Fitness Obstacles May 4, 2006
Way back in December 2005, I wrote a post about problems I’ve had with maintaining a regular exercise routine: I Want To Be Fit. I’d been planning to come back and flesh out each of those obstacles, but I’ve only just now gotten around to it. I’m sure most readers will be able to relate to at least a couple of these problem areas.
I’ll explain what I mean by each of the problems in a series of blog entries over the next week or so, and after that I’ll write a series of posts about strategies I’ve tried to deal with each of them, what worked, and what didn’t.
It’s now 5 months later, I’m 15 kg (33 lbs) lighter, and I’m still exercising regularly, so it goes without saying that these strategies are working for me. Maybe they’ll work for you too.
This entry will serve as an anchor point for the posts to come, and the links below will be updated each time a new entry is posted.
If you can think of any other obstacles I haven’t covered, please do add them as comments below and I’ll write them up too.
Technorati Tags: fitness obstacles, fitness motivation, fitness, exercise, time, boredom, guilt, laziness, feedback, weight loss, workout, motivation
Easter Weight Gain! April 19, 2006
So, how did everyone go with their diets over Easter?
I put on nearly 2 kg (4.4 lbs)! Although my weighted average is only showing about 0.1 kg (0.22 lbs) gain. I hate seeing that red on the graph, and will be working extra hard to try to get the weight back down before the end of the week.
Easter turned out to be a perfect storm of calories this year. Last weekend was my daughter’s first birthday party, and that involved a lot of junk food and leftovers for the following week. We were also going away for 5 days over Easter, so we had to eat down the food in the fridge and cupboards.
We stayed with friends for 5 days over Easter. They own a restaurant out in the country, and are fantastic chefs, so we ate a lot of cooked breakfasts, roast lunches and dinners, huge BBQ steaks, delicious desserts, etc. We also visited an open day at a local winery, attended the town’s annual festival, drank a lot, ate tons of chocolate, and enjoyed their daughter’s seventh birthday party.
I took my running gear with me, thinking it’d be really nice to jog on the flat country roads (my coastal town is very hilly). Between looking after the kids, the late nights, the alcohol consumption, and the chilly autumn mornings, I didn’t get out for a run even once!
I decided early on to just ditch the diet for this past week. I knew I’d probably gain a couple of kilos, but it would be worth it to spend quality time with friends we see only a couple of times a year, and to enjoy Easter, the parties and the festivals with our kids. It’ll take me a couple of weeks to burn those kilos back down, but that’s OK. Sometimes you just have to enjoy life!
Technorati Tags: weight loss, dieting, chocolate, Easter, weight gain
Weekly Weigh-In 2006-02-05 February 5, 2006
Current Weight: 104.7 (230.8 lbs)- Lost this week: 0.8 kg (1.7 lbs)
- Total lost to date: 5.3 kg (11.7 lbs)
- Number of days exercised: 4
I’m still making good progress, but I’m finding it hard to reach my target of 1kg (2.2 lbs) of weight loss per week. It’s always the weekends that beat me!
This weekend we spent three days away with friends in a quiet little village down the coast. We had all the usual derailing factors – beer and wine, peanuts, chips, cooked breakfasts, crackers and dips, ice cream, etc – plus I wasn’t able to take a decent stroller to take G for walks with me. We also stayed up late both nights, so I probably wouldn’t have gotten up early to go walking anyway 
. So that was three days of no exercise this week.
I really need to get my weekends under control. My weight loss graph always kicks up slightly every weekend, slowing my progress. If I could maintain my discipline through the weekend, I’d lose an extra 0.2 – 0.4 kg (0.4 – 0.9 lbs) per week! That’s got to be worth trying for!
That said, I was actually a little surprised that my weekend blowout didn’t derail me more than it did. My daily weight measurement today only jumped 1 kg (2.2 lbs) compared to Friday’s measurement. Given the amount of junk I ate, I think I got off lightly!
Technorati Tags: weight loss, diet, exercise, fat
iPod – My Smallest Piece of Exercise Equipment December 13, 2005
I walked again this morning, and actually enjoyed it.
Finding Time
Getting up at 5:30am seems to solve my Time- and Guilt-based aversions to exercise. I’ve found the extra half-hour in my day by simply getting up earlier, and so far it doesn’t seem to require me going to bed earlier at night. And I don’t feel guilty about leaving my wife at home to get the kids ready without help, since they’re all still in bed at that time (including her!).
Dealing With Boredom
But the big killer for me in the past has been Boredom. There just isn’t enough interest in plain old walking to keep me motivated day after day, week after week. Sure, you can vary your route on different days, but it’s still pretty uninteresting.
