Posts Tagged Self Discipline
Where is Your True Starting Point?
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on August 16th, 2010
Yesterday I was out on a bicycle ride with a good friend of mine. As we were riding we started talking about the progress I’ve made over the past year in the sport of triathlon and how I am feeling as I prep for next Ironman in November.
I told him I felt unbelievably different. I am down several pounds, my cycling has improved, and so has my running. Most importantly, my mindset has improved. Last year when I took on the Kona Ironman I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know that carrying around extra weight could affect me as much as it did.
Last weekend I was flipping through the channels and caught the replay of the Kona Ironman on NBC. I watched the race and saw my brief segment once again. When I saw myself, I wasn’t disappointed, I was a little sad. The reason I was sad was because I knew that I had a false sense of how I looked and felt physically.
I was big, not as in pre-Biggest Loser big, but I was carying more weight than I should have been to be competing in a race of that magnitude. The thing is, is that at that time I didn’t realize it. I felt like “I can move 140.6 miles in one day. I am in pretty good shape.” That statement was partially true.
True in the sense that you have to have a pretty good level of fitness to do that race and make the cut-offs. Not true, in that I was definitely carrying too much body fat and failed to realize it. I saw myself as being better off than I was. It wasn’t until I saw myself on television that I realized just how big I was.
I am convinced that had I weighed then what I weigh now, I would have finished that race in under the cut-off time and would have been an official Ironman. That is neither here nor there now. I didn’t finish in time. Heavy or not, I have yet to become an Ironman in the true sense.
What does this have to do with the title of this post? As I was talking yesterday, I came to the conclusion that many of us have a false sense of where we are when it comes to weight. Some of us can think we are smaller and better off than we are, others think we are bigger and worse off than we really are.
In order to know where we really are, we must give ourselves a true starting point. By true starting point I am talking about where are TODAY. I don’t mean 5, 10, or even 20 years ago. The only way to gauge our progress is by having an official starting point and then using that point as a gauge.
For example. If I weigh 240 pounds today, that is what I weigh. In a year from now, if I weigh 200, I will say I lost 40 pounds. If on the other hand I weigh 245, I will say I gained 5 pounds this year. Here is why this is important. I could use my pre-Biggest Loser weight of 353 as a gauge and in turn be able to say that I have lost 108 pounds. Although this is true, it isn’t necessarily the whole truth.
I lost 157 pounds on the show then gained weight back. I then lost weight again. The reality is that If I use the 353 pound number than I am really just losing and gaining the same weight over and over again. This is why I am now using 240 as my starting point. By doing this I can have a clear number and place to begin.
What this allows me to do is wipe the slate clean. I can no longer play games like the “I use to weigh… and even though I have gained…. I ‘ve still kept off….” I know what I weigh and will use this as my starting point and lifelong marker. By doing this, I will have a realistic perception and gauge of how I am doing on this lifelong journey.
In essence, our true starting point is TODAY. Now, lets get started!
See you tomorrow.
Big Weekends Don’t Have to Mean Big Weight Gain….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on July 2nd, 2010
I can’t believe it the 4th of July weekend already! The timing of this holiday couldn’t be better for me. I have now been home for a week from The Biggest Loser Resort and it has been great. One of the lessons that I learned was the importance of planning ahead. In the past, our 4th of July camping trip was a guaranteed 15 lb weight gain weekend.
What’s going to make this one different? I have come to realize that having a good time doesn’t have to revolve around consuming mass calories. I have a plan. Today I am going to share my plan with you in hopes that is will help you have an enjoyable and successful holiday.
For me camping has been a weekend of snacking aimlessly on Chex mix cheese snacks, eating a burger or hotdog whenever the urge hit and drinking cases of pop. Yes pop, I know for some of you your choice of beverage may be different.
It may sound like a bummer, but this year we actually planned a menu. Last year we went to the store and bought whatever sounded like we might want to eat. We had a ton of food and of course we couldn’t let it go to waste so I tried my hardest to eat everything. Waste not want not right?
I have discovered that the coolers that we have that work so well at keeping our junk food cold also work well for fresh healthy foods. We have chicken, steak, stuff for salads and will be able to eat the same way we eat at home. We are bringing our almond milk and cereal for breakfast, we will omelets one morning as well. For lunch we got things to make turkey sandwiches.
Suzy and I talked about how and whn we would do our workouts and specifically what those workouts would be. I am confident that this weekend will be one of the best we have had as a family. We intend to stay active with our little boys and take them hiking and swimming in the lake as often as they can handle. My goal is to have the boys completely exhausted when it come time for them to go to bed.
Lets make this weekend an active one. Regardless of where you live there will be tons of activities to stay active. Maybe this is the year you hit a July 4th fun run or start an annual whiffle ball tournament. You might be surprised at how willing people are to join you in doing active things if you just mention it.
If you know you are going to be going to an event that is focused on food and imbibing, get your workout in ahead of time. One last thing, make sure and revisit your health goals this weekend before heading out and ask yourself if you are doing what you need to to reach them. Holidays are not a free pass. Take some time this weekend for yourself and do the things that you know are going to keep you moving forward.
This weekend doesn’t have to be one of weight gain and overeating. Make it a great time and enjoy.
See you on Monday
Still On Track….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 15th, 2010
I want to thank my readers who asked if I was still on track with my blog and workouts. I am! There was a glitch on my site and my new posts were not appearing on the home page. I believe it is taken care of now. To all of you who sent me messages asking how things were going, thank you. If you hadn’t asked I probably wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. The post are now up so I hope you will go back and read them.
