May
23rd

Was just going through my fitness journal at this exact time last year. I was eating a lot cleaner and working out a lot harder. Must step up my game! I was a lot scrawnier though because I was doing way too much cardio while training for the Ride to Conquer cancer. I gathered a bunch of fitness randoms from this year and last for my own inspiration.

1 RTCC 2011 // 2 Last year, trying to get a perfect shot while doing box jumps with my BFF. We never got that perfect shot. // 3 All ridden out. Drove the bikes back home. // 4 When I’m at the gym, my cardio of choice is still the bike. // 5 Back at the gym after a month of slacking over the holidays (January 2012) // 6 Back from a cold and wet morning run.

May
21st

“When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.”  – Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

May
19th

Food is nothing but fuel for our bodies, yet it is so much more.

Food brings people together, cultures revolve around food, people look to food for comfort, rewards and pleasure and much, much more. Food is the answer to so many things: do you want to show your appreciation for someone? Buy them dinner. Are you stressed or sad? Indulge in ice cream.  Want to lose weight? Stay away from junk food.

Food is so deeply engrained into our culture that it has become so overly-complicated. Over-eating, under-eating, clean eating, dieting… food should be simple yet we tend to over think it and cause unnecessary stress in our lives.

As I’m writing this, I’m having an immense craving for cheese puffs. I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t have one!! In a perfect world, I would just go get the damn cheese puffs but my mind is telling me to resist because I’m going out for dinner later… and that I’m going to Vegas in 2 weeks and I want to look good… and I had an easy workout today. But I want it so bad. Gimme!! How has my relationship with food turned so complicated?!

But in reality, I just went to get those cheese puffs. Why? Over the years as I slid into this healthy lifestyle and as my philosophy on food and fitness evolved, I’ve discovered a new mindset that now comes naturally:

I don’t let food rule my life.

By setting some simple rules for myself, I eat anything I want. I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel regretful. This makes me happy because I love food.

Here are some basic rules everyone should follow:

• Indulge all you want in anything that grows from the ground or in trees.
• Avoid anything is packaged and contains ingredients you’ve never heard of.
• Once in a while, treat yourself to something “bad” (see above point) if you really love it.
• Enjoy, savor and appreciate every single bite.

Here are some rules I’ve set for myself. This may or may not work for you depending on your lifestyle, personality and many other factors. Everyone has to find their own way and this is my way.

• Eat healthy during the day and indulge at night (because that’s the time I like to eat). People say you should eat more during the day and taper off at night but that’s when I like to chill out and perhaps watch a show while snacking on some good eats. It makes me happy so why not?
• Or eat healthy during the week and indulge on weekends when I usually go out. I’m too busy working during the week anyway so there are less distractions for me to fill myself up with junk. This is when my willpower is the strongest so I’ll use it to my advantage.
• Cook at home most of the time so I can indulge as much as I want and don’t feel guilty when going out to eat. You never know how much butter and fats they put into their dishes.
• Exercise lots. This is easy because I love exercise.
• Never feel guilty about overeating or indulging. I can always push a little harder during my next workout. I love food and like I’ve always said, I will NEVER not eat things I love just because it’s deemed unhealthy or fattening. Knowing I have the discipline to make sacrifices elsewhere makes me feel a lot better about food.

How is YOUR relationship with food like? Are you still struggling with it or did you already overcome it?

May
15th

Last week, I had an FML-moment and I have no one to blame but myself. I just finished a killer HIIT session on the bike, did some upper-body work and was just starting to do my recovery routine. Then I had this bright idea that came out of nowhere:

I’m going to do 100 burpees!

I sat there fought with myself for a minute because I didn’t want to do it since I was pooped but I already told myself I was going to. I couldn’t back out now! Well… it’s only about 6 minutes of torture then it’ll all be over. I pressed my timer and just did it.

This set of burpees was probably the worst mental fitness challenge I’ve faced in a long time (yes, worst than those Glute Lifts). I didn’t have my music on so every time my knees (and crotch) slammed on the floor, the sound seem to elevate the pain. I was tired. I was hungry. I was hangry. By the time I got to 90, I was on the verge of giving up and the yoga teacher who was setting up for her 1pm class left the room because I was awkwardly making dying/wheezing sounds. She probably didn’t want to be responsible if something happened to me. Although this was the worst set of burpees I’ve ever done (went over my PR by 30 seconds), I finished it! Everything that was going through my mind was mental and I just had to overcome it because I knew I could do it. Well, I did finish it and felt great afterwards.

Okay, I lied. I felt like crap and think I swallowed my own puke afterwards. But after lying on the mat for a good 10 minutes and a nice and long recovery routine, I felt awesome!

Try this challenge: When you tell yourself to do something, JUST DO IT. You can’t change your mind. You can’t take it back. Just do it.

My best friend and I do it all the time. We’ll spontaneously come up with exercises to add to our pre-planned workouts or switch it up with harder variations and once it slips past our lips, it’s finalized. We almost always regret saying it but for some reason, we keep on doing it… maybe because we always finish a workout.

“Let’s add 30 burpees with a jump tuck in between the 20 Wall Balls and 40 kettlebell swings.”

*gives each other a scared look then proceeds to write it down*

“Nooo wait, I’m just kidding. Let’s just do 10 burpees.” *scared look*

“Too bad! You already said it.”

“……………………” *sulk*

Although out workouts makes us want to kill ourselves, we feel amazing afterwards because we know we worked hard and pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone.

May
7th

I use to hate exercise. I’d pay $40/month for a gym membership, in which I went like once every couple of months. I would dread every session and try to come up with any excuse not to go. When I started working out regularly, it was very hard to push myself in the beginning because I was unfit, weak and self-conscious. But guess what? I sucked it up and went anyway. Overtime as I persevered, got stronger and saw results, I came to love exercise.

I wrote about getting into the mindset before but let me reiterate it again because it is so important. How you think will dictate how you make choices and if you tell yourself you suck at something, you will suck at it. If you tell yourself you can do it, you will do it.

Doing 100 kettlebell swings or pumping out 100 burpees sucks but I did 90 last time. Why can’t I do 100 today? It’s only 10 more. In my lifetime, I want to run in a marathon, do the Grand Fondo, complete an Iron Man… I know I can run 5 miles. I know I can ride 150 miles. If I can already do those things, I know I can do even more.

I’m no longer unfit, weak and self-conscious. I persevered. I believe in myself.

I have no fear.

That’s why I love exercise.

People don’t like to do things because they’re either lazy or it scares the shit out of them.

That’s how I was with running. It always caused me pain and I never thought I could run for long so I hated it and I never did it. One of the things I wanted to start doing was to do stuff I suck at (or hated) and this was one of them but I forced myself to do it anyway. Now, I love it.

The other day we were running up a hill and my legs started to burn— and I mean burn, but I remember thinking to myself, “man, this feels good.” Erasing the fear makes you embrace it. And I really meant it when I said it felt good!

These days, I look forward to everything and fear nothing. Sure, the thought of doing hours of climbing uphill on a bike scares the shit out of me because I usually want to kill myself while doing it, but when I sign up, I never think about the journey but only crossing the finish line.

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. – Lance Armstrong

So how do you make yourself love exercise?

Let go of the fear that you won’t be able to run those 5 miles… that you won’t be able to bike up that hill. Stop being afraid of what you THINK you can’t do. And just do it.