How to initiate an exercise habit

A common theme I’ve seen lately, particularly in time poor, full time workers is an inability to prioritise exercise and therefore successfully integrate it into their schedule on a permanent basis. My aim with this article is to combat the most common reasons and excuses people put forward when I ask them why they are not exercising regularly. By the time you finish reading this article I hope you feel an urgency to get started right away and take that first step. Unless you are an experienced athlete or have a sporting/fitness background, I strongly encourage you to get some assistance at least to start with. Correct form and programming are skills that will set you up for life and keep you safe. Doing a couple of sit ups and running around the block occasionally is not what I am talking about. Regular, intense, challenging exercise that improves your fitness and overall wellbeing is the bare minimum.

It is imperative that you exercise. It is as simple as that. Everyone knows it, everyone knows why and yet hardly anybody does. The rates of overweight and obesity point to a lack of physical activity and bad dietary habits in both the adult and child population, and I will have a vent about the nutrition side of things in another article. In 2007, the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that 67.4% of Australian adults are overweight, ranking 21st in the world. And a 2005 WHO study found that just over 20% of Australian adults are obese, which is expected to rise to roughly 29% in 2010 if current trends continue.

I’m not going to rehash the plethora of in depth information that is already out there pertaining to the benefits of exercise and the health risks of being inactive. You can google to your hearts content and I doubt you will ever run out of websites to read on those points.   Just know this: exercise = energy, strength, bone density, weight control, good blood pressure and no exercise = the opposite. What I AM going to do, is give you a swift kick up the butt and hopefully make you feel ashamed enough to start respecting your body and your life more. I want you to understand your body as a biological machine that is made up of the very same molecules that surround it in nature. There are certain checks and balances that need to occur or systems will fail. I will not sugar coat this. I am done stroking people’s egos and avoiding hurting their “feelings”. If you get offended by what I write here, I dare say it is because I have hit the nail on the head. You don’t need another person in your life agreeing with you when you whinge that the clothing shops don’t stock anything above size 12. Your friends and family are not going to snap you out of this, they have probably been unconsciously enabling your behaviour.

As you continue to read, please give yourself a gentle, yet effective slap on the forehead every time you start brewing another excuse, when you start saying “but for me.. its because…” I know so many of you feel trapped because you are in a job with set hours, set wages and have families to support. I am here to tell you that while all of those things are valid temporary barriers to your success, they are able to be broken down systematically and it all starts with changing your mindset. Every time you start with an excuse, after the forehead slap, please initiate some action to remove that barrier. Examples:

I can’t afford it.

Really? or is it not a high enough priority? Could you afford $50 – $75 a week on a trainer or some decent group training or martial arts classes if you:

* stopped buying processed food

* stopped smoking

* stopped buying magazines

* stopped drinking

* cut out coffee

* reduced how often you went to the movies or hired dvd’s?

* limit eating out

* take lunch to work

* find someone to share a 2 on 1 PT session with

* forego your facials, nail infills, gambling, coke with morning tea.

If you can afford the internet to read this, it is a good sign you can afford some physical education on how to exercise safely and effectively. Heck get a slower connection if it means there is some more dosh there to put towards extending your life. Go through your cupboards and EBAY anything and everything you haven’t used in the last 6 months. Do the numbers, make it work. Find a way. If your life was at risk unless you found the money, I can guarantee you will find the money. Guess what, YOUR LIFE IS AT RISK! When it comes to spending on my health, I baulk at nothing. I would rather spend $80 on a set of gym rings to increase my strength and stability than blow it on a dinner and movie. Invest in your body. PT/Gym membership/home equipment/ is a hell of a lot cheaper than cancer treatments, liposuction, heart surgery, blood pressure medication, needles, insulin, wheelchairs and nursing home fees.

PRACTICAL TIP: Start cutting out anything from the list above that you are wasting money on. Instead of buying it, put what you would have spent in an envelope and do this every month. At the end of each month you should have enough money to cover your costs.

