Tag: Fitness

It is very important to keep our motivation and to make changes or at least keep changes in our life that are good while at the same time pushing out bad habits.

The problem that we sometimes run into though is complacency.

The Danger of Complacency

Complacency always rears its head at the same time that we are working towards some kind of big goal and are part way there.

How many times do you find yourself losing weight, meeting people, getting a better diet going and then you suddenly stop or plateau in your changes?

I have, you have, we all have gotten bored of change

The thing with life is that we interact with people. Some of these people we perceive as better and some we perceive as not quite as good as us and when we make changes we suddenly feel like we have made great changes compared to those around us.

This can make us either get uncomfortable with being so different or think we gotten it all right. Both of these thoughts are dangerous and avoidable.

Let’s stop comparing ourselves with others

OK, so I wanted today to write about a Weekly motivation check, this is something that I borrow from Getting Things Done.

In that book, David Allen wrote about having a Sunday night check of what has happened last week and plan this week. This is critical so that the world does not force you to follow it and instead you take some control over your life.

So take this challenge up for yourself on Sunday. Ask yourself a few questions and YOU get to decide how you are doing, not everyone else

Weekly Fitness Motivation Checkup

Here are the questions from last week:

1. How did I eat everyday? Good? Bad? What did I eat, how did I fail by cheating, how do I feel about me eating overall?

2. How many times did I workout? How hard was each workout? Did I get more cardio or weights in?

3. How was my rest? Have I kept free time for myself? Are there things in my life keeping me too busy that should not have done?

4. Who was I looking at for motivation in areas of my life? Did I listen to others or my own body telling me what to do?

Here are the questions for the week to come. Remember these are based on the answers from the questions above.

1. Based on last weeks eating, Can I take it up a notch, can I plan my eating better? How can I avoid the cheating or want of bad foods?

2. What is my workout schedule? How can I make it better? Do I need easier workouts? Harder workouts? More or fewer days off? Would work out at a different time of day help?

3. How will I make sure that I take care of myself this week? Go to dinner? Go to a movie? Read a different book? Meet some new friends? Step outside my comfort zone socially?

4. How can I improve myself in all the different parts of my life? What one part of my life is really lacking and what will I do this week to improve that.

Eight Questions? Twenty questions? Not quite sure how many that adds up to but it is really just a starting point for you.

The idea, of course, is to take a snapshot in time (Sunday Night) for just a few minutes and see what is working and not working in your life and decide how you will push it harder this coming week to live a more exciting life full of joy, passion, happiness, and excitement.

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Depression is a very debilitating condition. While treatments are many and readily available, the stigma of depression makes it difficult for some to get the help that they need.

Learning how to treat depression is actually a simple question to answer. It starts by accepting that you have depression and realizing that you need professional help to manage and treat it.

Psychiatric Help for Depression

Psychiatric care is one of the ways to treat depression for those that suffer from it. It is a classical way of managing depression especially for those that have traumatic events as a root cause of depression.

Talking with a psychiatrist makes it possible to recognize the events that cause depression and look for ways to deal with them. By expressing your feelings, you will be able to voice out the things that are causing you to be sad, angry or stressed.

How To Treat Depression

In turn, these professionals can help you manage depression by coming to terms with your own problems.

They empower you to act towards solving your problems and showing you how you can deal with and take control of your lives. Doing so leads to healthier relationships with others and with yourself.

Medication for Depression

Along with therapy, medication is also a way to treat depression. There are several prescription antidepressants which one can take to stabilize moods.

Relaxants and other medication can also help in dealing with chemical imbalances which can be the cause of depression.

While it was initially perceived with apprehension, medication for treating depression has been credited with helping many people manage and overcome this disorder. It is important to note that any medication should be done under the supervision of a professional doctor.

Self-medication can often do more harm in cases like these.

Alternative Medicine and Lifestyle Changes

Herbal medicine and holistic approaches such as yoga, acupuncture, and spa or massage sessions can also cure depression in a natural way.

