2 years of exercise with the last 6 months of frustration

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this month and the one special thing it means to me. See, as of this month i have been working out consistently for 2 years. I have never worked out for 2 years straight without a break of at least 2 weeks. I always slacked off at some point and going into this, I unfortunately expected to do the same. In the last 2 years though, I haven't slacked off. It started at 4-5 days a week and has grown to 6 days a week with a couple of exceptions for vacation and business trips. Even on vacation and during business trips, I try to squeeze in workouts every time I can. When I went to the Venetian in Las Vegas last Spring, I knew I wasn't willing to pay the outrageous amount they were asking for their gym...so I brought my Perfect Pushups and did those plus some in place cardio and ab workouts.

People often ask about results and I am pretty happy with mine. You have to first understand that my primary goal when I began was not to lose weight. I had started and failed at that goal way too often. I didn't want to go on a special diet that I would eventually fall off the bandwagon. Instead, my goal was to be able to be active with my family again. You might remember when I wrote extensively about this goal in January of 2008 when it seemed to be working. I didn't want to have to hesitate when doing something active with my girls. I didn't want to make an excuse when asked to help a friend and I thought I was too out of shape to help them. I wanted my daughters to grow up in a physically active and healthy environment.

Within one year of having a normal exercise routine, I was comfortable doing whatever. I wrote extensively about that last October. I was able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted at the time. In that first year I had lost 40 lbs without going on a diet and I felt great.

One might expect similar success this past year. But in the past 6 months, I have had to deal with a lot of frustration. From that October timeframe til April, I gained about 15 lbs back, theoretically all muscle. Then, in May, I went to Las Vegas for a business trip...the one I mentioned above. Two of my good friends went with me and we were supposed to go indoor skydiving. The indoor skydiving place put us on a scale when signing in and I weighed too much to do it. I had been looking forward to it for weeks and I couldn't do it because my weight. This was the first time since I was back in shape I couldn't do something I wanted to do because of my body. It wasn't that I wasn't in shape...it was just I weighed too much.

Since that point I have had nothing but frustration with myself. I have been pretty hard on myself as my wife would probably attest. My goal is and has been to be in good enough shape to do whatever I want to do. But it wasn't about physical fitness, it was about weight. Unfortunately I don't have the answer to my frustration. I know how I can lose weight, either by focussing on pure cardio and not building muscle or by going on a diet.

Until I find an answer I will make my primary goal to stay in healthy enough shape to do whatever I want. I do have a secondary goal to lose enough weight to do the indoor skydiving I missed out on last next May when i am back in Las Vegas. However, I don't plan on altering my diet or exercise routine, so I don't know if this is feasible. However, since May i have lost another 5 lbs.

For now, I will be bouncing in inflatable toys with my girls - something I wouldn't have felt as comfortable doing two years ago:

Motivation for working out again?

Since writing last about working out and the success I have enjoyed in the past year, I am struggling again with motivation which is my original topic and issue. I still feel as though I have a ways to go before I am in the shape I desire to be in.... but once that occurs...where do I go? I think it was considerably easier to get the motivation to get into shape or back into shape than it is to maintain that shape.

One of the things I have been realizing is that most of my life when getting in shape it was for a particular reason. The reality of my life and body style is that in order to stay in shape I will/would have to consistently exercise for the rest of my life. Do I like working out that much? No. So, how do you get the motivation or mentality that you can do this the rest of your life?

First, let's review my current motivation:
1) To be able to do active things with my family
2) Self-image, particularly how I view myself for my wife
3) Having that personal time every morning

#1 and #2 are not going to be as strong as I get in better shape. So, I have been working on a list of new things that could help motivate me that I can try to use:

1) A yearly athletic event or trip such as backpacking, triathlons, whatever
2) Regular sports that I would like to be competitive at

So, all I have been able to think of is that I need to have something I shoot for year to year. What else can I use otherwise? I am thinking I may have to find something to focus on year to year otherwise.

Before 7 AM

So, I wanted to update my blog about working out but its been very difficult to write about. In January, I wrote about my new motivation for working out and I am still happy with what I wrote there. However, after a year there is a bit more to it all and I thought I should write an update. Its not that I don't want to talk about my work outs, but I don't want to be one of those people who makes others feel like they should be working out if they are not. So, realize this is me trying to put some perspective on whats been going on with my working out since January when I last wrote.

