Monday 28 November 2011

Willpower

Actor Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion:

Courage. What makes a King out of a slave? Courage.


What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage.

What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?

What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage.

What makes the Sphinx the 7th Wonder? Courage.

What makes the dawn come up like THUNDER?! Courage.

What makes the Hottentot so hot?

What puts the "ape" in ape-ricot?

Whatta they got that I ain't got?

Dorothy & Friends: Courage!
Cowardly Lion: You can say that again.


The Wizard of Oz being one of my favorite all time movies, I can almost recite that excerpt from memory. I'm of the belief that courage coincides with willpower very closely.

When we have a goal in our mind Willpower is the key factor to us getting up and out, and doing what we set out to do. Courage takes a big part in that. If I didn't have any courage I wouldn't have been able to go to the gym. I feared the gym. I've feared very few things in my life, and I wasn't going to let a simple thing as a gym have power over me. If you fear something, then that "something" has power over you. The thing that drove me to get my courage and overcome my fear, was my willpower. When I seen that first video about the Sixpack Shortcuts program, that ignited my willpower. Gave me that fire to get up off my ass and get in shape.

It is that moment, lately, that I've been having to reflect on. As the weather fluctuates and gets colder, I found my willpower doing the same thing. Usually what I had done until the weather got colder (provided this was only when I was working) is I came home, grabbed my bag and off I went. For me, if I keep going and don't stop then I'm good. But if I come home and have to wait ten minutes or more for the SUV to warm up, I get too relaxed. Especially when it's winter. Get off the bus, walk home and it's freezing out. Get inside and it's nice and warm. Who wants to go back outside, go to a cd vehicle and go to the gym? Plus the wait for the vehicle to warm up, gets you relaxed and warm. Hard to leave when you're that comfortable.

The winter poses a greater challenge than I had anticipated. It challenges me to find my willpower, to dig down a d remember the reason why I wanted to get in shape in the first place. With me lately I've been slacking off for the last month. I've been going to the gym off and on for the last month. I'm trying to get myself back to that discipline I had in the first month and a half. I've found my willpower again by watching YouTube videos about people getting in shape and reading fitness blogs. The only damper part about the whole thing is that I still am not good at my nutrition. Hard thing to get in control.

Willpower I've found is the easiest thing to get but the hardest thing to keep. I'm not perfect with my willpower and I've had many days where it's nowhere in sight. The days that I do have it are the days I remember. Those are the days I remember why I chose to get in shape, why I'm doing this to better my future career, why I'm doing this for my future family, and why I'm writing this blog.

How do all of you find your willpower? How do you keep it?








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Thursday 10 November 2011

Feel the Burn? I don't think so....

A word of warning to everyone who reads this, that the popular phrase, that usually runs along the lines of "work out until you feel the burn", I don't agree with that at all. It can cause nausea, headaches, and it can be mentally unhealthy. I say mentally unhealthy rather than physically unhealthy, because usually you can tell what your muscles limits are and how far you can push yourself. The media tends to brings along this idea though that we should be going til we "feel the burn", but what if we do? Ok, so lets expand on that for a minute. Your brain (cause of the media) is telling your body that you should push yourself til you "feel the burn", so you do. What happens on the way to feeling that burn? Your muscles get tired and they can feel weak. But HEY! There's that burn everyone's talking about, that must be a good sign that I'm doing something right. Right? Say you're doing a benchpress and this whole thought process occurs. Is it still right when you feel the burn to keep going, and your muscles can't go any farther and you almost drop the bar on your neck? Or if you are doing lunges and you feel the burn, but cause your only focusing on the burning feeling in your leg, you lose concentration and almost twist an ankle? Does the "feel the burn" theory still apply there? I would value anyone's opinion on this matter. As tonight when I was busy doing step downs I almost twisted my ankle and it got me to thinking about this whole "feel the burn" mentality. Also, just if anyone is curious. I haven't posted for the past few days because I've been suffering from a severe migraine and had to go to the hospital last night to finally get relief. No idea what caused it, and I've only ever gotten one migraine before this. But this one was bad and I was constantly losing my balance and I found it hard to concentrate on anything. All better now, and since I was unable to go to the gym in fear that it would make my migraine worse, I stayed home. But now I'm back at the gym and feeling good about having gone. Good thing I went when I did cause there's a midnight release of a new game I've been looking forward to. Honestly, I'm such a geek, I don't know how I ever found the inspiration to get my ass to the gym like I do. How has everyone else been doing lately?

Friday 4 November 2011

OK to have a day off

Last night I was doing my switchover from days to nights. Now, how this always works for me, is that I get home about 9, have something to eat and I stay up til about 2am. Sometimes it's not easy to do. And usually right after I get home, I do a workout. But yesterday was my day off for this week. Then after going to bed about 2, I sleep as long as I can which is usually about 1pm, then get up and do my errands and then I'm off to work for my 3 nightshifts.

I got to thinking though that some people are so strict about their diets they don't allow themselves a cheat day or a day off. In my opinion, when you do that, your setting yourself up for failure. As the age old saying goes "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", plus I also like to enforce the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time you do your workouts and eat healthy and 20% is your time off and cheat days.

Now I'm done my first of three nightshifts and I'm on my way home. Then grab my gym clothes and off I go. Then come back home, chill and then off to bed. Then I start the whole day over again tonight.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

HEY! LOOK! Another entry..

Well I have a few topics to cover and I couldn't figure out a title first of all. Hahaha.

So, I'm back at the gym and it feels great. Only have been back for one day, but that's better than nothing. When I went there and I was paying my monthly fee, the woman looked at the computer and said in a funny tone "oh wow. You haven't been here in a whiiiile". Come on, I only missed two and a half weeks, plus if we never fall off the wagon and make a mistake, we never learn. I must say too, that I had his happen to me when I first started at the gym. For some unknown reason I would get a headache. I think from lack of hydration. But after a few days the headaches went away. Any of you had this when you started working out?

Also I'm looking for your input. What kid of low carb meals can I make? I've got some ideas already but it's hard to keep things fresh.

Also I said I would give you some info on fall fashion. Living with my fiancé, you get to know the fashions of each season and if they repeated it or it's original. Apparently this one is pretty original, a while ago she was sifting through her new Cosmo to find out what the fall fashion was. After a few pages she joyfully announced that the fashion for fall was Leather and Knit. Interesting combination I think. Hard edgy leather mixed with the sweet seduction and innocence of knit. What do I mean by knit? Anything that looks like its been knitted, that could be a scarf, top, gloves, hat, etc........ So to see for myself if it was true I looked through my Men's Health when I got it, and sure enough in every ad, each person was wearing leather and knot. And this goes for men and women.

Depending on what you guys say, I was debating making a short video about my work days. My workday is long enough, but adding exercise to the mix was hard cause it lessened my time at home. If I can fit a workout into my busy workdays, then ANYONE that wants to get in shape, surely can fit it into their day.