5 Tips to Starting Your Fitness Journey

Every race has two places - a finish line and a starting line.  So I wanted to share my 5 quick tips to starting your fitness journey right.

1. Pick a plan -- 
Just like in any other area of your life, you are by far more successful when you have a plan.  Here are couple ideas: join a class, using a walking/running app with a plan or use a home based program like one from Beachbody.

The struggle for some many who join a gym for those starting out is the lack of knowledge on the exercises needed to achieve their goals.  So if you join a gym, meet with a trainer to set up a program to help you accomplish your goals.

2. Never Alone --
The journey is going to get tough, tougher is you do it by yourself.  Don't do it alone.  Find a partner or group to join you in your journey.  Support is the one three keys to success in reaching your health and fitness goals.

3. Use Visual Reminders -- 
Keep your goals in front of you.  Right it on the mirror in lipstick.  Make a vision board.  Pull out those skinny jeans and keep them in visible sight.  These visual reminders will serve as constant reminder to be consistent.

4. Set a Workout Alarm --
Seriously, set an alarm or reminder on your phone. Schedule your workouts in your calendar.  These become set in stone (well, digital stone) times for you to get off your backside and get going.

5. Have Fun! --
If your workouts are not fun, you will not keep doing them.  Find a workout plan or program that you will fall in love with.  If you don't like doing it odds are increasing less likely that you will continue doing it.  Have fun, have fun, have fun!!!


 No matter what you do, START!  You will never regret getting started on your journey of health and fitness.  You will never regret improving your life.  Just START!

If you are looking to start and don't know where to begin, leave me a comment.  Or if you have a great recommendation on where to start leave a comment too.

* (the asterisk)

In the annals of sports history are *s.

They wanted to put one next to Roger Maris' 61 homeruns.

I would like to put one next to Barry Bonds 762 (for obvious reasons).

The asterisk is used to indicate that the record is somehow tainted by circumstance.  That something about that record is invalid or corrupt. (Hence my disdain for Barry Bonds 762 home runs).

I think in our journeys we place an asterisk by a lot of things.

"Well that one pound was just water weight." *
"It's easy to lose weight the first week."*
"It is only a few pounds." *

I think we are the biggest asteriskers of ourselves.  Instead of celebrating our successes, we find ways to discredit them.  Instead of recognizing ourselves for staying disciplined with our nutrition and fitness, we somehow consider our results tainted.

If you have lost 1 pound this week or 5 pounds this week and have done it the right way (fitness + nutrition), then celebrate that.  Don't hang an * on it with some lame excuse.  Feel good about the work you put in.  Raise your hands victorious like an Olympic champion (who tested negative for Perfomance Enhancing Drugs).

Don't * you results in the record of your success.  Whatever level of success you achieved you deserve it!

The Measure of Success

We have all stood there.  We put in a great week of work.  We watched and tracked what we ate.  And then the scale reads....no change!!!!  This is when we start with the explicatives...

Don't get discouraged.  Let's take a look at what we are truthfully measuring as success.  While most of us have a number we want to see on the scale, our goal should be more about living a healthy and fit life.  Still, you want to see the numbers move.  But when they don't, lets look at the what else we can measure to see if we are being successful.

- Body Measurements
We have all seen the picture of 1 pound of fat versus 1 pound of muscle.   So I won't re-post that viral image.  But measuring your body let's you know where the change is happening.  So when the scale doesn't move, take a look at where you are losing.

Measure these areas: chest, waist, arms, legs, hips and neck.  Compare those numbers and look to see where change is happening.  I recommend measuring every two weeks.

- Clothing Test
This is simple enough, how are those clothes fitting?  Are you noticing a difference?  In honestly, we all have those "skinny" pants hanging in the closest.  Check and see how those are fitting.

-Before and Afters
We look in the mirror everyday.  We see ourselves everyday.  There is an incredible visual evidence in comparing side by side pictures of yourself.  These are best done either every 2 weeks or every month.  Take front poses, profile poses, back poses, and one where you flex those guns!

-The "DANG" wat cho been doin' effect
 Sometimes other people take notice when we don't.  So take the compliment and share what you have done to reach those amazing results!

So when the scale is not going the right way, measure these other areas to find success!

I was made for this!

Some people call it revelation.  Some call it an epiphany.  Some call it the light bulb coming on.  Whatever you call it, there is a moment when it happens.  A moment when the stars all align, the tide is just right and the man in the moon is talking in his sleep.  It is the moment you say "I was made for this."

I believe we all have a "calling" and a "purpose" in life.  There is a specific thing that we are gifted to do that if it goes undone it won't get done, at least not in the way it meant for you to accomplish.  There is no prescription on how to discover this.  Most of it comes via trial and error, and at that mostly error.

