Rumspringa...My Tracy Anderson Transformation: Day 34-36: Offtrack yet still Ontrack

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Day 34-36: Offtrack yet still Ontrack

Not really sure what happened these last couple days, but I'm gonna give it a gander. Last week I finished up my 5th day of exercise for the week without doing my cardio. Since I finished on a Thursday, (normally finish on a Friday) I thought well I can do it tomorrow, but then Friday and Saturday came and I still hadn't done it. Thought to myself, well, I'll make up for in on one of my off days the next week. Then Sunday and Monday went by and still no cardio...that was the first time that's happened since I began my journey 7 weeks ago, (what??? has it been 7 weeks?? crazy...).

Well, part of it was about finding balance. I had attemped to exercise 6 days last week instead of my usual 5 because I wanted to get through the levels faster (level 3 was so painful afterall). And the truth is, I liked starting my workout week on a Sunday instead of Monday because then by Thursday I've already completed all my workouts. However, I continue to find that going for 6 days a week is too much for me right now, and so it took me having 4 days in a row off to get back into balance I guess. I'm constantly recalibrating to equilibrium whether I realize it or not. However, the other thing is that I had a low level cold for the first time in like 5 years which was depleting my energy and was the reason I couldn't get through the cardio in the first place! Since going veggie, colds have been a thing of the past for me. But I think all these new workouts were a change for my body, and also the weather became very cold the night before I got sick, and I also had a big emotional crying session the night before I got sick too. So, it was the combination. Anyways, my point is that having a cold left me really out of breath and so I'm not mad at myself or disappointed that I didn't do the workout. It is understandable, AND I still plan to do an extra cardio session come next week to make up for it.

I guess I just want to reiterate how important it is to keep moving foward. Slowing down is not the same thing as stopping or going backwards. But when I get hungup on things that inhibit me from moving forward, therein lies the actual problem. Thankfully, today I was able to get some momentum back and get back on track. I had actually felt that I might have gotten so far off track that I didn't want to exercise anymore. I wanted to give up many times thoughout my workout...after I had done everything on the right side and still had to do the left...5 minutes into cardio, again at the 10 minute mark, again at the 20 minute mark, one last time at the 25 minute mark.

I was feeling depressed, and in spite of exercising being a mood lifter I just didn't want to do it. I asked myself why I didn't want to, and the response was that I just didn't feel like it. I wanted to go watch TV and eat in order to try and tune out my depressing thoughts. I immediately responded to myself that that was not a good enough reason. My response wasn't harsh mind you, it was with a smile and an imaginary hug that acknowledged my feelings, but also acknowledged that another part of me wanted to get through this workout, to be able to check it off the list for today. Also, I reminded myself that I wasn't working out all day after all. It was just one hour in the entire day. I thought of how quickly that time goes by sitting in front of the TV. I thought about the time I spend at work, and that 1 hour is just not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things. I told myself how the small investment of an hour will have a positive impact on many areas of my life. In other words, the investment was small compared to the payback.
That in the long run exercise will help me mentally and physically and emotionally on many different levels.

When I was struggling with the number of reps I had to do, I told myself just to do 5 reps, and sometimes that was all I could get through, but for the most part I ended up doing more reps than I thought I could get through. When it came to cardio, I told myself all I had to do was step touch as long as I made it thought the 30 minutes that was the most important thing. What amazes me I suppose and what I'm thankful for, is that all these positive thoughts were inside me, because I had learned them earlier in my journey. And I was thankful that they were there to give me stregnth and bring me out of my default programming that said I have to do it perfectly or it's not gonna work. I don't have enough energy to get through the workout (sure that's true if I'm doing all the reps and jumping all through the cardio. That thought is no longer true once I do as many reps as I can and step touch cardio).

Another thing is I ask myself am I breathing heavy? Do I feel a burn? In spite of both of these things did I keep pushing through and yet I'm still not able to get through all the reps? Well at that point I realize I have indeed given it my all, and I am doing a good job in spite of not being perfect.

I liked finishing my workout by 10:30 this morning. I liked having my protein shake before hand. These two things are a helpful part of a my routine that get the ball rolling in the right direction. I'm so thankful that at least for today I was back ontrack. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I'm still trying, I'm still in the game, I still have my eyes on the prize, I still try to balance out my negative thoughts with positive ones. It's gotten me further than I've ever gotten in my life with exercise. I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep trying. I just need to remember to keep moving forward. Take it one move at a time, first arms, then abs, then legs, one at a time. One at a time adds up when you have faith.

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What has Made This Time Different?

I have attempted to try to stick to an exercise routine so many times in my life, and yet I've rarely made it past a week or two at the most. This time has been a whole new experience, and this is a list of the reasons why (subject to change). Perhaps one or all of these will resonate with you too:

1) I have a simple, mental, visual analogy to help me focus on the bigger picture: In the past I've dieted and exercised and wondered why am I not losing weight? The key was that I wasn't consistent. The truth was that my efforts were sporadic rather than stacking one on top of the other. So it felt like I had exerted so much energy (which I had), but because it was not one foot in front of the other, my efforts did not stack up to any actual results. This made the most sense to me once I understood the the visual analogy of climbing a wall. My goal (lose weight/get fit) was to get over this wall. My attempts to get over the wall included climbing up (working out, dieting). However, I was constantly climbing back down the wall without realizing it (getting off the dieting, not exercising). Over time, I was exhausted from climbing up and didn't understand why I had not yet made it over, after all I had put in a lot of effort. It was then that I realized that every time I stop exercising, I am not picking up from where I left off the next time I start up again. Instead, I have to start from the very bottom of the wall. The steps up the wall do not help you climb over unless the are consistenly moving in a forward direction upward. While this may seem simple, and easy to understand intellectually, it was something I had to understand in the form of an epiphany. It was the first step to me being able to be consistent with my Tracy Anderson Method.

