Personal Training - Motivational Tips, Nutrition & Exercise
When it comes to weight loss, we all know that the easiest way to lose weight, is to reduce your caloric intake and increase your exercise expenditure. But is this really all it takes? Does this really lead us to a healthier, sustainable lifestyle?
Well if it is just this easy, then why do most people continue to fail?
Our bodies have very complicated, multi-functioning systems that work simultaneously to keep us alive (homeostasis). There are certain physiological changes that must occur within the body in order to lose weight. Until you make the conscious choice to do so nothing else really matters. That's right, you need to make the deliberate decision to get your body up and exercise. You make the conscious decision to change your eating habits. Even if you have an eating disorder, nothing physiological can change when it comes to your weight loss/gain, until you make the decision to change your behavior. Decide its time to incorporate some integrity and self motivation.
Behavior - the manner of acting or controlling ones self.
You MUST find your own integrity in order to start or sustain your weight loss, period. I have learned over the years that most people don't like this answer. One reason for this, it is a far too simple ideal. Another reason is because it allows no room for excuses. Integrity - adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. Here is an example scenario. You can see a trainer 3 x per week for a � hour session (keep in mind this is only 1 � hours total out of a possible 168 hours available in the week). Each time you see your trainer, the questioned is asked, "How is your diet and exercise coming along?". If the trainer is observant and knowledgeable. He or she will be able to recognize certain behaviors; from your level of fatigue to your body composition, and know whether or not you have been maintaining a good exercise and nutritional regiment. Like most people, you will immediately respond with, "Yes, I have been very good." Even though you know that you just ate two pieces of cake and four slices of pizza at a birthday party yesterday. Not to mention, you did no independent exercise since the last time you saw your trainer. The point is, that you can lie to others all you want. You can even try to lie to yourself, but it truly comes down to your own integrity, discipline, drive and motivation. The majority of people, will never have the luxury of having a trainer for more than 2-3 times per week. So you can see how essential it is to find that integrity, self drive, and motivation within yourself to become successful. Remember, I too was overweight. I still struggle with the choices today, so I know you. Stop looking for the excuses to fail! Start looking for the integrity and motivation to succeed.
This is where I come in. How do you find the integrity and motivation that I am talking about? Well, lets look at it metaphorically:
If a doctor told you that you would die tomorrow, if you did not work out today. I promise the 64% of Americans that are currently overweight or obese, would be flooding gyms and training studios across the nation. All of them posessing the self drive and motivation they needed to live another day.Never making an excuse about it. TRUE
So the answer is what? Pretend that you are going to die tomorrow. NO, but if it helps you mentally, then feel free to do that. In order to succeed, you need to understand that mental exercise, must be a part of the physical exercise. i.e. You, and only you, can tell yourself two more minutes, when jogging on the treadmill. Only you can tell yourself, I am not eating that extra piece of pizza today. What I am suggesting is that you begin to have an honest level of communication with yourself. You may feel a little bit crazy at first. I will promise this, once you tap into the integrity within yourself, it can be a course of action that can change everything in your life. Isn't this what we teach our children, to find the integrity to do right from wrong? What makes you so different? The problem is, most people fall into this mentality, that if 64% of people are in the same situation that I am in, then somehow it must be alright. In most cases this would be true; however, it's not when it comes to finding a healthier lifestyle. The truth is, we know how important it is to become healthier as individuals. You must act as an individual. This is the one thing that you must take accountability for or it will never change!
Motivation - the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior
- Your want is to lose weight and feel better.
- Your need is to be healthier and live a full life.
- Your belief has to be that you can do this.
I don't care how many times in the past that you may or may not have failed. It will end the minute you tell yourself... no more! No one else can say this for you. It is your decision to make.
Myself as a trainer, your friends, family, and others, can talk, educate, even try to manipulate your behavior into changing. Just remember, there are a whole lot of hours in a day that you have to be accountable to yourself. Nothing will change if you have no integrity to use the motivation within you. One of the things my clients love most about me, is my level of enthusiasm, and my true passion for fitness. What they don't realize, is that I must have that same level of integrity, in order to be successful at maintaining my own weight loss. Also, in order to motivate others to want the same thing, the integrity and motivation need to be even higher on my part.
