redefine fitness

The other day at a networking event,  I met a woman who felt totally lifeless and stuck in her 9-to-5 job but was unsure of how to quit and start her own business doing something she really loved – makeup design.  I totally understood her fears; I was in the same boat several years ago.  Plus, her interest in makeup design is in the personal services business, just like mine.  I spent some time talking to her and relating my story in hopes that I would excite her and motivate her a little bit to keep trying, because she was losing faith.   I mean, I was excited to know someone who could teach me how to do put on all the makeup I buy, and I really could tell that she needed a few gals to tell her all the exciting ways she could make this a career.  She needed support.

This, of course, is where my personal trainer-esque comments started flowing.  I told her that if she had a business card, I’d have taken one in a heartbeat.  Taking the first step is the hardest, and for a lot of people they find ways to NOT do it.  (Are you seeing the similarities to fitness and lifestyle change here?)  I THINK I got her friend to agree to be her “accountable” person who would give a little push make her create business cards by a certain deadline.  Then she can get networking (and I can start passing her cards to all my friends who want their makeup done, he he) and get support from other friends and entrepreneurs.  Then the ideas start flowing.

The bottom line is, this is usually how it goes with health and fitness.  You want to lose weight, get a little more toned……but you don’t know how to start AND you are a little afraid to do it.  That’s a major commitment.  The key to success here is your support network; the more people you have cheering for you, the better you feel.  A personal trainer like me is great for that but it’s not the whole package – if you are going to make a major change you are better off being open about it so you don’t hold on to those insecurities too tightly and feel so alone.  I have never had a happy client who didn’t have full support from spouses, family, or friends.  It’s just too easy to get sucked up in something else or negative thoughts (especially if those important people are flat out UNsupportive).

The other key thing is accountability.  Not everyone can be accountable to themselves, so they need someone else to keep them in check.  If  a personal trainer is not an option, the next best thing is a workout buddy or a group exercise class that you regularly attend.  This way it’s easy not to skip or psych yourself out, because you are on the hook with someone else.  I have some clients email or text me when they workout on days we do not meet – they know I am always monitoring if they workout or not, and they know that someone cares.

Think of this the next time you feel unmotivated, stuck, lacking creativity….anything.  You might be amazed at not only how much other people can help you succeed, but how much they WANT to help you succeed.

This article is taken from Kristen Thalheimer, a business and personal coach I know from Boston.  It’s a simple but great reminder that change can be GOOD, and is often the key to happiness (few of us are actually happy with every single thing in our life, as is).  This certainly applies to my area of expertise – after all, changing your fitness level or health status is not easy.  The trick is to not let the scary element STOP you….

Eat, Pray, Love, and Get Unstuck. . . just outside your door

Sure, it would be great to travel to another country (or three) the way Elizabeth Gilbert does in Eat, Pray, Love to pursue your own personal “search for everything.” If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, Gilbert felt stuck in her marriage, and then, wow, she got herself really unstuck by signing a book deal and traveling for a year to Italy, India, and Indonesia. Thankfully, however, if you’re on your own personal search, you don’t have to go that far.  Your own proverbial backyard can provide an abundance of un-sticking opportunities.

A lot of people feel stuck because, as they tell me, they don’t know what to do next.  They have a good job, but not great.  Or, they have a relationship, but it’s not exactly the one.  And then, sadly, the years go by. And still their job/relationship/life is good, but not great.

But here’s the good news: You don’t have to know THE answer to start your “search for everything,” you only have to DO something.  One little something.  But best – take a deep breath – if you do that little something that scares you.

What kinds of scary? I don’t mean the kind of scary such as getting over a fear of spiders (my phobia) or a fear of heights.  I do mean those things that stand out as exciting and scary at the same time. Search your mind and your heart for the nexus of exciting and scary, and that’s where the gold is.

What might that little something be for you?  Here’s a list of things that might sound exciting and scary.  Remember, start small; then go big.

Travel by yourself: not necessarily to India, but how about to the next town, or to a city two hours away by car?  Rent a car, book a hotel room.  Walk, shop, and yes, eat by yourself.  One hour? One day?  One week? Whatever you can do.

Take a class: medieval history, knitting, calculus, car repair.

Do something physical: a long-distance walk, guided sea kayaking, kick-boxing.

Make something: build a table, refinish furniture, start a garden, paint.

By doing anything, big or small, which is different from your usual routine, you do several things at once:

You build a new neural pathway in your brain, i.e. you learn something new.

You prove to yourself you can do it, i.e., build confidence.

While your mind is occupied with one enjoyable thing, it can actually work on other unrelated questions, i.e., what’s my next life step.

You open yourself up to unexpected new ideas.

