what inspires you?

Friday(april 2nd) - did lower body workout #2 and ran 30 minutes
Saturday(april 3rd) - did upper body workout #2 and ran 45 minutes
Monday(april 5th) - did lower body workout #1 and ran 45 minutes
Tuesday(april 6th) - did upper body workout #1 and ran 40 minutes

A couple posts back I mentioned motivators. They are a powerful tool when it comes to working out. Cuz WORK is essentially what it is. Sure, it's enjoyable too (to some people, me included), but it is also tough work.

Another powerful tool you can utilize is inspiration. Who inspires you and why? Think about this for a second, and then I'll share with you who inspires me.

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Did you think about it? Good. Moving on.

Who inspires me? Is it the person who has been at an ideal weight pretty much their entire life? No. Because then I would inspire myself. I have never been overweight, but I'm not my own inspirer.

Is it the genetically gifted mesomorph, who is naturally muscular and lean without having to work at it as hard as the rest of us? Um, no. Jealous maybe, but not inspired.

No, I'm inspired by people who are big. The ones that have 50-100 pounds to lose, that don't just use being big as an excuse to stay big. I don't mean those that say "Well, I've been big my entire life, my family is big, it's just in my genes". I mean, the people that say "I'm overweight, but I can do something about it"...and then DO IT!

People who work hard at it consistently and drop that kind of weight are the true inspirers. They don't give up when the going gets tough. They say no to junk food and sweat their butts off every day. To see someone transform themselves from obese to healthy and fit....is such a wonderful thing! They must be so proud of themselves. I admire those people immensely.

It can't be easy to start out. Just think of all that weight they have to move around, especially if they have been pretty sedentary in the past. I use that vision if I start to get tired when I'm on the treadmill. Because it's pretty darn easy for me to run, when I think about it. I exercise regularly so I'm used to it. When 30 minutes go by (which is what I shoot for every day) I usually end up saying to myself, "I can make it another 15 minutes"....and I usually do! Getting your mind to constantly tell your body what to do is an important part of keeping your momentum going.

My personal battles never involved losing tons of weight, just annoying fat pockets.

To maximize fat loss, you must combine strength training and cardio. I strength train 4 times per week and try to hit the treadmill every day for 30-45 minutes. On weights days, it feels time consuming. If I run for 45 minutes and then hit the weights for a half an hour, I'm pretty drained by the end. Typically working out for more than an hour (I have read over and over) does more harm than good, so I try not to do that.

Two or three years ago my sole workout routine was running, with maybe a strength training session in there once a week if I felt like it. And even then it was only 5 lb dumbbells. Did I lose weight? Yep. Was it all fat? NO! I was a skinny fat person! I weighed 109 pounds and still had dimply legs that looked disgusting! Why is that? Because I was cutting my calories too low and and losing more muscle than fat. So even at a weight which was considered "underweight" for my age and height, I felt fat because of the appearance of my legs. Such a frustrating thing!

I think it's probably tougher to be in my situation than it is to lose 50 or more pounds. Because the closer you get to being as lean as possible, the harder it is. Your body fights you like hell to hang on to that last little bit of fat. Which is why I needed to implement the carb cycling, to try and trick my body into losing that fat. So far it seems to have helped me break past a plateau. But it's a slow process, I need to keep my patience in check. Unless you have LOTS of weight to lose, losing more than 1-2 pounds a week means you are probably losing muscle too!

For seriously overweight people, sometimes just making minor adjustments to their diet (i.e. not drinking soda, alcohol or consuming other empty calorie foods) or increasing their activity level will easily help them drop weight like that *SNAP!*

So, I've gotten past the first two weeks of seriously increased cardio and carb cycling. And I've seen some results too! I want to keep that momentum going, keep feeling inspired and motivated by people who have it worse than I do but don't give up. Because they are real fitness heroes!