I was talking via email with a good friend who’s taking on his own fitness challenges. We were discussing how good it makes you feel to really have a handle on things. This relates to conversations I had last night with my wife and yesterday with another blogger friend. The theme seems boiled down to: you have to do it to get it.
Do you get it?
There’s a whole subculture of people with weightloss blogs that seem to spend all their time wondering why the scale is being so cruel to them, but if you read one or two posts back, they’re also talking about a Krispy Kreme feast they gave themselves the night before. But waaaah. Why am I still not seeing results?
You have to do it to get it.
Effort begets results. But I guess that’s secondary to the part where you have to decide what kinds of efforts you want to make and why. Think about it as a pep talk to your body. Here’s how I envision some of those failing pep talks to go:
“You’re really fat!” (silence from the audience). “You should lose weight!” (a mild yeah sound). “You should get out to the gym and get fit!” (same. kinda mild approval). “Give up all the things you think you love!” (silence.) “You have to torture yourself! That’s the way to success!” (lights go out in the empty auditorium).
Like that’s going to work.
The people who’ve made it to a spot where they’ve shifted their “I don’t want to be fat” journals into “I’m really doing this” journals seem to have had a different pep talk. Their inner coaches sound a little more like they’ve had experience motivating people. Let’s listen in.
“You’re a great person!” (yeah!) “Let’s make some choices that tell the world how much you care about yourself!” (okay!) “Let’s give your body reasons to serve you better!” (roar!) “You know what? We can do AMAZING things! Let’s move towards greatness!” (deafening thunder roar sounds!).
It’s so much easier to move TOWARDS something good than to try hard to push AWAY from things that are bad. No sustained movement was ever founded on what the group didn’t want to be. Failing movements or short term groups can do that kind of thing. But nothing that lasts is based on the negative. You have to say what you are, not what you don’t want to be.
You have to do it to get it.
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