Posts Tagged exercise
Are You Pushing Yourself Hard Enough?
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 16th, 2010
This morning I had the chance to workout with some MMA guys at my gym. For those of you who don’t have a clue what MMA is, it’s mixed martial arts or most commonly known as ultimate fighters. These guys are tough and their workouts are even tougher. After my workout I realized how easy it is to fool ourselves into thinking we are working harder than we are.
I have been training seven days a week for nearly three weeks now. I am feeling good and am glad that I still feel pretty good after I get done with a workout. I have been chalking it up to the fact that I am getting into pretty good shape. Today I realized that the reason I have been feeling so good after my workouts is because I have been holding back.
I think a lot of people feel like they are working hard when they workout by themselves, some do but a lot of them aren’t going as hard as they think they are. I for one know I work harder when I work out with a group. First, it’s a pride thing. I don’t want to look like a sissy. Second, we tend to feed off the atmosphere we are in. If we are in a group that is working hard we tend to work harder.
It’s easy to slip into a comfortable place when we are doing workouts. Most of us do the same thing every time we step in the gym. I, for one, see other people doing stuff sometimes and wonder if I could do what they are doing. I’ll admit it, sometimes I will even go and try it after the person has left.
There comes a certain boost to an ego when you try something new and succeed. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. We can get ourselves all kinds of messed up in the head when we try something and fail. Here is what I think. Try it anyway. Try a new class, try doing a group workout, try doing a workout that you think is impossible. Give it an honest try. If it is hard, do the best you can. If the class is an hour long and you don’t think you can make it, just keep moving the entire time and try to go a little longer each time.
I think you will amaze yourself if you will just give yourself the opportunity. Next time you go to workout ask yourself, “Am I really pushing myself?” I hope you can answer yes!
See you tomorrow!
A Fantastic Friday…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 29th, 2010
Today was just too good of a day to write about Biggest Loser stuff. I took my boys, Rex and Jax, to the zoo and we had a blast. We got there around noon and us being the wild and crazy guys that we are closed the joint down. I have never really been a big fan of the zoo but my boys love seeing the animals so I decided that today I would take them on my own. No mom to keep an eye on all of us.
I think the best part of the day was seeing how adventurous my sons are. Rex wanted to jump off anything he could climb on and his little brother Jax was trying his hardest to keep up. Today I decided to let Rex be the tour guide. Wherever he wanted to go we went. If he wanted to run we ran. If he wanted to sit, we sat.
It was a blast and we did very little sitting. I have always said that if we as parents played like our kids, there wouldn’t be very many overweight parents. Have you ever seen a two year old at the zoo or any other park? They are a little balls of endless energy.
Today I spent the afternoon chasing two little balls of energy and it was fun. I wasn’t beat like I am after a workout but I definitely expended more energy than I would have sitting at home watching television.
There are multiple benefits to getting out and playing with your kids. Here are a couple that I want to emphasize today. Playing with the kids gets both the kids and us active. Being active with kids at a young age and showing them how to have fun being active can help them develop healthy habits that can last a lifetime.
I love seeing my boys, especially Rex right now, love running. As I was chasing him all over the zoo, I wasn’t upset. I was hoping that he never loses the excitement that he has for exercise today. GO PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS!
See you Monday!
Life After The Biggest Loser…. Part 4
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 27th, 2010
“You are the Biggest Loser!” The cannon goes off and the confetti flies. I couldn’t hear, I was ecstatic. I remember being pulled from interview to interview and then having a few minutes before I was taken off in a car and put on a red-eye flight to New York.
I didn’t sleep on that flight. I had never been to New York and I had just accomplished one of the biggest goals I had had in years and was thinking about what I was going to eat the next day. As you may remeber, I mentioned that I was a fish out of water when I got to LA. I had no idea what was going on and now I was going to go to NY to be on about every major talk show on television. Now I was about to find out how out of the water I was.
My plane landed at around 5 am and as soon as I got in the car I had an interview with my local radio station back in Iowa. I got to be close friends with the morning radio show personalities Schulte and Swann since they had been having me in each Wednesday to do a recap of the show. Next stop was Regis and Kelly.
