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We’ve been going over a variety of mistakes people tend to make when they first start getting serious about their health and fitness.  Today’s post is the last in this series and will cover how and why you should communicate your goals to the people around you.  If you’ve read all the articles in this series you’ll note that I have personal experience with many of these.  You may even conclude that I made a lot of mistakes on the path to good health, and you’d be right.  This is exactly the reason I started writing 60 in 3, because I wanted to share these experiences so others can learn from them.  If you have your own experiences to share, please let me know.  You can add them in the comments section of any of these posts or contact me directly.  You may think your mistakes are silly or embarrassing, but they contain valuable lessons that the rest of us can learn from.  Together, we have an amazing pool of information that we can all benefit from.   And now, on to today’s topic.

Going at it alone is more common among men but also widespread among women.  It doesn’t specifically refer to getting a “diet buddy” or “workout partner”.  Instead, the more common mistake is a simple lack of communication.  When we first think about improving our health, we don’t tell others what we’re doing or why, and this ends up hurting us.

Common problems

How many times have you told yourself, “today, I’m going to eat healthy!” only to hear a friend or coworker ask you to lunch at your favorite fried foods buffet?  How many times have you told yourself you will avoid high calorie snacks only to visit your mom’s house and see that she’s made your favorite chocolate cake?  How often do you make a date with the gym only to hear you friends asking you to go out?  All of these are common issues that could be solved with better communication.

Let’s face it, our lives are heavily influenced by the people around us.  Our friends, our families and our loved ones have a huge role in deciding how our lives will be run on a day to day basis.  From a health perspective, our social circle has a tremendous amount of influence on our eating habits and physical activity.  So how can we expect to change our ways when the people who influence our decisions are not aware of what we’re trying to do?  How can we expect to eat healthy when the people who help us decide what to eat don’t know what our goals are?  How can we expect to live a more physically active life when the people we spend most of our time with still think we’re interested in watching TV all day?  If we ask ourselves these questions, it becomes clear that we should communicate better if we hope to make permanent changes to our lives.

Common failures

Unfortunately, while it may seem clear now, it’s not clear to most people.  There is a certain level of shame in admitting you’re bad at something.  It’s not easy to tell our friends and our family “I’m too fat and out of shape.”  We’re admitting to them that we’ve failed at something as basic as keeping healthy.  We’re also afraid of insulting them, especially if they’re out of shape too.  There could be family issues.  For example, will your parents be upset or feel as though you’re blaming them?  Will your spouse feel guilty over the meals they’ve chosen?  There are dozens of reasons not to communicate, but most of them come down to fear.  We’re afraid of being misunderstood, we’re afraid of offending and we’re afraid of embarrassment.   That’s all understandable, but it doesn’t change the fact that communication is a must if you hope to get healthy.

What to communicate

The first thing you need to communicate is the why.  Why are you doing this?  Why are you trying to change your life?  For most of us, that will be easy to communicate.  Health is a relatively clear topic these days.  People know that being out of shape and overweight is bad for you and they’ll understand why you’re trying to get back in shape.  In fact, you’ll frequently hear “I’m glad you’re finally doing this.  I’ve wanted to tell you something but I was afraid you’ll be offended.”

Next you’ll want to explain the what.  What is it that you plan on doing?  Are you going to work out more?  Are you going to eat better?  Make sure people understand what your plan is and how you hope to implement it.  Again, this is relatively clear to most people.  We know that health means eating better and exercising more, but make sure people understand the specifics.  Are you going to be going to the gym?  Will you be jogging?  Are you going vegetarian?  These little details will help them understand what you’re going to be doing.  You may even hear some feedback and suggestions.

Finally, you’ll want to explain to them how they can help.  How should they behave around you?  It sounds a bit silly but you’ll be surprised how useful this part of the conversation is.  Can they still have lunch with you?  Can they still invite you over for a movie?  Can they still have you over for dinner?  Do they need to cook something special for you?  People have the oddest misconceptions sometimes and it’s good to talk about them ahead of time.  By the way, this doesn’t need to be a long conversation where you hand people a list of how to behave around you.  It can be something as simple as “for the most part, I’m still the same me.  We can go to the same restaurants and I’ll just order something a bit healthier than before.  I’m just going to be busy from 6 to 7pm every night because that’s my workout time.”