So, if you are the type of person that needs a well designed, regimented exercise and nutritional program, that's great. Just know that these tools and information are only one part of the equation. You will still have to reach for that motivation and integrity within yourself. Trust me, many people fail, spending thousands of dollars on what they think is the best nutritional and exercise programs available. Fitness is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, and people still continue to fail in very high percentages. You will have to make the commitment through your own actions and integrity, otherwise, you will be no different. You will have a gym membership you don't use, but pay for. A treadmill that cost you a fortune, now converted into a clothing rack. More books about nutrition than a library, that now collect dust on your bookshelves.
We all have motivation. It is up to us whether or not we use any of that motivation towards our health and wellness. I see so many people use their drive for so many other things. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the drive and motivation for money. Most of us seek that sense of financial security. It is the lack obligation to propel oneself to becoming a healthier individual I do not understand. Many studies have proven, that improving one's health through exercise and nutrition, helps with our focus and energy levels. Which in turn aids us in becoming more successful at our jobs. Ah, interesting, a full circle. The motivation you need to pursue your career, must come from the motivation it takes for you to stay healthy to keep that career. Don't get misguided about your use of your motivation!
Many people will spend months, even years working their gardens to have them grow. They patiently keep the soil rich with nutrients, spend time in the hot sun, weeding, watering, and replanting seeds. The only motivation is they want to see a beautiful garden. So don't our bodies deserve all this same care? A flower is suppose to last a season, our bodies were meant to last a lifetime.
So, now that you know it is all up to you. Relax, it is not as difficult as you think, Let's start a plan of action. Remember, keep it simple to start!
Keep it real. Keep it on this planet.
Do not allow yourself to fall into the pattern of instant gratification. A healthy lifestyle must become linear, and weight loss must occur over a period of time. Everyone always wants to lose 20 pounds in 3 weeks, so they can look like they did when they were in college or high school. Well, couple of things, you are not in college or high school anymore. Oh and by the way, it took 10 years, to put all that weight on. So don't you think that, mathematically, it should take a little bit more time than just 3 weeks to lose it. Remember, we are trying to sustain your weight loss and give you a new lifestyle. This is not just a summer on the beach in Hawaii, or a trip back home for your 20 year reunion. The best and most realistic goal is to lose about 1-3 pounds per week. You want to set moderate goals so that they are attainable and sustainable. Make those dreams of running a marathon attainable, by allowing your body time to condition and change. Ask any professional or national level athlete who trains for a competition.... It is a process of conditioning and developing, that in some cases can take years to achieve. Marathon runners, for example start conditioning about 5 months out from a race. Football, basketball, volleyball, and many other sports all offer pre-season and post-season conditioning and strength clinics to get their athletes ready for the upcoming seasons.
Make No Excuses
People often use excuses. They rely to much on the complexity of nutrition and exercise, to help them succeed at failing. Let's be honest, unless you plan to become a professional athlete, or are really interested in sports science, you probably do not care much about the 600 muscles that our body uses together with the skeletal system to create motion. The physics, bio mechanics, and kinesiology involved in order to allow that movement; or, how the respiratory quotient is a measure of the ratio of volume of carbon dioxide expired, to the volume of oxygen consumed, which gives a way to measure fats, proteins and carbs that are being burned for energy. Leave the complexity of all this information to the doctors, scientists, nutritionist and trainers . Rely on your own integrity and motivation to get started. keep it simple. Learn to walk before you can run. Babies do not come out of the womb spewing intellectual jargon and running marathons. This is all behavior and knowledge that is acquired over a lifetime. Remember, scientists are continually studying the complexity of the human body, and all its functions. So it is best to keep the equation simple, so you don't get lost in translation, and then start finding excuses.