This last one is key to why this connects with getting unstuck.  When you invite new people and new situations into your life, you get to say whether you like it or not; whether it sparks something in you.  Follow the spark.  It is the magic that tells you to keep going (or not).  Sooner than you think, you may be onto that path that takes you from a good life to a great life.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s year of traveling is a story about having personal faith, taking some risks, and doing what her heart tells her to do.  Finding your path need only start with the same faith in yourself and just a little step outside your door.

Imagine the operating gears of a battery-operated mechanical clock – smooth, precise, efficient.  Now imagine shoving a few grains of sand in those gears – they still might work, but less smoothly, less efficiently.  Put in more and more sand, or larger and larger grains of sand, and the gears will work slower, louder, burn more juice from the batteries, and start affecting the time on the face of the clock – or the clock may stop altogether.

Obviously this is my metaphor for our bodies.  The way our bodies work, to me, is the most complex example of science.  NATURE.  Natural science.   All of our systems (internal organs, muscle groups, or neural pathways for example) interact with each other in order to respond to the “grains of sand” that are introduced on a daily basis.  We were built this way for a reason, and our bodies will make every attempt it can to exist the way it was designed to exist – just like the gears that will keep moving as hard as they can to keep the clock ticking.

Our lifestyles, environmental factors, stress, diet and other external elements (our “sand”) cause much of the illnesses and general health complaints that we experience on an increasing basis.  To remedy these, we claim ’science’ – basically Western interventions – as the savior that we rely upon for a quick solution to the problem.  By Western interventions, I not only mean pharmaceuticals (the foundation of Western medicine), but today’s “diets”, synthetic supplementation, cosmetic surgery, etc.  Of course there are always exceptions – but they are fewer than you think – but otherwise what I’ve just listed is very myopic.  They are not NATURAL science.  They are band-aids that do not address in the long term any causes or solutions that will get our clocks back into natural working order on a whole basis – that is, without experiencing side effects or systemic damage, which then repeats the cycle of relying on “science”.

What I am saying is this: we are getting further away from knowing how to return our clocks to being smooth and efficient as they were meant to be.  We may think that we are living healthy by subsisting on protein shakes and meal replacement bars because the marketing sounds logical and we want to lose weight, but we are actually cheating our bodies from the nutrition that enables them to function the best.  We lose weight in the short term but risk long term damage to our internal systems because it wasn’t lost properly.  Women take a synthetic drug to conveniently have 1 or 2 menstrual cycles per year, because a voice on the commercial told us 1 per month is unnecessary.  We gain convenience and “freedom”, but again we incur long term risks for cancer and other diseases or side effects because we are cheating our hormonal system.

Be careful what you adopt as a “healthy” alternative to the status quo.  I applaud your efforts to lead a healthy life – but so does the multi-billion dollar ‘health and wellness’ industry.  Listen to the claims that are made by these products, do your research, and try to change your mindset from those who fall prey to the allure of convenience and immediate gratification promised by a “magic bullet”.  It does take time to do this – and that is why I do it full time and offer it as a service to people. And there are multiple schools of thought on what really makes our clocks tick naturally.   So if you are going to listen to someone, listen to someone who knows more than what you just heard in a 30-second commercial or read in a major media headline article.  If I haven’t turned you off already, I hope one of the people you listen to is me!

“Stress” is a common buzzword in today’s on-the-go culture.   I’ll bet if you kept count, you will say it more than once today.  Often we use it as a broad term to describe a state of mind.  (eg, “I’m stressed out about losing my job!” or “I’m too stressed out to go to the movies.”)  But can it really make you fat?

Think of it in a literal translation, though:  the physical pressure, pull, or other force exerted on one thing by another; strain (thank you, dictionary.com).  The stress you put on your muscles when you lift a weight, for example, is helpful in building and maintaining bone mass.  But I’m not writing to talk about that.  Hopefully you can relate that image to this translation (also from dictionary.com):  a specific response by the body to a stimulus, as fear or pain, that disturbs or interferes with the normal physiological equilibrium of an organism.  This, of course, describes what you have heard of as “fight or flight” syndrome.   You brain releases cortisol to, in essence, make you temporarily superhuman so you can save yourself from a dangerous situation (such as an encounter with a bear, with which I have personal experience).  Unfortunately, the side effect of that is that it shuts down an many other systems as it can to put all its energy into that one,  superhuman effort to outsmart the bear chasing you up the hill. Once the bear attack is over, your body’s relaxation response kicks in so your brain knows to ease up on the cortisol levels.  Then it goes back to its regularly scheduled program of controlling blood pressure,  glucose metabolism and insulin release (think “blood sugar”), immune function and many others.  This is one of the many amazing, complex balancing acts (Cliffs Notes version given here!) that our bodies can do.

