I've been working night shifts the past week or so, as I do once every month. This is tough on your body, as it has to adapt to a different sleep/wake schedule. As you can probably guess, my appetite and exercise schedule go a little haywire while this happens.
I came home from a night shift on Saturday morning, and my wife was up, having just awakened. She was eating breakfast. After talking with her for a minute or two, I made ready to go up to bed, as I normally do after a night shift. I was hungry, because that is normally breakfast time for me, and for whatever reason I decided to make a s'more, even though I would normally never eat that.
My wife, who has to frequently suffer through my rambling about healthy lifestyle since she has been with me for ten years, through my high weight phase and all of my weight loss, went ballistic. "What are you DOING?" She asked me. I mumbled some sort of halfhearted excuse, and she said just the right thing:
Why are you eating?
Why are you eating THAT?
If you have read my blog before, you may recognize these questions. They are the very same ones I encourage the people I advise to ask before a meal. Asking the questions focuses your attention on what you are about to eat, so that you are thinking with your brain, rather than your emotions. Your brain makes far better food choices than your feelings.
Once I had engaged my tired brain, I of course realized that eating sugar laden s'mores was bad. Eating them right before going to sleep was even worse. This was a very poor food choice, and Christy had just saved me from making it. The correct thing to do was to ignore my hunger (it wasn't that bad, anyway), and go right to bed.
This episode reminded me of the importance of support systems. Whether you subscribe to religion's view ("And God said: "It is not good that the Man should be alone." - Genesis 2:18) or the evolutionary view (primates as a rule are extremely social creatures), we were almost certainly meant to interact with our fellow humans. A great many activities are easier when done with others. This is definitely true for weight loss. I don't know about you, but there are many days that I just don't have what it takes. There are days when I just don't want to do what is necessary to be healthy, either because I am feeling lazy, or just emotional. On those days it is nice to have someone to help carry the load, and remind me what I am doing all of this for.
Now many of you may not be married or have children, but there are plenty of support groups out there, and most people have at least one friend they can share with. If all else fails, email me, and I will be your virtual diet and workout buddy. Just remember, even the strongest of us needs help now and again. Admitting this is not a sign of weakness, but of strength and self-awareness.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Motivation
Everyone knows someone like this: They are that annoying friend who always seems to be motivated. You wake up feeling crappy and decide to take the day off. They cheerfully go to the gym at 5 AM every day, no matter if they were up until 1 AM the night before. You break down and eat an entire box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. They seem to subsist on a lettuce leaf and a sliver of carrot, and enjoy it. Bottom line, despite the fact that they are your friend, you hate them. You also want to be like them and wonder what their secret is.
I have been both of those people throughout my life. I was the obese, donut eating couch potato. I am now a standard-bearer for diet and exercise. The difference between the two is motivation. When I was 350 lbs, I spent much of the day wondering what it was like to be thin, and wishing that I could make the changes necessary to lose weight. I felt stupid and embarrassed because I lacked the "willpower" to make changes. I also felt ashamed because I am a doctor, and should have known better then to get myself into such a mess.
I was committing a classic mistake. I was confusing desire with motivation. Most of us have desire. We want to be richer, better looking, happier, thinner, or healthier. We want these things, and assume that since we want them, the desire should be sufficient. It is not. Desire without motivation is not strong enough to force a change. Take alcoholics and people addicted to drugs. I see many people in these situations on a daily basis in the Emergency Department. Whenever I ask them if they want to stop, they say yes. In fact, many of them present to the ED with the chief complaint of "I want to detox from alcohol/ drugs." Sadly, 80-90% of these people will fail in their quest. Most people who successfully stop alcohol or drug abuse first have to hit rock bottom.
Why does hitting bottom make success more likely? It adds motivation to their desire. Instead of some abstract concept of being drug free trying to compete with the very real pleasure offered by the drugs or alcohol, the person is faced with extremely negative emotions due to very bad consequences in their life. These negative emotions are strong enough in many cases to enable permanent change.
You don't have to be a drug addict, or hit bottom to use this idea in your own life. The key is the emotion. We spend a lot of time and energy trying to avoid our negative emotions, because they are uncomfortable. It is hard to look at ourselves and see the flaws. It is much easier to lie to ourselves and minimize our flaws. This is unfortunate, as our negative emotions can actually be our best friends. The key is to view them for what they are: tools. Emotions are tools used by our brains to make us do things. It is not a coincidence that the word "emotion" contains the word "motion." Practically everything we do starts with an emotion. Emotion produces thought, which produces action.
This means to motivate yourself to change, you just have to attach negative enough emotions to the way things are that changing is the more palatable alternative. For me, the negative emotions came from the fact that I might not get to see my children grow up due to my poor health. The shame and sadness that this scenario brought to me was enough to get me started on the path to weight loss. Now, that shame and fear of going back to the way I used to be keep me motivated. If you want to have such motivation in your life, then you need to find your reason. In order to say no to the pleasurable foods, pervasive advertisements, and easy sedentary lifestyles which are so common in our society, you must have a bigger yes inside of you. The negative emotions will clue in to what you want most, and provide the yes that you need to move from desire to motivation.
