Goal Girl’s Blog

Anxiously awaiting the arrival of my order of p90X.  I got an email that the order had been shipped on September 10th, six days ago now… and UPS’ tracking system is marvelously uninformative.    For the past five days it simply says “In Transit”.   At least with FedEx, their tracking system tells you where in the world your package is, physically… e.g. “arrived Dallas, TX”, “Received, Irving, TX”, “Out for Delivery”…

sigh.

Even though it won’t become a necessity for some time, I’ve been pricing pull up bars.  Almost glad I won’t be needing that right away (I need to lose probably about 50lbs and gain a lot of strength before I can do a pullup.   I’ll be doing the “simulated pullups” using the resistance bands initially!).

I’m keeping up my excitement by watching p90X workout/results videos on Youtube, but seems like the same ones keep popping up.  Would like to see more vids of women working out.   Guess I’ll have to (gulp) get out the camera…  the thought of publishing tapes of myself working out gives me pause, but if it will help motivate someone else in a similar situation…

Today I got the email confirmation that my order has been shipped!!! Hurray (man they are fast!).  When I made my order, I was a bit annoyed with the endless attempts at up-sell… I understand one or two, but I think there were something like seven times I had to click the “no-thanks” button.  I did get the insurance at $9 bucks though because I know the life-span of DVD’s in my house with the four year old :-)    They’ll replace DVD’s for free if they get scratched or damaged.   It’s worth the $9 bucks not to have to spend hours trying to circumvent their copy protection just so I can make a backup copy.

I have to admit I’m nervous… I really want this.  I just looked at some photos my 4yo snapped of me two weeks ago and I was shocked… my goodness, I’m huge!!!  But I’m determined…    I’m also anticipating going through a lot of ibuprofen, reminiscent of my soccer days in my late 20’s/early 30’s…

I’m going to post on my blog every day, even before I get my dvd’s, to establish the habit…   so, see ya tomorrow!

I have not told my family yet that I’ve ordered it…  even though I can say I’ve more than offset the cost by cancelling the gym membership I almost never use.   I’m thinking… for most of the workouts my living room is going to be adequate, but my floor is pretty hard for plyometrics, especially considering my chronic knee problems.     I need to get a chin-up bar sooner or later, but since I already know I can’t do chinups yet, I think the resistance band will suffice for a bit.   Later I can use the resistance bands to assist pullups for a while until I build up to unassisted (at which point I’ll do as many unassisted as I can and finish the set with assistance).  I’ll definitely need to get the pushup bars though… my wrist isn’t going to put up with the pushups otherwise.

I’m going to have to be very public about all this once I start… if only to have folks respect my workout schedule and nutrition plan.   Hey, there’s a good goal-setting article on creating accountability checks in there somewhere, eh?     I will probably use my wavemaster for the kenp0 X workout, just because I already have bad knees, and kicking empty air full-throttle is a good way to strain ligaments, hyper-extend, etc.    Eight years of martial arts has taught me that at least!

Tonight I’ll take my “before” photos.   Y’all won’t get to see them for at least 60 days though… I want to post them next to some 60-day photos to make myself feel better.

While I wait for my package, I’m out searching for the best p90X online community I can find.  I’m  sure I’ll have lots of questions, and the one on the Beach Body site seems a bit anemic as far as number of posts… censored maybe?   I found the same to be true on the BodyBugg forum.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the result to be different is the definition of insanity.   I kept trying to get a 24Hour Fitness workout to fit into my schedule/routine, to make it a habit.  Just wasn’t working for me.     So today I cancelled my membership.   That would be quitting, if I didn’t have another route in mind.   I also today ordered the p90x workout.    A guy at work has been doing it and he’s lost 30lbs in 3 months and really looks great.   I justified the price (~$120) by the fact that I won’t be paying >$45/month for 24hour fitness any more (well, I have one more payment I have to make due to contractual obligations, but then I still get to use 24Hour Fitness for another month… ).

p90X for those of you who don’t ever watch infomercials at 2am, is an extreme 90-day workout program that combines cardio, various strength routines, yoga, kenpo (looking forward to this since I’ve been studying kenpo for the last 8 years!), stretching, plyometrics, nutrition, quite a bit of sweat and pain…  I’m wondering how the plyo will be for my knees. I think as long as I don’t blow one out, it may actually be good in the long run, strenthening the supporting muscles/tendons and helping me take a lot of the weight off of the joints.