I had no clue what was going on. They held me in a little room and when it was my time I went out to do the interview. I don’t think either one of them had ever seen the show and had no idea who I was or why I was on their show. It was on their show that I learned you can’t swear on TV. I said “fat a##” They looked at me like I had just dropped the F bomb. I didn’t do that anymore.
I spent the rest of the day going from show to show and magazine photo shoot to photo shoot. I got a call from my state senator and other people I had never met. The weirdest thing was when I had my first paparazzi photo taken. I don’t think they knew who I was either. They just saw me coming out of one of the shows through a private entrance and getting into a limo so I must have been phot worthy. I was on the same press tour as Naomi Watts so they were probably waiting for her. Imagine their dissapointment when I came walking out!
I was in NY for a couple days before it was back to LA to do the same thing on a different side of the country. I look at pictures today from some of those shoots and I wonder what the heck I was thinking. I say that because a couple days after the finale I was back up to 200 lbs. I felt huge. I wasn’t. In my mind since I wasn’t 182, a weight I don’t want to nor will I ever be again, that I was a fat pig again.
I was a mental mess. I had been so focused on winning and now that I had done it, I had no idea what I was going to do. Every year I hear contestants say “I’m never going to go back to that again.” I said it myself. The thing for me was that I had lost weight so fast that my mind didn’t have time to catch up with my body. I was a fat guy in a skinny body.
When I saw pictures I would get all uptight. “Look at my chin, am I hanging over my jeans?” I was so critical of myself. I look at those pics today and I want to smack myself. I looked great but I never gave myself credit. I was hyper-critical of myself and was already beginning to set myself up to gain weight again.
I really was a fat guy in a skinny body.
See you tomorrow!
Life After The Biggest Loser…. Part 2
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 22nd, 2010
Yesterday I talked about what it is like having people know you and how contestants are real people and how we should all be nice to one another and give hugs. Well, that is kind of what I talked about. Today I am going to talk about how The Biggest Loser changed me personally.
Before I went on the show I was angry. As most people know, I was a college wrestler at The University of Iowa. I pretty much blew it there. It wasn’t a talent issue, it was a commitment issue. I was more committed to partying and telling people I was a wrestler than I was to training and actually being a wrestler.
Long story short, I quit the team and left school only a few credits short of a degree. I had never quit anything in my life up until that point and once I learned how easy it was to quit, it got easier and easier for me to do so. I went from being a 177 pound athlete to over 350 pounds in a very short time. The bigger I got, the less I cared.
I drank a lot and ate a lot. Prior to going on the show it was not uncommon for me to put down two bottles of rum in one night. I don’t know what happened after they were gone. I just know that I would wake up and they were gone. Food was something that I used to medicate when I couldn’t drink.
I would go through the McDonald’s drive through and order two value meals. Even though I knew I was going to eat both of them, I thought maybe the person handing me the food would think I was getting them for two people. The other thing that I use to do was eat them really fast. Like somehow if I ate really fast the calories wouldn’t count! I will talk more about this at length on another day and how those habits still affect me today.
My friends knew me as a Chris Farley type (I did have a spot on impression) who was the happy, fat, drunk guy. I had lots of friends that were girls but none that were really interested in being my girlfriend. I became resigned to the fact that this was how my life was going to be. After all, I deserved it for blowing it at Iowa. Let me summarize my life in just a couple words. I was a miserable mess.
Fast forward. I show up on the ranch weighing 339 pounds. You may not believe it but I actually lost weight before taping began because while we were sequestered before the show I couldn’t drink. I also didn’t want to look like a pig so I didn’t eat very much. Kind of ironic isn’t it? I weighed over 300 pounds but didn’t want people to know I ate bad!
Even though I was obese I thought I could still do things like I did when I was a college wrestler. I couldn’t. It was a deflating moment. I finally realized how bad things had gotten for me. The infamous clip of Jillian and I talking or should I say her talking and me bawling my eyes out has recieved several thousand hits on Youtube. As rough as it was, that breakdown was the beginning of my transformation on the inside.
I was still angry, still walking around with a chip on my shoulder and still fat, but I was beginning to change whether I knew it or not. Like I have said before, when I was on the ranch we didn’t have TV, internet, magazines, or much else besides gym equipment to keep us occupied. What I did have was myself.
