A personal training & food journal. Read about our weight loss progress at Train With Ron in Chicago, our nutritional habits and the life changes we're making to get in shape and stay healthy!

2/6/10

Just got back from my Saturday morning workout and it was a pretty tough one… but it felt awesome to get through it. I am now working out for a full hour (including warm-up… more on that later) with very few breaks, at a high intensity level. Monika and I are pushing ourselves past our previous actual limits… and WAY WAY WAY past our previously “imagined” limits.

I’ll tell you what I mean by imagined limits: the first time I went to TrainWithRon, I walked in the door and saw Kate (another member) doing Push-Up Walks. This is basically getting into the push up position, taking a lateral step with a hand/foot, doing a push up, another lateral step, rinse/repeat about 20 times. It’s pretty brutal. At the time, I couldn’t do FIVE knee push ups in a row. When I saw Kate doing these I thought, “wow, there’s no way I’m going to be able to do that, it’s going to take me a year to be able to do ONE of those.” Well, today I did 15 in a row of them. Not the “easy mode” knee push ups either – real ones – and, I did a total of about 50 of them during my workout – and a lot more.

I think I have finally broken through the mental barrier – the imagined barrier – of what I am capable of. I turn off that voice in my head that says “this is too hard”… “I’m too tired for this”… “I hate this particular movement / exercise”… and that has made a HUGE difference in the intensity I work out with. Both Matt and DB have noticed this and said something to me about it in the last two workouts. They’ve noticed me training with increased intensity and have increased the difficulty of the workouts.

That was a very hard won battle. Here’s how it happened: a couple of weeks ago, Moni and I got in the car after a Wednesday nighter and I asked Monika “how did you do?” (She had been in a different group than me that night.) “Do you hurt? I am so sore, that was so hard… I had to do (x y z exercise) and it was soooo hard…”

She replied, “You know, honestly – you need to stop complaining and telling me and yourself how hard it is and how much it hurts. You just keep telling yourself that stuff and you don’t try as hard… it’s hard for me when I’m trying to get through the workout and you’re complaining and saying how hard it is.”

At first my reaction (inside) was negative… but I thought about what she was saying, and she was right. I did not need to focus on the difficulty or the way I felt… I needed to focus that energy on completing the movement. The next time I went to TrainWithRon I was taking a short water break and noticed a sign they have up that I hadn’t seen before: it’s a quote from Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest. He said, “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” If anyone on the planet knows – he does. That quote, combined with Monika’s feedback, really hit home. I started to tell myself there is NOTHING these guys can throw at me that I cannot do. It is going to be hard, it is going to hurt, and I am going to DO it.

Ever since I adopted that mental attitude, my workouts have improved – I take less breaks, the breaks I take are shorter, and I press through the difficulty because I have more confidence and I will not let that voice inside my head that tells me “you can’t” win out over the one that wants me to succeed.

I am a little surprised that it took that event to get me into this mindset… when I was younger and played a lot of hockey, this attitude came inherently to me. I was not going to be outraced, out hit, I was going to be the guy out there making things happen, making plays, getting to loose pucks, taking shots, and taking the fight to the other team. Somehow I lost that edge, or did not apply it to my training, but I am really glad to have it back because it’s helping me progress to the next level.

Today I weighed in at 242.5 pounds… that’s about 10 more lbs gone since Jan 1, 2010, for a total loss of 35. NONE of my clothes fit me, in fact, I am going to the storage unit later to dig up some clothes and see what I have that I can still wear. I feel AWESOME. My lower back never, ever hurts (it used to hurt just walking around sometimes and ALWAYS if I did anything strenuous.) and I have tons of energy. I can run 5-10 minutes at 5mph and carry on a conversation while doing it. My muscles are filling out, I look healthy, and I feel so much more confident when I get dressed in the morning because as opposed to bulging out of my pants, they’re falling off me. I now weigh less than I have in the last 5 years (since I moved to Chicago). I haven’t taken a Zantac (heartburn medication) in months – I used to eat them like they were candy.

Things have changed – my eating has changed, my workouts have changed… and my attitude towards them has changed. When we first started I DREADED going to TrainWithRon because I knew I was going to leave in discomfort. Now, I mentally prepare myself for the training session by telling myself I am going to push myself, and that there is nothing they are going to throw at me that I cannot get through.

Tonight I will play on stage with my new band – it’s the first time in ten years that I have been in a band and played a live show. Part of the reason for that is I could not confidently get on stage in front of people in the shape I was in, regardless of my talent level.

This change in life has had far reaching effects that go beyond the physical form. I’ll talk more about that next time. I’m getting a little choked up writing all this… I just want to put in one last word of thanks: to Matt, Ron, and DB – you guys are AWESOME. You have helped me change my life. You are excellent examples – you guys WALK the WALK. You motivate me, push me, and challenge me. You are worth your weight in gold. I also want to thank my wife Monika – she pushes me, she tolerates me, and she handles all the food stuff (makes my healthful lunch every day, and great dinners)… I couldn’t do this without you 4.