I’ll eventually need a chin-up bar, but I already know I can’t do even a single one, so for now I’ll be doing the resistance bands.   I do think I’ll buy some pushup bars as I have a bit of a problem with my right wrist (recurring cyst) that limits the flexion.

My CD’s should be here in about a week.  I’ll use this blog to journal my journey… I’ll take some before photos, but I’m not going to post them until I’ve got some decent “along-the-way” if not “after” photos!

I’m excited.  I’ll work the workouts in in the early morning after I do my morning checks for work and before my 4yo wakes up (who knows, she might like to join in).  I can also do it on my lunch break or after work if I can sneak out a few minutes early… afterall, I end up working through the night most of the time anyway!

So stay tuned… in about a week I should start putting up posts about pain, puking, exhilaration and excitement… hope i get addicted!

When I got my Body Bugg a couple of weeks ago, I weighed 231lbs.  I still weigh 231lbs (ugh! yuck!), but my body fat has gone from 50% to 46% in that same time frame.     Two weeks ago I was carrying around approximately 115.5 pounds of fat.   This week, I’m carrying around 106 pounds of fat.   So I’ve lost around 9.5 pounds of fat in a couple of weeks and gained as much back in muscle and/or water (who can tell?  I hope it’s mostly muscle).

I’m having one issue with the Body Bugg.   When I try to upload my data, my laptops don’t seem to recognized the BB, even though the drivers are there.   I have to delete the drivers and re-download them at the Body Bugg site every third or fourth time I try to upload my data.    On the upside, the device has been a great conversation starter.  It’s August in Irving, TX… I am not going to wear long sleeves!

I’ve done four things recently to push harder toward the weight loss goal.

• Forgiven myself… again.  Sometimes forgiveness is not an act, but a process.
• Returned to practicing Kenpo Karate after a couple year’s hiatus.
• Got my four year old hooked on Kid’s Club at 24Hour Fitness
• Bought a Body Bugg

I have lots of “reasons” but no excuses for setting aside thoughts of losing weight for four months.   The reasons are not going to go away, so unless I want to be overweight forever, I have to shake them off and keep marching.    I spent about a week beating myself up over 10lbs gained back while I was on ‘vacation’ from the struggle.    Now it’s time to move on.    It appears I might need to forgive myself more than once during this endeavor?

I only practiced karate sporadically after I had my daughter.   After a couple of years, I did get back on it.  I took a bunch of private lessons because work schedule didn’t mesh with the class schedule.    Finally in July of 2006, I earned my first degree black belt.    Since then, I’ve gone to classes here and there, and every now and then to a seminar, but largely slacked off.     A little over a month ago, I was invited to a picnic being held by the instructor who had helped me most with my last big push toward first black.  She’d broken away from my Sifu’s school and started her own school.   At the picnic, she said I should bring my daughter to a couple of Little Dragon’s classes.     Well, of course, my daughter, who has been around Kenpo from before birth (I taught Little Dragons up until I was 7 months pregnant with her and she used to watch from her pack-n-play in the corner of the studio while I had classes or sparred) loved it (after some initial coaxing to get her on the mat).    I signed her up.   Since I was going to be there three times a week for K’s classes, might as well attend the adult classes immediately following.    So now I have a new Sifu (not really new…  I’ve studied with this lady for about eight years, but not with her as the one in charge).      I can’t say I’ve lost a ton of weight after doing Kenpo for four weeks, but I can feel myself getting firmer in places where I’d gone soft, and my gi pants are starting to feel a bit more comfortable.    The cool thing is that my daughter is seriously into it and asks me three or four times a day to practice with her.   For me, it’s a good review of basics and a wonderful way to spend quality time with my daughter.   I’m bringing home a free-standing punching bag (WaveMaster) today so that we can work on our kicks together.  I’m looking forward  to this as this is where I burn the most calories!