No preaching

The one thing to watch out for is what I call preachiness.  So you’ve decided to get healthy, that’s great.  Your friends and family are not going to appreciate you preaching to them about how you’ve seen the light and now they need to follow your example.  If you want them to be healthy then lead by example.  Do your thing, improve your health and show your friends that it can be easy and fun.  Answer their questions but never tell them their way of life is wrong.  That’s a mistake I used to make and try to avoid these days.  The only thing such an attitude creates is broken friendships and strained family relationships.

Summary

The people around you shape your behavior, and in doing so, they shape your health.  Get them involved by communicating and you will turn a potential problem in a significant resource.  Remember, they want you to succeed, all you need to do is tell them how they can help.

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The beginning of this series of articles was a list of the worst mistakes people make when they start working on improving their health. Now I’d like to cover each one of those items in detail, with #6, treating setbacks as failures.

Before I get into the rest of this post, I want to call out a specific comment that was left on the original list that was article 1 of this series.

Hey Gal … followed you here from Simple Dollar. Great blog (and great post on SD).

I actually have most of my issues with #6. I’m knowledgeable, I eat healthy Monday through Friday, but weekends are tough. I even have lean grow protein powder and flaxseed oil for shakes when absolutely needed.

I am of the “meal every three to four hours” mindset, but being a consultant with two jobs doesn’t make this easy.

If I miss a day at the gym or a meal, I pretty much mark the day as failure. After all, if you eat 6 small meals a day and miss one, it’s REALLY hard to get back on track for the day because you’re so hungry.

I guess motivation to continually eat healthy is my issue. When I’m out on the road, it’s too easy (and cheaper) to get a hoagie (sub) from a hoagie shop or some fast food instead of driving all over trying to find something healthy (especially for breakfast).

I would be very interested in your thoughts for meals on the go or meals on the road as this is my biggest hurdle … that and finding healthy food that I can crave!

-eROCK

First, I’m planning to talk about health on the go and how can you stay healthy while traveling as soon as this specific series of articles is done. That means you should see a post about this topic on Thursday or Friday. However, I also wanted to highlight eROCK’s comment because it’s a great example of what I’m trying to illustrate here.

What I advocate here on 60 in 3 is making long term changes to your life. Actually, let me be more accurate. I want you to make changes that are life long, not just long term. Now if I was asking you to do a single thing for the span of a week, then I would expect you to do it perfectly. I have this same expectation of myself and I think it’s perfectly reasonable for something as simple a as a 1 week project. Well, I suppose that depends on the project but still, being perfect on a short term project is not unreasonable. Being perfect for your entire life, well, that is unreasonable, especially when it comes to things like eating and daily activities.

Let’s face facts. As much as we want to be perfect in our workouts and eating, life is life and something will come up. For example, I always workout every weekday. However, Friday of last week, something came up. This particular something was my wedding so it was a little more important than my workout. No problem I say, I’ll make it up by going to the gym tomorrow. Of course, Saturday and Sunday roll by and we’re so busy with parents, arrangements and the reception that I never really got to the gym. So I missed my workout completely and didn’t do my chest and shoulders day this week plus one cardio session. And now the important question, so what?

The difference between setback and failure

So I missed one workout. The question is, what do I do about it? Do I even need to worry about it? Is this a sign of failure somewhere in my plan for health? Should I despair and feel as though I will never accomplish my goals? Well, for me, there is a difference between a setback and a failure.

A setback is something unexpected and unavoidable that happens once in a while. There’s no point in worrying about a setback, it just happens and you move on with your life. I don’t expect to get married every weekend so I don’t think this will recur. In other words, there’s no reason for me to worry. It was a one time occurrence that won’t happen again. I tried to adjust for it but couldn’t. Besides, it was one of the happiest days in my life so there was good reason for this happen. So I just move on with my day to day life, knowing that I didn’t fail and there’s no reason for me to worry, I’m still on a healthy course. This could apply to a wedding, it could apply to the one time you decided to have ice cream or the one day you missed your scheduled bike ride because your kid was sick or needed help with her homework. Basically, a setback is life acting up momentarily, but it’s nothing to worry about because it’s a one time or rare enough thing to be a non issue.

