Sir Issac Newton had what is known as the Law of Motion
An object that is at rest will stay at rest until an unbalanced force acts upon it.
Living in Ohio, I’ve pushed many a car out of a snow drift. You get a few people and you try to push. It’s heavy and you give it all you got. Finally, the car starts to move and rolls. It gets easier. Eventually the car is rolling on it’s own and is on it’s way.
So if you are sitting on the couch, you are going (or have been) sitting there until some force (motivation) acts upon you sitting there (and gets you to stand up). However, if you do not get motivated to move – you won’t. This is why the first thing you have to change is the way you think. You have to believe. As long as you believe, you will try. If you don’t believe, you will lose the willingness to try. You will not gain any ground on the way to your fitness goals.
An object that is in motion will not change its velocity until an unbalanced force acts upon it.
I look at this and say, “Once you get started, you build momentum, and it starts to roll on it’s own.” When you make lifestyle changes, you are slowly transformed into a new you. If you identify your hurdles, and come up with alternatives you can carve your path to fitness. Once you lose that first ounce, you are on your way. Ounces lead to pounds, and once you are going in the right direction you never want to go back.
The first step is the hardest part. I’ve heard the phrase “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” I have had times when I just did not want to exercise – at all. I moaned and groaned but I still made it on to the treadmill. It was 5:30 am. I hit the start button. Within two minutes, I felt better. I was proud of myself. When I got off the treadmill later, I was ready to take on the day. I felt confidence that I could tackle anything. I was on the road to being physically fit.
With this in mind changing your lifestyle is not going to be easy. Take it with little steps at a time. If you jump in the deep end, you will get overwhelmed and stop. Go for the easy things. When you accomplish the easy things it will give you confidence to take on some of the harder challenges. Never, ever, quit.
It all comes back to the way you think. An object in motion will continue in motion until a force acts upon it. Well if your life throws you a curve ball, you may feel the force, but if you keep pushing – and never quit – you WILL over power that negative force and you will keep moving in the direction toward a new, healthier, confident, you.
Other Items Mentioned on This Podcast
Fit or Fat by Covert Bailey (great “logical” diet book).
I’ve been a U2 fan going back to the WAR album (or I will follow from early MTV days). Jenny from San Deigo sent in she likes the song Vertigo, she loves to shout out “Ola!” during the chorus as she is on the treadmill. When the lyrics say “You give me something I can feel” Jenny says she thinks of that as talking to the treadmill.
As this podcast deals with exercise, let me remind you to contact your doctor before starting an exercise program. This information is for entertainment purposes only as I am “just a dude” in the basement trying to lose weight like you.
I recently decided that as much as I HATE weight lifting, it is a necessary evil. However, once again knowledge comes into play here.
1. It’s very hard (if not impossible) to gain muscle and lose weight. This means I’m going to need to be patient.
2. In the long run, I will have a better “butter burning machine” and be able to eat MORE and have it no effect my weight (muscle burns more calories than fat).
3. You do not burn as many calories weight lifting (as in doing the exercise) as you do on a treadmill, but from different reports I’ve read you burn more calories resting when you have more muscle. So you may burn more calories after your exercise when you weight lift.
I wasn’t sure how much weight to lift, and how many reps to do. I found this on dummmies.com (they have all sorts of fitness books).
“You can’t design a strength-training (or weight-training) program without knowing two terms: rep and set. Rep (repetition) is one complete motion of an exercise. A set is a group of consecutive repetitions. For example, you can say, “I did two sets of ten reps on the chest press.” This means that you did ten consecutive chest presses, rested, and then did another ten chest presses.
How many reps should I do?
The number of reps you should do depends on where you are in your training (new, experienced, coming back from a long layoff) and your goals. To become as strong and as big as your body type will allow, do fewer than 8 or 10 reps per set. To tone your muscles and develop the type of strength you need for everyday life — moving furniture or shoveling snow — aim for 10 to 12 repetitions. Doing dozens of reps with ultralight weights (weights you can barely even feel) doesn’t bring good results of any kind, because you’re not stressing your muscles enough.
No matter how many repetitions you do, always use a heavy enough weight so that the last rep is a struggle, but not such a struggle that you compromise good form. After about a month of strength training, you may want to go to muscular failure (that is, your last repetition is so difficult that you can’t squeeze out one more).
If you have a few different goals in mind, you can mix and match the number of reps you do per workout. If you want to get bigger and stronger and also improve the endurance of those muscles, you can do a heavy workout one day and a lighter workout the next time out. Keep track of how you feel; your body may respond better to one type of training than another.
