NOT PRETTY! The diet starts TODAY.

(When I renewed my lisence in February, the DMV guy said I looked like I was still 120 pounds (HAHA more like 150), so he wasn’t going to change my card. Bless his heart.)

My problem was that losing weight seemed to be this enormous “thing” for which I couldn’t find the right formula. It involved working out at the gym and protein shakes and diet foods and running…and…and…

…and I HATED all of those things. The exercise routine was often a drag, running is painful for this hourglass figure, and diet foods don’t satisfy.

What changed for me was that I decided I didn’t need any of the STUFF. I’m not knocking personal trainers or gyms, but I never looked forward to those things, so I quit. I bought a jump rope, a weight bench, and dumbells. No excuses, no need to drive, the stuff is right there at home. Two years later, that’s still all I use.

On the food front, I consider my diet sort of European. Great food in moderation. Instead of eating a fast food burger, buy grass-fed beef and make a burger. I know it’s not as quick and easy, but when you develop a real appreciation for good food, the craving for the junk starts to dissipate. You also feel more satisfied on less food. I thought real butter and French bread and the like would make me gain weight, but I’ve kept it off.

Instead of focusing on the scale, start focusing on eating great food. Take a 30-minute walk everyday to clear your mind (think of exercise as a by-product), and lift weights maybe a few times a week. You don’t need to spend an hour on a treadmill every day (Here’s someone who agrees: http://lifespotlight.com/fitness/2008/10/02/is-your-exercise-keeping-you-fat/).

Thanks, Brad. I’ll check Beck out. You’ve provided me with many great suggestions over the years, so I’m always willing to listen to what you have to say. I’ll check to see if my library has Beck…

But it does frustrate me that I still have issues with food even after all this time.

Beck’s method focuses precisely on the issues you describe in your post and helps you come up with ways to overcome them. It recognizes that diets and fitness plans are easy to follow in the beginning, but become hard to maintain when life gets busy or stressful events occur and we fall off the wagon. Beck’s strategy is to give you the tools you need to help you continue through those stress points, counteract your sabotaging thoughts, and maintain your momentum.

Another thing I like about her approach is that she believes you have to train to be on a diet, just as you have to train to do a marathon. In fact the first two weeks of her plan are spent training for dieting; she doesn’t want you to actually start dieting until the third week.

Even if you don’t follow her plan exactly you can gain a lot from reading the book. But she warns that if you try to take shortcuts and don’t follow the program exactly, your chances of failure increase. She’s right.

The one thing you should promise yourself when you start again is to set yourself reasonable goals. You have a tendency to get all fired up and set very ambitious goals, which in turn set you up for near-certain failure, which is part of the vicious circle. You might want to start with “process goals” like the one you have for walking a mile a day. Maybe start by saying you will exercise for 30 minutes a day, every day, at 8am or some other time that works for you, instead of, say, setting a goal to run a marathon and do a 700-mile bike ride in the same year.

Mac called me this morning. He wanted to talk about this post. Believe it or not, we discussed the very things you bring up in your comment. In particular, I confided that I’m ready to spend money on fitness. I can afford it, and I think that the expense would repay me quickly. I have my finances under control. Now it’s time to focus on fitness.

And speaking of spending money on your physical fitness… why not? This could be part of your next financial phase, part of your investing in yourself. No one said hiring a trainer has to mean meeting up with someone at the weight bench three days a week for an intense month or two. You could probably work out a business arrangement to meet with someone once a week for a bike ride–with the understanding that this kind of trainer would be pushing you to ride a little harder or a little farther than you would on your own–and of course, if you’re paying a trainer to meet with you, it’ll be a lot harder to come up with the reasons why you can’t do it right now.

In general though, it seems like even if you slip around a bit on actually doing the things you know you need and want to do, you’ve already moved past the the “zeroth” stage of physical fitness, so count that as a small victory.

Anyway, thanks for the post… and the reminder that I should step away from the desk right now and go for a walk outside.