I’ve been working out for nearly 5 months now, and while I have seen gains in my strength and endurance, I didn’t really start seeing the kinds of results I’ve wanted until recently. And even though the gains I saw were modest it was enough to almost completely overhaul my thought process. I started thinking differently about my health and my eating habits, and almost by accident my financial thinking has changed too. Eventually I discovered that the same problems that affect people with weight loss issues, affect people with debt loss issues as well. (Revised 2/7/07)
Part I Revised
Sidestepping An Inevitable Argument
In the last two months or so I’ve lost a total of 25 lbs! Whoa! And the first question that everyone asks me is: how?
Initially, I had a hard time “wanting” to go and work out. Even though I knew I had to go to reach my goal I couldn’t convince myself to get up and put gym clothes on. Eventually I had to force myself, which after an initial resistance wasn’t as hard as I expected.
I used my power of impulse to impulsively go to the gym without giving my brain a second to debate the matter. The instant the word gym came into my mind I would go. Then after about 3 weeks of doing this it became natural for me to go since my brain figured out that it had little choice in the matter.
My reward for this trickery? Every time I missed gym days I felt weird, like I had done something as evil as skipping a shower… twice. That was my brain’s way of thanking me for not allowing it to contribute it’s two cents.
Despite that, going to the gym became part of my program, and my newfound discipline was going to open the pathway to a skinnier and healthier me.
That was a dream short lived. I almost gave up. After two months of minor results, I realized I was fighting an uphill battle that superficially I seemed to be losing.
So what to do? I had to rethink a little bit.
I knew what I wanted to accomplish, I knew that eating better and exercise were the key factors in getting fit, but my biggest problem, I discovered, was that I didn’t have a system that worked.
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I thought we agreed we weren’t gonna show actual pictures of ourself? Did you shave your belly?
Pictures of ‘ourself’ eh — lol.
Yes well as you can see from my avatar I’m not that fat to begin with lol.
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Don’t you just love the way the ads show Jenny Craig and Operah’s weight Loss secrets. LoL
Nope, can’t do it. I just love food too much. I’m adventurous and I love seeking new things. Doing the same thing everyday is too mundane. I try to find new restaurants almost everyday: cheap, expensive, new, or old. I try it all. How can I manage it?
I can’t do the gym because it’s so mundane and boring. It’s repetitive and no fun. It’s like work instead of fun. I prefer exercising such as rock climbing and river rafting and snowboarding. I’m looking into archery. But all of that costs mucho money. And I can’t do that all the time. I tried Wushu, yoga, warrior yoga, taichi, racquetball, and trampoline jumping. I love them all, but I can never keep a systematic method of going though. How do I do the exercising bit now?
For people like me: I lost about 8-10 pounds one month just by eating half of my order. That way, I got to enjoy everything I liked. Just eat half. That’s it. Bread only in the morning, also. And no soda. Try Arnold Palmer’s…they’re almost just as delicious as soda, and it’s more adventurous and less bland. It works, almost.
Almost…if you have the discipline.
Yeah I totally hear you on that. Sometimes to be happy though you have to make sacrifices. For me it was realizing that the sacrifice wasn’t really that bad since I had been tricked to begin with. I like to blame big media for making us feel like we have to have all this variety in life –That if we don’t we’re living less. The reality is it’s not doing anyone any good to think that way. The minute I stopped thinking like that things began to change.
From a skinny’s person point of view, its the same struggle if you’re trying to find discipline. Routine helps me stay focused on goals. Whether its forcing myself to wake up earlier every morning to hit the gym or to spend less to reach my monthly retirement savings goal. A schedule may seem boring but it pays off in the long run when you see the nice rewards that come from it. A fit body or a nice retirement nice egg.
See part of the point I was trying to make is that it had nothing to do with discipline. If you find a system that works for you it make look like your disciplined from an outside perspective, but really you’re just doing what is most natural to you!
Wow, now this is interesting. Who woulda thunk? Eating the same thing everyday…but the explanation makes PERFECT sense. I’m definitely going to try this. Thanks for steering me here! On to Part 2…
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