Make a decision now to invest in your health. Simply going walking and doing a few push ups won’t cut it. You might need to:

* purchase a gym membership

* Join a local outdoor personal training group

* take up a sport

* learn a martial art

* Educate yourself online (even if it means paying to access certain websites/information) with regards to programming for no equipment (try keywords like “gymnastics conditioning exercises” “bodyweight exercises” will help here)

* Buy a proper pair of running shoes and actually use them, a lot

* Buy some books

* Find a Personal Trainer

* Buy some equipment. Just one thing at time and grow your stash as you are able.  A lot can be done with a truck tyre, kettlebell, skipping rope and olympic bar set.

At the very least, invest in your education by whatever means for a few months and then if you do have to go it on your own for any length of time, you have enough knowledge to exercise effectively. I personally have a gym membership, as well as a full setup at home. I have both because often I enjoy training in solitude, so I can focus and get in the zone.  But sometimes, I need that extra push that training in a busy gym full of watchful eyes gives me. For me, the results I get from a 1 x week session at the gym, out of my comfort zone is worth the $13 it costs me per week.

I don’t have time.

Yeah you do. You are sitting here online now reading this, therefore, you have time. Experience the pain, I mean high, of training with intensity. I’ve done workouts in 5 minutes that quite seriously were the hardest workouts I’ve ever done. You can do high intensity training from 5 – 20 minutes 5 or 6 days a week and get extremely measurable results. I personally train using the Crossfit methodology. I have a toddler, housework, multiple home businesses, a husband to cook for, clients to train and a horse to work. I don’t miss many sessions and I hardly ever train for longer than 20 or 30 minutes. I’m the fittest, strongest and leanest I have ever been.  If you have children, line them up on chairs/prams/highchairs/bikes and have them scream at you to run faster, get those burpees done, pick that weight up, punch that bag. Make them up a little session to join in with. What better lesson can you give than to show them how important exercise is? They will take great pride in being your “coach”. Give them a whistle and a stopwatch. I resorted to buying my 22 month old son a portable dvd player. I now work out to The Wiggles. He happily sits in his high chair for a few minutes while I bang a workout out in the garage under his watchful eye. He actually started deadlifting a 4kg kettlebell (with perfect form) of his own accord yesterday so it must be rubbing off on him.

If work hours are making it hard, be one of those lunatics who actually uses their entire lunch hour/half hour (instead of staying at your desk) and change into some training clothes and have at it. If you don’t have showers at work, it may be better to do the hard yards and get up early before work and train then, or immediately after work. I’ve had shift workers in Police and Military jobs who work ridiculous hours still drag their asses to training because it was a priority to them. Do whatever it takes. Talk to your boss, maybe you can arrange a trainer to take all of you in your workplace on a daily 30 minute session. The positive results in productivity from doing this will be evidence enough to your boss that it is a wise idea.

If you honestly can’t see a way to make time, email me a detailed schedule for your day/week and I will personally assist you in finding a way.

I find it hard to stay motivated.

Whats that, did you just slap yourself on the forehead? Good. When people say this, they are really saying “I haven’t made a commitment. I don’t care”. It is an excuse, plain and simple. It’s pathetic, and it isn’t a valid barrier to success. Do you turn up to work every day? Do you eat every day? Do you brush your teeth, do the shopping, go to the toilet? Read the newspaper, vacuum the floor, mow the lawn? Do you feel “motivated” to do any of those things? Do you have to sit there and have a mental battle about whether you should or not? Of course not, they are just part of your daily routine that you know you have to do. Exercise is a necessity to maintain health and life. Don’t feel that you have to be bubbling with excitement about it, just plan your time for the week or month ahead, tell everyone in your household and stick to it.  If you can continue to go to work every day without fail but can’t convince yourself to exercise, you are just making excuses. It is such a small window out of every day and the results you get from being consistent will help drive you to improve further. Once you start actually training you will be able to muster the intensity for what is ahead, it’s just that first step of getting into your gear and driving to the location, or going into the garage and making a start. Feel guilty if you miss a session, but don’t quit because you did. Just pick up where you left off and keep going.