As I wrote in January, I started working out again consistently in September of 2007. While it was difficult at first, I was able to establish an effective routine that has worked well. I started by consistently getting to the gym 4-5 days a week. By January I was averaging 5. In May, I switched gyms to Snap Fitness which is in a plaza very close to my house that provides 24/7 access. This has made the trips to the gym substantially more streamlined as well as allowing me to go whenever works best for me. I now go to the gym 6 days a week on average. The majority of days, I wake up at 5:15 AM and have hit the gym, went home, cleaned up, and left for work by 7 AM. As I stated in my previous blog, this time works best as I am not stealing time from my family.

I did however realize I am stealing time from my wife and I. When Heather and I finally get the kids to bed, its around 8:30. This gives us about an hour to talk as adults and spend together before its off to bed and to wake up again. About 2 weeks ago, we decided we would now reserve Friday nights as our nights so we could have some more adult time and catch up. Although, this didn't work last week (the first Friday after the decision) as Heather was at the hospital with Suzanne and Lily...and it won't work this Friday as its Anna's second birthday....but we hope we can save Fridays after that!

My primary motivation is still to have the flexibility to do whatever whenever with my family. When I realized that I was in such bad shape that I started to either not participate or did not feel comfortable as I participated in activities with my daughter, I knew something had to change. Of course, I am not purely motivated by that. Self-image is a great motivation. Although honestly, alone I don't think self-image is enough...partially because Heather does a good job of reaffirming her love for me no matter what i have looked like. Self-image wouldn't keep me going but it does help serve as yet another good reason.

I still haven't gone on a diet. Sure, I have tried to avoid some of the bad stuff, but I have not dieted at all. Why? Its because I love food and know that going on a diet for me will not last. I want to get to a place where I am comfortable without having to be on a constant diet or a roller coaster of diets. All that said, I have tried to cut down how much I eat over time..just not focussing so much on what I eat.

Starting about 4 months ago in June, Heather started also going to Snap Fitness. Our schedule is that I wake up, go to the gym, come home and she goes to the gym. While she is working out I eat, clean up, dress, check my email, etc..and still normally leave before 7 AM. Heather looks great and most people can't believe she had a baby less than 6 months earlier. I think she is absolutely back to pre-Anna form. Having Heather go right after me is another motivation for me. I know if I don't go, she may not go. I also know that whats best for our combined health is for me to go. This has been an uplifting motivation I didn't expect. It also has helped drive me to that extra day a week working out.

What else can I say? In the past year I have lost weight, become more healthy, dropped a couple pant sizes, and feel good about myself. I feel like I can do anything with my girls...whether that is climbing up on to a pirate ship (from September):

or sliding down a huge slide at a farm (from October)


Would I have done these things before? Probably. Do I feel better and more comfortable about doing this and anything else now? Definitely!

Here is a picture of me from March 2007 with Anna and from this month with Madelyn. Both times, the girls were about 5 months. The facial hair throws the direct comparison off, but I feel good about the shape I am now in...and feel like I can still do more.

Krispy Kreme Challenge

I read this blog posting and just had to share it. Over 3,000 people did the Krispy Kreme Challenge Run today in downtown Raleigh. This is a 4 mile run broken up in the middle with eating 12 donuts. Runners that lose the donuts on the 2 miles after eating 12 donuts are disqualified.

The most amazing thing to me is the fact that this took one guy, Philip Curley, just over 31 minutes to run two miles, eat 12 donuts, and run another two miles. Let's assume that he was running a 6 minute mile pace, he plowed 12 donuts down in about 7 minutes. I might be able to eat 12 donuts in 7 minutes before I can run 4 miles at a 6 minute mile pace :-)

Some race stats quoted from the blog posting:

2,400 calories
4 miles
12 donuts
1 hour
In order, those numbers refer to: number of calories eaten, distance ran, number of glazed donuts consumed, time alloted to complete the challenge. Some other key stats from the race:
31:20 — Winning time, registered by Philip Curley
10 — No. of runners for the first Krispy Kreme Challenge, in 2005.
3,035 — Number of registered runners for this year's race.
$20,000 — Money raised by the event for the North Carolina Children's Hospital
36,420 — Number of donuts prepared for the event
144 — No. of grams of fat in a dozen donuts (more than twice the recommended daily allowance)
2 — No. of minutes it took Dylan Selinger, a sophomore majoring in business at N.C. State to eat his 12 donuts
12 — No. of plastic lined trash cans awaiting runners at the finish line

Establishing effective habits

The talk of the gym this week has been the fact that the gym was deserted...the New Year's Resolutionists were gone. One of the other guys at the gym suggested that the saddest thing was that many of them were so close to forming a true habit and that it takes 21 days to establish a habit. I thought that was interesting, only 21 days? That should help people survive a little longer. I found that 21 day claim on Google Answers.