2) Make the goal about following through with the actions, rather than just focusing on the end results: Now that I understood that consistency was such an important factor in being successful with my goal, I had to figure out how to actually be consistent when I had never before been able to. It was so hard for me to imagine getting past level 1, because in my previous attempts I had learned how to do a few days of level 1, feel defeated, take a break, and then start over on level 1 again once I felt like I just couldn't take being overweight any more. My brain only understood how to stop and start over, so it just couldn't imagine what it felt like to move forward to L2-L9 and beyond. So, I made a commitment to myself that I did not even have to do the levels if I did not want to, but that I would play the videos every day as though I were doing them, just for the sake of my brain understanding what that would feel like. Amazingly enough, this triggered something in my brain so that it could at least entertain the possibility of experiencing the program beyond level 1.

3) Don't tell anyone I am learning to establish an exercise routine, until I'm on a roll. I understand using someone as an accountability buddy, and I do think that is helpful. But for me, I found that when I told people I was starting to exercise I diverted energy away from my goal (establish a regular exercise routine). So when I used to tell people, "oh I'm starting something new" people kindly wanted to know how it's going, how much I've lost, all these reasonable questions. For me, that added an extra pressure that I just didn't need. I didn't want to be accountable to anyone but myself, and I because I am someone who worries too much about what other people think, it just served me better to start the journey on my own and learn from my own experiences, learn to trust myself and my own instinct, and feel free to experiment without fearing judgements from others.

4) Don't make any changes to diet initially, but instead first focus on making exercise a regular part of my routine. Learning to exercise regularly and consistently & eating nutritiously are both lofty goals in and of themselves. To do both simultaneously has never ever worked for me. For my brain, my emotions, my inability to adapt to change, it was far too large an undertaking to attempt diet exercise simultaneously. For me, exercise is the easier place to start because it feels more in my control. There are only two choices (to exercise or not), and it is completely up to me, and not influenced by much else. On the other hand, food requires more preparation what with shopping, and storing and cooking, and taking food with me places. Exercise is just once a day whereas eating is something to work on multiple times throughout the day. Another thing is that if I attempted exercise and diet at the same time, if I did poorly in one area that day, it wiped out any good work I did in the other area (in my mind), and made me want to give up on BOTH. Exercise is the place to start for me.

5) Accept that my objectives are long-term and therefore no matter how hard I work, I will not be skinny in a month or two. But a year from now and for the rest of my life I will be.

6) Keep a blog or journal. For me, blogging has enabled me to see that some days are challenging, but there are also other days are easier. It is easy to forget the good days when I'm just focusing on the negative one at hand. Blogging allows me to go back and remember the positive things I've gained and learned along my journey.

7) Exercise with a buddy in the beginning to help make exercise a daily habit. While I didn't tell anyone about working out until about 2 weeks after I'd started, after that when I told my friend she was excited and wanted to try it out too. We exercised together for about two weeks, and that helped me establish a routine of exercising first thing in the morning consistenly.

8) Immerse myself in the success of others. I read others' blogs and success stories and facebook and the TA forum. www.masteringthemethod.com was such a great tool because it was the first visual I had to understand that this was going to be a journey and a process. It is so easy to see the "before" and "afters" and think that 1 week or a month of commiting will take me from before to after. Being able to see the "during" as well made such a difference to my brain because it was like the missing piece of the puzzle to understand this is not in any shape or form an overnight, overweek, or overmonth process. It showed me the bridge from "before" through "during" to "after".

9) Watch and re-watch and watch again Tracy's informercial and multiple visits to QVC. Especially the first month I watched them almost every day. Seeing the informercial is the pique of excitement in the beginning of a new exercise routine. Watching the infomercials help me remember the feelings I had in the beginnning and reminds me why I began this journey in the first place.

10) Trust Tracy, yourself, and those who have come before you, and have faith that while you can't imagine it today, each step you take will lead you to your after as it has for so many others.

11) Let go of being a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist prevented me from succeeding 100% of the other times I've attempted to exercise. It was vital to learn to only do whatever my personal abilites are and nothing more. Understanding and believing that I would build from wherever I was starting, as there is no need to exhaust myself physically and mentally by exercising beyond my capabilites was again instrumental. The very first time I tried metamorphosis, I was beyond defeated and in tears as there was no way I was gonna be able to do 40 reps of all the leg exercises as she did. I initially would pause the TV after every exercise attempting to complete 40 reps like Tracy was going. Helllllloooo, Tracy is in shape and she invented the method for goodness sake. I never exercised and was carrying around at least 50 pounds that didn't need to be there. Because I couldn't be "perfect" I thought I couldn't do the method. This was completely false. Finally, I figured out that I just had to do whatever reps I was able to do while she was doing the same exercise. Then when she moved on, I moved on to the next move. Suddenly my abilites were increasing, just by doing my personal best. It was the same thing with the cardio. It was important to me to play the whole tape, but that didn't mean I had to be jumping the whole time. Instead, I would step touch or march in place, drink some water. The point is that I got to experience what 30 minutes of cardio would feel like, and eventually be able to build up to it. I can now do an hour of cardio :)

...to be continued

Rumspringa...My Tracy Anderson Transformation

90 Day Metamorphosis with Tracy Anderson

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Day 34-36: Offtrack yet still Ontrack

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