Staying Motivated - what works for me
Posted by leah on May 24, 2008
Staying motivated is the hardest part, for most people, of making the kind of lifestyle changes that they need to make to be healthier. I think almost everyone has, at one point or another, made a New Years resolution to lose weight. You eat salads for a few days, join a gym, try a few workout videos, and then two weeks later you’re back to eating junk and spending a lot more time watching tv than exercising. I’d like to share what has worked for me in the past, and hopefully these things will work for other people too.
I think one trick to staying motivated is taking small steps instead of trying to do it all at once. It’s true that you won’t get results as quickly, but it’s a lot easier to make a small change and stick with it than it is to make drastic changes in your life all at once.
After I finished college, my lifestyle became a lot more sedentary - instead of walking from class to class on a large campus, I sat at a desk all day working. Instead of most of my friends living walking distance from me, I started having to drive to social events. I probably went from getting at least an hour of exercise every day, without thinking about it, to about 15 minutes. To make matters worse, my office provided lots of snacks and lunches, and after being a broke college student for four years, I couldn’t turn down free food. I gained weight. Not a lot, and it was gradual over a couple years, but I went up about two jeans sizes. I didn’t worry about it much at first, since everyone seems to gain a few pounds after college, but one day I realized that I wasn’t just bigger - I was also really out of shape. I had lost my muscle tone, and I got winded really quickly. Even though I didn’t look very big, I was overweight for my small boned frame, and unhealthily out of shape.
So I made some small changes. First, I stopped eating french fries. I don’t actually like them that much, but when I went out with coworkers for a drink, I would mindlessly munch on them whenever someone ordered a basket for the table. I started walking on my lunch break sometimes. I lost five pounds, and it was easy, but then the weight loss stopped. I was really happy that my small changes had helped, but I realized if I actually wanted to get in shape, I needed to make more drastic changes.
This is the phase where motivation can get really tricky. Once you’ve gotten in the habit of doing a few small things, you feel like you can do anything, and it’s easy to make the mistake again of trying to do it all at once. I went to the gym and jumped right into classes that were too difficult, so I quickly stopped attending them.
That’s when I realized I needed something more than wanting to lose another five pounds to motivate me. So here’s my next tip: once you’ve made some small changes, try to find ways to make the next change enjoyable. In my case, I needed to figure out a way to make the gym more fun, so that I would look forward to going. I had always liked yoga, since I’m naturally flexible, so I found a yoga class I liked at a convenient time, and I went every week. As I got stronger and more coordinated, I found that I looked forward to my class each week. I also felt great every time I worked out, so other kinds of exercise became enjoyable too.
To make a long story short, I became someone who exercised regularly, and I started enjoying it so much that I started training to teach other people. I took and passed a certification course to teach group exercise classes, and because I liked yoga in particular so much, I took an anatomy and physiology class for yoga teachers as a first step toward the (expensive and time consuming) yoga teacher certification process.
Then I made a really big lifestyle change - I decided to have a baby. This completely disrupted my workout habits because for the first three months, I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open at the end of the workday, much less exercise for an hour before going home.
Here’s the next lesson I learned about motivation. Sometimes life will get in the way of what you think your goals are, and you might have to take a few steps back before you can go forward again. During the second and third trimesters of my pregnancy, I walked and took prenatal yoga. I was really easy on my body and never pushed myself very hard. It felt right for me at that time, and I wanted to keep my baby and myself safe and healthy, and my old workouts were too much for that stage of my life. I couldn’t wait to get active again once the baby was born.
Little did I know how hard the recovery from childbirth would be. For the first two weeks after my son was born, I could barely walk. Everything was hard, and everything hurt. Soon I started feeling better, of course, and I’ve been gradually increasing the amount and intensity of exercise I do over the last month or so. And guess what? Exercise is something I’m starting to enjoy again, because I feel so good when I do it. I’m not in as good of shape as I was before I got pregnant, but I will be, and this time it’s going a lot faster and is a lot easier because I’ve done it before and I know that the reward is feeling better and having more energy, not just looking better or wearing a certain jeans size.
My fitness progress
Posted by leah on May 18, 2008
Just a personal check-in. I got weighed because I had to go to the doctor (don’t own a scale, since I don’t like to obsess over a few pounds) and found out I have about 10 pounds to lose if I want to be at my pre-pregnancy weight. Not bad for 10 weeks postpartum, but I had 11 pounds to lose at 6 weeks postpartum, which means my weight loss from nursing has completely stopped.
That’s okay - I’ve recovered enough from the delivery now that I’m gradually starting to exercise more, little by little, so I am probably getting healthier even though not thinner at the moment. But it did make me realize that I should probably not use the 500 calories a day that nursing burns as an excuse to eat as much chocolate as I want…
So I’m making more of an effort to prepare meals at home and include a lot of veggies. I don’t like to deprive myself if I’m craving something, because I’ll eventually cave in and overdo it, so instead I try to eat something healthy first, so that I’m not starving when I indulge. That way I’m more likely to just have one piece of chocolate.