I also had a 24Hour Fitness membership that was laying fallow.  I was only using it to grab a shower at lunch time, if I got a lunch time (yes, my schedule is nuts).    Then one day I took K with me and let her hang out at the kids club there.  She ran into a couple of friends from her daycare, they had a blast, and now she asks for Kids Club whenever we don’t have karate.  So far, I’ve mostly been doing cardio until I figure out the proper balance between the strength training and the Kenpo.  I don’t want to over train and get injured while I’m still trying to build my strength back up.   For example, several Kenpo forms, done with deep stances, are a good leg/butt workout, so I wouldn’t want to hit squats hard and fast the day after really working low stances.  I would love to get back in fighting form and do a few tournaments next year.    For K, she gets some un-structured playtime with her pals, and a chance to run off extra energy and make new friends.   Here in the Dallas area, it’s also wonderful to have an air-conditioned place for her to play so she doesn’t blister herself on scorching playground equipment or develop asthma in the “level-orange” air quality during the summer.

Which brings me to the Body Bugg.  One of the ladies at the Kenpo school had one of these.  For those of you who don’t know, it’s a small electronic device that you strap to your left arm (or right, depending on model).  It keeps a log of how many steps you take and how many calories you burn.  It measures calorie burn by measuring galvanic skin response, motion (has a 3-axix accelerometer), and two other factors I can’t remember (I’ll get the facts and present them in another article).   You then plug the Bugg into your computer and upload the data recorded to Apex Fitness’ website where it uses the data to calculate calories burned per minute on a minute-by-minute basis.    First, this appeals to my geeky side.  I love gadgets.

Second, it appeals to my scientific side (I’ve a M.S. in physiology)… it’s fascinating for me to be able to look at a specific time frame and see how many calories i’m burning per minute.   For example I’ve found that on a non-workout day, the time I burn the most calories per minute is in the morning hour while I’m rushing around the house getting myself and kiddo together, breakfast made, lunches packed, taking my mom her coffee and news paper (she moved in with us two years ago when she retired),  trying to find my car-keys (will I burn fewer calories if I get more organized?).    I’ve had the Body Bugg for a couple of weeks now, and I’m loving it so far.  I’ll write more about it tomorrow.  For now, I hear my daughter stirring in the other room… time to start getting us ready to face the day!

I wrote this post last March and never published it.  It’s still relavent, so here you go.     I’ve fallen down on the job as far as maintaining this blog and a couple of other goals, but I’ll forgive myself and move on now.

Photo Credit: Rob Wallace

Have you set too many goals? When you first get excited about the process of goal setting, and really get the bit in your teeth, it’s easy to vomit goals all over the place. The problem with this is that goals have to live in the real world, and unfortunately, the real world doesn’t usually stop so that you can pursue every single goal that pops into your head.

That’s ok. Try a bunch of goals on for size, the ones that you are really passionate about will stick with you and the rest will fall by the side of the road. Let them go for now; you may revisit them later when things get a little less busy.

Pick the one or two goals that really light your fire. This is what I am having to do. While losing a lot of weight would be a wonderful thing to do. I’m finding that with my current work schedule, it’s just not possible to do everything I need to do to make that a workable goal for the time being. I can still eat healthy food, try to get a little more exercise by say, letting my 4 year old piggy back while I hang laundry or park far away from the door, but as far as spending a couple of hours a day in the gym… with a 50-70 hour work week, that’s just not feasible.

What I find I can do with the little time I have is stuff relating to my other goal of replacing income. When I succeed at that, I’ll have a better shot at the weight loss goal, because ultimately that success will buy me a lot of time. Residual income does that for you.

So for right now, I’m focusing on that part of my goal-suite. I’ve found a product that I can believe in. The guy who owns that product treats his affiliates like gold, really helps them along… and this may be why his product has such great gravity in ClickBank (meaning that a lot of affiliates are making sales with that product). I was actually surprised when I found out who the true creator of the product was, since he used a pseudonym. I signed up for the emails that he sends his affiliates and it turned out to be a marketing guru whom I greatly respect, and from whom I’d already learned tons of good stuff.

