Succeed!

This morning, as a result of a few snags in my normal routine, I skipped my morning workout. Even though I had every intention of exercising, I didn't. And because of what happened, it made me think about what it takes to exercise on a regular and consistent basis.

Decide.
If you're not exercising now, but want to start, you first have to decide that's what you want to do. If you can't decide if you want to or not, you probably won't. First step: Decide you want to do this.

Commit.
Next, make the commitment. For the long haul. Every day. If you commit to yourself and you don't do it, no one will know. Except you. Deciding is the "I'm going to do this!" part of the equation. Committing is the "I will do this! part of the equation."

Accountability
Holding yourself accountable to yourself is one thing. But if you tell others what you're going to do, you're now holding yourself accountable to other people. And if you and the other people can be accountable to each other, it can be even more powerful. So, find a workout buddy. Or three. And whether you workout with them or not, it doesn't matter. Make it someone you can talk to every day, to share your exercise experiences with. It's amazing how motivating and inspiring a good conversation about exercise can be.

Get Started
Figure out what you need to do to get started. And by "getting started," I mean several things. You need to start your fitness program, but once you've started it, you have to figure out how to get yourself "started" everyday. The main thing: Just start. And then, get up the next day and do it again. One day at a time and before you know it, you'll be in the habit of doing your own fitness routine.

Make it Routine.
Find a time that works for you. Every day. It might be different times for you each day - weekdays vs. weekends - but make a plan and then, stick to it. For me, mornings work best. Less distractions. Feel great the rest of the day. Most likely time for me to succeed and be consistent. If you try to "fit it in when you can," you'll find excuses, you'll miss a lot of days and ultimately, you'll never make exercise a routine. Find your time and stick to it.

In the morning, the only thing preventing me from exercising is me. Am I able to get out of bed everyday when I'd rather sleep for an extra hour? I have the same internal conversation with myself every morning. The inner debate: sleep in vs. workout. When the inner voices start their conversation, I remind myself I've never regretted a single workout and almost every time I've finished, I feel better than when I started, both physically and mentally. But when I sleep in or skip a workout, I've regretted it and wished I would have exercised instead.

Be Prepared.
Be prepared to workout. If there's one piece of advice I would give to someone starting out, it is this: think about what your workout will be tomorrow and get yourself prepared for it today. For me, that means reviewing what my next DVD is going to be and getting my clothes ready for my workout the night before. When I get up in the morning, everything is ready for me to workout and I can't make an excuse for not being prepared. Do whatever you can to put yourself on "autopilot" when it's time to workout.

Succeed.
If you decide you're going to get fit and you commit to a fitness program; If you make it routine and prepare in advance, you will succeed. And if like me, you have days where it doesn't all go as planned, don't beat yourself up over it. Just do your best to make it happen the next day and get back to your routine. You'll never regret it and you will succeed.

Goals

Everyone knows the importance of setting goals. I know I should set goals and I should write them down. I should make them measurable, specific and set a date/time when I should accomplish them. But do I? Rarely.

Don't get me wrong. I have goals. It's just that they're not all written down. With P90X, I find myself setting small goals for myself. I'm not competing with anyone else, but I'm always trying to do a little better than I did in previous sessions. Whether that means more reps, more weight or keeping up with Tony and his team on P90X - I'm always thinking about how I can do it a little better than last time.

For P90X, my initial goal was to get through the entire program - whether in 90, 100 or 120 days. Didn't matter. To stick with it. To finish what I'd started. Sounds pretty simple, but it felt really good the first time (and each time thereafter) that I made it through the full program. Just getting through the program was a great goal to have - especially after I achieved it.

Then, I set goals for each DVD. When I started, it was to get through the DVD - to finish it, regardless of how many times I paused the DVD, sat down to rest, took breaks - whatever. I just wanted to finish the DVD. And I did that, too.

