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"90 Days of H.E.a.T" |
In the last few years since we first started our journey to
better health and now to helping others reach their own health, fitness, and
nutrition goals, I have really learned a lot. Sometimes I have to learn the same thing multiple times. One thing we always tell our clients and today I’m
reminding myself about, is that this is your journey. You are the one who
decides that your health is important enough to you to fight for it. You make a
conscious decision every day to take care of yourself until it happens
naturally and you don’t have to make the decision consciously anymore.
But you know what? Once you get yourself to that point the
battle is not over. You may go 6 months, a year, 10 years, and suddenly you
find yourself looking for a new reason to continue to fight for your health.
Yesterday I found myself feeling frustrated with my own
weight loss as I continue to work to get my baby weight off and get into the
kind of shape that the face of a health and fitness company should be in. I was
remembering how hard I worked a few years ago and feeling disappointed with
myself. I felt like I needed renewed motivation. I hear the same thing from
H.E.a.T clients. How do I stay motivated? What happens when the 90 days are
over and I don’t have you guys here to hold my hand anymore? Well what I tell
my clients and what I told myself yesterday is that the first 90 days are about
gaining the tools to help you deal with the inevitable ups and downs. We can’t
be there with you at every meal or at every workout to make sure you follow
through. 
This is where the psychology part of the program comes in
and it’s the most difficult to master. Even the most disciplined of us breaks
down and has an occasional slice of pie. But what does that person do the next
day? They continue on with business as usual. They don’t waste time beating
themselves up or allow it to throw them off their game. They accept it, process
it, and they move on. They are self-motivated. Maybe that’s how you master the
psychological part of any good health and nutrition program. Not by never
falling off the wagon, but by being able to brush off the dirt and hop back on
the next day with renewed energy and focus.
So how do we become one of these self-motivated,
self-directed people? There are a lot of things we can do but the first thing
is to TAKE OWNERSHIP. Recognize that this is your journey. The H.E.a.T program
or any program you might try is only as successful as your commitment to it
(repeat that a few times). I can walk you through a new workout routine but you
have to prioritize and make time to do it on your own. I can tell what you can
eat and how much. I can even walk through the grocery store with you and help
you make good shopping choices. But you’re the one who has to think ahead to
plan your meals so you don’t get stuck with nothing to eat but whatever is in
the vending machine at work. At H.E.a.T we try to help our clients prepare for
the inevitable poor choice, lapse in judgment, lack of preparation, or just all
around bad day. We show them how to:
· Create quantifiable goals: In life it helps to create short and long-term goals. It allows to you stay focused and motivated as you reach milestones toward your ultimate goal. If your goals are vague they are difficult to measure and therefore impossible to determine how close you are to meeting them. Give your goals some girth by assigning timelines, dates, and other metrics.
·
Prepare
yourself: If you’re starting a cleanse or finishing one, remember to do it
gradually. Going from one extreme to the other is not healthy and not
sustainable. The attitude of “let me binge out on pizza since this is my last
day of eating” is going to come back and bite you in the ass. Think about what
lies ahead and how best you can prepare. Create a menu in advance, try to cook
for several days at once, shop based on your menu or juicing recipes, set up an
alarm to remind when it’s time to work out, prepare your workout routine in
advance so you don’t go to the gym without a plan· Get support: You will find these days that everyone is doing something to get healthier and finding support for what you’re doing is not that difficult. Sometimes the hardest part is telling people what you are doing and asking for their support and encouragement. Tell your coworkers so they stop bringing you cookies or inviting you to lunch. Ask your family to check up on you and keep you honest. Don’t have supportive people around you? Find a blog, or a book, or a website that you like that is about people who are doing what you are doing or what you want to be doing.
· Write it down: Keep a food journal and log your workouts. I know this sounds time consuming and tedious but this is how you become more disciplined. No one says you have to count every calorie or measure every step, but at least write down what you ate and at what time and what kind of work out you did, for how long, and at what intensity level. If you want to get more specific about it and you’re a little tech savvy use an app like MyFitnessPal or Runkeeper. Also don’t forget to write down your emotional, spiritual, and psychological state throughout the day and around your eating and exercise.
Everyone’s journey is different. Some people hate the juice
and feel tired during a cleanse rather than fresh and rejuvenated. Some
people’s first experiments with a new menu turn out great! Others, not so much.
Just because you are allowed to eat black beans and spaghetti squash doesn’t
mean you should eat them together! Some people love burpees…wait no one loves
burpees, nevermind that. And yes ladies, your husband will pretty much always
lose weight faster than you do. This is why it’s important to set goals that
are measurable, attainable, and realistic given your time constraints and other
commitments. This way you can measure success based on your own progress and
not compared to someone else. Your
progress is the only thing you have any control over so don’t waste your energy
on what everyone else is doing.