My problem has been a)finding time to properly implement One Week Marketing/Bum Marketing and b)inertia.. when I’ve had a particularly difficult week at work (several of those lately), it’s super hard to get myself to get out of bed and work on my marketing projects after my daughter has gone to bed. With the resources that this fellow provides though, I can kick out two or three articles a day by stopping in a coffee shop by my daughter’s daycare 20 minutes before I pick her up. Now that’s not a ton; I know people who habitually write ten articles a day, but given enough snowflakes, you eventually have a snowball. I’m able to do something every single day to help grow my business.

And something I need to make a note of and put in my back pocket for later is this: By building a relationship with me over time (several months), I’m eager to promote this guy’s product. I believe in his success, so success seems that much more tangible when I play ball on his team. Of all the gurus I’ve read, contacted, subscribed to, this one guy is the only one who has really gotten down to a friendly, personal level.

Hopefully soon that success will buy me more time to spend with you guys and gals!

Hi! I’m so glad you came by to visit! This being a newish blog, traffic isn’t yet what it will be soon . But I wanted to thank each and every one of you who do stop by on a regular basis… My friend Jennifer Ledbetter, aka, “PotPieGirl” has put together a Squidoo lens-building guide that she is giving away for free. You don’t have to buy anything to get it, though she’ll tell you a bit about “One Week Marketing” in the bargain.

If you don’t know what Squidoo is all about, jump on over and take a look (then come right back, y’hear?). Squidoo is free, you can create as many pages (called lenses) as you like. You can write about (almost) anything that you fancy, promote your products or someone else, promote causes, initiate some heated political discussion, interact with folks… and you can make some money while you are at it… either for yourself or for charity. You can check out some of my lenses listed at the bottom of my Squidoo profile.

Squidoo was founded by Seth Godin, and you don’t know know who Seth Godin is, I highly recommend anything he’s written. He’s an amazing marketing free-thinker… You can find his blog at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ . I reviewed his book “The Dip” some time back… a short, but profound read.

Anyway, the uses for Squidoo lenses are nigh infinite. Google is sweet on Squidoo, so it’s great for bum marketing. You can use a lense as a blog. You can highlight your favorite videos and images. You can market your eBay store. Create a travelog. Promote a charity. Etcetera.

Squidoo figures prominently in PotPieGirl’s One Week Marketing, which is one reason why she is giving this extensive guide away, but the squidoo guide is valuable all on it’s own as well… Go check it out!

The Fifth Installment of Five: Time-honored Tips to Boost Your Goal Chasing Success.

How many times has this happened to you?

You start out on a weightloss journey. Family, a major holiday, hormones, your best gal pals from college, any excuse shows up at your doorstep and you break your diet. You beat yourself up over the next couple of weeks, “Oh, I’ll *never* be able to stick to this; I’ll always be fat!!! Well, since I’m always going to be fat, what’s the point,” and you grab another handful of cheat-o’s [sic].

What will happen if you let yourself wallow in self-castigation? Your prophecy will be fulfilled. You’ll always be fat. Until you are dead. What would happen if you, instead of wearing self-doubt as a defense against commitment, you got up, brushed off the crumbs, and said, “Oh well, that was yesterday. Guess I just needed a little break, but now it’s time to get back to eating the way I should. And you pack your gym bag and head off to the gym.

Which strategy is more likely to lead to success? If you kick your setbacks in the teeth by putting your rear in gear, and getting back up on the horse, you will succeed.

And forgive yourself.

Was your goal to be perfect, or was your goal to lose Xlbs of weight before XX/XX/XXXX ? If it was to be perfect, good luck, because I’m guessing there is paralysis down that path… you’ll keep editing that article until it’s stale news, you’ll never try anything you’re not good at, because you won’t be perfect…

You know what, I’m a lousy, lousy tennis player. I suck cookies. My friends still like to play tennis with me because I don’t get down about it… I laugh my butt off because me on a tennis court is friggin’ hilarious. I give my tennis partners the best game I can. They enjoy playing with me because they don’t know what to expect, and because we always leave the courts with a grin.