So if elevated cortisol levels in these stressful situations give us “superhuman” responses like increased mental acuity, quick bursts of energy, lower pain threshold and bursts of heightened immunity (remember, you are fighting a bear here), how can it be that bad?  If the levels of cortisol are always high, that’s how.  If you are constantly in a state of STRESS – whether mental or physical – the cortisol is pumping into the bloodstream without the brain being able to tell it to relax (sound familiar?).  Eventually your body will do a mental eye roll and start ignoring the message that the elevated cortisol level is sending – thus it becomes desensitized and no longer elicits that “superhuman” response.  After a prolonged period of time, you will get the opposite reaction as your chronic stress tires your body out.  Then, you might experience this:

• decreased mental acuity
• blood sugar imbalance (hypoglycemia, for example)
• elevated blood pressure
• decreased immunity
• abdominal fat

Yikes.  Do you know anyone who is constantly stressed (at work, say) and ALWAYS sick?  Know you know why.   And you may know that abdominal fat puts you at a higher risk for heart disease (and all related factors).  There even may be a connection to higher cortisol levels and overeating (especially refined carbohydrates) – which can also contribute to unwanted FAT!   This highlights the importance of recognizing and managing your stress levels.  Everyone has different responses to different amounts of stress, but none of it is good on a chronic basis.

Exercise is a great way to reduce stress levels – even a little physical activity can expel that pent-up tension (unless your chronic stress comes from overexercising, but that’s not usually the case these days – more on that later).  You can kill two birds with one stone by reducing stress AND burning fat.  Massage, acupuncture, yoga and meditation have gained popularity as a regular part of Americans’ fitness and health regimen; it really is important to relax and rebalance too! If you are a stress eater, try to outsmart yourself by using a diversion (take a walk, nap or even some deep breaths for a few minutes); just steer clear of those foods (like sugar!) by not allowing yourself close to them in the first place.  Of course, sleep is the magic process that allows your body to reset and repair, so don’t ignore that, especially in high-stress times when you are feeling run down.  I love sleep.  It’s so underrated.

I recommend any of these practices over supplementation (if you know me well you know I’m not a huge fan of that anyway).   You may have seen commercials for cortisol-reducing pills to lose weight (DHEA and adaptogens, for example).  Aside from the studies that show these may not work (there may be other issues in the body that contribute as well), the basic fact is that we are dealing with hormones.  Hormones are a chemical that your body makes to be used somewhere else in your body; that’s nature.  Consuming a synthetic chemical that simulates a hormone is just not the same.  Plus,  your body knows how to balance these things out – if you are not even sure what hormones are at what levels because of stress or any system imbalance, popping a pill is probably not the smartest thing.  If you really need to take this route, at least do it under the direction of a doctor who has tested your blood levels.  But remember, imbalanced hormone levels don’t just happen – which means they are not usually the solution.  Try reducing your stress and taking a look at your physical activity and diet (start with your meat, dairy and sugar intake) to see what is creating the problem.  Then, you’ll have a better chance at avoiding the unwanted fat and disease that comes with it.

If there was a magic button for everything, then we wouldn’t be so fascinated by movies like “Mary Poppins” and commercials with the Staples “Easy” button.  The truth is, there isn’t a magic button, wonder pill or super man (or woman) to make the tough tasks in your life easier.  Accepting that is the first step.  It’s true for your health and fitness as much as it is for other business and personal pursuits.

I know you have the ability to achieve the fitness goal you want.  Everyone does.  All you have to do is convince yourself of this fact and learn how to overcome your obstacles and practice motivating yourself.  It’s a learned habit, and is a large part in your success.  And yes, sometimes it means ignoring that little voice in your head (it’s not always right, you know).  Don’t worry about what you don’t know (you can always hire a personal trainer or learn from others for those tips!) and just focus on taking the time to care for yourself.

Here are 2 things that I recommend to get you going:

1. Make an appointment with yourself. This is what I hear a lot: “I wouldn’t have stopped to work out if I didn’t have you coming to me!”  Overcome that obstacle by penciling yourself into your schedule during the day.  Find out the time when you will be the least likely to argue with yourself, and then do it, even if it’s 15 minutes at first.  After doing this several times, the little voice in your head that says “I can’t” or “I don’t want to” will die off.
2. Write it down. It’s amazing what games your mind can play with you.  But if you write it down, it’s hard to ignore.  Document your goal (a realistic one, please) on paper and KEEP IT.  Keep a daily log of your exercise and eating habits.  You will begin to see patterns that will help you change or improve upon what you are doing.  If things don’t work, change them.  This is a powerful tool that I use with all my clients.  It can also work for you.

Enjoy the ride and be patient!  Success doesn’t happen overnight.  Good luck!