I have been both of those people throughout my life. I was the obese, donut eating couch potato. I am now a standard-bearer for diet and exercise. The difference between the two is motivation. When I was 350 lbs, I spent much of the day wondering what it was like to be thin, and wishing that I could make the changes necessary to lose weight. I felt stupid and embarrassed because I lacked the "willpower" to make changes. I also felt ashamed because I am a doctor, and should have known better then to get myself into such a mess.
I was committing a classic mistake. I was confusing desire with motivation. Most of us have desire. We want to be richer, better looking, happier, thinner, or healthier. We want these things, and assume that since we want them, the desire should be sufficient. It is not. Desire without motivation is not strong enough to force a change. Take alcoholics and people addicted to drugs. I see many people in these situations on a daily basis in the Emergency Department. Whenever I ask them if they want to stop, they say yes. In fact, many of them present to the ED with the chief complaint of "I want to detox from alcohol/ drugs." Sadly, 80-90% of these people will fail in their quest. Most people who successfully stop alcohol or drug abuse first have to hit rock bottom.
Why does hitting bottom make success more likely? It adds motivation to their desire. Instead of some abstract concept of being drug free trying to compete with the very real pleasure offered by the drugs or alcohol, the person is faced with extremely negative emotions due to very bad consequences in their life. These negative emotions are strong enough in many cases to enable permanent change.
You don't have to be a drug addict, or hit bottom to use this idea in your own life. The key is the emotion. We spend a lot of time and energy trying to avoid our negative emotions, because they are uncomfortable. It is hard to look at ourselves and see the flaws. It is much easier to lie to ourselves and minimize our flaws. This is unfortunate, as our negative emotions can actually be our best friends. The key is to view them for what they are: tools. Emotions are tools used by our brains to make us do things. It is not a coincidence that the word "emotion" contains the word "motion." Practically everything we do starts with an emotion. Emotion produces thought, which produces action.
This means to motivate yourself to change, you just have to attach negative enough emotions to the way things are that changing is the more palatable alternative. For me, the negative emotions came from the fact that I might not get to see my children grow up due to my poor health. The shame and sadness that this scenario brought to me was enough to get me started on the path to weight loss. Now, that shame and fear of going back to the way I used to be keep me motivated. If you want to have such motivation in your life, then you need to find your reason. In order to say no to the pleasurable foods, pervasive advertisements, and easy sedentary lifestyles which are so common in our society, you must have a bigger yes inside of you. The negative emotions will clue in to what you want most, and provide the yes that you need to move from desire to motivation.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Gym? You Don't Need No Steenking Gym!!!
Perhaps the two biggest excuses I hear when it comes to exercise are these:
1. I don't have time to work out or go to the gym
2. I can't afford a gym membership
I know that we live in a busy world. Since regular physical activity is no longer part of our daily lives, and we no longer have to struggle to survive for the most part, if we don't specifically build exercise into our day, it won't happen. The cost of this is staggering, and I'm not just talking about dollars here. If you are obese, your life will be on average 7 years shorter than your normal weight next door neighbor.
Because of these costs, we can't afford to have excuses when it comes to our health. I will be your excuse remover. In this post, I will show you how to develop a simple and effective strength and cardio workout that can be done in your house or anywhere, with little or no equipment.
The Devolve Workout
This is one of many work outs that you can do. It consists of strength moves hitting the major muscle groups, then cardio. I have arranged it into an easy circuit, which you can mix and match as you see fit.
Abs:
Plank
Side plank
Twisting plank- Start in plank, then twist your body, kicking your leg toward the opposite arm.
Chaturanga- Like plank, but hold yourself with your chest 1-2 inches off the ground.
Back:
Pull up- either unassisted or with a chair under your legs if you are not strong enough to do a regular pull up.
Inverted row- hang from a barbell on a rack with your legs out in front of you and pull yourself up.
Table
Legs:
Squat
Squat with medicine ball- hold the ball out in front of you. Keep your back straight!
Prisoner squat- squat with arms folded behind head.
Lunges
Wall squat- lean against wall, legs at 90 degrees and hold. Try to ignore the horrid burning sensation.
Arms:
Push up
Moving push up- do a push up, move to the right while in plank, then do another. Repeat.
Fingertip pushup
*for pushups, if you can't do a flat pushup, do it at an incline. DO NOT do knee pushups.
Cardio:
Rope Work- Take a rope, twist it once around a pole, then use your whole body to move it up and down, side to side, or in circles to create a wave.
punching bag
Truck tires- push a truck tire, flipping it over (this obviously requires a truck tire)
No power treadmill- if you are near a treadmill, get on it, and push it with your feet, making the belt move.
Burpee
Floor run- get in plank and run with your legs
Sprint
Jumping Jacks
High knee run
Squat Jumps- Do a broad jump forward in jump position
This is by no means an all inclusive list of exercises. The point is that there are plenty that you can do without very much equipment.
How to set up the circuit:
Pick one exercise from each category. Do each exercise for 1 minute. Rest 30 seconds after the circuit. Pick different exercises and repeat. Do this until you have reached 20-40 minutes. Over time, increase the amount of time that you do each exercise for, and increase your total circuit time to 1 hour.
Remember to MIX IT UP! Your body adapts to the same old thing, so switch exercises regularly. Preferentially do the ones that are particularly hard for you, as those are the ones that will give you the most benefit!
M. Jacob Ott, M.D.
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