September Week 3: Consistency With Exercise

September is already half way through and I hope that you have been reaping the rewards of getting some structure in your weight mastery. This week I want to look at our relationship to one of the most important ingredients of long term permanent weight mastery: exercise. One of the biggest complaints I hear from clients is that they cannot be consistent with exercise over time. I would like to offer a few reasons why you may not be as consistent as you want and some ways to SHIFT this, along with a fun mind technique to reconnect you with exercise in a powerful way.

YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH EXERCISE

Let’s look at the definition of the word “relationship”: a connection, association, or involvement.
Now, let’s look at the definition of the word “exercise”: physical activity that is planned, structured, and repetitive for the purpose of health.

When describing the concept of a relationship, a couple’s therapist might say, “well, there is partner A as an individual, and partner B as an individual and the relationship that they create together has a life of its own called relationship AB. When the individuals in that couple nurture the relationship between them, it is alive and healthy. When they neglect the relationship or have ill will towards it, the relationship becomes weak and sometimes dies.”

So when it comes to your relationship with exercise there is you partner A and you are innocent enough. You are a good person, right? There’s nothing wrong with you. Then there is exercise, partner B, just exercise as defined above, a physical activity. Also, exercise on its own is innocent enough.

Now look at the connection between you and exercise: is the relationship robust and strong, healthy and vital? Are both members of the relationship contributing to each other? Or is it weak and withering, barely alive, whispering, “help me”? Is it full of drama, guilt, betrayal and broken promises?

Whatever it is, you cannot escape the fact that you have a relationship with exercise! Now let’s raise the standard and the quality of the relationship by moving from Fat to Thin Thinking so that exercise is not something you do but part of your Weight Mastery lifestyle.

WHY YOU MAY NOT HAVE A CONSISTENT STRUCTURE WITH EXERCISE

1. Freaking yourself out with EXTREME Goals: Have you heard of extreme sports? How about extreme goals? Often when I ask a new client what their new exercise goals are going to be, even if they haven’t been exercising in years, they will say something like “I will try to exercise every day for about an hour and a half, seven days a week!” I appreciate the commitment to change, but 9 out of 10 times this extreme goal creates overwhelm in the brain and we disconnect, going back to our old “Fat Thinking”
   
   Monday morning we wake up and think about going out and exercising for an hour and a half.  Our brain stresses and our Inner Rebel chimes in “that is too much for today, go back to sleep now and you can be good tomorrow”. When it comes to exercise, it is important to create realistic and do-able goals, ease into them, accomplish them and build confidence and mastery.
   
   SHIFT YOUR RELATIONSHIP: SET DO-ABLE EXERCISE GOALS AND BUILD THEM
   Marathon runners don’t start training 26 miles a day and neither should you, no matter what your goal with exercise. If you have not been exercising recently, even if you are a former “exerciser”, set super obtainable goals to get started with. Knowing that you are going to build from 15 minutes 5 days a week to 45 minutes a day 5 days a week over a 2 month period with defined weekly goals of increasing the minutes you exercise keeps you from freaking yourself out and never getting started and also creates a goal based structure that can get your mind excited to begin achieving.
2. “Fit in” versus “plan around”: Another consistency problem comes when we try to “fit “exercise into our existing day, rather than starting with finding the best time for exercise for you and then building your life around it. Fitting it in and not planning for it moves exercise to the back of our mind and eliminates it as a priority leading to a chronic case of “I couldn't find time” or I forgot to get to the gym”.
   
   SHIFT YOUR RELATIONSHIP: PLAN YOUR EXERCISE EARLY, HAVE REGULAR APPOINTMENTS
   One of the most important things I do each week is plan out my exercise for the upcoming week. I put it on my schedule and hold myself to it. It has become such a habit that often I show up at the gym without even thinking that I am going to exercise. It’s just on my schedule and I show up. It didn’t always feel like that, but as I made my relationship with exercise important, it just became a part of who I am, not what I do.
   
   I also think it’s important to be real about when it’s going to be your optimal time to exercise. There are days for me that the morning works best, and then there are days where the evening works and it’s what I do to unwind after a long day. When is the best time for you? How can you put it in your schedule first and then plan everything else around it?
3. We see exercise as a “chore”: Often we see exercise as punishment for struggling with our weight. Therefore, it’s been put in the part of our brain as an enemy and not a friend. When it comes time to exercise, we dread it instead of looking forward to spending time in a state of connecting our body with our mind and feeling fantastic afterward.
   
   SHIFT YOUR RELATIONSHIP: FOCUS ON THE FEEL GOOD PART OF EXERCISE
   I think one of the most important keys to getting yourself excited about exercise is focusing on how good you will feel when you finish, both in your body and your mind.  Most of the time, we focus on the time involved or the sweat and that does nothing to our mind other than make it want to shut off.  When we focus on the reward, our brain secretes dopamine which arouses and focuses our mind to do the thing we wish to do.
   
   Also add friends into the mix. We are cavemen and want to be in the cave with others. Having a buddy whom you have to show up for makes exercising consistently a social reward in the mind.

REV UP YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH EXERCISE MENTAL TECHNIQUE

Partnering with Exercise

I invite you to join me in this exercise integration process. Wherever you are sitting,  look at your right hand and turn your palm up to face the sky and imagine placing in your palm all of your negative ideas about exercise: the boredom, the sweat, the inconvenience, and anything else that may come up for you.

Also place all of your negative emotions about you and your relationship to exercise--the guilt about not doing it, the shame, the label “lazy’. Are they all placed on your right palm? Good

Now I invite you to actually raise your right arm with your palm facing the sky, above your head. On the count of three, I am going to ask you to let go of all your bad feelings and emotions about exercise and allow your arm to drop onto your lap. That’s right, just let it go! When your hand hits your lap allow that point of impact symbolize the end of your dysfunctional relationship with exercise.

Ready?

Really do this now, you are going to love it!

1-2-3 DROP! LET IT GO, LET ALL THE BAD FEELING AND EMOTIONS GO! Great!

Next, as you stare at your right palm resting in your lap, I would like you to imagine placing all the positive emotions about exercise you would like to feel - excitement, vibrancy, taking deep breaths and feeling the blood coursing through your veins. Also, place all the good feelings about yourself that you would feel doing exercise - proud, in charge, self nurturing. Are they all in there?

Now take your left palm and face it up towards the sky and place in it you, and all the positive emotions and feelings you are having as someone who has decided to be on a journey of Weight Mastery.

Now, I would like you to lift both palms up, the right one containing all the feel good representations that you want to have about exercise and the left one which symbolizes you on your journey to weight mastery, and have your palms facing each other and slowly bring them together, and as you bring your palms together allow that to symbolize your bringing your new Weight Mastery self together with your new powerful relationship with exercise. As you bring your palms together and they clasp together, take a nice deep SHIFT breath and feel the power of those two forces coming together to create a new exercise relationship.

Now pull your clasped hands towards you and place both opened hands over your heart, bringing that powerful relationship into you and feel it as you absorb this new powerful relationship with you to now be your inspiration and your new SHIFTED relationship to exercise

Alright, we are off and running for the week…I hope you have a great and active one.

See you at the gym!

ox Rita