Balanced Nutrition + Daily Exercise = Your Bodies Own Optimal Health
Balanced nutrition should be as simple as 5 - 6 small meals per day. Females should consume approximately 1200 - 1500 calories daily, and men 1600 - 1800 calories daily. The meals should be spaced out evenly over the course of your day. You need to know how important nutrition is for your health, and that it plays an intricate roll in how are bodies feel and function. Let's look at the garden metaphor once again. If you do not feed the soil enriched nutrients, then chances are, your garden most likely will not grow. Remember, we are trying to take care of our bodies. When your car gets dirty you find the drive and motivation to clean it. When our house gets dirty you find the drive and motivation to clean it. Find that same drive and motivation to cleanse your body with your nutrition. You will have to make the choice whether to eat a well balanced lunch, or make an excuse to eat one that is high in saturated fats, and over loaded with simple carbs. Your meals should include: good lean proteins (fish, chicken, ground turkey or even on occasion steak), fuel efficient and fibrous carbs (yams, brown rice, vegetables and fruits), and a source of good fat (olive oil, avocado and nuts). Sorry, no, a donut does not provide all that nutritional value. It can be equivalent to your daily caloric value and taste real good, but has very minimal nutritional value. Remember, if you want the car to perform, then you need to fill it with high performance fuel! Don't ask for the six pack abs and envy others for having a toned physique, if you are just going to sit back and put sugar in the fuel line. When it comes to understanding the foods that are bad, again make it simple. If it can sit on a store shelf for a very long period of time without becoming rancid, then imagine the breakdown that must occur within our bodies to process such foods. So, if you are going to decide to eat a donut, try to eat it with a little bit of fiber, like a small apple or maybe some protein. This should help maintain a good nutritional state within your body. If you just have to have a donut... remember, make the donut, a treat, not a routine.
Another simple way to maintain a good nutritional program, is by treating it like a work week. Try to be very regimented during the week, treating yourself only the weekends. Again, remembering that this behavior as well, will also come down to your own integrity. It doesn't mean a free for all on the weekends. It just means maybe you can eat small portions of some of your favorites.
Finally and most importantly, when it comes to your nutrition. DO NOT STARVE YOURSELF! Your body is very intelligent. When you starve your body, all you are doing is triggering the survival mode button. Your body needs so many calories daily just to keep you alive. Never mind the added activity that you want to incorporate to try and lose weight, because the body knows that you are going to starve it. No matter how much exercise you are doing, it will use very little of the fuel you are giving it to function, and then guess what, yup, it will store the rest in our bodies storage closet, the fat cells. Now of course, eventually if you continue to starve yourself, the body will have no choice but to give up some of this stored energy and you will lose weight but you won't be able to sustain it. When you look at most people's behavior once they achieve a comfortable number in their weight loss, they begin to start eating normal again. Well, you forgot to let your body know that you were switching back over to eating, so it is still in the storing mode. It takes time for the body to switch back over to normal functioning. So, don't starve yourself, it will only make the process more difficult. Again, like the car, if it has been sitting all winter with no gas and has not been turned over , it may take some time and may even need a charge to get it turned back on. Now, let's move on to exercising.
Daily exercise should be as simple as doing anything more than what you are doing right now. There are numerous ways to get active, but lets again make it simple. All activities will fall under two categories: aerobic (getting your heart rate up and increasing your ability to utilize oxygen intake over a longer period of time) and anaerobic (utilized for increasing power, strength and lean muscle mass). Let's start off with discussing anaerobic resistance training. Anaerobic resistance training is a great way for you to increase strength, muscle size, and muscle endurance. Anaerobic resistance training is good for everyone, including women! Good muscle strength truly does help people live healthier, and more active lives. Remember building muscle is especially important as we age, not only do we begin to lose lean muscle after about the age of 35, but it helps protect those joints when we start to lose a little bit of our equilibrium from aging as well. Think about when grandpa fell and broke his hip. Maybe, if he had a little bit more muscle wrapped around the hip joint, he might not have broken it, or if he had good core muscles he might not have fallen at all. Muscles provide the brick and mortar for our bodies. Think of a house. A house has a frame made of wood. Our bodies frame is its 206 bones. A house also has insulation to help keep the internal temperature regulated. Our bodies utilize fat to insulate, and help regulate our own internal body temperature. Now, a big storm comes along, do you think that this house that is made of just wood framing and insulation is going to survive? Nope. Why? Because it has no muscle, no brick and mortar to protect all your precious family belongings. Have you ever seen action heroes and how their chest is supposedly made to withstand a bullet. This is replicated from muscle anatomy, not fat. Muscle is dense, it is less penetrable than fat and therefore is absolutely used to protects our joints and organs. Think about this as well, in the abdominal region, there are no bones there to protect some of our most vital organs: the liver, kidneys, pancreas, and spleen. It is the place where most of our absorption and digestion of food occurs. So, unless we increase the rectus abdominus muscles (six pack) what is there really there to help protect these organs? Scary huh. Makes you want to do a couple of crunches. Go ahead, I'll wait.
