May 31, 2018

Motivation to Get Back In The Gym at 6:45 AM

I started this year off great. I was losing weight, as time went on, I began to YoYo. So while I'm still down 5 lbs from the beginning of the year I wasn't making much progress.

Over the memorial day weekend I dusted off my favorite to do list tool todoist.com and it was a mess. I cleared out all the old stuff, and I got focused. So I had to decide what would be my number one focus. I had a few. I'm working on a new version of a book I originally wrote in 2012 call More Podcast Money. I might do a revamp of the School of Podcasting's website (even though I did one five months ago, but there is a new bright and shiny tool for websites —oooohhh. I am working on turning a diary form 1995 into a podcast called the History of the Band Six Shooter. Then I noticed something.

None of my priorities included the phrase “Lose weight,” or “Eat less, exercise more.” THAT is what I was not losing weight. It wasn't a priority. That was on Monday. On Tuesday the 29th, I got a call from a friend of mine letting me know that a group of my peers has chosen me to be inducted into the Academy of Podcasters Hall of fame. The ceremony is in two months. The minute I got off the phone I said to myself. YOU WILL GET UP AND GO TO THE GYM. The interesting thing was, this was not a question, this was not a possibility, this was a fact.

Sure enough, Wednesday rolled around and at 6:45 AM I was in my shorts on the way to the gym. I was doing High-Intensity Interval Training on a treadmill sweating my butt off.

So what changed?

My Why.

Look, I know that if I don't exercise and eat bad food I will gain weight. I increase my chances of cancer, stroke, diabetes, and include any other horrible diseases you want here. For some reason, those don't motivate me. Don't get me wrong. They SHOULD, but if I'm gonna be honest they don't. Maybe I'm a fool and think that I'll be lucky and dodge those bullets. This like ignoring that you are putting water in a bucket and eventually it's going to get full. You see eventually it will get full.

So for now, my appetite is gone, my motivation is off the charts and I'm hyper-focused. The ceremony is July 24th. What happens after July 24th? Well, hmmmm. My goal is I will develop healthy habits and just keep on doing what I'm doing. There is that negative voice in my head that says, “Sure, go ahead and do your little exercise stuff, do your healthy eating, whatever, I'll be back.” For now, I'm going to ignore that voice and politely go tell him to piss off. That voice is always there, always will be there, and the more I learn to ignore it the better I will be.

So if your why isn't inspiring you to do the right things that lead to weight loss, find a new why. I'm here to tell you the right “why” can make a world of difference.