A failure is different. A failure is a major flaw in your plan. You know you should workout but you keep failing to make it to the gym. There could be a very good reason for you to not make it to the gym, but it’s still a failure because your plan itself is failing. A failure is the inability to stop eating candy even though you know you shouldn’t. A failure is the inability to stop eating junk food.

Do you see the difference? A setback was a one time occurrence that really couldn’t be planned for. A failure is a flaw in your plan or your inability to live up to those plans. Not making it to the gym one time because something came up is a setback. Not making it to the gym over and over because you just can’t wake up that early is a failure. Your plans are not working. In fact, they’re failing.

So You Failed, What Now?

The first thing to consider is, was it a setback or a failure? If was just a minor setback then relax and move on. There’s no need to worry about these. If you were really in a hurry and you ate a hoagie, then so be it. One hoagie is not going to kill you. However, if this is something that’s happening a lot, then perhaps you should treat it as a failure, as a sign that the health plans you made are not working. So then what?

Even a failure is not reason to give up. A failure just means your current plans are not working. Ok, so rather than giving up, change those plans. Maybe you need to try working out in the evening rather than in the morning. Maybe you need to try 4 meals instead of 6. Yes, you might need to accept a less than ideal plan, but a less than ideal plan that works for you is much better than an ideal plan you fail at over and over.

Don’t Make A Setback Into a Failure

What you need to avoid is making a setback into something bigger. If it’s a setback then relax and move on. There’s no need to redo all your plan just because of one setback. I’m certainly not going to redo my entire workout plan because I missed on Friday due to my wedding.

Don’t Make A Small Setback Into a Large One

Another thing to avoid is the feeling that one small setback means your entire day is shot. I see this frequently in people who are trying to lose weight. One small mistake at breakfast is marked as a failure for the entire day. That failure is then an excuse to binge. After all, the day is already a failure so it doesn’t matter. I talked about this attitude in a previous post called The Endless Cycle of Binge and Guilt and I recommend you read that.  It’s one of the most destructive things you can do to yourself and there’s simply no reason for it.  So you made a mistake or something came up, so what?  Assess if it’s a setback or a failure, change your plans accordingly if it was a failure and then move on.

Summary

Life is life.  Things will always come up.  Things will always happen when you least expect them to.  Don’t see them as failures if they’re not.  Even if they are then just adjust and move on.  The worst mistake you can make is to blow them up into something they’re not.

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The beginning of this series of articles was a list of the worst mistakes people make when they start working on improving their health. Now I’d like to cover each one of those items in detail, with #5, weight training too hard and too early.

I’m a big fan of weight training as part of a healthy lifestyle. In fact, I think it’s just as if not more important than cardio, and I mean that for both men and women. However, there’s healthy weight training and then there’s overdoing it. Specifically, there’s something men will tend to do, especially men who are brand new to the gym, which should be avoided if at all possible. The experienced weight trainers reading this are probably chuckling right now. If they’re like me, they’ve either gone through this themselves or seen other people do it. They’ve seen the “the two day pain” and what it can do. What I’m referring to is the pain you’ll experience two days after a particularly intense workout, especially if your body is not used to weight workouts.

Men who are new to the gym always assume they must lift as much weight as people who have been there for years. So they rack on more and more weight and then they huff and puff and grunt their way through ten repetitions of everything. They’ll do every machine, every free weight station and every possible pose with a dumbbell. Then they’ll go home thinking to themselves “hey, that wasn’t so bad.” The next day, they’ll still feel good so they might repeat the whole thing again. This time they’ll do multiple sets of everything. Then comes the morning of the second day after their initial workout. This is the point where the pain sets in.

The Two Day Pain

If you’ve never experienced the two day pain, then you’re lucky. It’s a horrible situation. Your whole body hurts and nothing you do will make it go away. It feels like your muscles are locked up and burning and the slightest movement makes it worse. The typical two day pain is in the biceps, probably because most guys tend to overwork this area. It’s easy to spot someone who’s done this. They’ll be walking very slowly and very gently because every step is miserable. Their arms will be slightly bent because the muscles ache so much that they cannot be fully extended. In general, they’ll look pretty silly.

Consequences

If looking silly was the only side effect then I’d write this off as a minor problem and move on. However, the two day pain has other problems associated with it, primarily on the motivation side. In terms of health, this condition is actually not so bad. The muscles go back to normal within a day and there are no permanent effects that I am aware of. The blow to self esteem though, can be more serious.