This is useful information. Its useful if you are trying to get in the habit of exercising. Its useful if you are starting your journey to financial peace. But, this begs the question, if you know that something should be a habit 21 days later...do you get discouraged if its still difficult? I wonder..and with my new year's resolutions, I will try this out.

If you need to find some more habits to develop, I suggest the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Be Proactive, Begin with the End in mind, First Things First, Think Win Win, Seek First to Understand, Synergize, and Sharpen the Saw. I personally have never figured out how to Begin with the End in mind but put First things First. :-)

Working out? Whats your motivation?

In the packed gym (but numbers are already dwindling) this morning I overheard a conversation that really got me thinking...thinking enough to blog about it. The conversation went something like this:
Really Muscular Guy: "Good to see you at the gym this morning"
Groggy slightly overweight guy: "Yea"
Really Muscular Guy: "Whats your motivation?"
Groggy slightly overweight guy: "To lose weight"

So, this was at the start of my workout, about 5:45 AM. I had the rest of the workout, the time getting ready for work, and the commute into work to think about this question...about another 2 hours. You hear a lot that losing weight is the most popular New Year's resolution...to drop. So, why is that?

Judging from my personal experience over the past 5 years, I think the problem is one of motivation. If you goal is to lose weight, what happens when you have done that? Or what happens when you hit that first wall. Anyone could watch the Biggest Loser and tell you that everyone, even with personal trainers, will hit walls when trying to lose weight. If that is your only goal, I think you can plan on having that goal pop up on your radar every couple years for the rest of your life.

In my own personal life, I have jumped on and off the workout wagon about 6 times in the past 5 yrs. On my current track, I have been going at 5:30 AM every morning for the past 4 months. Its probably the second longest streak in my short life, the longest was solidly from April 2001 to about January 2002. I stopped after that 1.5 years because more of my time was being spent with my then bride-to-be and I wanted to keep her as number one in my life. Plus, with everything I had going on, it was the lowest priority and I guess I just no longer had the motivation.

I started up from time to time with the motivation of losing weight or getting in shape, with no real goals. Those typically failed from the start as I failed to establish a routine. When my daughter was born in October of 2006, I started to again thought about working out but couldn't fit it in the weekdays as I didn't want to lose what precious time I had with her. I mean, she is awake from 8 AM to 1 PM and 3 PM to 8 PM roughly...that means I only get about 5-8 PM with her if I am lucky and then the rest of the night with my wife!

But, this fall I found new motivation. I realized that the lifestyle I wanted for my new growing family was a lifestyle of fun activity. I didn't want to risk getting into a position where I was too out of shape to go hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, or biking with my family. I want my family to be a family of adventure and a family of activity, not one that watches a TV show together but one that explores God's great creation with one another. I want to be as healthy as possible so in the years I have with them, we can do these things with one another. There is my motivation, its all I need. I don't care what weight I am, I just want to be in shape to experience life with my family to the extreme. I don't want to be the man on the couch, I want to be this man:


Over this Christmas vacation I had, we were blessed to have my mother here for a bit. Together, we looked through thousands of pictures my father had scanned from slide format. With long time friends of my parents over one day after Christmas, we showed them some of the old pictures. They commented about how our family was the family always at parks, camping and hiking. I have many fond memories of camping with my family. Here are some from when I was 5 months old and my sister 4 yrs old...



I am motivated to have the same for my family. I want to be in the physical condition such that my children can experience that. There is my motivation for the new year.

Back in shape

With the goal to get back in shape, I am working out a lot again. A couple of observations:
1) Every year you wait it gets tougher.
2) My definition of "in shape" is different than it used to be.
3) I need to not stop again...

First, every year it gets tougher. Its true..your body just can't recover from muscle pulls, cramps, and just from the overall stress of working out. I remember when i started working out again after about a 3 yr hiatis (sp?) when I was 21. In 2 weeks, I was on my my way. Now that I am 27 and have had a 3 yr hiatis again, I am still struggling to get a second set of any muscle group in. The wall is a lot closer.

The other thing is my definition of in shape has definitely changed. It used to be, "muscles, muscles, muscles." And, I had them. But now, whether it is my age, maturity, or fact I have a wife and a kid on the way, the bigger concentration is now "cardio, cardio, muscles." Why cardio? Well, for me its not so much about losing weight, although that would be nice. For me its about health. I am a big built guy, always have been and as far as I can figure it, always will be. Even in my worst shape, I had to wear "athletic cut" suit/tux jackets because my shoulders were so much bigger than my gut. While my frame/bone structure can handle me being bigger, the reality for me is that my heart may not be able to. I need to keep it in shape.

Finally, I need to keep the momentum going and not stop. This has been painful and every time I do it it gets worse. I need to keep going...and hopefully, Lord willing, I will be able to.