Thomas Edison attempted to create the incandescent light bulb over 10,000 times.  When asked about it, Edison said "I have not failed.  I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work."  Your life is no different.  It is not a waste to try something and fail.  You have just found something that was not your purpose.  The failure comes when we quit searching and trying.

Once peculiar piece to this mystery of discovery is that some things come full circle.  What is incredible is that something that looks like a failed experiment at self discovery often comes back to be a piece to the puzzle of your purpose.  Experience is the grand teacher.  It teaches us often what we are not, it also teaches us what are meant to be.  Experience also bookmarks moments in life that we build on.  These moments of seeming failed trials and grand errors can lead us down the path of purpose.  That moment when you say "I was made for this."

#livewithhope

From the inside out

A friend of mine once told me that fixing the outside if the inside is broken tends to only accentuate the brokenness.

My disclaimer is that I am not a licensed psychologist, psychiatrist or even a psychic, so anything posted on this blog is intended as an unofficial helping hand.  

Self image and self perception are huge issues in relation to your health and fitness. There are some who no matter what the result never see themselves any different.  Their body might be healthy, but the inside still isn't.  Your heart health is just as important as your physical health.

Your heart is more than just the thing that pumps blood to the rest of your body.  The heart in a lot of cultures was consider the center or the seat of your being.  It is widely considered that the source of life both physically and spiritually/emotionally was the heart!  All this being said your health goes far beyond a flat tummy, bulging biceps and skinny waist.  Health is an emotional issue.  Health is a spiritual issue.  Health is a wholistic issue.  All of you needs to be healthy.

While focusing in on your fitness improves you body, focusing in on your relationships will improve you heart condition.  While locking in on what goes in your mouth, lock in on what you put into your mind.  Surround yourself with positive and encouraging people.    Read books, blogs, posts that will fill your heart and mind with peace, joy and love.

Take aim at making all of you healthy!  Here some tips:

1) Read personal development type books.  Books that better you!

2) Find a faith community - church, synagogue, Bible study.

3) Find friends that build and support you in your dreams and in your health goals.

4) Continue to exercise.  Endorphin make you happy!

5) If necessary find someone or place to help you deal with the emotional stuff - a counselor or psychologist.  There is no shame in asking for help.  We all need some help!

Your heart and your spirit are just as important as your body.  Get all of you healthy!

Counting calories counts

Darren Hardy in his book The Compound Effect talks about the challenge of paying attention to the small details.  He poses the question how much more likely are you to reach your goal weight if you counted every bite, crumb, scrap of food you put in your mouth.  That bite of cereal, the "dad tax" bite off your kids plate, the little "taste" of this unbelievable dessert.

Oftentimes, those are the calories we forget.  No, I am not trying exaggerate here and saw that your little nibble is what is keeping from your goals.  But enough nibbles during a day will add up.  The challenge is to track every calorie that we take in, in order to create a calorie deficit for that day.  The complex idea of weight loss has a simple formula, burn more calories than you take in.  Now there are many other factors, but a great starting point to achieving weight loss is to do the math -- count calories!

There are some great tools that make this even more convenient:

MyfitnessPal

SparkPeople

LiveStrong -- save the Lance jokes.  It is still a useful tool.

plus many more in the App Store or Google Play for your smartphone.  Which leads me to this point, all these calorie counters you can take with you.  No EXCUSES for not keeping track!  So do it!  I want you to have a beach ready BEACHBODY!  Do the work, eat right, and keep track!!

Another Reason WHY

This weekend our family took a short getaway to Caribbean Cove Hotel and Waterpark in Indianapolis.  The waterpark was your typical indoor facility with kiddie area, activity area, lazy river and 3 water slides.

My youngest child is my little diva.  She is 5 years old and working on 15 most days.  It took me a little convincing, a couple dollars cash to get her down that first waterslide, but once she did...it was I could do to keep up.

Here is a little perspective, the waterslides stand 40 feet up in the air, 4 stories high, 4 stories of steps...multiplied by the enthusiasm of a 5 year old girl who kept saying "daddy, one more time."  Every one more time meant picking up our bright yellow intertubes, lugging it up those 4 stories of steps, to sit her down on that tube and give her smiling face a push down that slide.

It was just 7 seconds of bouncing and bumping down that yellow tube on that air inflated tube to get to the bottom of the pool only to find her their soaked by water but having the time of her life.  And then those words "one more time" was reason enough to pick up that tube and travel up those 4 flights of stairs one more time.

There is a difference between being a dad and being an "active" dad. Being an active dad means not sitting on the sideline and watching them slide, but traveling along side them down the slides of the journey.  It has been a journey for me to lose the weight, get healthy and get fit.  But days like yesterday make it worth it.  Worth every step, worth every slide down, worth every water soaked smile on her face.  Just one more reason why I am stay healthy!

I ate my feelings and...

In our continued stream of thinking along nutrition and my continually belief that confession is good for the soul...I am an emotional eater.

