There's No Time Like the Present

We’re almost two months into the New Year. What does your exercise routine look like? How closely does it mirror what you had planned to do back in January? If you’re right where you wanted to be, good for you! Your focus should be to maintain what you’re doing and set a “next level” goal, which I’ll talk about next time.

But right now, I want to focus on those of you who might be a little, or even a lot behind, the goals you set at the beginning of the year. Stop for just a moment and just spend two minutes thinking about why.

Did you over-estimate the amount of time you had to spend working out?

Did you under-estimate the level of self-discipline required to commit to regular exercise?

Is the exercise routine you started back in January just not the right fit? Too hard? Not challenging or exciting enough?

Are lifestyle habits getting in the way of working out?

Whatever your answers are to these questions, here is something to keep in mind: Make a shift today and get yourself back on track to a health and wellness in 2016.

If you are crunched for time, closely examine where you might be able to “shift right” some time to another category of activity. In other words, you can’t create more time in the day, but how much TV time do you need? Are you willing to give up 30 minutes? How much time do you spend on social media? How about giving up 15 minutes of surfing the Internet, 15 minutes of TV time, and 15 minutes of sleep? In 45 minutes, you could complete an at-home Tabata workout and a shower!

If self-discipline is your problem, the only real solution is a little soul-searching. How badly do you want to see significant changes to your level of health and wellness? There is still time before summer for significant weight loss, if that’s your goal. But you’ve got to want it. You’ve got to be willing to make choices. You have to protect your exercise time as if it was a paying job. If you sign up for a 5 p.m. TRX class, then on those days, you plan meals ahead; if you fail to plan ahead, I guess it’s got to be a quick, but healthy take-out (taco salad, hold the sour cream; vegetable stir-fry, one egg roll!) because nothing is getting in your way. This means you block out 5 – 6 p.m. in your calendar, and since you can’t be in two places at once, you schedule no appointments, meetings, car-pools, or kids’ play dates during that time. Period. The only thing that should interfere with working out is being physically unwell.

If you are bored, or not being challenged enough in whatever workout you’re doing, you need help finding the right fit. Reach out to a friend, co-worker, or call me and tell me what isn’t working. You don’t have to sign up for a class to get my honest feedback on what I think might work for you.

Lastly, if your lifestyle habits are interfering with working out, stop and ask yourself how long you are willing to let that be the case. For how long are you willing to stay up binge-watching Netflix instead of spending 30 minutes in the morning exercising and getting in shape? How long are you willing to have just enough to drink on a Friday night so that you don’t feel like going for a run on Saturday? A month? Two months? Why not say, “I’ve done enough of that. I’m going to do things a little differently this week,” and see how you feel afterward? I guarantee you’ll feel better about yourself emotionally and physically if you drop a few bad habits and pick up a good one.

It doesn’t matter that you haven’t stuck exactly to whatever New Year resolution you might have made. Every day is a chance to start over.

Don’t forget: A week, a month or a year from now, you’ll wish you’d started today.

Start From Where You Are

Welcome to 2016! If you’re reading this, you are probably also thinking about what your exercise plan is going to look like this year, or how you might change it up a little from where it has been. Whether you are looking to get started, make a slight adjustment, or take your workout routine to a whole new level, there is one important thing to keep in mind: Start from right where you are and don’t look back. Keeping in this spirit, I’m not even going to mention the festivities of last month. I’m only going to encourage you to keep your eye on the prize, and that prize is coming, in the form of more energy, a fitter body and a better attitude.

I have a client who has had an interesting “strategy” for exercise for many years. The way she describes her exercise habits is “intermittent.” During some periods of her adult life she has exercised regularly, running or lifting weights at the gym, three or four times a week, for stretches of several months at a time. Other times her exercise regimen has been one or two yoga classes per week. And then there are the vast stretches of time when it’s a day of activity here or there, or even no real activity at all—but lots of thinking about it. It’s during these lulls in physical activity, when she finally decides she is ready to get back on track, that she tells herself this: “If I do one thing, even a ten minute walk on the treadmill today, that’s better than the zero minutes I spent exercising yesterday.” 

In other words, she starts very, very small and she decides to be just a little better than the day before. The next day, it’s the same thing. Fifteen minutes on the treadmill instead of ten. Then twenty. If she skips a day, she does a little more than the last day she worked out, walked or ran. She says that what happens on about day four or five of this gradually increasing exercise routine is that she feels a big surge of confidence and accomplishment. It propels her into the next week. Once this mental attitude takes hold, it is much, much easier for her body to follow. Another smart thing she does: She doesn’t punish herself when it comes to exercise. She’s not an early riser, so 6 a.m. fitness classes are out. When she’s done that in the past, exercise becomes something to dread. And the quickest way to bail out of exercise is to see it as punishment.