Once I was able to finish each DVD, my next goal was to reduce the number of times I'd pause each DVD (so that I could rest) until finally, I could keep up with what they were doing for that particular DVD. Plyometrics? Check. YogaX? Check. Ab Ripper X? Not so much.

Ab Ripper X is only 17 minutes long, but it's hard and it's intense. Most moves, I hadn't done before, so when I first started, there was a learning curve just trying to figure out all the moves. Initially, instead of doing all 25 reps of each exercise, I'd shoot for 10 - 15 each - and I'd still pause the DVD. Eventually, I'd get through the first 4 exercises doing 25 reps each and then, would pause the DVD. With all the breaks I'd take, the 17 minute DVD would take me 25 - 30 minutes to get through - but I'd do my best to do all the moves. So, my thought initially was to either do as many reps as I could and not pause the DVD or I could do as many reps as they did, but pausing the DVD along the way.

But this afternoon was different. I had a breakthrough. I made it all the way through the DVD without pausing, doing every single rep they did and I didn't have to rest once during the 17 minute program. It probably doesn't sound like much, but I've been doing this program off and on for almost 2 years and this was the first time I did it at their pace doing the same number of reps they did. For me, that was quite an accomplishment.

As I mentioned to a friend of mine, prior to tonight, I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to do the whole thing. So, when I'd pause the DVD during the program, it was consistent with the way I'd been doing it in the past. But now that I actually did it without pausing and now that I know I can do it again, I'll push a little harder each time I do it, so soon, the norm will be to not pause the DVD rather than to take breaks like I used to.

So, whether you write them down or not, set goals for yourself. Make them tough, but achievable. And when you achieve them, celebrate your successes and realize that you can do much, much more than you ever thought possible.

Eat and Lose Weight?

It sounds counter-intuitive - eat more to lose weight - but research is confirming this - especially when you're working out and trying to increase your metabolism. If you deprive yourself of needed calories, your body goes into "starvation mode" and begins to burn calories as efficiently as possible. That might sound good, but if your body becomes too efficient at burning calories, you'll never lose the weight you want to lose.

There's a great article on Beachbody.com about this phenomenon called "Eat More. Lose More. (Really?)"

I know this has happened to me before and it's always confused me. I'll have a day where I'll eat a lot more than I normally do. Sometimes it might consist of "good" calories, but oftentimes, not. The next day, I expect that when I step on the scale, I'll have gained at least a pound or two, but most times, the opposite has happened. I don't know how long it takes for the calories you consume to turn into added weight, but it always has seemed strange to me that I would weigh less the day after I've pigged out and not more. And the opposite has happened, too. I'll eat very conservatively all day long, get on the scale the next day and my weight will be up from where it was the day before. Very, very strange.

The rule of thumb is that to gain a pound, you need to increase your calorie intake by 3500 calories and the opposite holds true to lose a pound. And that doesn't mean that if you eat 3500 calories in a day, you'll gain a pound. It means that if you eat 3500 calories more than what your metabolism uses in a given day, you should gain a pound. So, over time, if you want to maintain or lose weight, you need to eat more calories to have the energy to exercise and then, you need to exercise to burn those added calories to maintain or lose weight.

If you have more information about this phenomenon or have had similar or opposite experiences to what I've had, let me know by posting a comment to this blog post.

Some Links

I haven't posted much lately, but have come across some links I've thought were worth posting here. This first link, I can appreciate from the fitness as well as the photography side of things. The fitness part at the beginning; the photography part during the second half:

A Couple's P90X Transformation Story

This one is just plain funny. If you've been through P90X, you know what it's like at the beginning. Most of us don't want to admit to hard it is - at least not publicly, but this guy definitely tells it like it is. I have to admit, I never was as bad as he describes, but I can definitely relate. (Caution: He uses some inappropriate language, but uses it appropriately.)

Tony Horton and his P90X Wants Me Dead blog post (not mine)

Enjoy!