When it rains, it pours highly carbohydrated snack foods in a Noah's Ark style flood.  In order for me to achieve the success of my goal weight and maintain that healthy, the one thing I have to find control over is my emotional eating.  I tend to eat when the stresses of life become overwhelming.

So here are 3 alternatives to eating my weight in snack foods:

1) Workout - pop in a DVD and sweat it out.  Pushing my physical fitness and releasing endorphin keeps me from binging.

2) Run - while similar to working out, running allows me to put my body on cruise control and engage my mind in some thinking and processing.  It gives a chance to escape to another place (both physically and mentally) and avoid the snacks.

3) Laugh - The proverb says that laughter is good medicine.  Being able to find humor in laugh is healthy.  While whatever the situation was may not have be funny at all, there is plenty in life to find laughter in.  So laugh, smile, and take your hands away from the sweets and salty.

I have not perfected being an overcomer of emotional eater.  I am working on it.  I try to use these alternatives to stuffing my face.  In an honest reflection, I really don't feel any better by eating.  While I satisfy my taste buds, I upset my belly and worse really don't emotionally feel any better.  (SAD FACE)

21 days in the rearview

January 7th I put a ground and said NO MORE!   I weighed in at 184.7 pounds, by far the most I had been in several months.  Let's be honest, it was a steady diet of monkey bread and Christmas cookies for about 2 weeks over Christmas and New Year's.  While tasty on the tongue, it was killing my around the gut!

So I kicked of 2013 with Les Mills Combat, Shakeology, and focusing on what I eat and as of today, I weigh 180.1.  Not the weight loss I hoped for but seeing some great results in the change in my shape.  While I do have a weight loss goal that I want to reach my focus is really beginning to shift.  I could press and workout extra, trim additional calories and get completely stringent to get to that goal.  And that would be fine.  But what I know about myself is that if I sprint to that goal, I will eventually run out of gas and while I might hit that number on the scale I know that my weight will yo-yo back up.

As with most things in life, the "tortoise" wins - slow and steady wins the race!!  My goal is to become actively healthy, not just a specific weight.

RESULTS HAPPEN HERE!

I would love to hear your comments!

Are you a cheater?

Friday nights at Casa Pitts are blocked off as a family night (at least as best as our schedules allow).  After a long week, prepping a sit down meal at close to 7 PM (after finishing our other Friday responsibilities) is just not feasible.  So our Friday night is our "cheat night".  It is the one night a week that nutritionally we let our guard down a little bit and make frozen pizza or sandwich bar or something easy and pop in a movie and just chillax as a family.

So I wanted to pass on some tidbits of wisdom from a cheater like me.

1.  Take caution in what you cheat with -

Just because you allow yourself a cheat meal does not mean that meal has to lack complete nutritional value. If  you get a pizza make sure has some veggies on it.  If you are going to eat sandwiches use a lighter cheese, skip the mayo and use mustard or even avocado as a replacement.  You want chips with that sandwich, even here you make a better choice about the chips you eat.  Cheat with wisdom, if you eat out you can still enjoy a yummy meal, but do it responsibly.  Just because you are eating a cheat meal don't make a wasted meal full of empty calories because...

2. Your body knows what it wants -

Here is the reason you need to make sure even when you cheat, you cheat right.  Your body is smarter than you are.  It's true.  When your body has a need for protein you will crave meat or eggs. When you body has a need for calcium, you might want cheese or milk. Your body knows what it needs and signals your brain "hey get us that." One of the dangers of a cheat meal is not fulfilling the need of your body.  When that happens your body tells your brain "hey we need something else and more of it."  If that something else is not what your body needs it will keep sending that signal to your brain.  Your brain sends the signal to the rest of you and you find yourself with your hand back in the bag of chips even though you are not hungry.  Which leads to...

3.  Overeating

A cheat meal does not mean 5 trips to the all you can eat buffet.  While you will more than likely blow your typical calorie count for a meal out of the water (my meals range from 350-425 a meal), this is not an excuse to eat like you are in the 4th of July Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest.  You need to still have some portion management.  So you may go back for a bite of seconds, but thirds, really, fourths.  At the bottom of the bag of whatever you are eating is regret.  So take caution!  Manage the amount of what you are going to eat.  Just because it is a cheat meal does not mean that you throw out the discipline you have the rest of the week.  Consider this a controlled indulgence.

You don't bust your backside to not enjoy life.  We fight for our health through diet and exercise in hopes a living a happier and healthier life.  Give yourself some grace on occasion to cheat.  Just cheat with caution.  It is still cheating and cheating can always lead us down a slippery slope and leave us caught elbow deep in a tub of ice cream.  So enjoy your pizza, your occasional scoop of Rocky Road, even juicy steak, but make this the exception to your life and not the rule.  If you let poor habits rule what you eat you will be right back to the point you were before your journey toward a fitter you!