Just like failure on the treadmill, this sort of experience can drive someone away from exercise. Believe me, it’s one of the more miserable things to go through because of the pain and because of the embarassment. This thing called exercise that you just tried and felt so good about has unexpectedly betrayed you. It’s caused you incredible pain and made you look like an idiot. Would you want to try it again? What if you didn’t know this was temporary? What if you didn’t realize that this only happens if you haven’t worked out in a while and goes away if you workout on a regular basis? For a newcomer to the world of fitness and exercise, this experience can be reason enough to quit.

The Solution

Luckily, the solution is relatively easy. Your first week of weight workouts should be very easy. Use the bare bar if you have to and a minimal number of repetitions and sets. Don’t push the weight or number of reps to the point where you’re barely able to lift it. It may feel good then but it won’t two days later. Take it easy, your body is not used to exercise and you should start it off slowly. Then, as the weeks go by, start increasing the reps, weight and sets to a more challenging level.

Summary

The two day pain can be a health killer if it drives away from weight training. Avoid it, by starting out easy and working your way up from there.

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I’m getting married this weekend! In fact, the civil ceremony already happened on Friday, and today is the reception. Which is all very exciting. So forgive me if today’s post is a bit short, my mind is all over the place. And now, on to some useful articles.

From Mark’s Daily Apple we have this article about running barefoot. I thought it was interesting because of our discussion this week about running. I’m not sure I buy into this “run like our ancestors did”. I mean, as much as believe in living naturally, I’m not going to go back to living naked and barefoot. Still, it’s an interesting idea.
@Mark’s Daily Apple

For the opposite view point, we have this article from Cranky Fitness. Crabby over there is comparing her lifestyle to those of cavemen as a way of exploring motivation and the need to be fit. Again, I’m not sure I agree with this. Exercise does not have to be boring or bad. If you need to play a tune or watch TV then do it. If you want to run on a trail and appreciate the view around you, then do that. Just find what motivates you and stick with it. You don’t need a sabretooth chasing you to feel motivated.
@Cranky Fitness

And from Half-Fast, we have this article about stupid exercise ideas and the people who buy them. I thought it was spot on for the series of articles we’re going through this week on 60 in 3. Silly ideas like this are something you want to avoid when you’re trying to get in shape. They promise instant results with minimal effort and are basically useless. Stick to the basics, weight training, cardio and a healthy diet. It beats everything else hands down.
@Half Fast

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The beginning of this series of articles was a list of the worst mistakes people make when they start working on improving their health. Now I’d like to cover each one of those items in detail. Today’s topic is item 4, cardio too soon.

Cardio has an odd place in our minds. We all know what it is but we don’t really know much about it. If you ask ten people what cardio is, I’m betting you’ll mostly hear “it’s jogging”. For some strange reason, jogging has become enshrined in our culture as “cardio!” Most people can’t even articulate the benefits of cardio exercise or what specifically makes an exercise into cardio, but they know jogging. So I suppose it’s no surprise that most people, faced with a growing belly and constant health problems, see jogging as the magic bullet that will cure all their ills. massively overweight and badly out of shape, they lace on those new running shoes, put on the new running shorts, hit play on the cardio playlist they just downloaded on to their iPod and take off running. Five minutes later you can find these same people stopped, desperately trying to catch their breath and in a lot of pain.

What is cardio

Just a quick refresher, cardio is any kind of sustained exercise where your heart beat remains at 60% to 80% of max for more than 10 to 15 minutes. The benefits of cardio are burning calories, faster metabolism and increased cardio vascular health (which means your heart and circulatory system will work better). Cardio is not necessarily running. There are many other options which I have in detailed in the past. If you want more information on them, please see this previous 60 in 3 post.  Cardio is a vital part of any healthy lifestyle.

So why not cardio?

So if cardio is so good, why am I saying it can be a mistake?  Well, because most beginners try to do too much of it too soon.  I tried to find a polite way of saying this but I couldn’t so I’m just going to say it.  If you’re just now trying to improve your health then it’s too early for you to try high end cardio, especially jogging.  You’re too fat and out of shape for it and it will just make you doubt yourself to the point of quitting.

