Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The glue that holds everything together

When it comes to changing a lifestyle, what do you think holds everything in place? Let’s go thru a check list of things you may have already been doing.

1) Cardiovascular work. Now this is important to get you sweating and losing those unwanted inches. It is also best and most efficient way to lose weight. It can be hard on the knees but in the end it is the best way to lose weight. Most people find this very hard to do but necessary because they know that the results will come much faster and much more often if they go out and run and walk. This is something that you have to do in your program for your program to have any effect at all.
2) Weight Training. Now that we have the lungs and heart are going, we now need to get the muscles all tuned up and burning those excess calories. As we lose the weight we need to tighten up our muscles so that we can get them running efficiently and hopefully cause less flab. There is no such thing as turning muscle into fat or fat into muscle, it is impossible to do but by you not working on your muscles they may stay weak and you could hurt yourself doing anything that could require any type of stress load.
3) Diet. What you eat is very important. What you drink is especially important. You could do the first few things and then mess everything up in this category and ruin the whole program. If you eat 3000 calories but burn 2500 calories you have an additional 500 calories just hanging out and they will be stored. Now do that every day and you can see how the numbers add up. Whereas this is one of the most important pieces, it is not the glue that holds every thing together.

So what do you think it is?

It is the mental aspects associated with your new life. For a long time you have thought in a certain way. You have acted and reacted in situations in a certain way. Now you are asking your whole being to change and pretty much at a moment’s notice. For the first month is real easy, but then going into the second month and beyond your old life begins to creep back in and now the fight begins. What do you do when your old friends start putting pressure on you to get back with them and go drinking or to take a smoke break and you don’t want to do that stuff anymore? Well this is when decisions get harder and know there will be some stress with your changes. You will lose some friends and you may feel very weak at some points. But this is the time to buckle down and stay focused because these next few months will make or break your new life changes.

In the Weight Loss Challenge, I constantly stress understanding the “why” and the “How” of it all. How did I get this way? Why am I this way? How long will it take to change? What got me this way and am I willing to change what needs to be changed to correct it? These questions and many more are constantly asked and reviewed by the challengers.

Ask yourself those questions and be realistic about the answer. Sometimes, no most of the time change may be good but it is harder than it looks. Ask the person who stopped smoking for years and then picks up the habit again or the alcoholic drinkers who picks up their habit again. The scariest thing one can experience is making these life changes and then feeling that no one is supporting them. I am finding out that this is a major problem with my challengers, the fear of the unknown. What will really happen if I do this and make these changes? Who will accept me? If I am not accepted my by old friends can I get new ones? Am I doing the right thing? Will I be accepted for my new me?

The mental aspect is the glue that holds all this together and once you work thru your fears, there will be no stopping you from changing your life for the better. Now go and do it.

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