I’m not one to believe in the typical New Year’s resolution. That being some significant change someone comes up with between December 26th and January 3rd and has totally abandoned by February 1st. I am, however, a firm believer in goals and projects, mainly the 10,000 and 30,000 foot views, aka multistep projects and 1 year goals. I just happen to set my goal deadlines at the end of the year.
For me, 2010 was the year of learning the hard way. In late 2009 I started the Runner’s World 8 week running program. About 4 weeks in, near the beginning of 2010 I pulled my hamstring bad enough that I wasn’t walking right for weeks. Needless to say that killed said running program. The first week of 2010 I bought P90X. The following weekend, before I’d even taken the dvds out of the box, I played in a USAV Volleyball tournament. In my rush to get out the door that morning, I grabbed the wrong shoes that were missing my good insoles. I played fine all day, but the next morning my heel was on fire. For the following 10 months I became very well acquainted with my dear friend, Mr. Plantar Fasciitis. In those 10 months, I tried ignoring it, using crutches, using a cane (which earned me the nickname House), physical therapy, taping it with sports tape, crying into a pillow and Class 4 Therapeutic Laser Therapy. I did upper body P90X on and off for much of that time. And once I got healthy, I still had several real world issues that got in the way of my success. All this taught me several important lessons.
- Injury is a reason to change your workouts, not an excuse to skip them. I sometimes joke that I would crawl on the floor for cardio if necessary.
- There are 5 main obstacles between each of us that has even the slightest desire for a 6 pack and actually having it. I’ve struggled with each in 2010 and I’ve made good progress in managing each.
- Motivation – It all starts with motivation to get off the couch. Now that you’re up, there needs to be a consistent source of motivation. This will come in some combination of internal and external. A workout buddy is crucial, even if its not someone you actually workout with. They could be on the other side of the planet that talks to you a couple times a week via forum posts or email.
- Discipline – Similar to motivation, but this is about getting the groove to continue the behavior you want. I used to think that discipline was something successful people had in infinite supply. A superfit person could resist having yummy, unhealthy foods wafted in front of their noses all day. I’ve since learned this is not the case. I saw an interesting study that basically said that people have a bucket of self control. If you keep zebra cakes and Snickers around the house, you’re drawing from your bucket to resist it. You may not give in and chow down on them, but you’re making yourself more susceptible to doing so, or to giving it to temptation later if you go out to eat. Basically, get the bad foot out of the house! Take the time to prepare healthy options and keep them handy. If you’re going out to happy hour with some buddies, eat your healthy meal beforehand so you’re less tempted to chow down on wings and cheese fries.
- Diet – I love to work out. I’d workout half the day if I could and my body would let me, but diet is my achilles heel. There’s an interesting chat between Tony Horton and Carrie Wyatt where they discuss how working out is easy because its an hour a day, but eating healthy is all day long.
Besides, whoever “enjoyed” avoiding yummy unhealthy foods planning out their meals? I’ve learned managing diet is very hard, but you can set yourself up to make it much much easier on yourself. Pick a eating strategy. I recommend the P90X version, the first phase of which is basically a healthy version of a low carb diet. See your doctor and get a kidney function test before you start this. Many people have some form of reduced kidney function and putting tons of protein through reduced functioning kidneys can damage them significantly.
- Schedule – Pick a workout and eating schedule and stick with it. I’m a firm believer that the best time to workout is around lunchtime. Your body is fully awake and you can usually guarantee you will be at a certain place at that time, usually at work. My last job had a gym at work and that was awesome. The second best time is usually first thing in the morning. There’s usually nothing to conflict like there is after work or in the evening. If you have to get the kids up at 7am, get up at 5:45am and workout for an hour.
- Adaptability – All of these plans can look great on paper, but they’re all worthless if you’re not being honest with yourself about your ability to stick with it. Sure, you can follow your program if you the week off from work and no personal commitments to deal with. The trick is can you still do it when you’re having an awful day, extra meetings and obligations pop up left and right, the kids get in trouble at school, its raining uphill both ways, etc, etc. For diet, keep backup healthy food handy when your food planning fails you. Keep protein bars around, have a healthy shake (milkshakes don’t count sorry). If you’re nuts like me, you can stomach canned tuna and a V8 if need be.
If you’re traveling and don’t have access to your favorite workout equipment, what do you do? You’re stuck at a crappy motel on a business trip and there’s no weights, no treadmill, no exercise bike. All of this can easily be planned for. Pack some exercise bands, go for a run outside (if you feel the neighborhood is safe), adapt.
Make 2011 the year to get in shape. If you want some help getting to where you’d like to be, please contact me. If you’re there and doing, I’d love to hear your success story.
My plan is to stick to my low carb diet, get in bed by 10pm every night so I can get up at 5:30am and do P90X and Insanity back to back and then run a bit in the evenings. If you want check out either of those fitness programs, come check out my coaching page at http://getfitfinally.info. If you’d like more info on running, just check out any Tom Cruise movie.
I will be posting my journey, which starts tomorrow. Tonight I’ve got before photos and a calendar to share.
See my before pictures.