And before you get insulted, allow me to share my personal experience.  Like many people, I thought of jogging as the be all and end all of exercises.  After all, I never saw a fat jogger so if I jogged that meant I wouldn’t be fat anymore.  Makes sense, right?  I got on the treadmill, set it for 6mph (I figured 10 minute miles was a slow pace) and off I went.  Five minutes later I was in excruciating pain and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  My legs hurt for days and I felt so demoralized that I almost quit this whole good health thing right there and then.

The problem

The first and main problem was plain bad health.  I was so out of shape that I just couldn’t run.  I was out of breath five minutes into my “jog”.  Remember, I had spent five years on the couch at this point.  My heart and lungs were NOT ready for running and my guess is, yours aren’t either.  Jogging, and most other cardio exercise, is actually really really tough.  There’s a reason it burns so many calories, because your body is doing a lot of work.  If your body isn’t used to that work then you’re going to fail and fail hard.

The second issue was one of physics.  Simply put, I was too fat, the ground was too hard and gravity was too strong.  Remember, I was about 280lbs back then.  If you want to get an idea of what that feels like, lie down on your back, lift your legs so that your feet are pointed up and now have a friend hit the bottom of your feet with a 280lb weight over and over.  Have him do it about once a second for five minutes and see how you feel.  Sounds like a joke but it really isn’t.  Every time you take a running step, your whole body’s weight lands down on one foot.  Now your legs can act as a bit of a shock absorber, but there’s a limit.  So when I say I was too fat, the ground was too hard and the gravity was too strong, I mean it.  Fix any one of these things and I probably would have been ok, but my ass wasn’t getting slimmer very fast, the ground wasn’t getting softer and I still can’t figure out how to turn down gravity.

Cardio, and jogging specifically, isn’t something you should try to do when you’re out of shape.  You’ll end up hurting yourself both physically and emotionally.  Yes, I said emotionally.  Do you know how demoralizing it was to stand there huffing and puffing and trying desperately to catch my breath?  I felt like an idiot.  I felt like everyone was watching me and laughing at the poor fat guy who couldn’t even run.  I know now that this was incorrect but it felt awful back then.  I never wanted to set foot in a gym again.

How to avoid this mistake

So when is soon too soon?  When is the right time to start with cardio?  Well, that’s a hard question to answer since it varies from person to person, but I can give you some pointers.

Start slow - My worst mistake was starting at 6mph.  When I went back to jogging, I started at 4.5mph (that’s barely more than a fast walk) and gradually improved from there.  Try to do the same thing.  Start at a speed, incline and time you know you can do.  Then slowly increase.

Try something other than jogging - While jogging is the activity most people connect with cardio exercise, there are actually numerous other possibilities.  Try a stationary bike, try a stair climber or get on an elliptical and see if you like it.  All of these are cardio options that limit the impact on your knees and feet.  That’s something you should be very concerned with, especially when you’re starting out.  All that extra weight you’re carrying around is hitting your feet over and over and over and over when you run.  So maybe you should spare your feet a little and try something other than jogging.

Exercise at a reasonable level - Don’t be the idiot who falls off the treadmill, out of breath and unable to stand.  You really shouldn’t push your body that hard, especially when you’re out of shape.  You want to make your heart stronger, not give yourself a heart attack.  That said, don’t give up and slow down just because you’re breathing a bit harder than usual.  Cardio isn’t supposed to be easy and if you find yourself with the breath to easily hold a conversation than you’re doing something wrong.  When you’re doing a cardio exercise, an easy test to see if you’re working too hard or too easy is to try and say a simple sentence out loud.  If you did it easily then you’re not working hard enough.  If you couldn’t do it at all, then you’re working out too hard.  You should be able to speak a sentence out loud but then need to pause and catch your breath.

Don’t over do it - You don’t need to run for every day for 60 minutes.  In fact, you’re just hurting yourself when you do this.  Aim for three to four cardio sessions a week with about 20 to 40 minutes of exercise each.

Summary

Done well, cardio is one of the most important parts of a healthy lifestyle.  Done poorly, it can demoralize you and damage your body.  So use your brain and exercise smart.

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The beginning of this series of articles was a list of the worst mistakes people make when they start working on improving their health. Now I’d like to cover each one of those items in detail. Today’s topic is item 3, do no research.

