Pandora is assaulting my ear drums with the uptempo madness that is the Party Rock Anthem station. I’ve got on my compression shorts and sweat-wicking shirt to prevent chaffing. I’ve got my bandana on to keep sweat form trickling into my eyes. I’m ready to go. Superior equipment, iPods, and a gym membership won’t do the trick by themselves, though. You need something more than those material things to create a successful session at the gym. You have it all planned out in your head. You are going to work out every day, and in no time you’ll have a body you can be proud of.
Then that first pain creeps up. Your side feels stapled. You are sucking wind. This was not part of the plan. You hop off the machine and tell yourself to take it slow. You grab some water, Gatorade, Vitamin Water, or a protein shake. Rehydrate, get some electrolytes, get those muscles working and you’ll be back on track. Few people let the first speed bump deter them from their goals. How many can you generally endure?
You finish your first workout after a few more breaks with a general positivity about your progress. The digits in the “calories burned” screen on the treadmill weren’t as good as you thought, but it was more than you did yesterday. Tomorrow will be even better. You’ll just grab yourself a treat on the way home to reward yourself for the hard work. No problem right? You’ve earned it. After you order your cafe latte, you notice the calorie menu right next to the register. It turns out that this frothy, little drink contains more calories than you just burned. You are back in the negative. No big deal, you’ll just eat less for dinner.
Several celery sticks and cucumber slices later, you are taken hostage by an insatiable appetite that demands more food! No matter, you have the willpower required to abstain. You can fight hunger. You are a strong human being. You are the dominant race on the planet. Your growling stomach is not in control. You show it who is boss. Around bed time, you realize that your customary post-dinner food coma was the lullaby that sent you off to dream land. Alas, in your valiant fight against fat, it seems that said coma was the first casualty. You toss and turn trying to get to sleep. The hours drift away on your alarm clock as the next day’s disaster creeps ever closer.
By the time you get through the day, coffee, Red Bull, and Five Hour Energies have left you with a bitter outlook and you just want to crawl into bed and watch your Real Housewives. The gym isn’t going anywhere, and you can’t go through a day like that again. It takes a week before you realize you’ve given up on your weight loss goals. You are still out of shape, still overweight, and still paying a monthly fee at the gym.
This is the crossroads. What will you decide? Will you start the pitiful process over? Will you give up completely? Will you lower your goals? I am sad to say that in my experience, entering with the same mindset will only leave you with the same failures. I might last a little longer but it is inevitable that my life will throw a curveball that I can’t hit out of the park. When I strike out, I go seeking comforts, not the evil treadmill that causes me so much pain. Stay away you demented machine!
Exercise is that cousin that you’ve never really connected with. Whenever you are at family gatherings, you try to make small talk and find something you can relate with. Eventually the awkward silence comes, and you decide it is time to go get more chips. In a perfect world you all would get along great, and the relationship would bloom into a productive, healthy example of how to live. When you start with the hope that it will be better than last time, just because it should be, you have already determined the outcome.
When I found out that I had to lose 20 pounds to join The Army, I almost didn’t even try. I had never been able to sustain a plan which involved a rigorous diet and daily exercise. I’ve always gone with the flow. When there are fruits and vegetables to eat, I’ll eat them. When there is an ultimate frisbee game happening, I am ready to run. It turns out that when you are not proactive with your health, McDonalds, pizza, and asian buffets happen way more often than caesar salads. Sitting at home playing video games happens way more often than pick up games of basketball.
They told me that I had a deadline to lose the weight. This raised my optimism. I would go through two weeks of hell and everything would be good. When I could see a finish line, I was ready to sprint. Changing major parts of my life permanently always seemed so daunting, but I could handle an isolated area of extremity. That didn’t work either. I lost 13 pounds on schedule, and then I hit a brick wall. No pounds were coming off. I missed the deadline and felt like shit. I soon discovered that the recruiter was only testing me to see how serious I was, I could just come in whenever I had lost the weight.
I am now in the process of losing the rest of the weight in a healthy way. I still struggle with the diet, but I look forward to going to the gym. What has changed? My mentality. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I started thinking that the world was against me. I tricked my brain into thinking that I was in a fight for my life. It sounds a little crazy, but it is working wonders.
I jump on the elliptical, blast some very bad pop music, and pump my arms to victory. Not only is the whole world rooting against me, but they are making fun of me for being fat, stupid, lazy, and irrelevant. An hour and a half later the whole world can fuck off, and I feel better than any drug has ever left me feeling. The simple shift in mindset is all I really needed. I’m sure that the pending pressure of doing something with my life and the military being one of my last options has helped my motivation. I have had my back against the wall before though, and I don’t usually take my enemies head on.
This time it is different though. The only enemy is myself. In reality, no one is keeping me from losing that weight but myself. The tools are in front of me. To be successful, all I have to do is seize them and get to work. I have the control, and for the first time, I haven’t abused it. It hurts at first still. I always get that pain in my side, or my quad is sore, or my ankle doesn’t feel quite right. I keep making the decision to fight through it, and the rewards have been priceless.
I don’t know if imagining negativity will help you. I would bet that it won’t. My only hope is that you will be able to embrace a new way of thinking that can pick you up out of whatever rut you are currently in. It doesn’t have to be a goal to exercise, it can be anything in your life that you would like to change. Maybe you need to tell someone to fuck off, whether it be a boss, a friend, or a partner. Maybe you don’t need to start exercising, you just need to stop ordering those extra two items off of the dollar menu. Maybe you need to quit smoking, drinking, or one-night-standing. Americans are full of first world problems. They are a pretty bad joke when put in perspective. Unfortunately, they are our reality, and we have to find ways of overcoming them.