My personal motivation tool is to post my session results (weight lifted, time taken, comments etc) to various online sites such as livejournal.com, Crossfit, Twitter and Facebook. Every day, every session. For all to see and comment upon. Keeps me responsible and when I am training, I do keep in the back of my mind I will have literally hundreds of people casting their eyes over what I have done. If I don’t post, people ask why not. It helps you stay on track. Try it! You don’t have to love training, just love what it does for you.

An active life = a life lived.

Please, if nothing else, keep this in mind:

* Living in nursing homes sucks

* losing the ability to walk, drive, wipe your ass and shower yourself sucks

* being a burden to your children/family because you can’t take care of yourself sucks

* spending 20 years of retirement wishing you stayed in shape so you could at least go walking sucks

* dying earlier than you have to sucks

The reality is, a lot of age related degeneration in mental and physical capacity has been proven to be reduced/prevented with regular physical activity throughout life. One day, you too will be in your 60′s, 70′s and hopefully 80′s and 90′s. You don’t have to spend the golden years of your life in front of a T.V screen and playing bingo. It will probably be the one time in your life you have the money and time to go on adventures and experience all those things you were too busy working or raising children to do in your younger years. Plan ahead, make exercise a habit now. Be one of those 85 year olds who goes skydiving or climbs a mountain! It’s been said before, but I will say it again. Use it or lose it.

Your body is a biological machine. For it to function optimally, it needs quality fuel and to have the engine turned over every day. If you neglect to do regular physical activity, things will start breaking down in the system, and affect other related systems. You were born with limbs and a heartbeat for a reason. Be thankful you have this body and start damn well respecting it by taking care of it. This vehicle for your consciousness is the only way you can experience life. You only get one chance.

A call to action

If you are still with me, by now you have an understanding on how to combat the most common barriers to getting started and consistent with scheduling exercise into your daily routine. The only thing you have to do now is make a commitment.  As soon as you leave this website, the next thing you need to do is start searching for your local facilities, sports clubs or trainers. Compile a list of anything that you are interested in. Start sending some emails or making some calls. Arrange a trial session or a tour of the gym. Do something tangible immediately. Don’t put it off till tomorrow. Do it right now.

This article ended up being significantly longer than I anticipated. As I was writing I realised how passionate I am about helping initiate that change in behaviour and attitude in as many people as possible. While I enjoy coaching people in a face to face environment, I’m excited that I can affect the lives of many more people through my writing.

Avoiding Self Sabotage – 7 steps to Permanent Positive Change

Self Sabotage is something we are all guilty of at times, however those who engage in constant negative self talk find this cycle of initial motivation to complete failure is a regular occurrence in one or more areas of their life. People can and do change! Do not, under any circumstances assume you are “just like that” and cannot legitimately transform your actions, behavior or circumstances. I’ve done it and seen plenty of other people do it too. If you have taken the time to come here and read this, you are already on the way to achieving it! I believe self sabotage stems from people not believing that deep down they deserve what they want. Life doesn’t have to be depressing, hard, sad and pointless.
Life should be abundant, happy, exciting, educational and emotional, don’t settle for anything less.

My personal experience

I’ve noticed the people most affected by this tend to be very selfless and generous. Always doing things to please other people. They get immense pleasure from helping and supporting everyone around them, to the extend that they are uncomfortable if the favour is returned and feel awkward asking for help when they need it.

If there is one point I want you to take away from this article, it would be:

If you notice you are in a cycle of self sabotage, become more selfish.

Learn to become comfortable with doing things for your own benefit. Take time to consider how your intended behavior or action might affect YOU in the near or distant future. Will it be a good day at work tomorrow if you yell at a colleague because they are late on a task? Will you be fitter next week if you skip today’s training session? I believe just as we can have physical imbalances in our bloodstream/body, our emotional levels can be out of balance. If you self sabotage in any area of your life, it might just be that you need to be more selfish and realise that if YOU are happier and healthier, it will resonate with everyone and everything you deal with on a daily basis. If you enjoy making other people happy, you should know by now how to do it, so give a little of that medicine to yourself.