You know what else? Because I didn’t throw my tennis rackets into the trash bin when it became abundantly clear that I’d never be “perfect”, I’m a much better player today than I was ten years ago in spite of knees that are 10 years old and wiser.

The Fourth Installment of Five: Time-honored Tips to Boost Your Goal Chasing Success.

Language, Language!

Words have power. What you speak consistently with conviction has a tendency to manifest itself. If you consistently voice your goals and dreams in a way that conveys no confidence that they will be met, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Banish language such as “if i can just lose 30 pounds…” and replace it with statements like “When I’ve lost 30 pounds…”

The old programmer’s adage, GIGO (”Garbage in, Garbage out”) applies to self-speak as well. Your subconscious believes what your mouth feeds it. If your mouth is vomiting forth language that conveys a lack of confidence, a lack of faith in yourself, and a lack of real, burning desire, guess what… you internalize that and live it.

This concept is most widely applied in sports psychology and cognitive therapy: St. Clair and Foster write:

“Whether specific training of self-talk can improve performance is controversial, although recent studies have suggested that task-specific self-talk appears to have a beneficial effect on physical performance. “(1)

Psychologist Donald J. Franklin writes about self-talk at http://www.psychologyinfo.com:

“Self-talk is not bad, or wrong, or a sign of psychological problems. It is normal. But, negative self-talk prevents us from solving problems, and can contribute to a variety of psychological problems, including depression. When faced with a problem, if our self-talk is negative, it can immobilize us. “I can’t do this, I’m just going to foul it up again” or “I’ll probably get fired after they see how incompetent I am.” Psychologists help depressed individuals identify negative self-talk, and also teach them how to challenge these negative statements, and how to replace them with positive self-talk.”(2)

This goes not only for what you say, but what those around you say, what you read, what you listen to.   If your best buddy ‘Al’ is constantly calling you a loser, telling you that his pet rock has a higher IQ, or says that “Well, we’ll never amount to much, but at least we have each other!” then it’s probably time to get some distance between yourself and “Al,” because he’s obviously not on the same journey that you are, one of a goal-getting, success-catching, life-winning freak.   He just wouldn’t understand, and he’s going to drag you down.   Send him a post card or something, but don’t spend all your spare time hanging out with him, ok?  Find yourself a group of folks who speak in positive terms.  Be a person who speaks in positive terms about your abilities and goals.

Read something uplifting.  Find a radio station that has upbeat music and DJ’s that have a positive message.  If you can’t find a radio station, get some inspirational recordings/podcasts to listen to.   If you know of anyone in Amway, or whatever they are calling it now, they actually have a great series of motivational tapes and recommended books… see if you can borrow some.

One project I’ll be working on in March is some upbeat, kick-ass, motivational podcasts.  Maybe even a few self-hypnosis recordings available as podcasts on this site.    I’ll make the initial ones available to subscribers-only so I can get some feedback before I make them generally available.  I’ll have my opt-in-only subscription form up before next Monday, so come back and subscribe if you want to get the first peek at new podcast offerings in March!   I haven’t decided what yet, but I’ll make sure to have a nice bonus for the first twenty subscribers who provide feedback on the recordings!

sources:

(1)
St Clair Gibson A; Foster C. The role of self-talk in the awareness of physiological state and physical performance. Information from Industry. Sports Med. 2007; 37(12):1029-44 (ISSN: 0112-1642)

(2) Franklin, Donald J. Psychology Information Online

The Third Installment of Five: Time-honored Tips to Boost Your Goal Chasing Success.

Goals can be worded as either ‘avoidance goals’ or ‘approach goals’. I can set my goal as “get my projects completed on time to avoid being fired.” or “get my projects completed so that I have time to work on my proposal which might get me a huge bonus or promotion.” Consistently formulating your goals as avoidance rather than approach goals has a negative impact on your motivation to reach said goals.

Timothy Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa Canada says that tipping the scale in favor of avoidance goals relates to less satisfaction with progress on personal goals and feeling less competent in pursuing your goals.

Ergo, by couching your goals in positive terms, you give your motivation and self-esteem a little boost. Looking great on the beach is a better motivator for most people seeking to lose weight than “avoiding a heart attack,” even if the latter is less superficial and vain than the first.