These treatment methods done in conjunction with medical prescriptions can improve the well-being of a person that suffers from depression.

A lifestyle change to incorporate healthier activities is also important in how to treat depression.

By exercising regularly and eating healthy food, you can lower the risk of getting depression as well as make it easier for the body to overcome it.

There are many methods of treating depression which gives hope to those that suffer from it. Depression is no longer a feared disorder, it just needs to be diagnosed and treated the right way.

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I know I run onto this and I suspect everyone does as well. You have great intentions to workout, to go to the gym and have a workout, but sometimes the motivation just isn’t there.

You know it is important, but there always seems to be something more important. So what do you do to make your workouts happen?

Here are 10 Tips to Get To the Gym

1. Decide what your priorities are today. Sometimes we just don’t feel like going to the gym when we are busy. There is sometimes other things that appear more important. More likely, though, your todo list is just so full of little things that you do not feel the time is right.

Go to the gym anyway.

That time away from home and work is rejuvenating and refreshing to the mind as well as the body.

2. Maybe you are just tired. I have run into the many times. The problem is that the couch is a lot more comfortable then being under a bench press bar.

Better to have a light workout than to skip it. Once you get off your butt and get your workout gear on you can trudge into the gym and make that workout time count for you.

3. Get in a Gym rut. Sometimes the workout today just feels like more of a continuation of yesterday. We all go through times in our workout schedules that everything becomes mundane and we are not motivated because the excitement is gone.

If this is the case then it is time to get a new workout schedule. Go to the gym with absolutely no plan (usually a very bad idea) and see why things are boring you.

Maybe too much cardio lately? Maybe too many weights? Maybe you just need a change and a new routine. Think about your schedule and change it up and make it exciting again.

4. Getting in a gym rut part 2. Sometimes that rut is just a product of overtraining. I have done this before when I am going for a personal best for a few weeks and my boy just gets burned out.

From a weight workout point of view, there are a lot of things that you can do to change up your workout to stop the overtraining. Make sure you are eating enough and resting enough. Look into what is going right and wrong with your eating and rest.

5. Sets, Reps, and Exercises. I find that it is important to change things up a lot. I change exercises often, probably every couple weeks a new exercise gets into my schedule.

Also, I will sometimes vary my sets from 2 up to 4 depending on weight and my plan. Reps are the biggest change I make.

My last set is usually 5 reps, but occasionally I will do a couple workouts in a row where I do one exercise for a couple sets of 100 reps. This feels a lot different than a usually 5-10 rep set and you really have to cut the weight down.

6. Cardio can get boring. If you are always dreading the gym on cardio days (like I do), it is probably because you either don’t know why you are doing it.

If you are not motivated by losing weight, or increasing endurance, then cardio seems like a waste of time. Remember though that the biggest reason for cardio is the health improvements with cardio.

Cardio can improve our concentration and stamina every day, cardio can improve our resting heart rate, and finally cardio will help us in hydration since we will sweat a lot and drink a lot.

7. Cardio is starting to hurt. Not many people can just hit a treadmill every day for months on end. I find that my body gets beat up by running a lot so I really have to cycle through lots of ways to do cardio.

I use a regular bike, an elliptical, treadmill, even rowing. All of these exercises can raise our heart rate and make us sweat but will not beat us down so it is important to change things up as much as possible for cardio.

These are my biggest reasons that I will stay on the couch or at my desk and make excuses why I am not working out. Of course, this changes for everyone.

I want to add one thing, and 8th reason and that is the rituals we build into our lives. I know that there are things that go on in my head and in my body before and during a great workout and that is the same for everyone.

If you can do a better job of recognizing these rituals before and during your workout, you will have better workouts more often and miss a lot fewer workouts.

I will try to write more on this subject tomorrow, just think about that today and see if you can identify some of those triggers in yourself.

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