I’ve found a solution that’s working for me, though, and it might also work for you.
Audio Books
I have a half-hour drive to work every day, which is normally pretty much dead time. There’s not a lot you can do in a car to use that time productively, so you end up just listening to mindless radio. Then a couple of years ago I discovered the audio book section in my local library, and tried listening to books on the way to work. It turns out to be a great use of that time! I was getting through a full book every week or two.
Podcasts
About a year ago I started downloading and listening to podcasts, which were even better as they were directly related to my own interests – most of the books on tape were targeted to the older residents of our town, and I’d already been through most of the ones that really interested me.
So, I’m taking my iPod out with me in the mornings and listening to podcasts that I’m really interested in. Walking is no longer boring – it’s like I’m getting up half an hour early to listen to podcasts while my body goes for a walk.
Banish Laziness Too!
As an unexpected side effect, listening to podcasts also helps me with my Laziness problem. Each episode of a podcast is usually 10 minutes to an hour long, so it’s pretty rare that I finish an episode just as I get home (whether driving or walking). Each morning, I’m keen to get up and get out walking because I’m interested to hear the rest of the episode. Today I even kept walking for about 10 minutes longer because I wanted to keep listening.
Finding Podcasts
To find podcasts, just install Apple’s iTunes (available for Windows or Mac) and click on the Podcasts tab. You can learn more about using iTunes for listening to podcasts at the Apple web site. Or if you don’t want to use iTunes, read about podcasting at Wikipedia, download an alternative podcatching client, and search for podcasts at Podcast Alley.
Other Sources of Audio
If you can’t find any podcasts you’re interested in, or you don’t have broadband and so can’t download them, try audio books. Most libraries have them tucked away somewhere, and it really isn’t hard to rip the CDs into your iPod so you can listen to them more easily. You can purchase audio books online via the iTunes Music Store or somewhere like Audible.com. You could also purchase used audio books on CD from eBay, and then sell them again after you’ve listened to them.
I Want To Be Fit December 11, 2005
I’ve made the decision that I want to be fitter.
I don’t like being tired when I’m running around with my kids. I don’t like the creaking and groaning and effort involved in getting down on the floor to play with them, and getting up again afterwards. I know I need to do regular exercise to stay healthy.
Until now, I’ve had a few problems with sustaining regular exercise:
- Time: I have three daughters, G (3 years old), S (2 years old) and H (8 months old). Any parent will understand the workload that involves, and the difficulty I have finding time for any kind of regular exercise. In addition to that, G (the eldest) has Down syndrome, so she develops slower than the others and needs additional care and attention. Besides my family, I work a full-time job, I’m a keen photographer, I’m the librarian and webmaster for my local camera club, I’m the webmaster for my state Down Syndrome Association, I’m an occasional weekend wedding photographer (maybe 1 wedding per month on average), and I run several other web sites.
- Boredom: Any kind of repetitive exercise (walking, jogging, stair-climbers, treadmills, etc) just gets boring after a few sessions. This is a killer for me, and I can’t ever seem to keep myself motivated to keep up with the exercise.
- Guilt: If I go out exercising, I leave my wife at home to look after the three kids. I don’t like to dump that on her, especially since she gets that all day while I’m at work. Besides, my wife runs her own bookkeeping business, so she has stuff to do too.
- Laziness: I’ll admit it, I’m lazy. It’s easier to sit in front of the TV or computer than it is to get off your butt and exercise. That probably ties into the next one…
- Feedback: It can be hard to get any sense of progress when you just start out with a new exercise program. You go through the motions, repeating the same routine, and you don’t really feel like you’re getting anywhere. I need to see some progress and get some positive feedback in order to stay motivated. And if (when!) I wander off track for a day or two, I need a carrot to lure me back into it rather than just beating myself up and packing it in. This ties back in to the Boredom thing – I need each exercise session to be entertaining so I’m motivated to do it, and I need a higher-level, longer-term game or progress score so I’m motivated to stick with the program.
The thing is, though, my health should be more important than all those things. I know that. I need to find a way to either deal with or work around them, so I can get on with being a fitter person. They’re kind of just comfortable excuses that allow me to do nothing. I’m 109 kg today.
My proposed solution is to go out walking early in the morning, before the rest of the family gets up. I’ll take my iPod and listen to podcasts, so the time spent exercising is productive and enjoyable rather than boring and repetitious. We’ll see how this goes…
Update: See Fitness Obstacles for a more detailed explanation of each of the problems above.
Technorati Tags: weight loss, exercise, boredom, guilt, laziness, exercise tips, health
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