Rumspringa...My Tracy Anderson Transformation: Day 70: New Year, New Plan, New Me

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Day 70: New Year, New Plan, New Me

Level 7 is all done. I didn't even realize this was my last day until I thought to myself...."I'm getting tired of this level," and then it occured to me, this is my final day!! I previewed level 8. It looks interesting. I have come to realize that somewhere along the line, I stopped being intimidated by new levels. I used to preview levels and think they looked too hard...now I simply look forward to new moves that I'll get to learn.

I am increasingly more excited about my idea to start Bootcamp in Jan w/diet, followed by Continuity w/meta diet. I know at least one person on the forum who has had tremendous success doing both, and I just feel ready for it. I am modifying it slightly in that I'll continue drinking a protein shake as I am now, but at only 120 calories, all natural ingrediets, no added sugar, I feel like it'll be a good addition to the routine. I'll also be veganizing the menu to customize it to my needs (tofu for eggs e.g), but other than that I will commit to the diet 100% for the 4-5 months. Like I mentioned yesterday, I'm at the point where it actually feels doable.

Initially I know if I had attempted to do diet and exercise simultaneously, I would have thrown in the towel on both. It would have been too much for me personally. What changed my mind was 2 things. #1, in showing myself what I'm able to accomplish by doing the Meta exercise, I have slowly chiseled away at some mental barriers and see that I'm capable of focus, consistency, and accomplishing things I set my mind to. #2, I've seen someone like Michelle on the forum, and Shan who have shown what is possible when diet is coupled with exercise. I couldn't even picture it before, but seeing others do it helped open up a space in my brain to the possibility of it! For that ladies, I thank you :)

I am excited to be able to compare my results with Meta excluding diet AND be able to compare that and see what is possible when diet and exercise are coupled together. I'm not someone who has ever had substantial success with diet. I'm not someone who lost all the weight and gained it back. I've always been overweight (since jr high). This will be a first in my life, but I can truly see at the end of those 5 months that I will lose all the excess weight. I couldn't even fathom it before and now I can. I can't wait!

4 comments:

CarrieNDecember 3, 2011 at 6:31 PM
Hi there!

I absolutely LOVE your message in your blog (I've only just found it via a comment you left on Roxy's that resonated with me).

I've had a similar journey with the start again merry-go-round with varying success (you're a little ahead of me, but I hope to catch you up in attitude soon).

I've just realised that I've slipped back into the old all or nothing/searing self criticism mode that I've been working on ditching (definitely doesn't work, I'm living proof of concept). Funnily, I just updated my own blog with similar sentiments - although I suspect you're a faster learner ;0) - and then found yours. So thanks for reinforcing it so eloquently.

All the best...

Carrie xo
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Tracy2011December 3, 2011 at 10:33 PM
Congratulations on finishing L7 it is a tough level. L8 is hard but different and L9 even more so.

I am curious why you would want to do bootcamp instead of continuity. I am at L9, and will start continuity afterwards, but I am interested in knowing your thoughts on this. Regardless, I don't think you can do wrong on any of her programs. Have a great weekend and Happy Taming.
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SamDecember 4, 2011 at 10:51 AM
level 8 was my favorite! i'm sure you will love it :) good luck for boot camp... i'm such a wimp i'm too intimidated by it
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LeahDecember 4, 2011 at 1:34 PM
Welcome Carrie, omgoodness story of my life starting over with things, not seeing them all the way through in the name of wanting to do them "perfectly" the next time around. Although I don't know how fast a learner I am, haha! It's taken many years but through this TAM journey things are starting to click mentally. What is your blog?

Hi Tracy 2011-Thanks you for your continued support. L7 was tough, but somehow I enjoyed it. L9 looks insane like Tracy might be trying to separate out the true TAM devotees before moving onto continuity.

As for bootcamp, I had gotten about 20 days into it earlier this year and I found it provided very fast results. My butt lifted within 2 weeks (didn't even think my butt was low before), and my abs felt really strong again in a short period of time. I'd like a kickstart to the new year, and I feel like the bootcamp will provide that since the workouts are longer. You can do up to 60 reps of each leg exercise depending on your strength level for example, and an hour of cardio.

Also, I want to be able to do the bootcamp diet, and it just seems natural that if I'm gonna do the diet I'd do the corresponding workout to go with it. Additionally, Michelle and Shannon (from our TAMily) had really great results with the bootcamp. Basically I feel like after I completele Meta without diet I'll be down a solid 10 pounds or so, leaving about 40 pounds to go. I can see bootcamp w/diet being the thing that really kickstarts weighloss into high gear, followed by continuity w/diet to complete the weight loss process for me.

Lastly, I would say that since January is culturally the time we (in the U.S.) tend to set our new goals for the year a bootcamp in January feels like good timing, even if it's just in my head :)

Hello Sam! I don't know if I'd call level 8 my favorite, haha...I'll give it a few more days though before I make a judgement call :) I don't think bootcamp is too bad. You know, I really used to be so intimidated by each new level of meta I would have anxiety about being a "failure" even though no one else was around to judge me. But with each level, I was amazed by my abilities and so in time I've learned that it may seem awkward, or tough, or impossible at first, but in time the moves came to me, and I wondered why I was ever intimidated in the first place. I KNOW you could do bootcamp if that was your desire :)
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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

90 Day Metamorphosis with Tracy Anderson

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Day 70: New Year, New Plan, New Me

4 comments: