Fit2Fat2Fit (12 page)

I couldn't tell if I was exhausted because it was 4:00
A.M
. or because these infomercials became harder to believe. Yet I was awake enough to realize that all of the infomercials had three critical parts to their pitch:

Go extreme.
None of the specials mentioned the importance of balance and realism. Instead, your choices were to do as little as possible for amazing results (with the product), or sacrifice your lifestyle and body for amazing results (without the product).

Shh! It's a secret!
Only after you spent $50 or more could you learn the secret to a better you. Doing only basic exercises or routines wasn't adequate. You would never reach your true potential. You needed a special video, contraption, or human torture device—available only from this one source.

There's no other option.
Like any good sales message, the presentations made it clear that the only way to true health and fitness was contained in the infomercial. There was no customization to an individual's interests, abilities, or desires. If you followed the scripted and convoluted plan, you would lose weight, with the consistent reminder that “results may vary.”

In truth, exercise and fitness have very little to do with secret components. They're about other important aspects—persistence, balance, and interest.

If changing nutritional habits is all about making the right choices each hour and day, appropriate fitness and exercise are about persistence—pulling yourself off the couch every single day to get physical activity. In some ways, a change in nutrition is easier, because you're presented with so many opportunities to self-correct or get back on the wagon. Exercise is more difficult, and typically more intrusive on our busy lives. Between a job, family, children, friends, and other activities, who has the time, energy, and patience to fit in a two-hour workout? Yet making the time to ensure we get enough physical activity is crucial to finding fitness and health.

Moreover, the necessary and most critical approach to an exercise routine is balance. Sure, results can be found in the most extreme of programs. These will push the body and mind to depths and lengths they never expected to go. And sure, there are select individuals who can get away with just 10 minutes of exercise every day and still maintain a high metabolism and good figure. But true fitness is about balance—putting the time, effort, and energy into a workout, but only to the point of feeling a healthy tension. The body is a machine—it needs to be worked, and it needs downtime. When damaged, it needs breathers to repair and revitalize. Finding the right place between too little and too much is critical to developing a sound exercise philosophy and approach.

Finally, an appropriate exercise mind-set focuses on individual interests. We can't be good at, or enjoy, every activity put in front of us. For the same reason that some of us love seafood and others run for the hills when it's put in front of us, the specific form of exercise must hold a person's interest. Because believe me, there will come a time when you won't want to put in the time and effort required. If you have no interest in the type of exercise routine you're doing, you'll stop at that point. And so will your path to health.

When people looked at pictures of me taken before the journey began, they would often ask how I was able to fit in what must have taken two or three hours of exercise a night. They assumed that it was impossible to get my results by powering through a 45-minute workout four or five times a week at the local gym or in the basement.

I'm not sure they believed me when I told them the truth. Like them, I said, I had work, a family, and friends. What I didn't have was an extra three hours of free time. I had achieved fitness through workouts of 45 minutes to an hour, four or five times a week. And I did so with the proper mix of persistence, balance, and interest.

As I slogged my way back into the gym after seven months of inactivity, however, I finally realized just how foreboding and scary the mountain looked when you were at the bottom. Getting out of the routine of lazy nights on the couch was brutal, and I often considered taking a night or two off, just because I felt ineffective. I mean, I couldn't do a regular push-up anymore. What would it matter if I relaxed for just one evening?

The answer was simple: because health and fitness aren't found on the couch. They're found at the gym, in a workout room, or outside, and they're found with the right mind-set. And so I pushed myself back to the gym, day after day, remembering that the key was balance; I didn't need to kill myself.

I knew that to get in great shape and maintain my fitness would take persistence, balance, and exercise that held my interest. And, as with my approach to nutrition, I needed a plan that I could follow. Yet a plan wasn't going to be enough. There were pitfalls ahead—dangers that could derail even the most ardent, focused individual—and it was important to know what was coming and how to stay on track and keep moving forward.

There are many rites of passage as a person grows out of childhood and into adulthood. For the socially conscious, the first time you enter a voting booth is the true indication that you're now someone to be taken seriously.

For others, it's a quick trip to a casino to gamble or pull the handle of a slot machine that signifies youth is gone and an open world of opportunity lies before you.

My rite of passage was getting my driver's license. At that moment the virtual umbilical cord was severed from my parents, and I was suddenly able to go to the mall, the grocery store, or a movie without having to beg my mom to drop me off (albeit half a block from the entrance, so I wouldn't be seen by my friends).

I can't have been the only person who took driver's education more seriously than all my other schooling. I was determined to pass my driving test on the first try and wanted to run down to the DMV as soon as my … mom could take me.

Leading up to driver's education, I remember watching my parents drive. It seemed so simple. You twisted the steering wheel a little, turned on the blinker now and then, and hit the gas when the light turned green. I was unable and unprepared to drive at that point, and had no idea what it took to safely navigate the neighborhood, but that didn't stop me from thinking I knew better.