Sometimes being alone with yourself is very frightening. Especially if you have no idea who you are or that the person you thought you were really isn’t you at all. When I was finally forced to be alone and deal with my issues I went through the same range of emotions that people go through when they experience a loss or a death of someone close to them.
Along with losing weight I was losing years of baggage and in essence, my old self. It wasn’t until I arrived home after being on the ranch for all those months by myself that I realized just how much I had changed.
See you tomorrow!
The Reality of Reality Weight Loss….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 20th, 2010
I seriously just erased an entire blog because I didn’t like the way it sounded when I read it. I want to talk about some of the realities of being a contestant on The Biggest Loser but I don’t want to bash the show. I want to talk about what life is like after but don’t want to sound like I am making excuses. Here is what I am going to do. I am going to type what I am thinking and not worry about what others say and here’s why.
I WAS THERE! I was actually on the show and know what it has been like for me. I can only speak for myself and what I have experienced. There have been 7 seasons since I was on the show. Things may or may not have changed and just like any other experience in life, people who have been in the same situation can have dramatically different experiences.
I want to talk about the big topic of discussion that I have been reading a lot about lately. In a recent magazine article, I read about the type of support available to contestants after leaving the show. Back when I won there wasn’t a whole lot. Please remember that I was on in the infancy stage of BL. Before the show was as big as it is today. None of us, especially the producers, could have ever imagined what BL was to become.
That being said, I don’t think anyone could have imagined the impact being on the show would have on an individual and their life after being on the show. I have talked to recent contestants and am glad to hear that they have access to support. I am lucky in that I met my wife on the show and we could lean on each other. I can’t imagine going home to a spouse who had no idea what kind of transformation I had just gone through. Many people have had to do just that. They have had to go home and explain why they “seem different” or why they choose to no longer do some of the things they use to. Some people lose friends and some even spouses.
One of the great things about being on BL is that you learn to rely on yourself. One of the bad things about being on BL is that sometimes you start to rely on yourself too much. Rather than seek out help, which seems to be available now, we (I) just assume that it was up to us to fix it. After all, I lost the weight I can deal with this, whatever “this” may be.
I was bitter for a long time toward Jillian after the show because I didn’t feel like I got any support from her after the show. The reason being is that after the finale, I never talked to her again. I don’t know why or if I did something to upset her, we just have never connected again. It was dissapointing to me. When I gained weight I got embarrassed and thought maybe that is why we haven’t talked.
Just this past week we appeared on the Joy Behar show which Jillian was also on. I was nervous and thought “How is this gonna go?” We still didn’t get a chance to talk. During the show she said something that the casual viewer would have not picked up on. It was a simple comment about me completing the Ironman World Championship triathlon. When we left the building I told my wife that I wasn’t angry anymore. In fact, after she said what she said I realized something. I had been acting immature.
Let me use yet another analogy. Yesterday it was prison, today it’s highschool.
Almost every highschool team has a senior star. The kid who the coaches have spent hours, even years, developing and coaching. The reason this athlete has gotten to the level of being the star is because they listened to their coaches and worked hard. Let’s say this kid leads his team to a state title in their sport.
They go home and give a speech to the fans in their hometown. The people who have watched them progress into the athlete they have become are all there. The kid more than likely thanks the fans, their parents, and lastly their coaches. Everyone in the gym quietly wonders what is going to be like next year without this athlete on the team.
Guess what, a new kid will step into the old stars place! Want to know why? Because a good coach knows that they have a job to do. They can’t sit around worrying about whether or not the star that just graduated is going to make it on their own. A good coach prepares their athletes to live well after their time on the team has concluded. Of course from time to time they may think about some of the kids they coached in the past, but they have a job to do and a new group of kids to focus on. It is up to the athlete to implement the lessons they learned from their coach.
If you are having a tough time trying to figure out how this relates to BL and specifically my and Jillian’s relationship or lack thereof, let me break it down for you.
Jillian has a job to do. Her job is to train the contestants and get them to lose the most amount of weight possible while they are working with her. I know she genuinely cares about the contestants but she has now trained hundreds of contestants. It isn’t an option for her to personally check in on all of us. As much as I wish she could, it isn’t feasable and to tell the truth is a little selfish on my part. That day, after the show, I realized that even though Jillian and I haven’t talked since the finale of my season, she still cares enough to keep tabs on what I have been doing. Hearing her make that brief statement on Joy’s show was freeing.
Jillian taught me a lot, but just as the coach of any successful team she has to focus on the team she has currently. What I have to do now is implement the lessons I learned from her and take care of myself like a big boy.
See you tomorrow!
The Joy Behar Show Appearance
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 13th, 2010
This evening Suzy and I will be appearing on the Joy Behar Show. For those of you who don’t know she is, she is also one of the hosts on The View. It promises to be interesting as Jillian Michaels, a trainer from The Biggest Loser will also be on. I haven’t spoken to her since the finale of my season of The Biggest Loser. That was clear back during the second season.
I got the feeling that we were asked to come on to discuss the struggles that we have had since leaving the show. We haven’t hidden the fact that we gained weight and have been very public about our struggles and what we have learned.
We have also developed a program to help others get their health and life back. A program which we participate in as well. We really hope we get a chance to talk about it as well as share our perspective on weight loss and what true health is really about.
If viewers tune in to hear us bash the show, it’s not going to happen. We have an amazing life together. First because of God and second because The Biggest Loser helped us change our lives and allowed us to find each other. We will however be talking honestly about our thoughts on the show.
We are excited for this chance to share our story and our lives once again with America. As I mentioned above, Suzy and I have developed a program to help others who are currently fightitng the battle to lose weight. For information on this program please visit: http://livelikelosers.yolasite.com/ We want to help others gain their lives back and this program addresses all aspects of health, not just getting to a certain number on the scale.
I will share our experience on the show with you all tomorrow.
Get Back Up!
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on December 22nd, 2009
A couple of days ago I was at wrestling practice. I have been working with some high level athletes after being away from competition for a while so I was a little timid. My biggest concern was how my body would hold up.
During a live match I got thrown hard. I landed hard and I layed there for a second and thought about what had just happened to me. I realized that I wasn’t hurt and the landing didn’t hurt as much I had thought it would.
I continued wrestling and a short time later I got tossed on my head again. This time it didn’t phase me. I got back up again, made some adjustments and didn’t get thrown again the rest of the practice.
After practice I was sitting down and I got to thinking about what happened during that workout and what I could take away from it.
That is when I realized just how significant those two crash landings were. Prior to getting thrown I was worried about what it was going to be like when I did get tossed. Would I get hurt? What part of my body would get hurt? How long would I be out for when I did get hurt. I built it up in my mind that getting thrown, which was inevitable, was going to be a terrible experience.
The crazy thing was that it didn’t hurt as bad as I thought and wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I had built it up to be. The second time it didn’t even phase me and after the second time I was able to make some adjustments to keep it from happening again.
On my drive home I thought about how I could relate this lesson to people in their everyday life. Here goes. I think many of us have faced times in our lives when we were feeling a little intimidated by a situation. Perhaps we were timid and afraid to go full blast into a situation because we were worried about what might or might not happen. We hold back because we are afraid that the consequences of committing whole-heartedly may hurt.
For some people, when they do face adversity; like taking a fall for example, they lay there and think about how bad they hurt. Unfortunately, a lot of people will lay there focusing on the pain instead of getting up and going back for more.
On the other hand, if that same person simply took a moment to process what just happened, realized that it really wasn’t that bad, and then got back up and started again, they could then begin to see progress.
It is very possible that they may get tossed around again, but after having already experiencing what it feels like to fall and get back up again, it is more likely that they won’t focus on the pain and will begin to make adjustments so that it doesn’t continue to happen over and over.
I guess the short summary of what I am trying to say is this. We all take a fall now and then. In those moments it is easy to lay there and think about how much it hurt and how much easier it would be to stay down. In those times it is important to get back up and take the chance of getting knocked down again and possibly again. Only when you get back up can you learn from what just happened and what changes we need to make to keep whatever it was from happening again.
When things get tough, we are much better served by looking at what we can learn from the experience rather than focusing on how much we hurt.
