How Do I Start?

I received a familiar request the other day, to help someone who is a little overwhelmed about starting to lose weight after the birth of her baby. Although maybe a little heavy handed, this was my response and it’s pretty universal.

The first thing that you have to do is make a decision. Not a decision that you can go back on but a final decision to change.
Second you need to set your larger goal. Your larger goal is nothing to do with losing weight or any of the challenges you have, your larger goal is to be honest, true and faithful to yourself. If you can commit to being honest with yourself and not accepting the old excuses then you are on your way.
Third, stop listening to yourself, you are only confusing the issue.
There is a voice inside your head that wants to derial you. You can either try to change the voice then change your life or you can simply stop paying attention to it until it starts to help you not hurt you. You are smart enough to know the right thing to do but that voice always finds a way around it.
What is better? Food you make at home from simple ingredients or fast food? You already know the answer. What is better, spending an hour watching a tv show or 30 minutes working out and 30 mintues making your food for tomorrow? Same hour, different results. What would you think of someone feeding a can of coke to a baby? Why would you treat your body with any less importance? Six months from now you will be 6 months older, but will you be different? That’s the big question. If you really want your life to change then you have to make some changes in your life. Here they are:
1. Find 30 minutes every day to exercise. Walking is not exercise. If you want to count walking it had better be up and down a flight of stairs.
2. Drink only water and if you have to, coffee.
3. Eat food with one ingredient. If it has more than one ingredient, you don’t need to go near it.
4. That means lean protein, fruits and veg, nuts and seeds (in moderation) and if you want to, a little dairy (yogourt is allowed with no sugar).

Understand that when it comes to fat loss everyone wants a magic pill or fix. That’s why the diet pill industry is doing so well. Well, here it is. Your body creates a substance that forces your body to store calories as body fat. How would you like to turn that process off? It’s not magic, it’s insulin. Eat less sugar and grains and your weight will come off.

Lead by example for your child. What you do will mould who she becomes. Kids learn directly from their parents in EVERY aspect. Be a good role model for yourself, for her and for the people around you who will eventually come to you and ask how you did it.

But do it now. You didn’t start six months ago, if you had, you wouldn’t be reading this.

Due to Halloween, Wednesday’s bootcamp didn’t happen. Instead I opted to do a little Olympic lifting and for the first time since my back went out I did the whole thing with my usual 135lbs. It was the pretty standard 80 reps but with 20 KB swings added in after every round. That kind of threw my week off a little and this was probably one of the times I should have dragged out the P90X2 DVDs and done a pre-programmed workout. Thursday I decided that 100 pullups and 200 pushups would be good since I felt like it had been a while since I had done pullups and I can feel my competence fading. So I did 20 pushups with 10 pullups for 10 rounds after a short warmup with the 55lb KB. Friday I coached and since I had only one athlete who required some extensive stretching I joined in and ha d a good 40 minutes of lower body stretching which felt amazing. Saturday I was a little adventurous and did my Cleans, Clean and Press and Squats with 135lbs for sets of 10×3. Then I decided I would increase my deadlift to get me closer to my goal which is bodyweight. I know, it’s not exactly spectacular but with my history it’s as far as I am willing to go at the moment. That said I managed sets of 5 x 2 with 135, 155, 165, 185 and 205. I was pretty happy with the results and the following 2 days did not produce much in the way of soreness or compromised mobility. That said, I knew that there was only one thing I should do to end the week and promote my recovery and mobility ready for bootcamp Monday so I busted out the Fountain of Youth Yoga with Tony and worked out all my kinks and crunchy bits. It was a good week all in all, maybe not the toughest I have ever had but doing Yoga really made my week.

Ya, shocking.