So now for some aerobic activity: jump rope, jog, walk, swim, bike, dance, skate, vacuum vigorously. Do anything basically. It will help you over the course of time to increase your ability to take in more oxygen; therefore, allowing your body the ability to perform longer and more efficiently. Again, be patient with this. If you get winded, try to slow down your breathing, or slow down your pace. Again use your own integrity, try to push yourself a little bit more each time. Eventually, you will be amazed at how your body will start to feel and perform once you just get active.
Find a realistic time within your busy life.
Before I begin to train any client, I always ask about their lifestyle. Being honest with yourself, is going to help you immensely. If you are a social drinker with friends after work, and are not willing to sacrifice this time to go to the gym (even though you might meet a whole new social group). Then you need to look at where in your daily life you can get in some exercise. It is highly recommended that you do 30 minutes of continuous exercise daily, but starting out, anything will help. If you are someone that doesn't even run to the bathroom, start there. People don't realize where they can add just a couple more minutes of exercise in their very busy lives. Walking for example, when you are going to the mall. Stop looking for the closest space to the door you can find! You are going to be shopping and walking around for a couple of hours anyway. Park the car further away, not only does this allow you more exercise on the way in, but on the way out as well. While you are overloaded with shopping bags, you can do some curls (building muscle) walking back to the car, this could easily add another five minutes to your daily exercise.
Be Patient!!!
You will never succeed at this if you are looking at this as a short term project. I still struggle every day, even after five years of sustaining my weight loss. I don't expect you to just fall in love with the whole concept of a new lifestyle. You do have to be patient, because the keyword is, a new LIFE style. Patience will help you focus more on the objective to become healthier, not necessarily skinner. Remember, not all skinny people are healthy. Have you heard the phrase skinny fat or anorexic. I want to make you part of the small percentage of individuals that sustain their weight loss, and go on to lead very healthy and active lifestyles. My greatest joy as a trainer is seeing the long term improvements of strength, flexibility, and movement beyond the weight loss. Watching people that are able to attain their goals. These achievements are what is going to change your outlook on exercising and eating right. When you change your outlook then you can help change others. Think of it this way, maybe your significant other, or even your friends, love to go bike riding or roller skating, but you can't enjoy these activities because of your physical weakness. Once, you understand how many things a lifestyle of fitness can change for you, you will begin to have a lifestyle of fitness and fun and help others do the same.
Moderation
Eating is good for the body, over-eating is not. To much of anything can never be good. There are so many reasons why this statement rings true. Look at it from both sides of the scale, no pun intended, anorexics extremely under-eat while obese individuals extremely over-eat. So moderation has to be the key, ya think?
So when it comes to your exercise and diet regiment, keep both behaviors in moderation and eventually you will have a happy medium between the two. We don't want you to become an addict, we want you to enjoy it.
Get Selfish!
In order for this to work, you must become selfish in your pursuit. Now, I do not advocate neglecting your work, family, or any of your other daily responsibilities. You must be willing to enable yourself. To many excuses why we can't make time for our health are rapped around our other responsibilities, not necessarily ourselves. Here is another metaphor for you. Many people often wonder why, when you are on the plane, they give the safety briefing to secure your mask first and then help your children. It is because you need to be in control of your decisions, and behavior, in order to assist your children. The same thing applies to our health and wellness. You can not begin to help or give advice to your family, friends, and co-workers if you are not willing to help yourself first.
Also, when we talk about being selfish. Do this because you love yourself not because you want others to love you. Don't do it because you think it will get you that man or woman that you think is out there, because their not. The ones that are, are not all you think they are. Whoo! After years of thinking about what others thought of me, I realized it only comes down to what I truly think about myself and the minute I started believing in me, all things good happened especially when it came to my weight loss. I found a whole new lifestyle and you can too!
Don't ask for opinions, ask for advice!
I am always amused at some of the questions I am asked as a trainer, "Do you think I look fat?" My job, as a trainer, is not about making opinions, it is about offering my clients
