live your life with purpose
Tomorrow (April 21st) is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 77. Hard to believe. I wonder what he would look like today. My boys looks like him, I think, especially my oldest. My dad was very athletic and super cool. I looked up to …
Do you train for looks or do you train for health? Is there anything wrong with either? I know I will never be skinny. I’m not built that way, nor would I want to be. I actually really like my muscles. I worked my ass …
Finish your program or whatever project your are doing.
I know, it’s hard. I even have trouble finishing a program. You either get bored with it, or you find something else that looks better or more fun, or more something. Why are we always looking for something better or something more? We aren’t squirrels!
Maybe we should concentrate on one thing and finish it before moving on to the next cool thing or the next fad. That’s what marketers want. They want the next best thing to knock you off your program. They want you to think you can’t live without what they are selling. They want you to think it’s the magic pill or the best thing since sliced bread.
When you sign up for something you have to finish it. Isn’t this what we teach our children? How many times has your kid wanted to quit something and you tell them, “No, you signed up, you’re finishing.” It’s the right thing to do, after all.
I am doing a program right now and it is pretty much traditional weightlifting. It has some kettlebell stuff in it, but I can tell you I am itching to get back to the bells. Some of my “cardio” has been bells though. I have programmed some pretty wicked #kettlebellcardio workouts.
I have a new in studio Program starting in a few weeks. It is called Rebuild, Renew and Restore. It includes traditional weight lifting and so that is part of the reason I have been doing some testing with the program I am following. The new Program does include a day with #kettlebellcardio. My other training clients have been testing that for me, unbeknownst to them. I think I told them one time that they were testers for the particular workout they were doing that day. It was definitely cardio.
My point it, if you don’t finish, you will never know how far you’ve come. It is so easy to just say screw it, I want to try this instead, or I want to try that workout. But again, you never know what would have happened if you had stuck to your program. How many times have you wondered about that. I have! Just think what I could have done if I had stuck to the program!! We need to get our minds right and call on that discipline so that we finish what we started. Even if the program sucks or it seems too hard or too easy. You never know, sometimes our bodies need easy. It’s not like most of us don’t beat up our bodies. I say it all the time, more is not better! Seriously, when are people going to realize that. They think the harder something is the better it is. I call bullshit on that one.
Anyway….I have one more week in this program. Could I have done better? Sure I could have. There is always room for improvement. I am finishing it, because I said I would. I wasn’t perfect, but I don’t care. I’m finishing it!
I remember stuff from when I was way little. I can remember things from when I was about three years old. But today, we are talking cereal. The reason behind this blog post is because my friend and I were talking about this the other …
What do you do if you don’t like vegetables? Really? This is a real thing? I love vegetables and I feel bad for people who don’t. You know they are good for you and you want to be able to eat them, but you just …
How far into the rabbit hole are you?
Do you ever feel like life just sucks and you can’t squeeze out one more drop of positivity or motivation? Have you started eating crap and skipping your workouts? Are you an emotional wreck to the point it is starting to affect all aspects of your life?
You can’t focus at work and you really don’t care. You have no energy and you are tired ALL.THE.TIME!! You eat whatever you want, no matter what it is. You may have joint pain or other aches and pains. Pretty soon your leggings are your dress pants or you’ve graduated to the Duluth Trading Company’s ballroom jeans, because nothing else fits.
The first thing you do when you get up is dive face first into crap food because it makes you feel better. Triple caramel breve with whip cream anyone? (Breve is the one made with all half and half, in case you didn’t know). The last thing you do at night is have just “one more.” You know what I’m talking about. It’s not one more glass of water.
Is this your rabbit hole?
I was talking to a friend today and that is exactly what she has been feeling. It is super hard to climb out of that hole when everything seems to be going against you. I remember feeling that way after getting divorced many, many years ago. Luckily I found John and we have been together almost 20 years. Life knocks us off our feet and it’s hard to get back up. Because why should we? Well, because that’s life. Life’s lessons.
I do remember though how hard it was to get up each day and take care of my kids and make sure they were okay. I remember many times I didn’t want to get out of bed. I remember thinking that things would never get better and that I was going to feel stuck forever. I remember trying to control everything and could control nothing. I remember using alcohol and food and oh my God, shopping, to numb my feelings. I wanted to just forget everything.
