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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Kicking it Up a Notch

   At the beginning of last summer I lost ten pounds. Ever since then I have been struggling to lose the next seven pounds. I lose two or three and then I gain them back. It doesn't help that during the winter I do a lot of sitting around reading. I guess its a good thing I haven't actually gained weight. I've made some small changes to my diet. Eating more vegetables and fruit, trying to stay away from fatty meats. Recently I cut back on my beer. I tell myself I'm only drinking two , but truth be told most nights I have been drinking three or four. Just not paying attention. Now I'm paying attention and while I'm not going to give up my beer, I have limited myself to two and I don't drink every night. It just hasn't been enough to kick start my body's metabolism to lose that next set of pounds I want to lose. Recently I was in Michigan and walked three or four miles a day. When I got back to Colorado, I still hadn't lost a pound more. I almost bought some "Ben and Jerry's". I started walking here, now I'm up to five miles a day. I thought about what I could do to jump start my metabolism. Today for the first time, I walked the five miles with a fifteen pound back pack. The thinking is that your body doesn't know the extra pounds are dead weight and after walking three miles your body is burning energy to a level to support a human body of that weight. It burns at that level for sometime even after you have taken off the weight.
         The walk got a little tough just beyond mile three. At mile four, you can take a right and walk back to the ranch or you can take a left and go up the hill to my turn around at mile five.  Just before the turn I was thinking I was tired  that instead of going up the hill that for today I would just head back to the ranch. After all it seemed like storm clouds were gathering. Then just as I got to the turn I thought about my goal for the summer. To hike a fourteen footer. I thought , would some one who hikes a fourteen footer turn around just because of a little black cloud or for being just a bit tired. When I got to the fork in the road, I took the left and up the hill I went. Funny thing, the further up the hill I got, the better I felt. By the time I got to the crest of the hill and the sign that marks the mile, I felt so good I kept on walking another hundred yards or so. I thought this is crazy, I feel like I could walk forever, when just a few minutes ago I was ready to turn around.Then I looked around, this is the highest point around, and although the wind was blowing pretty hard, it was a beautiful day. The sky had turned blue and was full of big boisterous cumulus clouds.you could see forever. I was deeply rewarded for my efforts.
    So if your feeling stuck in a rut and got the blaaaasssss. Here is what I suggest. First you got to get the right mental attitude. Learn something new, read about something new, get a new hobby. Your brain needs exercise, it needs to be brought out of the depths and walked around. When you exercise your brain with new activity it focuses on what really might interest you. Set your exercised brain to looking for something that inspires you, something that you used to want or dream about doing and never did. It could be anything. Set a goal.  Then set simple goals that will lead you to that larger goal.It will be hard at times, it wont happen over night, there will be set backs, but if you keep your goal in mind you will reach it. Sometimes you just got to turn it up a notch and be tenacious
     I don't know all I can say is that it seems to work for me.