Then that first pain creeps up. Your side feels stapled. You are sucking wind. This was not part of the plan. You hop off the machine and tell yourself to take it slow. You grab some water, Gatorade, Vitamin Water, or a protein shake. Rehydrate, get some electrolytes, get those muscles working and you’ll be back on track. Few people let the first speed bump deter them from their goals. How many can you generally endure?
You finish your first workout after a few more breaks with a general positivity about your progress. The digits in the “calories burned” screen on the treadmill weren’t as good as you thought, but it was more than you did yesterday. Tomorrow will be even better. You’ll just grab yourself a treat on the way home to reward yourself for the hard work. No problem right? You’ve earned it. After you order your cafe latte, you notice the calorie menu right next to the register. It turns out that this frothy, little drink contains more calories than you just burned. You are back in the negative. No big deal, you’ll just eat less for dinner.
Several celery sticks and cucumber slices later, you are taken hostage by an insatiable appetite that demands more food! No matter, you have the willpower required to abstain. You can fight hunger. You are a strong human being. You are the dominant race on the planet. Your growling stomach is not in control. You show it who is boss. Around bed time, you realize that your customary post-dinner food coma was the lullaby that sent you off to dream land. Alas, in your valiant fight against fat, it seems that said coma was the first casualty. You toss and turn trying to get to sleep. The hours drift away on your alarm clock as the next day’s disaster creeps ever closer.
By the time you get through the day, coffee, Red Bull, and Five Hour Energies have left you with a bitter outlook and you just want to crawl into bed and watch your Real Housewives. The gym isn’t going anywhere, and you can’t go through a day like that again. It takes a week before you realize you’ve given up on your weight loss goals. You are still out of shape, still overweight, and still paying a monthly fee at the gym.
This is the crossroads. What will you decide? Will you start the pitiful process over? Will you give up completely? Will you lower your goals? I am sad to say that in my experience, entering with the same mindset will only leave you with the same failures. I might last a little longer but it is inevitable that my life will throw a curveball that I can’t hit out of the park. When I strike out, I go seeking comforts, not the evil treadmill that causes me so much pain. Stay away you demented machine!
Exercise is that cousin that you’ve never really connected with. Whenever you are at family gatherings, you try to make small talk and find something you can relate with. Eventually the awkward silence comes, and you decide it is time to go get more chips. In a perfect world you all would get along great, and the relationship would bloom into a productive, healthy example of how to live. When you start with the hope that it will be better than last time, just because it should be, you have already determined the outcome.
When I found out that I had to lose 20 pounds to join The Army, I almost didn’t even try. I had never been able to sustain a plan which involved a rigorous diet and daily exercise. I’ve always gone with the flow. When there are fruits and vegetables to eat, I’ll eat them. When there is an ultimate frisbee game happening, I am ready to run. It turns out that when you are not proactive with your health, McDonalds, pizza, and asian buffets happen way more often than caesar salads. Sitting at home playing video games happens way more often than pick up games of basketball.
They told me that I had a deadline to lose the weight. This raised my optimism. I would go through two weeks of hell and everything would be good. When I could see a finish line, I was ready to sprint. Changing major parts of my life permanently always seemed so daunting, but I could handle an isolated area of extremity. That didn’t work either. I lost 13 pounds on schedule, and then I hit a brick wall. No pounds were coming off. I missed the deadline and felt like shit. I soon discovered that the recruiter was only testing me to see how serious I was, I could just come in whenever I had lost the weight.
I am now in the process of losing the rest of the weight in a healthy way. I still struggle with the diet, but I look forward to going to the gym. What has changed? My mentality. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I started thinking that the world was against me. I tricked my brain into thinking that I was in a fight for my life. It sounds a little crazy, but it is working wonders.
I jump on the elliptical, blast some very bad pop music, and pump my arms to victory. Not only is the whole world rooting against me, but they are making fun of me for being fat, stupid, lazy, and irrelevant. An hour and a half later the whole world can fuck off, and I feel better than any drug has ever left me feeling. The simple shift in mindset is all I really needed. I’m sure that the pending pressure of doing something with my life and the military being one of my last options has helped my motivation. I have had my back against the wall before though, and I don’t usually take my enemies head on.
This time it is different though. The only enemy is myself. In reality, no one is keeping me from losing that weight but myself. The tools are in front of me. To be successful, all I have to do is seize them and get to work. I have the control, and for the first time, I haven’t abused it. It hurts at first still. I always get that pain in my side, or my quad is sore, or my ankle doesn’t feel quite right. I keep making the decision to fight through it, and the rewards have been priceless.
I don’t know if imagining negativity will help you. I would bet that it won’t. My only hope is that you will be able to embrace a new way of thinking that can pick you up out of whatever rut you are currently in. It doesn’t have to be a goal to exercise, it can be anything in your life that you would like to change. Maybe you need to tell someone to fuck off, whether it be a boss, a friend, or a partner. Maybe you don’t need to start exercising, you just need to stop ordering those extra two items off of the dollar menu. Maybe you need to quit smoking, drinking, or one-night-standing. Americans are full of first world problems. They are a pretty bad joke when put in perspective. Unfortunately, they are our reality, and we have to find ways of overcoming them.
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