In all honesty, I still have a hard time to this day. I still feel guilty for seemingly wrecking my kids’ lives. That’s another post for another day. Maybe never. That’s a chapter I’m not sure I want anyone to read.
Buuuut, how do we move on? How do we get our shit together? Well, guess what? First of all, you need to take responsibility and quit lying to yourself about what is going on in your life. Own your shit.
Second, make yourself a priority. It may seem selfish, but if you don’t, you won’t change. You need to take care of yourself first or you will never be able to take care of anyone else. Think about this, if you are eating shit and drinking all the time, no doubt you aren’t going to be very healthy. You will probably start to get sick and then you will lose work time, you will lose workout time, you will lose family time, you will lose time!
Finally, make a plan and stick with it. More on that below.
This is one can you do not want to kick down the street. In order to get your life back and start climbing out of that rabbit hole try implementing these 5 tips on how to do YOU:
1. Decide, and take responsibility — you have to decide you are ready to change. Nobody can do that for you. And again, own your shit. No excuses.
2. Commit and don’t back down – Commit to working on yourself and stay focused.
3. Show up EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. Again, no excuses. Work on yourself every day.
4. Be consistent. If you know me at all, you know I totally believe in being consistent. It is a life changer.
5. Realize it will be hard. Nothing good is easy, and nothing easy is good.
But most of all, always remember you are human, you are not broken, so start the climb out of that rabbit hole.
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Every Friday I have a long workout. I love it…once I start. Anyway, sometimes I feel like just saying fuck it and not doing it. I try to make excuses like I’m too tired, or I don’t feel like it, or it’s okay if …
Use your body as a science experiment, because truthfully, what have you got to lose? Have you ever done any experiments? Obviously, we all have done some type of experiments when we were kids or when we were in school. But, I’m talking about now, …
Why do numbers affect us so much? Specifically, the number on the scale. A little comparison. The scale weight usually pisses us off. The calories burned during a workout on the treadmill, usually make us happy. Both numbers don’t reflect the truth.
I mean look at the scale. If you don’t know by now that the scale is a total mind fuck then crawl out from under the covers and listen up. Scale weight does not tell the whole story. You could weigh 160 pounds, but not look overweight. You could weigh 160 pounds and look extremely overweight. The numbers are weird. You have to take into account, muscle to fat ratio, hormones, binge eating, water weight, or even bloat. On any given day your weight can have huge flucuations. Weigh yourself in the morning and then weigh yourself at night. See what I mean. We get so bent out of shape about this number. We let it define us. But why? We need to get over it. It truly is just a number. Don’t sweat it. In the big picture of life, really, how important is that number? I think most of us have better things to occupy our time. Our careers, our families, our lives!! Right?
Buuuut, then look at the treadmill. Today my calories burned was 598. Woo Hoo! Right? Ummm, not so fast. Another number that does not show the whole picture. The calorie burn shown on a treadmill or cardio machine can fluctuate just as much as scale weight. You have to take into account gender, age, weight, and fitness level. This is just a rough estimate of how many calories a person has burned. Obviously, the more details you put in the more accurate it will be, but for the most part it is just a rough guess.
Just like the scale. We know weight should not define us. Just as how many calories were burned during a workout should not define us.
Why do we continue to let these numbers affect us? We hop on the scale and if the number isn’t what we wanted we let it ruin our whole day. Why? Could it be because we have been conditioned to define our worth by the number on the scale? We equate a specific number with being fat. We equate a specific number with being a failure. Every body is different and everybody looks different at a certain weight. You’ve seen those pictures were it shows six or eight women and they all weigh 150 pounds. And not one of them looks like the other. The weight doesn’t mean shit. How do your clothes fit? How do you feel overall? If you are eating right and exercising regularly and your clothes are not fitting any differently, eff that number on the scale. However, if there are things going on that just aren’t adding up, you may need to go see your healthcare provider. But, overall, I am betting that you are just fine.
Find ways to measure your fitness other than the scale. Like I said before, how your clothes fit, how well you sleep, what about stress levels? Measure these things instead and let that scale weight go!
What does eating right even mean? You hear it all the time. If I could just eat right then I would lose weight. Or, wow, if so and so would eat right they would feel so much better. But seriously, how many of you eat …