Yesterday we talked about a common mistake which women make, thinking that health is all about food and not exercise. Today we talk about a common mistake men make, not bothering to research or plan ahead. By the way, just because I say this is common among men doesn’t mean women never do this. I’ve seen more than my fair share of women rushing headlong into some crazy health plan without any research. However, the most common culprit here is us guys.

My friend is a physical trainer. She tells some amusing stories about her male clients. According to her, if you tell the average man that he’s overweight and out of shape, his first response will be to deny it. He’ll then remind you of those years he spent playing sports in college. He’ll might even strike a few poses to show you how in shape he is. He’s also likely to do something stupid like trying to lift the sofa to “look for change” just to prove how strong he is. When he finally realizes he’s out of shape, he’ll spend $5,000 on a home gym machine and then stop using it after a month.

Funny as this may seem, it’s not that far from the truth. Most men, faced with an unpleasant truth that they’re out of shape, will overreact. They’ll latch on to one thing and immediately overdo it. It could be a home gym set or that SEAL team workout someone at the office told them about. Either way, they’ll fixate on that as their road to health and ignore everything else.

Personal Experience

And before anyone gets insulted, let me just add that I’m no different. Two years before my health meltdown, I actually noticed how out of shape I was. I saw my growing belly and my shortening of breath and said “I need to fix this now!” The most in shape person I knew at the time was a coworker who was also an amateur body builder. So of course if this worked for him it must also work for me, right? I had him take me to the gym to show me some basics and immediately started working out with weights five times a week. Nevermind that this isn’t the best way to lose weight. Nevermind that this isn’t the best way to increase stamina. I saw it working for someone and by god it was going to work for me too! One month later I quit because I was seeing no results.

What are you looking to improve?

If you want to avoid this kind of mistake, you’re going to need to do some research and planning. The first thing you’ll need to do is decide what exactly is it that you’re trying to improve. Are you tired of being out of breath on the stairs? Are you trying to lose weight? Do you want to build up your strength? How about your stamina? Do you want better defined muscles? These are all separate goals with separate requirements. Losing weight is not the same thing as building strength or muscle tone. Increasing muscle stamina is not quite the same thing as building cardio endurance. You need to decide what it is that you’re trying to improve. Hopefully, you’re going to be working on all of these things, but you might not do them all at once. You might start with one and then slowly work in another and another. Regardless, decide what it is that you’re going to be working on and in what order.

How are you going to improve?

Once you finish with step 1, the real research starts. So you decided to improve your cardio stamina while also working on losing weight as the first part of your total health makeover. That’s great. Do you know the best ways to do this? Do you know the difference between running and biking? Do you know what a healthy meal is or what your daily caloric intake should be? You don’t have to know all of these things to get started. For example, you don’t have to do much research to know that eating a piece of fruit is probably better than eating a piece of candy. You also don’t need research to know that going on a walk is better for you than sitting on the sofa. However, you should start educating yourself as soon as possible. If you’re going to try jogging, then read up on jogging. If you’re worried about your nutrition then read about nutrition. You can do all of this while you start implementing some small changes, but you should start as soon as possible.

Confirm with multiple resources

Health advice can be confusing. Different sources will give you different advice. So check multiple sources when you can. That applies to the advice you see here as well. I don’t expect you to step away from your computer and say “well, Gal on 60 in 3 said this so it must be true,” You should examine the information for yourself. Talk to others, read other blogs and books. The more sources of information you use, the more complete of a picture you will have.

Don’t be afraid to change your plan

A lot of times you’ll read something that changes your perception of what you’re doing. Don’t be afraid of this. Instead, use this new information to modify what you’re doing. For example, I always thought of jogging as the best cardio activity out there. Then I read a bit more about the stress that jogging can put on your knees and feet. I confirmed this information with multiple sources and then changed my workout routine a bit. There’s nothing wrong with change, especially if it’s based on good, solid information.

Set up well researched goals

Based on all your research, start setting yourself realistic goals. Telling yourself “I’m going to be in shape” is nice, but it’s essentially meaningless. Writing down “By January, I would like to run 5 miles in under an 45 minutes, weigh less than 180lbs and be able to do 40 sit ups in a row” is much better. It’s still not as detailed as it could be, but at least it gives you something solid to strive towards. By the way, notice how these goals relate to the first step mentioned above.

