Time to Get Moving!
Getting in shape is both easy and hard.
Are you frustrated by the number of times you have tried to get lose weight and it either didn’t work or you ended up gaining it all back? I completely understand.
The concept is easy.
Eat the right foods.
Eat the right quantity of food.
Exercise
Sleep
I am not telling you something you don’t know already. That’s the easy part. The hard part is actually doing it and making it stick. That is what we are going to talk about. Parts of this may get a little uncomfortable but that is okay.
Note:
Almost every article, post or interview I look at has the fitness professional (me) portraying themselves as the person who has figured it out and will live happily ever after. Most fitness articles seem to be more about the building the personal trainer’s ego than actually being helpful. There is enough narcissism in this world. I would rather talk to you and not at you.
So let me say this to you. I fail all the time. The doubts and frustrations you feel right now are probably very similar to ones I still feel.
Who wouldn’t rather come home eat pizza, drink beer and watch tv instead of workout?
That is life and we will battle these thoughts the rest of our lives.
The goal is not to eliminate the negative but to learn how to control it better.
You will never be perfect at controlling your urges but you can get better at it. So choose your mentors wisely.
Quick tangent:
Did you know I created my own design store? I wanted to come up with motivational shirts that were unique and promoted the M Factor Fitness values I try to teach. These designs capture the spirit of getting uncomfortable and are available in Hoodies, t-shirts, Tanks, coffee mugs, stickers and more. If you like the design, click on them and check them out. My store is Designs by Zazz and here is the link to my Teespring store, https://teespring.com/stores/get-motivated-5
Any of this sound familiar?
Fear of Failure.
Weight loss is a perfect example of this paradox. If you have a fear of failure you seldom stay with anything for too long. Maybe you spend your life chasing after the shiny new diet plan that is “guaranteed” to work. Maybe you never fully commit to a training plan because deep down you don’t think it is going to work and you don’t want to look foolish.
Look at it this way, I coach people for a living and these blogs are basically mini advertisements for my business. So why would I write about my bad races along with my good ones?
I talk about my failures honestly because failing is not a bad thing. It is a sign that I went out, got a little uncomfortable and tried. When I fail life gives me a lesson to learn. I get a little wiser each time and if I can fail a different way every time I am making progress. If you don’t fully commit, then you are making the same mistake over and over.
Does that make sense?
Fear of Success
This is the harder one to figure out and may be the more common issue. A lot of my clients self-sabotage themselves from success because they begin dwelling on the negative aspects of weight loss as opposed to the positive.
Huh?
Example: If you have had weight issues all your life it has affected your life in a negative way but it is still your life. You are used to it and even though you may say you are uncomfortable, this is the norm.
You decide to make a change and when you start working out and feeling better, you see that change is possible.. The problem comes in when you start focusing more on the negative aspects of change than the positive. I have had clients tell me they love their new body but they are worried about what the impact will be on their friends and family.
A few women wanted to lose weight to feel sexier but they were also uncomfortable being seen as sexier by men.
All this negative thought is imagined but it created a situation they could never win, so they ended up quitting.
Don’t overthink this stuff. If you get a negative idea in your head, feel free to challenge the idea and see if it is really true.
Living in the Past
Here is something I hear all the time. I am just repeating this to make a point, I not making fun of the people.
“How much weight do you want to lose?”
“Well I weighed 105 pounds in high school…”
That was twenty years ago before kids, work and …twenty years of aging. Your body will change as you get older. Sorry to break it to you.
Quite often I will do a body fat test and to weigh the same as the client did in high school he/she would have to have negative body fat! It just isn’t going to happen.
This isn’t about settling for an older you, it is about being realistic in your expectations.
Who doesn’t want to look as young as possible for as long as possible?
I am in a titanic struggle to keep my hair. Why it wants to leave, I have no idea. I am fight the Grim Reaper with everything I have and there is nothing wrong with that.
I think you have to realize that in high school your body was different. In fact, maybe it is the feelings and experiences you had in high school that you want to recapture. You have made the connection that the way you looked allowed you to be that person.
I need to look a certain way to make my spouse happy.
This one is the worst. Not to offend anyone but if your spouse bases your worth on how you look or how much you weigh, then you have the wrong spouse. That is an issue they have to deal with not you.
Here are some books on the subject. Note: As an Amazon affiliate, if you buy something I get a small commission but you get my undying gratitude. Thank you for supporting M Factor Fitness.
Listening to the wrong people.
People tend to seek out experts that agree with their own opinions. This is why conservatives tend to watch Fox news and liberals will watch MSNBC. That is how it works. The second part to this is that they will vigorously deny this. They just want the real news, the other station are a bunch of liars.
The same applies in fitness. You have a set of beliefs about losing weight and you will tend to like those people that have the same opinion. It validates your belief and it reinforces that fact that you are smart. But it isn’t necessarily the truth.
The overwhelming evidence says you have to work you butt off to get results. Losing weight and getting in shape is not easy or everyone would do it.
If you are not inclined to work hard and believe this, you will look at easier options and there are a ton of choices for you.
I know somebody who will do anything to avoid going to the gym.
- She will buy hundreds of dollars worth of vitamins each month.
- Go to acupuncture for weight loss.
- Try every new diet that comes out.
- She will look for articles that say exercise is bad for you.
- She will do anything and spend any amount of money to get out of hard work.
By the way, these are the people who become the “experts” and can talk for days about nutrition and fitness.
Instead of concentrating on the 80% that will get them the best results, they chase the 20%. They do not want to get uncomfortable.
I have a friend who…
Let’s add one more to this list. By the way, this is one of my biggest pet peeves in life.
Who knows someone who always has a buddy who did something really spectacular? Do you know someone like this?
“Yeah, I have a friend who went keto and loves it. She lost 120 pounds in six months.”
What I have found is that if you ask this person about this in six months you will get a totally different answer.
“Yeah, she couldn’t stay on it and has gained the weight back.”
“Those diets never work.”
You realize this is a junky conversation to begin with. Don’t get drawn into this.
You have a person pretending to be an expert talking about someone you don’t know selling you on an idea. Whoever is telling you this crap is doing it for their own ego not your benefit. Maybe they are trying to help but when they diet fails, the person telling the story is free of blame. They were just reporting the facts.
If you want to be nice, hear them out but don’t believe it.
The bottom line:
Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
This is why I designed that shirt. If you want to make progress in your life, then you need to take some chances and keep pushing forward. It is a state of mind and as your coach, I am trying to give you a roadmap of what to look out for.
Here is my advice.
I use the term personal trainer because that is the key search word where people find me. I think of myself as more of a coach. A personal trainer will give you exercises and hope that you do them. A coach has life experience to help you figure out why things are working for you and what things aren’t. There is a big difference.
There is also a big difference between paying for personal training and investing in a coach.
If you aren’t working on the mental side of fitness, then you are missing out on the 80% of the solution. Invest your time and money on the 80% that will give you lasting change.