Now, not everyone is the same. Some people like can mentally tough it out on day one of a new exercise routine and once they’ve made the decision to run a couple miles three times a week, that’s it—it’s as good as done, no matter what time of day they choose. Others I’ve run into, like the client I mention above, like to wade in slowly, giving themselves small, highly achievable goals, which seems to set the stage for them to mentally prepare for larger ones.

Which person are you? Somewhere in the middle? Take a moment to think back to the times in your life when you were the most successful at meeting fitness or exercise goals (nutrition goals count also) and how you went about that. Did you start slowly, or did you pick a day to start and jump into the deep end of the exercise pool? Whatever kind of starter you are, start today. If you do, tomorrow you’ll be that much more fit. You’ll be better than you are today.

Pay Attention: Your Stomach is Trying to Tell you Something!

As our last blog before the New Year, I want to leave you with one last (hopefully) helpful piece of advice that will wrap up November and December’s blogs focusing on taking pre-emptive steps in the right direction now, as 2015 comes to a close. These tips have included noticing what you are doing right on days when you feel like all cylinders are firing, adding a little more exercise to each day or week and cutting back on sugar, to give some of your vital organs and waistline a break. All of these tips were designed to create a slightly healthier end to 2015, and ensure that you have some footing come New Year’s Day. In other words, don’t give up in December because you have big plans to work out hard in January. Do better whenever you can this month, including cutting back (a little!) on Christmas treats, stuffing, alcohol, whatever, and hit the ground running next month.

So before we get to the main point of this blog, let’s remember: It’s prime time for sugar consumption right now. If there is one thing I can strongly suggest you do to keep your sugar intake to a minimum and give your body and mood a break, is to just step away before you feel full of sweets. I read once that sweets are fine if you can just adjust your idea of what constitutes a serving. Think of it as a bite or two, not a meal. In Europe, especially in the Mediterranean regions where fresh fruit is at most people’s fingertips (like here in California!) it’s common for fresh fruit to serve as the “dessert” and wrap up a great meal. A bowl of tangerines, apples or pears in the winter, or berries and stone fruit in the summer, provide that satisfying feeling of sweetness on the palate without the surges of blood sugar and insulin that tax your system and add inches to the waistline.

Which leads me to today’s rant moment of clarity: Avoid automatic eating. While you are enjoying those bites, don’t stare at your phone and get lost in a your Facebook feed or checking emails; have a conversation with the person sitting across or next to you; stare out the window, watch a bird, look at the clouds, and really taste whatever it is you are consuming. Whether it’s a cookie or small piece of fudge or better yet a crisp apple, don’t be a mindless eating machine (cue Jaws music).

Automatic eating has a few different meanings. One of them is more emotion-centered, where we eat out of habit, in order to feel better or associate a moment with comfort instead of anxiety or pain. The other type of automatic eating has more to do with the action of eating as being totally ignored by your brain. Think of it as thoughtless eating. Here’s why thoughtless eating can lead to eating more than we need to feel satisfied, which of course, leads to more pounds we then need to work off: Thoughtless eating separates our stomach from our brain. The stomach, when it’s full, sends a signal to the brain, via nerve receptors and hormones, which in turn signals the brain to think about stopping the action of eating.

Now, imagine your brain is a guy sitting next to a conveyor belt, feet kicked up, face in his phone, catching up with the Kardashians. Those signals coming in from the stomach? Totally missed. They glide right on by, piling up like a bad wreck on the other end of the factory (your waistline). That’s what happens when we eat while watching TV or looking at our phone. When you eat, eat. When you read, read. Can we also get lost in a conversation or watching some deer nibble on grass? Yes, but it is far more likely that we’ll become hypnotized by a screen than we might while observing Mother Nature or chatting with our companions. Screens kill. Remember that.

When you finish the appropriate sized serving on your plate, and you think you need to go back for another helping, wait a few minutes. Let your brain catch up with your stomach. I promise you, if you wait five minutes after eating a normal-sized meal, you will feel fuller than you did 30 seconds after finishing. Wait another five minutes and have a piece of fruit, or a maybe just a little sliver of pie. Pay attention to what you are doing, which is eating, and savor every moment. You’ll feel satisfied faster and ready to move on to the next thing on your “to do” list: couch surfing working out.

Happy Holidays and I’ll see you in 2016 at Motivate Personal Fitness Academy!