Keeping myself motivated...
I received the amazing compliment this month of being told I inspire someone else. That is definitely a two-edged sword because the picture of myself that I allow other people to see is not the same picture I see myself. I am aware of every single one of my flaws and shortcomings so I hesitate to see myself as "inspirational" to someone else. I could spend the next hour or more writing all of my faults, because believe me there are THAT many, but instead I am going to do my best to share the things that help me to stay motivated in my fitness journey. It's an interesting thing that I wrote that line because my first inclination was to write "weight loss journey" and I realize that my focus has changed from losing weight to being fit. I am going to share the things that inspire me and that keep me going and I suspect that I am going to realize some changes that have occurred in myself (like my change of focus) that I haven't recognized until now.Changing my focus...
I make a conscious effort to focus on things that support my fitness goals rather than detract from them. When I was fat I subscribed to a lot of magazines that talked about food and homemaking, Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living, Ladies Home Journal, Food and Wine, Cooking Light (not that I actually did!) and Cuisine at Home were the ones I looked at the most. Now I'm not knocking food and homemaking but they really aren't what interested me, I chose to look at those magazines because the things they covered seemed attainable to me. Who wants to look at Glamour and Vogue when the words "I could never wear that" are constantly recurring in your mind. I let almost all of those magazine subscriptions lapse and the only ones I still get are BH&G and Cuisine at Home! Now I subscribe to In Style, Style Watch, and Fitness and I purchase Shape, Oxygen and Prevention when I see articles that interest me. I find the stories in those magazines inspiring and I love looking at fashions and seeing things I might actually be able to wear!
Speaking of fashion...
I try on clothes (A LOT!) One of my best post weight-loss days was a day when I decided I would like a white dress so I went to Dillards to look at them. I spent an hour trying on dresses and being really excited that my old size 18 was now a 12 and then when a 10 (and even an 8 in one particular brand) fit me I was pretty much ecstatic. It left me feeling so happy and motivated. Much happier than eating has ever made me feel! I will often just run over to Ross for a few minutes and try on things, I like the feeling I get just knowing that I can find clothes that are cute and stylish. One of the most depressing things about being fat was shopping, feeling so frustrated, unhappy and depressed when nothing seemed to fit. And if it did fit it was so dowdy I really didn't want to wear it. Making clothes for myself was almost as depressing an experience as shopping for clothes because I had to come to terms with the fact that the problem was not the clothes, the problem was ME!
Address the real problem...
As most of my friends know I had weight loss surgery so sometimes I feel like I cheated and I really admire those people who lose weight "the hard way" but then I recognize that what I had to do was figure out what was stopping ME from getting in shape and then to address MY problems. I'm not going to go into that whole process here but I did talk about it in an earlier entry. To sum it up I needed the jump start that surgery gave me, I needed that initial weight loss to get and keep myself motivated and I needed something irreversible. I couldn't backtrack or change my mind I had no choice but to "keep moving forward".
Exercise is the key to fitness...
When I had my surgery I had a complication, an internal hemorrhage, which really set me back at first. I ended up needing a transfusion and extra time in the hospital and was pretty miserable for a while. About a month after my surgery I realized that I was losing weight super fast but was also losing a lot of muscle, in other words my weight loss wasn't "fat-loss" and I needed to fix that as fast as I could. So....I joined the gym. Now I had joined the gym more times than I could count but 24 hour Fitness had a deal where you paid $29 a month and had to pay first and last months in advance, no other commitment. I decided to join with the understanding that if I didn't use it I would cancel and just be out sixty bucks! When I first started working out I could barely walk 10 minutes on the treadmill but I kept it up. When I was able to do 30 minutes on the treadmill using the incline I was doing pretty well but my knees were really killing me so on the advice of a friend who is a fitness enthusiast and an overall fantastic person I switched to the elliptical trainer. I now do at least 30 minutes on the elliptical 3-4 times a week (although I am shooting for 5 now) at incline level 20 (the highest) and resistance 11 (out of 20). I generally burn about 500 calories with each elliptical session and the elliptical works for me, but people have to figure out what works for them. I like the rhythm of the elliptical and the fact that it works my booty without screwing up my knees. About 3 months ago I started adding some weight training and now I spend as much time lifting weights as I do on the elliptical (usually between 30-45 minutes). I ALWAYS do squats and abs and tend to concentrate on arms the most because I feel like my elliptical work addresses my quads and glutes quite a bit. Now that probably sounds like a long workout to most people but the thing that makes it work for me is music!