Today I wanted chicken strips, the deep fried kind from the deli counter at the grocery store, so instead of making a whole meal out of that, I cut one into pieces and had it on top of a salad with lettuce, kidney beans, corn, celery, and radishes (the veggies that happened to be in my fridge). So instead of having four chicken strips dipped in 1/4 cup of ranch dressing, I had one chicken strip with two or three servings of veggies and two tablespoons of ranch. It’s not a perfect meal, but it’s a lot healthier than just having the fried chicken and ranch - and it completely satisfied the craving I was having. Plus I still have three chicken strips, so I can have the same salad for the next three days in a row if I want to. Adding lettuce is such a great way to make an unhealthy craving a lot less bad for you - it works for my cheese cravings and my salty carb cravings too - I just substitute some cheese or croutons for the fried chicken. Again, it isn’t perfect - I am still getting some unhealthy saturated fat and/or empty calories - but it’s a lot better than eating what I’m craving without adding veggies to it. If I could find a salad dressing that was healthy that I liked as much as ranch, I’d be all set….
For exercise, what I’m currently doing is sun salutations and some other yoga poses while my son naps sometime in the morning, usually for about 15 minutes, walks with him in the stroller, and dancing around our house holding him (one of his favorite games, especially if I sing along with the music). Then I try to sneak in a minute or two of abs, squats, or other toning exercises here and there throughout the day. It’s not perfect, and I do need to start doing longer workouts again soon, but it’s definite progress from a month ago when I was just starting to take walks, and was pretty tired from the exertion of pushing the stroller a mile or two. Walking is feeling normal and like an easy workout again, and I can definitely tell my arms are getting stronger from doing the sun salutations. My son is able to go longer between feedings than he used to, so hopefully I can start leaving him with my husband so I can do longer workouts, or do a workout DVD when my husband is home to play with him. One thing that is nice about getting back in shape at home, rather than by taking classes at the gym, is that I can completely tailor my workouts to what I need - specific ab exercises designed to help with the muscle separation from pregnancy, back stretches to correct the slumping shoulders I get after carrying the baby for a while, just enough leg work to be a little tired but know I won’t be too sore the next day to want to dance with my son.
Fitness Blog
Posted by leah on May 15, 2008
I found a blog about fitness that you might enjoy reading.
Get Fit Slowly chronicles one man’s progress toward losing weight/getting fit. He is currently training for a marathon, and from the sound of the blog, he’s really getting into good shape. (The author also writes a blog called “Get Rich Slowly” which I’ve been reading on and off for a while.)
Welcome to Health and Fitness
Posted by leah on Apr 29, 2008
Hi, I’m Leah and this is my new blog about health and fitness (you may have guessed that from the name).
I don’t intend this blog to be about losing weight, although I know that is a health goal that many people have. Instead, I will talk about things we could all do to be healthier. These things will probably help you get to a healthier weight if you are currently overweight, but that would be a side effect of generally improving your health.
My qualifications to talk about this stuff: I took two nutrition classes at Cal, and I’ve been certified as a group fitness instructor through the YMCA, although I am not currently teaching any classes. I became pregnant shortly after passing my certification test and decided it wasn’t the best time to add anything to my plate. I’ve been practicing yoga for several years, and hope to become certified as a yoga teacher once my finances and schedule allow me to take the necessary courses. I have taken one yoga teacher class, an anatomy and physiology course specifically designed for yoga teachers. I’ve also attended various fitness classes at my local YMCA for the past three years, including prenatal yoga, body sculpting, belly dancing, several different yoga classes, pilates, and probably a few others that I’m forgetting at the moment.
Fitness has always been an interest of mine. I taught gymnastics classes for young children while I was in high school, and was a member of my school’s diving team. I’ve also spent a lot of time over the years researching fitness and nutrition on my own, reading magazines, internet articles, and books on these topics.
I plan to gain more certifications and take more classes because I’d like to transition out of my current career (in communications) to a career in health and fitness.
As happens to many people, I haven’t made as much time as I should for fitness now that I’m married, working, and have a child, and as a result I’ve gained weight. Before getting pregnant, I had already gained 20 pounds in three years of marriage, and I gained more while I was pregnant. 7 1/2 weeks post-partum, I currently weigh about 25 pounds more than I’d like to, although I only need to lose 5-10 pounds to be back within the healthy weight range for my height. I am determined to get back to a healthy weight, and do it in a healthy way, as opposed to some kind of crash diet or obsessive amounts of exercise.
So, I’m going to write about things anyone can do to improve their health, and try to take my own advice!