What do I mean when I say for your own benefit?

• Being comfortable handling highly stressful situations
• Being assertive at work without being aggressive
• Eating wholesome food to support your body (your life’s vehicle!)
• Avoiding conflict by calming down before responding to accusations/arguments
• Using spare time to educate yourself on something you need to be better at
• Telling people you love, that you love them!
• Celebrating achievements no matter how small

Do any of these things “benefit” you?

• Flying off the handle during arguments
• Admitting defeat before you begin
• Unwillingness to increase demands during training
• Make excuses for not eating nutritionally dense, healthy food
• Blame someone, something for anything that you perceive as going “wrong”
• Procrastinating instead of taking immediate action
• Taking on too much at once
• Being disorganised

Everyone has the resources and ability to initiate a true change in their behavior to stop the cycle of self sabotage. The positiveness can and will snowball to the point where you have no choice but to accept it! You need to get momentum with that initial drive and goal, and then change into a comfortable gear to get through the journey in a reasonable time frame.

Are you lazy by nature? If so, it will strongly affect any long term change. Be prepared for this and do whatever it takes to remind yourself daily that this really matters to you. I’ve said before – a bad day shouldn’t create a bad week. Accept you didn’t get it right this time and pick up where you left off, immediately. Celebrate improvements and ignore failures. Focus the energy on what you want, not what you are doing wrong.

Be realistic with goals, expectations, time frames when planning anything in your life. Keep in mind that other people will do their best to bring you down, not even consciously a lot of the time. Jealousy can cause people to say and do things they wouldn’t do if they were conscious of it. Don’t rely on other peoples compliments or comments to uplift you. Beating self sabotage is a deeply personal, internal experience that must be driven by you, for you.

Ready to stop self sabotage? Get a pen and paper and continue on:

• Allow yourself to accept praise. You need to be comfortable feeling proud of any change and achievements. Give yourself permission to shine! What has happened in your life to make you think you do not deserve long term success? Write it down.
• IDENTIFY Take the time to write down what it is you are “failing” at. What areas of your life do you continually self sabotage? Next to each one, write how you can combat it. You might plan to count to 10 before responding to an email, or packing your training gear into the car so you can get changed at work and go right to the gym. Plan simple strategies to combat the individual circumstances so you have a failsafe in place to keep you on track.
• What is the PATTERN? Get detailed here and really express on paper what goes through your mind before, during and after a cycle of self sabotage.
• How long does it take from motivation to failure? (hours, days, weeks, months?)
• Barriers to success – List anything or anyone who presents a challenge to your success? (e.g. work hours, family member, lack of information) Present solutions to each of your barriers.
• What should the priorities in your life be? (For me they are fitness, health, education, happy relationships, time for rest/play, helping others.) Can you combine priorities to ensure success?
• Seal the deal. If you train yourself to have immediate awareness when initiating your pattern of behavior that results in self sabotage you can stop it before it gets any momentum, and redirect your energy.

Thankyou again for reading, I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to check out my articles. I love writing and hope I have helped someone today!

110kg to 56kg – Melinda’s Story

I’ve taken some time this week to have a chat to Melinda, a 32 year old mother of 3. I wanted to share her story with my readers because she is nothing short of inspirational. Her journey to health has not been easy, nor did she have a lot of support. What she did have was determination and the strength to continue on no matter what was thrown at her.

Melinda went from obese at 110kg, down to a strong 56kg. She still has goals and is constantly seeking to challenge herself further. I am certain her story and experience will show you that anything is possible and that any goal is realistic if you are prepared to be in it for the long haul and make a commitment to your health. Here is Melinda at her heaviest:

My interview with Melinda follows:

What bodyshape did you have as a child/teenager?

I was skinny & bony as a kid, and went on the pill at 17. I started to put on heaps of weight, went from 45kg to 85kg at age 20. I went on fad diets, starvation diets lost weight put it on again. At 24 with exercise & a bad diet due to lack of education on food I went down to 57kg.

