Fit2Fat2Fit (13 page)

If you find yourself not feeling sore, it's because your body is adjusting. It's getting used to the routine and doesn't need to burn as many calories. If doing 20 push-ups is now child's play, push it to 40, add a pulse, or perform them on a medicine ball. If 30 minutes of power walking on the treadmill barely gets you winded, kick it up to a slow run.

Your body will never get comfortable if you follow this strategy, and the results will be startling. And because the results will pile up, the will to continue to fight for those results won't be lost.

If you treat every single exercise routine as if you were a clueless teenager trying to figure out how to operate a car, you'll be surprised at just how far you can push your body—certainly much farther than the 20 push-ups that nearly killed you just days or weeks before.

This change-up approach has a dual effect. Not only does it prevent us from reaching a plateau and losing interest, it also eliminates the boredom from the workout. Our initial motivation gets bolstered as we feel ourselves getting stronger. We begin to witness tangible results in the way we look and feel. Soon the gym is no longer an enemy to be avoided. We've created a gym experience that's sustainable, an approach to fitness that won't fade by March.

Even though I am one, I can fully admit that men are interesting creatures when it comes to relationships. Very early on, a lot of men realize that any good relationship is about control, and we go through various stages of trying to wrestle away a little more.

First comes the predating power grab. We men spend countless hours perfecting the most blush-inducing pickup lines, and after a single date begin to play the game. There are rules to be followed—how quickly to call after a date, how much to spend on dinner (or, if you're unsure, just stick to a quick coffee or soda). We think we're in control, that we're dictating next steps.

But then we wake up to find ourselves in a three-month relationship, realizing that we're supposed to (and do) call her every night before bed. We make sure she gets where she needs to go, and in the effort of trying to maintain a level of decision-making ability, start to give in to activities like “chick flicks.”

By the time the relationship is serious, we've fully given up even the pretense that we're in control of where the relationship is going. Our only true ability to control something is to find subtle ways to avoid the “define the relationship” or “what kind of ring?” talks.

Even everyday activities like shopping for new clothes take on a whole new meaning. Instead of thinking that the brown pants–black shirt ensemble is just a cute personality quirk, she's redesigning our wardrobe, making sure that we're at least “presentable” to family and friends.

Before we know it, marriage arrives, and although we won't openly admit it, all control has been ceded to the wife. The house is decorated in her style, the social calendar is filled with “double dates,” and we spend a little too much time arguing about the best baby name in the world.

So in my version of this scenario, I did what any self-respecting married man would do—I clung to as many activities as I could from my single days. I watched insane amounts of football, went on long hikes, and went mountain biking, and strategically scheduled get-togethers with my male friends to do “manly” things like … watch football or go hiking. It was the only thing I had left to show that I was still myself. It was my little bit of comfort.

Yet the gentle prodding and “sculpting” from my wife continued. She constantly made sure I was dressing appropriately (enough). She pulled me out to fine restaurants to help me understand that chicken fajitas weren't the only food in this world. We experienced the theater, movies that actually made me cry (but I'll deny it regardless), and participated in cultural events that opened my eyes to new and fascinating parts of the world.

Somewhere along the line, it hit me: Lynn had actually improved me. As much as I had tried to wrestle control away, and to dictate where things were headed, I now marveled at the person I had become. I dressed much better than anyone who knew me years ago would have expected. I was cultured, well rounded, and the experiences and lessons I'd learned had helped to make a better me. This is something I never could have done on my own—I needed to be forced to try things that I'd never even considered. And the results have been more positive and more impactful than I would have imagined in my single days.

If only our spouses could influence our approach to health and fitness in the same way! When left to our own devices, we're lost souls, and decidedly less well rounded than we need to be.

Look at individuals around you, and look at yourself. Ask anyone what their favorite type of exercise is, and they'll give you a clear answer. You have your runners, who seem to shy away from any sort of weight machine and would rather spend hours traveling tens of miles in the open air (even in the rain) than put in a good workout at the gym.

Swimmers tend to be similarly focused. They hate running with a passion and would rather live in water to get their proper exercise, spurning every gym option but the pool.

The weight-lifting crew are masters of their local gym. Everyone knows everyone else, and it's a constant competition to see who can lift more, do more, and sweat more. Yet those folks look at the treadmills on the “cardio” side of the gym with bewilderment—how could anyone actually want to run in place for 45 minutes when you could be pumping iron?

Those who seriously participate in yoga look down on the exercising “commoners” and our clearly broken chi. They can do things with their bodies that most people would expect to see only at the local circus, yet the idea of performing “lawnmowers” or “butterflies” with 50-pound weights would do something sinister to their own energy.

And let's not forget the fitness-class alumni. Whether it be light weight lifting, extreme cardio, abdominal workouts that last for a day and a half, or even dance moves that embarrass any male participant, the routines of these alumni are established, and they wouldn't even consider doing something as uninteresting as swimming laps or running down a street.

That's not to say that being an expert in one of these types of exercise isn't fantastic. Any sort of consistent exercise routine will help any individual take steps toward health and fitness.