I had an amazing talk with a good friend of mine last week. We were talking about getting and staying on track and he said something that really resonated with me and I think it will be beneficial for all of you as well, regardless of where you are at in your life right now.
I was telling him how in the past I have always felt like things need to be difficult for me in order to feel like I am accomplishing anything. When I was losing weight I felt like it needed to be hard. When it came to finances I felt like even though I have plenty of money I still feel like I should be struggling for some reason. In my speaking career I have felt like there should be times where I don’t have a lot of events booked so that I work harder.
Turns out I can be an idiot. Life doesn’t have to be a struggle. More times than not we make it a struggle so that we have an excuse in case things don’t work out like we plan. If we make losing weight hard we have a reason to give up. “It was just too hard.” “There must be something wrong with my metabolism.” “I don’t know what’s going on with my weight.” We build excuses for ourselves based on not only our own experience but the experiences of others as well.
My friend listened intently and then said this. “I don’t care.” I was a little taken aback. How could he not care after I had just spilled my guts to him. The answer is simple. It doesn’t matter what you’ve always done, what matters is what you are doing now. Things don’t have to be hard just because that’s the way it’s always been.
He then took a sheet a paper and drew a line on it. He pointed to the left side of the line and said that the left side reprresented the past. He didn’t care that I had won The Biggest Loser. He didn’t care that my parents had gotten a divorce or that I didn’t do as well in school as I should have. He didn’t care anything about those things and neither should I. What happened in the past doesn’t have to affect us today. If I am going to be truly successful I need to draw the line and move forward.
I have talked for hours about the importance of not reliving the past. For some reason the first place I go when things get tough is straight to my past experiences. Not the good ones that show I am capable overcoming, but the bad experiences that lead me to think “See, this is what you do all the time. Now you have done it all over again.”
It’s time to draw that line. I have had tough times in the past but I have also had good ones. Times that showed me that I am tough and that I am an overcomer. For all the bad times there were a lot more good ones. The good ones are the ones we need to draw strength from. The bad experiences are like an anchor that is weighing us down. Until we pull that anchor up we can’t move to a better place.
I hope you will join me in drawing that line and striving to not cross back over. Let’s draw from the positive things in our life and stop setting ourselves up for defeat by reliving and speaking the negatives. We have too much life to live to allow ourselves to be weighed down with those negative anchors.
DRAW THE LINE!
See you tomorrow!
Super Bowl Party Let Down…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 8th, 2010
Today the blogoshere is lit up with articles from people that are losing weight who had successful and healthy Super Bowl party experiences. This is not one of those blogs. This morning I woke up with a food hangover that made me feel tired, sluggish, and unmotivated to go to the gym.
My first inhale of air after I woke up sent the smell of cheese burger flavored Doritos to my brain and caused me to want to vomit like a frat kid after a night of Jager-bombs at a house party. Jager-bombs are a particular nasty alcoholic concoction for those of you unfamiliar with drinking lingo. If you are use to eating clean, a bad day of eating can make you feel as bad as any night of drinking.
The day started off pretty good. I prepared myself for the afternoon events by eating normal and talking myself into eating sensibly when I got to the party. I felt like I was ready. I have been working out hard and staying on track in the nutrition part. My mantra was “You’ve been doing great, let’s keep it up today. It’s only a few hour game.”
Before I left I packed my workout gear so that I could go to the gym after the game. I also stopped and picked up a tractor tire to take home and use for workouts. With this in mind I entered the party confident. It only took about two steps inside before all my plans went right out the window.
The spread on that table was looking good. There were some sandwiches that were not a threat as they were relatively healthy. Right next to them were these little smokies wrapped in croissant dough. There was a bag of cheeseburger Doritos and a bowl of other Doritos. Cookies the size of your head were located next to a nice meat and cheese tray.
So what’s a guy to do? I grabbed a sandwich a couple of little hot dogs and a handful of cheeseburger Doritos and walked away. I sat down and ate. I got done and thought “Good job, you didn’t do too bad.” Right after that I thought “Let’s just see what else is up there one more time.” The kiss of death!
I don’t like sweets and I don’t really like Doritos either but for some reason I developed a craving that I wasn’t willing to fight. I ate one of the cookies and it was really good. After that one I saw another one that looked like it might be even better. It was. Needless to say, I picked at food the entire game and felt like I was going to vomit by the time we left.
As we were loading the boys in the car I told Suzy that I would just work out at home. We both knew better and decided I better just get to the gym. The thing is that I was dead tired. I had entered a food coma and wanted to go to sleep. I drove to the gym thinking about what an idiot I had just been. Now I was going to pay for it.
I hopped on a bike and rode for an hour. It wasn’t an enjoyable workout and I felt like all that food could be out of my mouth and onto the floor at any time. I made it through and went home. I sat there watching television like a zombie for a while and then went to bed frustrated.
I woke up this morning and still felt bad but knew I needed to get over it and go back to work. Even though I blew it at the party, I still found some redemption in the fact that I went and worked out even though I didn’t want to. This morning as frustrated as I was I got right back on schedule.
The moral of this story. We all blow it from time to time. The important thing is not to dwell on it and get right back on track. Hey, when I do it I do it big. The difference now is that I don’t beat myself up for days or weeks. I get back to work and do my best to learn from my mistake. Now back to work!
See you tomorrow!