Driver's education changed that. Through supervised road tests (with other fearful students), the reality of just what it took to drive a car came into view. I seemed to have a bad habit of scaring my fellow passengers and my instructor whenever I took to the road. And as I learned how to operate one foot between the gas pedal and the brake (the two-footed driving I'd been imagining apparently wasn't acceptable), check my blind spots, and parallel park, I realized just how incompetent I was at driving a car. No matter how many times I read the driving manual, I clearly wasn't grasping how to make the car go without risking the lives of those around me.

Then came the big day of the test—which I passed!—and subsequent trips out and about on my own. It was white-knuckle driving at its best. My body was tense the whole time. I checked my blind spots so much that I developed new blind spots right in front of the car; and it felt best to go 10 miles under the speed limit just to be safe. Just a day or two after I got my license, I took a quick trip over to the local grocery store, which was only 10 minutes away. By the time I arrived, I was exhausted. I was doing absolutely everything I should while operating the car, and the process took my full concentration and effort.

I'm not sure how long the adjustment took, but my level of comfort with an automobile is slightly different these days. Like most Americans, I've found that I can drive the car, eat a sandwich, tune the radio, and sometimes even check my text messages, leaving only the occasional moment to check my blind spots. Please know that I'm working to change these bad habits. And yet I drive so “unconsciously” these days that I sometimes reach my destination without remembering how I got there (or worrying about who I might have run off the road)!

In other words, as my experience grew in operating an automobile, my comfort level grew as well. Soon I was doing things with a car that I'd never dreamed of on my first day of driver's education class. In truth, I can't say whether I'm a good or a bad driver—I don't really think about it. But I've certainly picked up some lazy and bad habits along the way.

As I drive down the road writing this book (just kidding, Mr. Officer), it's painfully clear to me that a lot of us approach exercise the same way that we learn to drive a car—and the end result is a lack of overall accomplishment (along with some of those pesky bad habits).

Prior to exercise, it's easy to look at people in control of their fitness, and say, “Why can't I do that?” It seems so basic to be able to do a push-up or a pull-up, and running on a treadmill is just running in place, isn't it? Everyone else can do it, so why not me? Why not now? In truth, the blood, sweat, and tears required to start shaping one's body into a fine, well-oiled machine is difficult to understand until it's experienced firsthand.

Each year those of us with any connection to the fitness world see the same ritual. After a guilt-ridden holiday season, droves of people purchase a gym membership and make a resolution to head faithfully to the gym. For some months they make a valiant effort.

These “resolutioners” are easy to spot. They're the ones who can't figure out how to turn on the latest treadmill-like machine; they stand in front of it looking at it as if it were a relic from the Inquisition, used for torture as opposed to exercise. Their effort needs to be applauded; they're on the right track. But as these folks work their way through exercise routines, not sure if they're accomplishing anything, their first bursts of motivation begin to wane.

The Essential Exercises: Hand Step-Ups with Plank

Repeat these movements, at a fast pace, for approximately 30 to 45 seconds, depending on your fitness level. If you're a beginner, you can do this exercise on your knees until you build up the strength to do it without the added assistance. This is a great exercise that works your core, shoulders, and arms and also gets your heart rate up; this combination helps you to burn fat and build muscle at the same time
.

Many resolutioners make it through this tough first stage with sheer determination and move on to what I call the competent stage, where individuals have learned to use the various pieces of equipment properly. Their bodies are most likely not ready for the onslaught of punishment, however. They hit 20 push-ups, and it feels as if their chest is going to explode. After an hour passes, they can barely pull themselves home, wondering if their body can take the next visit. Even days later they can still feel every single rep of every single move. The pain of the competent stage is a barrier that forces some resolutioners away for good and, for others, saps even more of their initial drive and motivation.

Yet the strong and determined march on. Results are beginning to show, and the effort seems to be paying off.

A couple of months pass, and those same 20 push-ups are now easy. The treadmill is so comfortable that its inhabitant is focused more on finding the right television show to watch than on anything to do with his or her body.

Then something strange happens: the results stop. Tireless exercisers who reach this level are now frustrated, and the effort spent at the gym doesn't seem to be worthwhile. The workouts fly by so easily that these people don't really remember what exercises they did. Without results, though, a new boredom and a sense of failure creep in. Without physical improvement and soreness to prove they're working hard, exercisers stop making visits to the gym. Now when they think about the gym, the frustration is more about their gym membership fee being wasted.

In this annual ritual, we can see the inherent problem with so many of our efforts to get healthy. Like teenagers learning to drive a car, our bodies figure things out. Before you know it, your body has adjusted to the pain, soreness, and fatigue of exercise because it's getting stronger. In just a few short weeks, you're flying through routines that you didn't think you could possibly survive. The result is called a plateau. Your body gets used to the same movements, weights, and cardio routines; it learns to unconsciously survive the daily trip to the gym, without any threat of DOMS lurking around the corner.

The key to fitness is to confuse your body so that it continues to progress. In other words, you need to be smarter than your body, and always one step ahead. It's imperative to switch up your workout routine every two to four weeks. Choosing different cardio equipment, weight, intensity of exercise, or fitness classes forces your body to readjust. And in that readjustment, the ongoing results are found. The more that you can keep your body from feeling comfortable, the more energy you will expend, resulting in greater weight loss and muscle mass.