Mistake Number 1:  The All or Nothing Approach

Most of us think of exercise as an event, something to be planned and scheduled like a lunch meeting.  And like a lunch meeting, if something comes up or if we run late, we cancel and reschedule.  In other words, we tend to take an “all or nothing” approach to exercise – we either do it (we “made” the appointment), or we don’t (we “cancel” the appointment).

I know, I know.  It’s really hard NOT to think of exercise as an event.  You DO have to prepare for it.  You’ve got to pack your gym bag making sure you’ve got clean socks, shorts, a towel, and so on.  You’ve got to change into your exercise “uniform” and make sure your MP3 player is loaded with your latest “power song.”  You’ve got to put on the weight lifting gloves or the wrist and head bands.  Geez, there’s a lot of stuff you’ve got to do before you exercise!  You can’t just run out and, what, start running?  (Remember the scene in Forest Gump when he’s sitting on his porch and decides to just get up and run?  Yeah, I know.  We can’t do that.)

It’s easy to see why so many of us skip exercise altogether just because we can’t find a clean pair of gym socks (you know the ones, the special moisture-wicking, all natural organic fiber, $30 a pair, “makes my feet feel happy” pair).  If you put so much effort into planning to exercise, you’re much more likely to forget the whole thing if any part of the planning process goes wrong.

Another problem with seeing exercise as an event is that we want to impose a start time and an end time.  We want to look at our calendar and see “Exercise 5:30 to 6:30 pm.”  We don’t want to think about exercise until 5:30 and we don’t want to think about exercise after 6:30.  We want to treat it like a dentist appointment – something we just have to do and get over as quickly as possible.  After all, you’ve got to pack all your stuff (hassle), change into your workout clothes (hassle), exercise, then shower (hassle), change into your street clothes (hassle), and then pack up all your wet workout clothes and rush home (hassle, hassle, hassle).

Little wonder we look for reasons to skip exercising.  And take it from me (a Master Excuse Maker), perfectly legitimate excuses, I mean reasons, are not hard to find.

But exercise is not an all-or-nothing event.  Exercise can be incorporated into just about any activity and research has shown that as little as 10 minutes of exercise can provide important health benefits.  It can be as simple as taking the stairs at the office or at the mall.

Other suggestions can include:

• Look for ways to incorporate exercise into your daily activities. Walking or biking to nearby places instead of driving, for example, or actually walking the dog instead of simply letting them run out the back door.
• Break up your “all-out-hard-core-sweat-a-gallon” workout session into smaller, more frequent sessions throughout the day. Lunges or squats can be done anytime, and anywhere, and don’t require any equipment.  Dropping down behind your desk and doing 10 slow-and-easy push-ups will still strengthen your arms but won’t require your usual jacuzzi-sauna-shower after-workout ritual.
• Become more active in general. Stay on your feet when taking phone calls or when reading paperwork.  Walk down the hall to talk to a coworker instead of using the phone or email.  Use resistance bands while you’re watching TV.  In short, stay off your butt as much as possible throughout the day.
• Change your attitude. Exercise is not an event, it’s a lifestyle.  It’s something that’s just part of you, not something you plan or schedule.

Nike has the right idea – Just Do It!  Forget the all-or-nothing attitude.  If something comes up and you can’t exercise for an hour like you had planned, go ahead and exercise in whatever time you have available.  Then find 10 or 15 minutes later on and exercise some more.

If you adopt the attitude that exercise is something you do rather than something you plan, you’ll soon find yourself in great shape.

Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach and
Personal Fitness Trainer (NESTA)

P.S.  Be sure to get my latest Fitness Blueprint called “Little Things That Improve Your Health.”  This ebook is packed with loads of helpful information on how to build a better body and you can get it FREE – for a limited time.  Just click on the title to be taken to the download page.  Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: exercise, fitness, balanced health, attitude, gym, weight

Related posts:

1. Fat Burning Exercise with Weights
2. Weight Loss: Diet or Exercise?

I recently purchased a Polar F11 fitness monitor and it’s totally changed my workouts!  This wrist unit not only keeps track of my heart rate (which is an indication of how hard you’re pushing yourself), it estimates the number of calories I’ve burned during the session.

The best part is that I can upload all of that information to a website that keeps track of all of my workouts.  Instantly, I can see how many times I worked out this week, how many calories I burned, the total amount of time I spent exercising, and a number of other things.  How cool is that?

Not only that, …

I can also schedule, or set goals, for future workouts.  The website can even design an exercise program for me.  All I have to do is tell it how many times I want to work out during a week and it does the rest.  As you can see from the screenshots, the website displays the entire week with all of my workout sessions listed.

When I click on a specific workout, the site gives me a bar chart telling me my maximum heart rate, my average heart rate, and how much time I spent in each zone.

The neat part is that since I’ve started using the Polar F11 and uploading my workout info, I’ve literally been looking for chances to “fill up my calendar” with workouts.  It really motivates you to workout so you can get “something on the board.”

As if that wasn’t enough motivation, you can also participate in “challenges.”  A challenge is a goal that someone sets, for example “to see who can burn the greatest number of calories in a 2 month period,” that several people can participate in.  When you accept a challenge, your workout information is automatically included on the challenge site. 

When you go to the challenge site, you’ll see a bar chart with all of the people that have accepted the challenge as well as their progress.  It also tells you what your current standing in the group is.  There’s no better motivation to get an extra workout in than a little competition.

The range of features on these types of fitness monitors is pretty extensive, as are the prices so do a little bit of research before you decide on one.  Some, like the Polar F11, only measure heart rate.  Others designed specifically for runners and/or cyclists contain a GPS device so you can measure exactly how far you’ve run or biked as well as the speed.

The more popular fitness monitors tend to be manufactured by:

• Polar Fitness – a broad range of fitness monitors for running, cycling, and sports
• Nike – makers of the Nike+ for the iPod as well as more traditional fitness monitors
• Garmin – GPS enabled monitors for running and cycling

All three manufactures have a training website that allows you to upload and view your workout information.  However, only certain models from each manufacturer have Internet uploading capability so make sure you check before you purchase.

So if you’re the type of person that gets a real thrill from “putting some numbers up on the big board,” then using a system like this will probably work for you.  As I’ve already mentioned, it’s motivated me to go out and exercise because I didn’t want there to be any days without some sort of activity in my online workout diary.  Plus, I didn’t want to start lagging behind on some of the challenges that I’m part of.

When you know how many calories you’ve burned, it makes you want to go out and burn some more!

Hiram
The Balanced Health Guy
Certified Fitness Nutrition Coach (NESTA)

Technorati Tags: fitness monitor, heart rate, balanced health, healthy, fitness, polar, nike, garmin, watch, bpm, sports, exercise

You might also be interested in the following items from Amazon.com:

Gruve Personal Activity Monitor, White/Gray

• Personalized to your specific calorie burn rate
• Real time feedback through colored lights
• Sendentary behavior vibration reminds you to move
• Easily syncs with pcs running windows xp, vista and windows 7
• Price includes gruve, 1 year subscription to gruve online and access to the gruve guide

Gruve is an unprecedented, personalized, scientifically proven solution that enables healthy, sustainable weight loss. wear your gruve all day and learn how to increase your daily activity, burn more calories and reach your personal health goals. sync your gruve with gruve online to view your calorie burn and activity intensity. log into gruve online and notice that your daily burn goal has been set based on a number of personal factors, not some generic formula like other programs. losing weight is as simple as reaching your get to greentm goal each day. included with your 1 year gruve subscription is the 12 week gruve guide which provides you with the education, motivation and support you need to make long term, sustainable behavior ch

Rating: (out of 23 reviews)

List Price: $ 199.95

Price: $ 179.95

Garmin FR60 Men’s Red Fitness Watch (Includes Heart Rate Monitor and USB ANT Stick)

• Bundle includes FR60, heart rate monitor, USB ANT Stick, quick start manual
• Water resistant to 50 meters
• Can be used for running, cycling and other fitness activities calculating time, heart rate and distance
• ANT+ technology: Wirelessly connect to heart rate monitor, foot pod and speed cadence sensor, then share fitness data with your computer
• Battery life: One year, user-replaceable coin cell battery

Log every mile and every minute with FR60, a sleek fitness watch plus workout tool that tracks your time, heart rate and calories burned. When bundled with the wireless foot pod (not included), FR60 also tracks speed and distance, indoors or out. Use FR60′s training tools to get the most out of your workout. Then, FR60 wirelessly sends your workout data to your computer for later analysis. Garmin Forerunner 60 (Men’s Red)
Flexible digital heart rate monitor provides instant feedback about how hard you’re working. Once you’ve logged the miles, FR60 automatically transfers data to your PC or Mac, wirelessly when in range. Train Indoors or Out
In the gym or on the road, FR60 tracks all your workout data, includ

Rating: (out of 57 reviews)

List Price: $ 149.99

Price:

Related posts:

1. The Importance of Cardio in Your Workout
2. What Is “Balanced” Health and Fitness?
3. Fitness Experts and Ancient Mariners

I’ve kept a journal since my early 20′s.  Believe me, there’s nothing more interesting than going back and reading what I wrote (and was like) 20 or 30 years ago.  You can see the things in your life that have changed, the things that have entered your life and then left again, and the things that have pretty much stayed the same.  It’s a history of how you’ve lived your life.  It shows you exactly “where all the time went.”

