Archive for October, 2011
When I was very overweight I worried about the dumbest things. I worried about what people thought about me when they saw me trying to squeeze into a booth at a restaurant. I never took my shirt off at the pool cause I worried about people pointing and laughing at me. I worried about how I was perceived at the gym from fit people. I worried that I was being judged by waiters when they brought out my food. I think you get the point. I worried about what people thought about me and my weight. I worried that people were associating ugly with fat (via The Anti-Jared). While I was worrying about stupid things, I completely ignored the things that I should be worrying about…my health.
It took me time and diligence to change my focus and worrying from what others thought about me to what I thought about myself. Once I did this, weight loss success feel into place. I have Gout and Sleep Apnea and I knew it was just a matter of time until Diabetes caught up with me. Once I started worrying about the right things, I got focused on what I needed to do to get healthy and lose weight.
I am now out of the Diabetes danger zone, although the thought of Diabetes is always in my head. This debilitating disease is something that many people suffer from and I refuse to suffer from something that I can prevent. I recently took another sleep study to see if my weight loss has had any impact on my Sleep Apnea status. I am hoping that my results come back showing that I don’t have it anymore and I can sleep knowing that all my organs are getting the oxygen they need. I can never get rid of Gout, but with the right diet I can control the frequency and severity of flare ups. I haven’t had a Gout attack since October of 2008 and I’m very proud of that.
I don’t think worrying is a bad thing. Worrying about the wrong things can have a negative emotional and physical impact. Worrying about the rights things help be get off my couch and lose the weight that I needed to and wanted to.
For anyone trying to lose weight and working out in the morning, the sound of the alarm clock is dreadful. There are times when I hit snooze and go back to sleep and miss my workout that morning. This leads to a downward spiral of skipping workouts all together and not accomplishing my goals. I am determined to hit my goal weight and realize the importance of waking up when my alarm clock goes off and getting my workout in.
When my alarm clock goes off, I find myself staring at the clock and making all sorts of excuses to hit snooze. I tell myself that I will workout later, or workout instead on a planned day off. Its a dangerous game that can and will lead to me hitting snooze and not working out. Before I went to bed last night, I made a game plan. A strategy for me to get up and go when the clock bell rings. I laid out all my clothes and my gear (headphones, keys etc). I also promised myself that I wouldn’t lay there and play mind games, but I would jump out of bed and get going. When the clock went off this morning, I popped out of bed, threw on my clothes and went for a run.
Its amazing how quickly I forgot how much I wanted to hit snooze. Working out in the morning is something I love and starts the day right. I wrote a post about working out in the morning that covers this in more detail. While I’m working out I always wonder why I hit snooze and not want to get up and workout. When my alarm goes off and I lay there making excuses, I am going to try and think about how good I feel when I workout and hope that that feeling helps me get out of bed and do what I need to do to hit my goals.
The snooze button is now on my list of official weight loss enemies. Do they make an alarm clock without a snooze button?
This past weekend, I ran in the Rugged Maniac. This is a 5k with numerous obstacles including, walls, water, mud and severe hills to climb…it absolutely lived up to its name! We had a group of about 15 people which made this event even more fun. Its always fun to run these events with other people pushing you and motivating you to keep going.
We stayed together as a group through most of the run and finished as a group. Our official finish time was 1:00:59. This is a pace of 19:40 per mile, which is pretty slow! We need to improve that next year!
When I wake up everyday, I have the best intentions of a healthy lifestyle. I have every intention of working out and eating right. But those intentions are not always fulfilled. I feel bad and a bit guilty when I don’t fulfill those intentions. I quickly get over it as I tell myself that I’ll get back at it tomorrow. To fulfill intentions I have created a mind game with myself. I take the most important intentions and create promises to myself. I have a real tough time breaking promises to any one, especially to myself. Once I make a promise to myself, it will only get broken under circumstances beyond my control.
