Force 10 more years?
  • What if I’d bought Apple at $20/share back when they were sitting on $14/share in cash?

Every decision I’ve made — good or bad — has helped shape my life, and has, in fact, set my life on a course that is necessarily quite different than the road not taken.

After all, if I’d never let myself get fat, would I have ever been encouraged to get fit?

Speaking of that, somebody asked me the other day what keeps me motivated to stay on course with fitness and healthy eating, and I said, without hesitation, “I can’t go back to what I was.”

So, no, we can’t change yesterday. But we can change today. That’s all we can hope to do, for now, so what’s stopping you?

Posted on

Fitness? Ain’t nobody got time for that!

You may have seen the viral video from a while back that featured the phrase “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” If not, it’s below.

It’s true. There are things that we don’t have time for, and when it comes to fitness and nutrition, we have to make decisions about how to prioritize our life’s agenda items every day.

What’s more important?

  • Spending time with my son OR working out?
  • Being polite and eating Aunt Martha’s famous chocolate cake OR staying away from sugar?
  • Reading the book I am currently into OR doing yoga?
  • Eating the same thing as my family OR eating what I know is better for me?
  • Spending time preparing fresh food OR eating processed food

There are plenty more examples, but you get the idea.

So, then, how do we go about making those decisions? Some of the choices above may seem obvious to you, some of them not so obvious. Some of them may even present false dilemmas, which is the logician’s way of identifying an “either/or” situation that doesn’t account for other valid choices.

For example, couldn’t you:

  • Work out with your son?
  • Eat just a bite of Aunt Martha’s cake?
  • Every once in a while, at least, have the whole family eat a healthy meal?

Sure you could. I would, personally, choose not to eat the cake, but I would be all for — at least once in a while — working out with my son, if I had one. I would love to try to encourage my family to eat healthier meals by preparing them in such a way that they’d enjoy them every so often.

The yoga versus reading example above gets me pretty often, and, honestly, I usually opt for reading, but the example above that I live with most is whether or not to take time to prepare fresh food.

The meal I just ate for lunch gave me the idea for this post. It was a Morningstar Farms Black Bean Burger (processed) with bottled sriracha (processed) and cut up tomatoes (fresh) and kale (fresh), plus some balsamic vinegar (processed). It was really good, and, admittedly, not the worst thing for me.

However, had I had time, I would rather have made my own bean burger and sriracha. (The vinegar, I’ll leave to the experts.)

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I’m busy. I have things to do. I’m not talking about sitting in front of a tv — although I do that, too, because relaxation is important — but I mean real things. So, yeah, I eat processed beanburgers and bottled sriracha. Every once in a great while I’ll make up some burgers and freeze them, but generally I eat the Morningstar ones, and I’ve yet to make my own sriracha. Are you kidding? Have you tried that rooster sauce? How could I beat that!

Would my health and fitness be better without processed food? Sure, and I am conscious of that. In fact, as I was cooking the burger, I purposely thought about what I could eat to balance the meal with something fresh.

So, yeah, I choose to spend my time on other things, rather than use it all making food from scratch. Maybe when I retire — if that ever happens — I’ll make more of my own food. Hell, I may even have a garden!

However, time in my life is currently at a premium. So when it comes to eating processed foods, I do it, but I try to make good choices. Fresh food? I prepare and eat a lot of it, but 100%? Ain’t nobody got time for that.