well it's certainly not this. I hated that stupid book. No, the secret I'm talking about is something a guy I use to work with told me two years ago. I don't know why I forgot about it until tonight, but it suddenly popped to the front of my brain.
I've been struggling this last week with staying on plan, and the result was my pitiful .4 pound lost for an entire week. Today I hit a new challenge, I decided I didn't feel like exercising. Finally at 7:30pm I thought at least I'd put on my workout clothes, maybe that would get me in the mood. After numerous mental battles with myself, I decided I simply did not want to work out today.
Then I remembered something Scott from work told me two years ago, the last time I was struggling with losing weight. One day we were in the lunchroom talking about working out and exercising, and he told me a little something he does to help make him workout.
Scott lost 100 pounds about 10 years ago and has kept it off. He said he works out every day on the elliptical for 30 minutes, and although he really hated it, he had to do it. I asked him how he stayed motivated to keep this up for so many years. He said what he did on the really tough days where he just wanted to sleep in and not work out was tell himself, okay, get up and do it for just five minutes. If after five minutes he still hated it and couldn't stand to go another second, he could quit and go back to bed. He said not once in 10 years did he ever quit after five minutes. He always did it for the entire 30 minutes.
I tried this trick on myself tonight. At almost 8pm I told myself, go to the gym and if you work out for five minutes and totally can't stand it and want to leave, you can. Permission granted. I went to the gym, got on the elliptical with this thought totally in my mind, I'm quitting in five minutes and going home. I was serious about leaving because I did not want to be there.
I got into my music and when I looked down at the time I'd been on the elliptical for over six minutes, and I was feeling good, really good. I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and 40 minutes strength. A measly 6 minutes on the stair climber, not even worth mentioning.
Now I'm playing mind tricks on myself to get my butt to the gym, but if that's what it takes, I'm all for it.
Exercise 7/21/2008 - 76 mins.
Elliptical - 30 minutes
Strength - 40 minutes
Stair climber - 6 mins. (I didn't have the energy tonight)
HRM: 754 calories
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The secret is....
Posted by Diana at 10:20 PM
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3 comments:
what a great trick. i wish i'd have used it this morning. i totally pussed out. but i'll use it tomorrow. thanks
Thanks for sharing such a great tip, Diana! I'm definitely going to try it. Now, of course, the only challenge for me will be to follow through. :o)
By the way, what kind of heart rate monitor do you have? I've been thinking about getting one if I can find the money somewhere.
Pamela - I have a Polar Heart Rate monitor F6. It has all kinds of fancy junk on it, like keeping a log of my workouts and other things that I've never used. I think it was around $120, but they have a cheaper models.
I highly recommend Polar because it works great. I had another brand before this and dropped it on the sidewalk, it never worked again. But don't waste your money on one with fancy features. Because if you're at all like me, you'll never use them.
Get one of the lower end ones, because all you really need is your heart rate, time and then total calories burned (not a must have, but it's fun).
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