What did pregnancy and/or eating habits change about your body?

During my pregnancy I got really depressed, thought I was eating for 10, worked for a company where there was photography studios, they were shooting food, when they were finished with it I got to eat as much of it as I wanted, every day! Packets of chips, cream cakes, hot chips, roast lunches (along with living at Mcdonalds.) I ended up with huge with no neck & strechmark city.

What weight did you get to at your heaviest?

Went from 57kg to 110kg. 3 months into my first pregnancy I was in maternity clothes by 6 months they didn’t have a hope in hell of fitting me & by the end of the pregnancy. I was wearing size 24 clothes. 8 months after the first baby was born I was still wearing size 22 at 105kg

Bra size was a 16DD & that was tight.

What did the weight make you feel like or stop you from doing?

Having this much weight made me feel depressed & suicidal, no confidence, no friends, judged by others. Less of a person like I didn’t mater. I walked into Sports Girl once & the sales girls would not even acknowledge me, they were so rude because they didn’t cater for my size, I walked out in tears I felt about 50 years old not 24.

At one point when my baby was around 11 months I was so close to a nervous breakdown.

I couldn’t do activities with my baby, wouldn’t go swimming had no energy to even go for a family walk it started to create marriage problems because he was embarrassed by my weight, even a marriage counsellor suggested along with my husband that I should lose weight that just really upset me.

Tell me about the decision to change (how, why, when, with what help)

My decision to change came from nasty judgmental comments that still ring in my head to this day (which I can now laugh at those who made them). “You will never lose that weight”,” look how fat she is, hahaha”. I said to myself, stuff these people! and set out to prove a point.

From the time my first baby was 8months old it took me 5 years but I did it. I started off with a personal trainer, dietician, determination & dedication also asking the right people in gyms etc lots of questions along the way.

What food habits did you have to break?

I had to break eating Mcdonalds, hot chips, hamburgers, chocolate & any other crap you can imagine.

What kept you going every day?

Determination & wanting to prove a point to those people with negative comments that I’m better than them!

Did you find it hard or easy overall?

It was a very rocky road lots of highs & lows, lots tears, frustration & anguish. I was ready to chuck in the towel many of times, it was the hardest journey of my life.

What does it feel like now, to be training as an athlete and eating even better than ever?

Now after 3 children, & a huge life style change, eating healthy food & regular exercise  I feel alive & well like Im 20 years old not 32!

It’s unreal I now have more confidence than I have ever had, friends & I’m happier than ever at 56kg & a size 8. Im in much better shape than all the judgemental people who I now seriously laugh at. I’m doing things I never would have imagined possible 8 years ago & with the best trainer that I’ve ever had encouraging me, I’m training to be in the best shape I can possibly be in. I want to be a personal trainer & help other women or men who are in the same situation that I was in because I understand them & know how hard it is. It is possible!

I hope by now you can see that the results you get from what can be a quite a long, challenging journey are well worth it. Melinda will never go back to her old ways, one chat with her and you get the impression she means business! She made a decision one day, and stuck to it. She does miss days of training and does eat chocolate and icecream, but the majority of her days are based on good nutrition and short, intense exercise sessions that continue to give her results. She doesn’t have a trainer coaching her for 5 hours a day like on The Biggest Loser, so yes it did take a little while. If you can understand that and respect that your body took some time to get big and will need more time to reverse the damage you will find it easier to be consistent.

What sets her apart from people who fail to sustain change is that she picks herself back up when she has a bad day, and gets on with things again, rather than spending a week eating herself sick because of one small mistake. Despite having a demanding role as a mother of 3 (her youngest is 18 months) she makes time for exercise (20 mins 6 days a week) and puts the effort into educating herself about new foods and recipes as much as possible. She stopped making excuses and started demanding better respect from herself and everyone around her so she could live again. Get off your chair now, and go bash out a set of push ups, or look up a new healthy recipe. It starts with one small step!