I’ve intended to lose weight and get healthy my entire life. That got me nowhere and very obese. Results didn’t start happening until I made a promise to myself and to my family. Promises have a strong mental influence. Most people don’t like making promises unless they can keep them and most people don’t like breaking promises.
When I write down my goals, I draw a line horizontally across the paper. The goals below the line are intentions and goals that I’d like to achieve. The goals above the line are promises and goals that I need to achieve. Once I’ve fulfilled several of my promises, I re-evaluate the list and intentions that were below the line usually move to promises above the line.
With promises to myself, I’d still be obese and in poor health. I promise to do everything I can to keep losing weight and getting fit.
I’ve never, ever been a runner. Even when I ran (ok, there was a lot of walking) a half marathon for charity. I never enjoyed running for the sake of running. I love playing basketball and other sports that have a strong element of running, but never liked running. Running wasn’t in my comfort zone. It may have been that I wasn’t able to run very far/long without having to stop and walk; which makes me feel like a loser. It may be that I have a perception that runners have a culture unto themselves and are a bit snobbish about it (I feel the same way about cyclists as I tried to enter a cyclocross event one time and was told not to enter…different story for a different day). The bottom line is that running has never felt right for me.
Losing weight and getting healthy is not an easy task. One reason its not easy is that you must step outside of your comfort zone to accomplish the goal. From eating different to disrupting your schedule to get gym time in. Everything is new, new means change and change is outside of comfort zones. I’ve lost anywhere from 46 to 55 pounds depending on the day (and how much sodium I’ve consumed) but I’ve stalled a bit in losing more weight. I have maintained my weight loss, thankfully, but haven’t lost more because I have confined myself to my comfort zone (which is a different comfort zone than when I was overweight. As I formed new and healthy habits, those habits became my new comfort zone). To lose the weight I want and to hit my goal weight, I must get out of my comfort zone and do things that I wouldn’t usually do. Enter running.
Its only been two days since I picked up running, but my experience in those two days have opened my eyes to a whole new world of fitness. Two very enjoyable days of running have me wondering why I didn’t try running before. I ran two miles each day without stopping to walk. This feels like a huge accomplishment to me and drives me to want to run more to see how far I can push myself. I can’t take all the credit and say that I started running solely in the name of fitness. My sister-in-law Lindsey pretty much made me sign up for a 5k event that has pushed me to run. And while I was on the fence about participating at first, I am now pumped for these events and looking forward to them. A 5k isn’t too far of a distance, but seemed daunting when I haven’t run even 1k since I was a kid!
Getting out of my comfort zone has given me a sense of awareness that I haven’t had previously. I am now aware that I can do and accomplish things that are outside of my comfort zone…things that will make me better!
In the past, I’ve wasted a lot of time and energy comparing myself to others when it comes to health and physical appearance:
“I wish I was built like that guy”
“I wish I was as healthy as her”
“I can’t squat as much weight as that guy”
“My bench isn’t as good as his”
etc, etc, etc
This practice caused me great stress and anxiety as I was always trying to be someone I’m not nor will never be. Luckily, I figured out that comparing myself to others was getting me no where and my time and energy was much better served improving myself within the boundaries of myself…not others.
I now compare my current self to the self I want to be; physically and mentally. I have an image of physically self that I compare myself to and I shoot for that. That image is my goal. Its not only outward physical appearance but also overall general health (eating clean, workouts etc).
I’ve found that comparing myself to others is a dangerous game and gets me nowhere while comparing myself to myself helps me set a goal and strive to accomplish it. Not only is comparing myself to myself much more realistic, its also rewarding and satisfying. If I were to compare myself to someone else, I know for a fact I would see someone else that I can compare myself to and that would go on forever. If I compare myself to a future image of myself, I have one goal/vision to shoot for.
This probably sounds like I’m rambling and its a confusing concept. Its very similar to creating a vision board that was detailed in the Secret (if you’re into that). However, my vision board isn’t about material possessions. My vision board is me and my health.