The Importance of Keeping a Journal.

Why do I believe that keeping a journal is important?  Because your life is worth recording.  Yes, I know that it’s easier to break out the camera during holidays and special events.  Yes, I know that a picture is worth a thousand words.  However, there is one important thing that pictures do not capture:  your feelings.

Having a picture of your newborn grandchild is nice.  However, reading (and re-reading) in your journal how it felt to hold your grandchild in your arms for the first time will bring back a flood of memories that no picture can ever match.

When you look at a picture, you remember the moment.  When you read an entry in your journal, you re-live the moment.  There’s a huge difference.

That’s why you need to keep a journal.

What to Put in Your Journal.

Most people stress over what to put in their journal.  Don’t.  First of all, your journal is for you.  No one else will ever read it unless you allow them to so don’t worry about spelling, sentence structure, or anything else.

Here are a couple of things I include in my journal:

1.  Random Thoughts. Anything from “buy low, sell high” to “God is love and God lives in me.”  From the silly to the profound, it goes in my journal.  You’d be surprised how often something that seemed completely ridiculous at the time all of a sudden had some deep meaning when I went back and re-read it later.

2.  Events and Feelings. Record the important events and more importantly, how they made you feel.  Don’t worry about completely describing the event, that’s what pictures and videos are for.  Instead, focus on describing your feelings, thoughts, and emotions.  For example, I have all kinds of pictures of my first grandchild but what I remember most are the intense feelings of hope, tenderness, pride, and overwhelming love that I felt when I held him and he first looked up at me.

3.  Exercise, Nutrition, and Sleep. Although many people keep a separate exercise and/or food journal, there’s no reason not to have everything in one place.  The important thing is that you keep track of whether or not you’re exercising consistently, whether or not you’re eating properly, and whether or not you’re getting enough rest.  If not, your journal will help you see exactly where you went off track.

4.  Your Goals, Hopes, and Dreams. Make sure you make a record of what you’d like your future to be like.  What would you like to have, to do, to be?  Reading my past goals usually brings mixed emotions.  Sometimes I get frustrated because I haven’t reached some of my goals.  Other times I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I have accomplished most of what I said I would (sometimes without even knowing it).  And some times, I realize that some of what I said I wanted is no longer desirable.

Review Your Journal Periodically.

Remember when you were growing up and your parents would stand you up straight against a wall or a door frame and mark how much you’d grown?  Remember how good it made you feel when you turned around and saw that the new mark was higher than your old one?  That’s how reviewing your journal makes you feel.  You can actually SEE your progress.

When you review some of your past entries, not only will you re-live some of the more significant moments of your life, you’ll also see how much you’ve grown, how much you’ve changed, how much more you’ve become. You’ll get this incredible feeling that “if I’ve come this far, there’s nothing I can’t do!”

My Challenge To You.

In order for your journal to work for you, you have to make writing in it a habit.  One of the best things I ever did in 2007 was to purchase one of those “daily diaries.”  It’s basically a calendar with one page for each day.  My goal was to fill it up – and I actually did.  Most of my entries are only 1 or 2 paragraphs so it never took more than 5 or 10 minutes each day.  However, I can now look back and see exactly what I was doing/thinking/feeling on this same day a year ago.  It’s kind of neat to be able to do that – and it shows you a lot about how you’re living your life.

My challenge to you is to do the same. Go out today and purchase a yearly “daily dairy” calendar that has one page for each day of whatever size will be convenient for you.  Then at the end of each day, spend no more than 5 or 10 minutes describing what you did, what you thought, or what you felt that day.  An alternative is to make your journal entries in the morning for the previous day but I’ve found that when you do this, a lot of things tend to get forgotten.  However, the important thing is to write something every single day.

So will you do it?  Are you up to the challenge?  I guarantee that it will change your life. How?  By seeing where you’ve been and how you’ve lived, you’ll begin to make better choices for the future.  When you do that, your future changes.  You’ll no longer be caught in the vicious cycle of doing something stupid, feeling bad about it, forgetting about it, and then doing it all over again.  You’ll see a written record of your progress.

Keeping a journal is one of the best things you can do to bring balance to your life.  So what are you waiting for?

Hiram
The Balanced Health Guy

Technorati Tags: journal, writing, diary, balance, calendar, daily record, meditation, memory, memories, thoughts

No related posts.