Remember how you were supposed to figure out the things you wanted to improve? Well now you’re writing down specific goals for those improvement areas. If you said you wanted to improve strength and cardio endurance first, then your initial goals should apply to those two areas.

End result

The point of all this is for you to have two things. First is a plan, a solid set of goals and methods to achieve them. The second point is for you to get educated about your body, to understand how things work and why. Once you do that, you’ll be able to easily modify and change your plan as you see fit. Rather than relying on other people to tell you what to do, you’ll be able to decide for yourself what’s good and bad for your health and fitness needs.

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The beginning of this series of articles was a list of the worst mistakes people make when they start working on improving their health. Now I’d like to cover each one of those items in detail. Today’s topic is item 2, do no exercise.

How often have you talked to someone who was overweight and thinking about changing their life? What’s the first thing they think of? Typically, it’s a diet of some kind. If they’re smart, they’re at least thinking healthy eating instead of fad diet, but they’re still thinking in terms of diet. There are two things wrong with this mind set.

First, it equates weight loss with being healthy. That’s absolutely wrong. Losing weight is not the same thing as being healthy. You can in fact lose weight and be unhealthy just as you can gain weight and become healthy. If people thought of losing weight as losing fat then maybe I would agree with that mindset, but they don’t. Yes, losing some weight can usually lead to a healthier life, but not always and not for all people. A better way to think of weight is in terms of body composition. You want more of your body to be lean tissue such as muscle and less of your body to be fat.

The second thing wrong with the “diet only” mindset is that it focuses on one side of the equation only. Even if your only concern is losing weight, you should still be looking at more than just your food. Remember, weight is a simple result of calories in versus calories out. So why are you only looking at your calories in? Why aren’t you also examining your calories out? Eating 100 calories less a day is the exact same thing as spending 100 calories more a day. Either way, the net result is a 100 calories less that day. However, the 100 calories you spent in exercise also helps your body in other ways such as improving muscle tone and cardio vascular fitness.

Women and Exercise

Women seem to be the ones who usually shy away from exercise and focus on diets. My personal belief is that this is due to our culture’s ridiculous need to pressure women away from anything remotely masculine. For some reason we’ve gotten it in our heads that gyms, weights and exercise in general are meant for men and women should stay away for fear of becoming butch body builders. However, that’s just plain idiocy.

Exercise will not make you into a body builder, even if you go to the gym to do it. Body building requires an incredible amount of time, dedication and specialized training. Going to the gym three times a week or working out at home for 20 minutes a day is not enough. It’s like believing that driving to the supermarket will make you into a race car driver, it’s just not true. Exercise will also not make your muscles all bulged out and veiny. That too takes a lot of time, dedication and specialized training. What exercise will do is help you lose weight by spending calories and speeding up your metabolism. It will make you healthier by improving cardio vascular fitness. Plus the healthy and athletic look is sooooo much more attractive than the thin and boney look.

Personal Experience

And just when I’ve told you that focusing on diet only was primarily an issue with women, I’m going to add that primarily does not mean only. Many men have this problem too. Years ago, when I first started gaining weight, I tried various diets. I tried eating less, eating better and just plain not eating, but for some reason, I never thought of exercise. I had an odd mental block which told me weight was all about food. I knew intellectually that exercise played an important role in my health and weight, but I never made the connection intuitively. When I saw my weight I blamed the food I ate that day, not the ten hours I spent sitting on the couch and not moving.

Moving past

The solution to all this is to understand two things. First, your goal is not to lose weight, your goal is to be healthy. Part of that may be to lose weight. In fact, losing weight is almost always a part of getting healthy, but losing weight is not the end goal, it’s just one part of it. Second, you need to understand that what you eat is only 50% of the problem. What you do is the other 50%. So get past your irrational fears of the gym. Stop believing the myth that picking up a dumbbell will make you into a steroid chugging body builder and start being active. Exercise, workout, move your body any way you can.

Summary

Think about it this way, what’s a better way of losing 100 calories from your daily total? Worrying about how to eat more broccoli and less cheese or going dancing, hiking or walking? Exercise and physical activity is a vital part of any effort to lose weight and become healthier. Never forget that.

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