A Fitness Bug

This is the second year in a row where I put "loose weight" on my goals…

As you can tell, I didn’t progress much last year. The last time I blogged was the end of November.

So here I am 3 months later. The ten pounds I lost… well I gained 5lbs back after the Holidays. I guess I’m still 5lbs ahead.

I put together 6 weeks of meal plans so I wouldn’t need to think about what to eat. Even put together shopping list. There is one downfall with all that… I hate cooking… I can’t stand being in the kitchen. After two weeks of spending about 2 hours a day in the kitchen prepping and cooking meals… I loose it.

Then it’s take out time. No way am I going back into that kitchen to cook. Given my circumstances, 2 hours a day for 14 days in a row is a breakthrough.

Then I realized maybe I’m focusing on the wrong thing here.

While organizing and cleaning up my office in Dec, I came across the notes from a mentor of mine many years ago. One of those note pages talked about habits. We are all disciplined to our current set of habits. You can’t get any more disciplined then you already are because your current set of habits feel comfortable and natural.

It also takes about 21 days to form a new habit. If you pick a pivotal habit, you’ll change a lot of other habits.

I wasn’t always overweight, so what happened. Illness caused me to gain weight. I’ll go into that story later.

I lost the habit of working out. Didn’t loose the habit of cooking.

I’m overweight and out of shape. It’s cold and snowy outside so the idea of walking didn’t appeal to me right now. Need something I could do that wouldn’t get interrupted by weather. The idea is to form the habit. What is the easiest way to do it.

Reading through The Fit Chic and Success Tip #10 caught my attention: Ease into Your Workout Program.

That’s when the light bulb came on. Don’t worry about food right now. Focus on regaining the habit of working out.

3 weeks ago I began working out.

First week.

Focus on doing something. Don’t worry about the length of time. First thing in the morning I did 50 stomach crunches. That’s all and at the end of the week I did 75. Taking Sunday off

Second week.

Work out for 5 minutes. I do the 75 stomach exercises and add a series of stretching exercises. Oh man, no more flexibility. WOW… Ouch… At one time I could sit spread eagle and touch my head to the floor. Keep stretching until the timer goes off. By the end of the week, I developed a set of series of stretching exercises that fill up the 5 minutes. I also gained more flexibility. Take Sunday off

Third week

This is were I am right now. I repeat the above and add 5 minutes of marching in place. Monday I could barely get through it. Huffing and puffing when the timer goes off. Today I’m not huffing and puffing as much. Still wiping me out. I notice feeling more energized in the morning.

Going from Fit to Ill - Part 1

Ever since high school, I engaged in some type of exercise routine. Started out with yoga and joined Elaine Powers shortly after graduation. (that dated myself didn’t it) I avidly worked out 3-4x a week for eons.

Actually until Elaine Powers closed it doors. Where upon I bought a work bench for strength training and began walking. Soon worked my way to power walking 3-4x a week, doing 5 miles in an hour.

Even the demands from my new business couldn’t keep me from those walks.

But something happened, while my business success climbed, my health declined.

By the third year of my business, all my energy disappeared. I could barely get out of bed. All my joints ached, barely walk, sit or move. Chronically getting ill and gained weight very fast, even when I could still work out.

One morning while getting ready to take my daughter to school, I experienced an extreme shooting pain through my back and down my legs. I collapsed on the floor unable to move. A very frighten Allyce called her dad at work.

He came home immediately and couldn’t get me off the floor. Soon an ambulance whisked me away to the hospital.

Thus began a battery of test to figure out what happened.

Enough Stalling… Time to Get Fit

Ann Rusnak ~ The Time Diva here…

I set an aspiration to get healthy… part of that included getting this weight of my body. The weight gain resulted from illness. This extra poundage really bugs me…

I"ll go into my story later… Right now I want to get something up here and get going or this weight will "never" come off. Start taking action.

This past year, I resolved to get fit.

The first step begins with identifying what will hold me back. I come up with three culprits that could sabotage my success.

The #1 thing…

I Hate to Cook… I Hate the Kitchen

I plan every area of my life except anything to with meals and the kitchen. I’d rather get in the car and drive to Chipotle’s, get soft tacos to go and head back home before going into the kitchen to cook.

Without working out, running to Chipotle’s isn’t a good idea.

Okay… I whipped up a batch of Margarita’s and took a day to put together 4 weeks of menus along with the shopping list together. I just rotate the menus and print the shopping list.

That helped… lost 10 lbs but weight loss stalled… which brings me to the other…

Two culprits… Inconsistency and No Accountability.

I figured if I would journal about my fitness journey, it would make me accountable and eliminate inconsistency in my quest.

I’ll be sharing my ups and downs, what’s working, what’s not and resources that delivered results.

First, I want to thank

Scott Tousignant, The Fit Bastard, for the kick in the butt to get going.

Scott and I belong to Business Owners Coaching Club. When I shared in our mastermind group that I planned on blogging my weight off, he generously shared his programs with me.

I reviewed all his stuff… great stuff… and I’m going with The Fit Chick and will listen to the motivational stories from Unstoppable Fat Loss.

He shared another resource with me that he and wife started doing with good success. I just ordered and downloaded it.