the "Abandon All Reason Approach" towards running and exercise
Angelica took this photograph of me today just after I came off the athletics track in the background having completed a 400 metre run all the way around running in towards falling ice and snow, yep it was really coming down but I was determined to do this today after not being able to go yesterday because of the wintery weather.
Gym for an hour first, I'm loving my new body shape and strength now, its all new and exciting, I can do so much. Today during my workout session having only been showed how to do a plank exercise last week Monday where I pathetically held it for three seconds before falling, today I managed to do three repeats of a count to twenty seconds each one. I felt amazing.
After the gym workout session and my run around the track outside, we came inside to warm up, personal trainer was at the other end of the corridor joking about how wet we looked, I laughed saying I was completely determined. We stood there for a bit chatting, he remembered how difficult it was for me to stand noting how much pain I was in when I attempted it back at the start of September some seven months ago then looking at today I'd just come in after running all the way around an athletics track. Whilst he was talking I pulled out my iPhone to show him this photograph:
The reaction was completely epic, he was so shocked, even though he's known me and been seeing me a couple of times a week for seven months with just a gap when I had surgery so needed a short break from exercise earlier this year, the picture is an obvious dramatic change whereas week by week I guess someone with me a lot of the time wouldn't stop to take that change in ordinarily even though they were fairly instrumental in bringing the 'me' out so that these changes could be made. I actually had to dig quite deep to find the strength to stand there smiling without bursting into tears, it was very hard because to me it felt really powerful and condensed.
This brings me nicely on to the "abandon all reason approach" that I have towards actually getting up and doing something positive to make small changes in your own life. Stop asking me "how are you doing that" or "can you share your secret I'm desperate to loose weight and become more fit and healthy" right stop asking me that immediately because there is NO SECRET its a lot of hard work, the hardest part of all is just abandoning all your talking, reasoning and research (online reading and spending time on online forums) AND JUST GET UP AND MOVE, WALK UP YOUR STAIRS preferably quicker than you did the last time you walked up or down your stairs. Just do something, get up and move.
It burns calories, gets the heart rate going and makes you feel like you have taken an enormous step.
Even when I was unable to stand, unable to sit, unable to move, I still pulled myself off the sofa on to the floor and moved around, I rolled backwards and forwards, I pulled myself up and allowed myself to drop back down again, I kept moving, I never once said "oh I'm so disabled I can do NOTHING".
Find a way, there is ALWAYS something YOU can do but only YOU can make the change only YOU can take the first positive steps to stop sitting on your bum just talking about how you want to change.
In my darkest hours after my insides blew up, all I could think of was being able to move my pelvis, being able to run about with my kids, push my little one in the pram, ok that one didn't happen but hey, I can take him to the park now and we both love our time there together. I never once not one time sat or lay there in bed thinking of all the things I wanted to do how much of my life would be wasted because I now couldnt do the things I loved doing before this happened to me, I just found other ways of doing them instead. Sure I did get completely depressed at times, ready to give up often, but you guys always pulled me back from that and told me to not give up that I'd get there one day. Now you must take courage from the fact that I was in an incredibly weakened state six seven months ago still, I had already made positive changes and started loosing weight at the start of the year, I kept a dream alive all the time by moving a bit close to it each day by actually doing things not just reading talking and imagining I wanted to do them, I started doing things, I got physical to burn calories I was consuming from my food.
Its basic stuff, if you want to loose weight you need to consume less calories than you burn each day. The weight literally does come off if you do that successfully.
If on the other hand you keep trying to reason with the issue by saying you are addicted to fizzy drinks, sugar, chocolate, cakes, FATTY foods then good luck to you because no amount of reasoning is going to make those calories disappear, you have to want the change as much as I did an abandon all reasoning to achieve it. Just do it, right now make one change, get up and walk up your stairs quickly and down again, if you are mobility challenged, get down on to the floor and move around, use your arms to pull you along or roll with your whole body weight. Then tomorrow be amazing, do it all again and add something extra, the following day be amazing and repeat both things you did and add a third. By the end of the first week you'll have a little five minute routine, keep going adding something little every day until you have a nice ten minute routine. Repeat your ten minute routine three times a day, use this time for YOU just YOU, this is your ten minutes, focus on YOU because this is all about changing YOUR life and getting you a little bit closer to where you want to be right now. It all starts with YOU actually doing an action, not thinking about it, not chatting online for hours on end about wanting to do it, its about you actually doing something positive no matter how small or tiny you think that is, in reality as you have not done it before its a HUGE step forwards and I congratulate you for taking the first steps - BE AMAZING - just go for it like I have been doing, you won't regret it but you will regret not doing something positive right now, there is no such thing as tomorrow, look at me and take inspiration again, you do not know what is going to present itself in your life tomorrow you can only control what is happening in it right now at this moment. If someone told me gave me pre warning that I'd loose the use of my midriff section and be unable to walk for six years, I'd not have wasted any time trying to stop that from happening, or becoming more healthy so that some damage limitation could have happened. As it turns out I was ill prepared, totally taken by surprise, massively overweight, depressed and basically well and truly stuck. So do not wait for tomorrow make those changes today right now, its the little things that you do all add up to make massive things in the long run, I am now a walking example of this concept so take heart and strength from the things I am now achieving because if I can do all of this, you so can as well.