The Essential Exercises: Dumbbell Squats with a Pulse, Followed by Dumbbell Military Press

But gaining well-rounded fitness and health requires a more balanced approach. Prior to starting my journey, many friends believed that I was a “meathead”: they thought I lived at the gym, religiously using every weight available, and showing off just how much weight I could bench. But weight training was only part of my approach to fitness. Accepting that a balanced mix of different exercise routines was going to help me achieve my goals—an acceptance I reached before I became a trainer—was much easier to embrace and support than was giving up my wardrobe choices to my wife.

In addition to weight training, I engaged in running, cardio, swimming, exercise classes, and yes, even yoga. When friends would find out that I was making sure I had time for my “downward dog,” they would scoff, thinking that something was clearly off balance. But the reality is that our bodies need different types of workout. Just as we discussed in the section on how to avoid the plateau, following a well-rounded workout routine challenges your body in different ways, providing an even and distinct set of results.

Weight training is vital to help you work muscles in a controlled setting and focus on tightening up what can easily become loose over time. Running, cardio, and swimming are excellent ways to burn a higher number of calories, stripping away persistent fat and driving down overall BMI (body mass index—calculated from a person's height and weight). Yoga focuses heavily on breathing, stretching, and flexibility—three critical pieces to being able to reach a higher level of accomplishment.

All of these different physical gains are beneficial, and you can't get them all from a single type of workout. Perhaps most important, a balanced and well-rounded approach to fitness, incorporating
all
of these approaches, keeps things interesting and thus keeps you working out.

It takes a very patient and persistent person to get on a treadmill and run multiple miles, every single day. The same goes for the person who lifts weights every day for an hour, or swims the equivalent of five miles in the pool. Unless you are lucky (or, as my wife would attest, unlucky) enough to have the obsessive health-nut gene, there will come a time that your typical exercise routine grows stale. That's the time to mix things up and challenge your body with new exercise approaches that you may never have considered.

When I look back at how I was prior to dating, courting, and marrying my wife, I realize how much tunnel vision I truly had regarding life as a whole. I had my routines, approaches, and likes, and I was happy to stick with them. Without a kick in the rear from Lynn, I wouldn't have looked around me to see all the fantastic things there are to do and discover. I credit my wife for any self-actualization that I've accomplished, because she continued to push me into experiences I never would have tried on my own.

To reach true fitness and health, we need to become self-actualized health nuts, willing to dip our toes into a variety of exercise types. The well-rounded and balanced exerciser will not only find greater results, but will be able to continue to have exercise be a part of daily life without things ever getting so stale that the only alternative is to stop exercising altogether.

Sports. For males, it's the great bridge, the one subject that never fails when conversation wanes. Sports also provides the only real occasions where men can jump up and down and act like maniacs and get away with it. Sports can easily become an obsession that determines our moods. If you don't believe me, hang out with a guy who just witnessed his favorite team losing their biggest game—yeah, it's not pretty.

So whenever Tom and I were knee-deep in conversation about sports, everything seemed right in the world. That is, until he brought up the four-letter word that instills fear, anger, and despair in even the most accomplished or gifted athlete—golf.

I'm terrible at golf. It's easier to admit it right out of the gate than to try to rationalize that everyone is bad at the sport. No, golf isn't my strong suit. Give me a football and I'm like a fish in water. Give me a club and a golf ball, and I hit the proverbial wall—hard.

Tom, apparently, was equally woeful. But he was more persistent than I ever was with the sport. After a few failed rounds of golf, I'd given it up as a bad job. He kept coming back to golf, no matter how ugly things got.

To try to learn how to play well, my friend decided to take official lessons. Clearly, spending hours at a driving range, hitting a fair share of “worm burners,” wasn't reaping rewards, so it was time to bring in a professional. I admit that my curiosity was piqued. Although I wasn't planning on picking the sport up again anytime soon, I was interested to hear any secrets or tips that were shared.

The lesson, however, was unexpected. The instructor sat back and watched Tom hit a bucket of 50 balls. At any given moment, my friend was expecting that the tips and tricks would start flowing. Yet not a word was shared. Finally, after a full bucket of balls, Tom turned to the instructor and asked, “So what's my problem?” Forgetting to “be careful what you wish for,” my friend was inundated with “tips.”

Apparently, Tom never approached the ball the same way. He was inconsistent in his practice swings. Furthermore, his practice swings didn't match his real ones. His grip was wrong, sometimes too soft and other times too strong. He didn't pivot his hips, he pivoted them too much, he looked up instead of watching the ball, and he had improper follow-through.

When Tom asked if there was anything slightly salvageable, the instructor smiled and said he had a nice set of golf clubs. When pushed as to how he could start turning around his golf game, the instructor was more forthcoming.

In general, the problem was the form of the swing. He had the right equipment, and the actual swing wasn't terrible. But until he started perfecting the form, and focusing more on hitting the ball right (as opposed to becoming a professional golfer on the PGA circuit), the results would be less than ideal and his frustration would only increase.