Music is the key to exercise...
It took me a few weeks to realize that the key to a good workout for me is the music I listen to. When I was growing up you purchased music on albums and sometimes you had to purchase an entire album to get the one song you liked (occasionally you could find the song you wanted on a 45 for seventy-nine cents at TG&Y)! To get a collection of songs you really liked you had to buy a whole lot of albums and make a mixed tape! So...for those of you who are really young (or at least younger than me) here are the translations from my times to yours...
Album=CD
Single (or 45)=song download
Mixed Tape= playlist
TG&Y=Walmart
Man, I love i-tunes!!!! I now purchase the songs I want and put together playlists to work out to. Right now there are 16 workout playlists on my i-phone. These are the names of the ones I've put together Classic Rock Workout, 70's Workout, 80's Pop Workout, Country Workout 1-4 (there are four of these), New Country Workout, Mexico, Lorri's Faves, Kisses, Run, Disney, Summertime and Worship Workout 1 & 2. I choose which one to use based on my mood when I start and I sometimes switch in the middle. I have made some for special occasions (the Mexico workout was one I put together when we were planning our trip to Mexico) and when I find myself getting bored I get on i-tunes and put together a new list. My Kisses and Run lists are all songs with those two words in the title or the chorus and Summertime is all about...you guessed it Summertime! I am a person who craves change in most areas of my life (Rick and church being the two big exceptions) so it's important for me to mix things up and have a lot of change in my routine.
Speaking of mixing it up...
Since I started concentrating on Fitness versus Weight loss I have done a LOT of reading, one of the things that is universally agreed on in everything I've read is the need to keep changing. Your body is amazingly adaptable (why do you think people who are grossly overweight can still have some pretty normal blood chemistry?) so when you get into a rut your body adapts and tries very hard to MAINTAIN!!!!! It tries to maintain the weight and gives up those extra pounds very grudgingly so you have to constantly stay on top of it and change up your routine to keep your progress going. This was brought home to me just yesterday on the elliptical, I had done 50 minutes at level 11 and incline 20 and yet had only burned 504 calories according to the machine. When I was 40 pounds heavier and worked out at that level the very same machine told me I had burned almost 800 calories. I understand WHY this is so but that doesn't make it any less depressing. I wish I was still burning off the pounds like I did at first but my body is adaptable and now I have to work harder at burning those calories. That is just the way it is, I can whine about it or I can get off my ass and deal with it. I choose the latter.
Deal with it...
I think it is super important to accept reality and just deal. I have a number of these areas in my life and several in the areas of fitness.
I used to spend a ridiculous amount of time wishing I looked like someone I have no possible ability to look like. I have at various times in my life compared myself unfavorably to Keira Knightly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron and a multitude of other women with whom I have absolutely nothing in common physically. I am not exceptionally tall (although at 5'6" I am on the tallish side of normal) nor am I petite. I am definitely not small-boned or flat chested. What has helped me is to honestly evaluate MY figure's features (notice I do not use the word flaws!) and tendencies and then find people who I can emulate that are realistic goals for me. I am broad-shouldered and slim-hipped (now that my hips are coming out from under their thick layer of fat lol), average height and average bust size but with a very large ribcage. In many ways my shape is an inverted triangle so I look for role models who share my shape, in other words I stopped wishing I looked like Keira Knightly and work harder to look like Demi Moore (also an inverted triangle!)
I have a bad knee, I tore it up when I was 18 and it was replaced when I was 40 so I don't do ANYTHING that could screw up my knee. It would be stupid and self-defeating! When I do squats I do wide-stance plie squats, I find that they are much less stressful to my knee. The treadmill hurts my knee and the elliptical doesn't so I use the elliptical and ignore the treadmill. In other words I deal with it!
I came to a realization this year and it is another area where I just have to deal with it. My weight is always going to be an issue! I am always going to have to think about it, I am always going to have to work at it and the reality is so does everyone else. When I was fat I would look at thin people and think "Oh, they've got it so easy! They don't even have to try and they are thin." Well, guess what? I was wrong! There are a few exceptions but the vast majority of people who are in good shape work at it. They don't take second helpings, they exercise, they think about it address it, they deal with it! That is probably the biggest lie that overweight people tell themselves, that they can just not think about it and it will all be fine. It is simply not true and being healthy takes work, it takes effort and it takes time.
It's worth it!