Give the Gift of Fitness and Health

It's the holiday season. We're all thinking about what to give that friend, spouse, son/daughter, relative, neighbor, parent, special person, etc. And maybe you're thinking about what to get for yourself, too. New Year's Eve is a little more than a month away and in the Top 10 New Year's Resolutions, "getting fit" and "taming the bulge" are numbers 2 and 3 respectively. On another site, the number 1 New Year's resolution was "Lose Weight and get in Better Physical Shape." They've been on my list for years and thankfully, I finally did something to follow through on those resolutions.

If you've been reading my blog, you know I'm a disciple of P90X. I enjoy the workouts, I like what it's done for me physically and I love the way I feel now that I'm doing it consistently. I feel better than I have in years.

If you've been thinking about getting a fitness program for yourself or for someone special, go to my BeachBody website to find the right fitness program for you or that special person in your life. You can find information about P90X or Insanity on the main page, or click on the "Shop" button to browse through some of their other programs. For the price of a month or two at a gym or at a fraction of the cost of a machine you bought but aren't using, you can have a program that will motivate and inspire you to get fit and to stay in shape all year long.


I completely believe in BeachBody products and with their "no-questions-asked" money back guarantees, (e.g. P90X has a 90 day money back guarantee), you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Yoga Addict

Yoga is interesting. I've talked to so many people who don't particularly care for yoga when they first try it. In fact, I know a lot of people who really hate it. At first. Then, something happens. If you stick with it, focus on the moves, focus on yourself, you'll feel incredible when you're finished. It's a feeling that's difficult to describe to someone who's never done it before.

I first did yoga in college, almost 30 years ago. I remember enjoying it then, but not following through after I graduated. I picked it up again 7 or 8 years ago and again, after the first few times doing it, really enjoyed it again. But then, life happens and memberships expire and (fill in any number of excuses here).

With P90X, YogaX is one of the DVDs. I don't know the type or style of yoga it is, but it's a tough workout. It's tough, but again, if you stick with it, you really start to enjoy it. I know I do and a friend of mine who didn't care for it much has now moved on is doing yoga regularly at a local health club or yoga studio. And he still talks about how much he enjoys doing the yoga and the way it makes him feel afterwards.

I've done three classes at my health club in the past two weeks. Two were called "Power Yoga" (see my blog post below for details) and I did a Hatha Yoga session a few days ago. One thing I've learned with yoga classes, is each instructor is different. They focus on different areas, different moves, different postures. If you've tried yoga and didn't like it, don't give up on it. Yoga can be as good as the instructor leading you through it and the key is to find one that works well for you.

This morning, I went through "Power Yoga" for a second time. I was expecting the same thing as last week and that's definitely not what I got. Instead, this yoga instructor focused a great deal on the breath, on making your body was correctly aligned in each pose and I definitely got the sense she wanted everyone to feel the mind/body connection as we were going through the various poses.

I'm not sure which I prefer, but I actually like each one I've done. Still, there's nothing quite like YogaX and if you can get through YogaX without any trouble or if you just feel pretty strong all the way through, I haven't been through a yoga routine yet that challenges YogaX in terms of challenging my body.

I think all physical fitness helps keep the body young and energized, but in particular, I think yoga has more to do with overall fitness than any other exercise routine. Having said that, I don't think a workout schedule full of just yoga is the right thing to do, but I do believe everyone should add a little yoga to their fitness regimen. It'll be good for you. Namaste.

Rest

I pushed it yesterday. Hard. I did my usual P90X workout in the morning and then, decided to try a 90-minute Yoga class in the evening followed by a "Body Sculpting" class afterwards. So today, I decided to take it easy and rest.

Rest, they say, is when your muscles grow. Working out, pumping iron, running, cardio - they all work your muscles and actually, tear them down. It's not until you rest that you begin to grow muscle as your body tries to repair the slight damage you caused by exercising so intensely. It's how you build muscle and it's how you grow strong. That's why they always recommend you stagger your days and try to avoid working out the same muscles two days in a row.

So, if you've had plenty of exercise and your body tells you it's time for a break, take it. Your body will thank you in the long run.