Be sure to adjust the amount of weight you use for each exercise. In general, use more weight to work larger muscles like your thighs, chest, and upper back, and use less weight to exercise your shoulders, arms, and abdominals. But even when doing different exercises for the same muscle group, you’re likely to need a variety of weights. For example, you typically can handle more weight on the flat chest-press machine than you can on the incline chest-press machine.
Write down how much weight you lift for each exercise so that next time around, you don’t have to waste time experimenting all over again. But don’t lock yourself into lifting a certain amount of weight every time. Everyone feels stronger on some days than on others.
(This is one of the reasons I loved using the vidaone software – Dave).
How many sets should I do for each muscle group? There’s no simple answer. Several studies show that doing one set per muscle builds just as much strength as doing three sets per muscle, at least for the first three or four months of training. If you’re a novice or if you’re starting again after a layoff, begin with one set of 10 to 12 repetitions, and make sure your last rep feels challenging. You should feel like you have control of the weight but if you did one more rep, you may not be able to make it all the way.
Most people can increase their initial weights after two to four weeks of training; at that point, consider adding a second or even third set for each muscle group. However, if your goal is simply to build enough strength for good health, one challenging set may be sufficient.
How Much Weight to Lift If you are using weight training to increase your strength, you need to lift an amount of weight that stresses your muscles. This should be enough weight so that you feel challenged as you’re lifting, and so that the last rep (repetition) is difficult to complete — difficult, but still possible and still using good form.
After about age 30, you lose bone mass for the rest of your life. But don’t let that frighten you, because there is a solution. To maintain bone density (that is, to build enough bone density to offset the loss of bone density that occurs as you age), you need to perform weight-bearing exercise.”
How Long To Weight In Between Sets? According to about.com “Higher intensity (i.e., when lifting heavy) exercise requires a longer rest. When lifting to fatigue, it takes an average of 2 to 5 minutes for your muscles to rest for the next set. When using lighter weight and more repetitions, it takes between 30 seconds and 1 minute for your muscles to rest.”
Dmed on the forums said this about “Whats working for them.” What’s working is using a Mio strapless heart rate monitor.
This is just a watch. No chest strap. YEAH! It gives you your heart rate when you hold with your thumb and index finger. It takes just a few seconds and when it displays it automatically shows your percentage of maximum heart rate. It has several timers on it. Even though I work out on an elliptical, I started using the double timer on the watch to do my workout. That way I don’t have to break my intervals into full minutes. Therefore, I can slowly increase the running part of my interval without jumping a full minute. It, also, counts calories burned while I use the timers. This has really allowed me to gradually improve my workout. For some reason I have improved my workout alot since I started using the mio watch. It also has a recovery check on it, which I was using a lot when I first got the mio.
For more information check out mio heart rate monitors at amazon.com
Exercising off Your Food For the Day
David_Sydney from the forums said,
“I know I can’t control my eating, but I can count my calories.Confused
I exercise down to my weight loss calorie intake each night. Depending on my motivation I burn anywhere between 1,000-3,000 calories a session.
When I am disciplined I have been losing around 1.5kg a week. A few years ago I tried not eating/meal replacement and I found that although when I stuck to the plan I lost weight, most of the time I spent trying to get onto the ‘fast’ side I failed, felt guilty, overate and was not motivated/did not have the energy to exercise and put on weight in off weeks.
It’s great – I don’t feel guilty when I eat, I can see the purpose of the exercise, and the pain of the exercise makes me think twice before I overeat.Cool”
My reply is, “What happens if something happens and you don’t make it to the gym?” Also different experts have advised not exercising over 90 minutes (Which I’m assuming you do to burn off 1-3,000 calories). Be careful with this plan, you could find some pitfalls.
As always consult your doctor before beginning an exercise program.
I was listening to your podcast while on the Elliptical this AM,and wanted to thank you for the tip on the Gymboss. I found the link on your site and ordered one. I'm 22 days into my Body-for-LIFE challenge and have not found a really good way to signal myself that it's time to ratchet it up a notch. This little device looks like just the ticket for a pretty cheap price.
Thanks for the podcast - I enjoy it and appreciate your honesty and sharing the journey.
Sincerely,
Mindy
www.minthickandthin.com
— Mindy
Join the forum discussion on this post
Living in Ohio, I’ve pushed many a car out of a snow drift. You get a few people and you try to push. It’s heavy and you give it all you got. Finally, the car starts to move and rolls. It gets easier. Eventually the car is rolling on it’s own and is on it’s way.
I recently decided that as much as I HATE weight lifting, it is a necessary evil. However, once again knowledge comes into play here.