Wake Up!
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on December 17th, 2009
The alarm clock buzzed at 5:30 this morning. It was still dark and I could just feel that it was going to be freezing cold outside. To stop the ringing of the alarm I didn’t just push snooze, I turned it off fully expecting to stay under the warm covers.
I lay there thinking about all the reasons to stay in bed: I am sore and need to recover. I have a little cough, maybe I am getting sick. I’ve worked hard this week, I deserve a day off. No one will notice if I am there or not. I’m not hurting anyone by not going. It’s still dark out!
As you can see, there was no lack of excuses to stay in bed. Then it hit me. In the same amount of time it took for me to think up all of those excuses I could have stood up and got moving. Rather than getting up right then, I started thinking of rebutals to all the excuses I had just made for myself.
I am sore…. So what, if I don’t work through this I will continue to be sore everytime I do these workouts and the fact is that I am going to continue to be sore for a while since I am pushing myself again in wrestling.
I have a cough, maybe I am getting sick…. Maybe I just have a cough. If I get up I will know whether or not I am sick or not. If I don’t get up I will lay here and convince myself that I am sick and waste a whole day.
I deserve a day to rest…… I will get a day to rest on Sunday. I deserve to get up and push myself to improve a little more today!
No one will notice if I there or not….. Actually, my team mates will notice, they will be there putting the work in to become champions and it isn’t fair to them that I “need” a little more sleep. If I am not there the guy I would have worked out with won’t have a partner. Someone WILL notice!
I’m not hurting anyone by not going…. I am hurting someone, myself. I am also hurting my family who allowed me to come here to chase my dream. I am cheating them and myself by not doing what I came here to do!
Next time you are laying in bed making up reasons not to or don’t feel like going to work out, ask yourself if those reasons are really that good or if you should call them what they are. Bad EXCUSES!
Running With Rex
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on December 16th, 2009
This past Sunday our family ran in the Seattle Jingle Bell Run to benefit arthritis. We have done this race for four years now and each year we decorate the stroller to look like Santa’s sleigh and all dress up. Suzy and I go as Mr. and Mrs. Claus and the boys dress as reindeer.
This year Rex decided he was old enough to run himself and didn’t need the stroller. The race is a 5k and Rex is only 2 yrs old but we let him have at it. This was actually his second 5k this year. Last night I was talking to a good friend of mine about the experience.
Rex is an active boy and he loves to run so it was no suprise to us that he wanted to do this on his own. It is so fun to watch him because he has so much fun. He had on a snowsuit and then his costume on top of it so he looked liked that kid on A Christmas Story, if you remember that Christmas classic movie. Rex looked like a little ball going down the road.
He would walk, run, wave at the spectators and other races but he was really having fun. As we hit the 2 mile mark we realized there weren’t very many people around us. In fact, we noticed a police car with flashing lights right behind us. Of the thousands of people, we were pretty much dead last.
As we rounded the last turn we saw the finish line in front of us. Little Rex or “Kid Rex” as he likes to be called since he has informed me he is not a baby anymore, saw the finish and ran the last two blocks as fast as he could. He zigged and zagged all over the road and made sure that he took time to wave at people cheering for him. As I followed behind him pushing our “sled” with his brother, I cheered for him like he did for me numerous times this summer at triathlons.
It was so fun to yell “Go Rex Go!” and see him respond with such joy. When we crossed the line we gave him a high five and told him good job. He was so proud and loves the feeling of running across the finish line. At the age of two Rex is already learning that it is fun to finish what you start.
The race took us almost 2 hours with all of the pit stops and waiting for Rex to explore his surroundings, but we finished. Once again I am reminded that it isn’t always about finishing the fastest, but finishing. The cool thing is that Rex is learning to enjoy exercising and he is learning the importance of finishing the race set before us.
As a very competitve person I am learning from Rex too. I am learning that it is alright to enjoy the journey and take in your surroundings. I am learning that being active as a family and enjoying these moments is more precious than getting to the finish as fast as possible.
This weekend, it really hit home that regardless of your age, it is important to get to that finish line no matter how long it takes or how many pitstops you need to take. I also learned that my son is wise beyond his two years! (A little fatherly bragging)
