Evolution Two – week eight
Monday, July 13, 2009
Hello Folks,
I had quite a busy day today. I really had to plan out my food schedule in order to make sure I ate my 5 meals. I even carried some food around with me where ever I went. I find that I am less hungry throughout the day when I stay on track with my food....and I am less cranky.
I just read an article my Tom Venuto who wrote one of my favorite e-books Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. He was talking about why people yo-yo with their weight. He concluded after years of training people that the number one reason is accountability. Many people know how to eat and exercise, have done everything right and succeeded before, like Oprah Winfrey, but still go back to the old weight and more.
I think I am going to have to agree with him. There is so much information about diet and exercise, so many options, but the people who succeed at it make themselves somehow accountable. I think Richard Simmons must have felt the pressure to continue to keep to his program since he had promised to help others.
I also think there is another reason that motivates people. When I gained weight in the past it would be such a blow to my self esteem that I would basically give up. When I was younger I would sometimes lose weight without thinking about it and then become motivated to lose more. I always focused on exercise as the answer, not nutritional choices, but dieting.
When I started a new programs, I usually tried them for 3 months and if I had little to no success I would give up and go back to the old patterns. I think, after a while, of trying different programs over and over again and failing; there is this point where I think I will never be able to change my weight. It feels like this wall that is so tall that it would take a miracle to climb it. And when I still decide to take action and try again, if I hit a plateau it becomes very discouraging, even though I have made so much progress and the mind starts to think “why do I bother?”
One other reason people do succeed at long term weight loss it what I call the “failure” factor. Not believing you can succeed at it. That is where accountability comes in to play.
I have had some days where I feel really frustrated with my progress. I have had some days where I ate not quite the way I had planned and there is a this little voice in my head that used to be a big voice, that says “if you don’t exercise or you eat that, you are going to be “fat” again. That voice used to be really unbalanced and scary for me. It used to make me quit or make me feel really “restricted” Because of that feeling of being restricted, I would give up, and tell myself - do I want to feel “restricted” for the rest of my life or do I want to train at this level of intensity for the rest of my life? It felt daunting to think into the future like that...and then I would quit.
Success message number one, make sure you are making yourself accountable for your health and fitness; whether it means blogging and taking pictures or weighing yourself or telling your friends.
Success message number two, be OK with the set-backs and find a balance with food and exercise (stay away from extremes like I won’t ever eat that or I have to exercise 6 hours to burn that off)
One of the reasons I chose to do this blog of my weight loss, was because I knew that it would pressure me into staying on course. Since I have a history of yo-yo myself...I have played that game many times, I know how it goes. I also decided to allow myself to be ok if I don’t get the workout in every once in a while or I eat something not scheduled for my meals that day. I have been able to maintain a healthy weight and still feel really good about myself despite my weight loss plateau. And since I have stuck with my exercise and nutrition program my body fat percentage has gone down despite my weight plateau, so there is still success, besides my fitness is still increasing. Those thoughts and my blog are what keep me motivated to continue on, as well as doing the Quadathlon in three weeks to test my progress.
\
Hello Folks,
I had quite a busy day today. I really had to plan out my food schedule in order to make sure I ate my 5 meals. I even carried some food around with me where ever I went. I find that I am less hungry throughout the day when I stay on track with my food....and I am less cranky.
I just read an article my Tom Venuto who wrote one of my favorite e-books Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. He was talking about why people yo-yo with their weight. He concluded after years of training people that the number one reason is accountability. Many people know how to eat and exercise, have done everything right and succeeded before, like Oprah Winfrey, but still go back to the old weight and more.
I think I am going to have to agree with him. There is so much information about diet and exercise, so many options, but the people who succeed at it make themselves somehow accountable. I think Richard Simmons must have felt the pressure to continue to keep to his program since he had promised to help others.
I also think there is another reason that motivates people. When I gained weight in the past it would be such a blow to my self esteem that I would basically give up. When I was younger I would sometimes lose weight without thinking about it and then become motivated to lose more. I always focused on exercise as the answer, not nutritional choices, but dieting.
When I started a new programs, I usually tried them for 3 months and if I had little to no success I would give up and go back to the old patterns. I think, after a while, of trying different programs over and over again and failing; there is this point where I think I will never be able to change my weight. It feels like this wall that is so tall that it would take a miracle to climb it. And when I still decide to take action and try again, if I hit a plateau it becomes very discouraging, even though I have made so much progress and the mind starts to think “why do I bother?”
One other reason people do succeed at long term weight loss it what I call the “failure” factor. Not believing you can succeed at it. That is where accountability comes in to play.
I have had some days where I feel really frustrated with my progress. I have had some days where I ate not quite the way I had planned and there is a this little voice in my head that used to be a big voice, that says “if you don’t exercise or you eat that, you are going to be “fat” again. That voice used to be really unbalanced and scary for me. It used to make me quit or make me feel really “restricted” Because of that feeling of being restricted, I would give up, and tell myself - do I want to feel “restricted” for the rest of my life or do I want to train at this level of intensity for the rest of my life? It felt daunting to think into the future like that...and then I would quit.
Success message number one, make sure you are making yourself accountable for your health and fitness; whether it means blogging and taking pictures or weighing yourself or telling your friends.
Success message number two, be OK with the set-backs and find a balance with food and exercise (stay away from extremes like I won’t ever eat that or I have to exercise 6 hours to burn that off)
One of the reasons I chose to do this blog of my weight loss, was because I knew that it would pressure me into staying on course. Since I have a history of yo-yo myself...I have played that game many times, I know how it goes. I also decided to allow myself to be ok if I don’t get the workout in every once in a while or I eat something not scheduled for my meals that day. I have been able to maintain a healthy weight and still feel really good about myself despite my weight loss plateau. And since I have stuck with my exercise and nutrition program my body fat percentage has gone down despite my weight plateau, so there is still success, besides my fitness is still increasing. Those thoughts and my blog are what keep me motivated to continue on, as well as doing the Quadathlon in three weeks to test my progress.
\
Exercise: Interval (run 30 min., bike 25 min.), Resistance training
Menu: protein and veggies
Until next time…
Think, Believe, Act, Achieve
Dakota
Today’s Mantra: Better to fail than not try at all (I may have used this one before, but I like it)
Think, Believe, Act, Achieve
Dakota
Today’s Mantra: Better to fail than not try at all (I may have used this one before, but I like it)
