Benchmark

Years ago, I read that three months is a benchmark amount of time to see results for consistent and regular exercise. When I discovered weight training, I was enthralled and miffed at the same time. It felt so good to strengthen my muscles and I wondered, Why didn't anyone tell me about this long ago? Why did I have to stumble upon the feel good benefits of fitness? This should have been a part of my everyday life, for goodness sake! It ought to be a part of everyone's life ... more fitness, less 

lazing about and eating non, pretend foods, that pollute the mind and body and cause any number of maladies. 

Caramilk centre sweetness

The gym became my haven, a seemingly secret world populated by very few people compared to the populace, that had discovered the Caramilk centre sweetness of life (years ago, there were commercials about Cadbury Caramilk chocolate bars, and I borrow the imagery ... how does one insert caramel into the centre of a square, that bursts in the mouth with delicious flavour, once the outside sealed chocolate enclosure is bitten into?) Consider the mind as the sweetest part of the body, and the shell, our bodies, as the outside protective shield that preserves us, maintains our integrity, and gives us the capability to move and live for daily adventures, and mundane tasks too. Your body craves movement and activates the brain. I speak from experience; I am not a neuroscientist. I am an advocate for those that know they must do something to improve their sense of self-control and well-being, and fitness is the vehicle to achieve these goals. 

Hula hooping

I am just past the three week mark of daily hula hooping. Some days, while on the phone, I spend one to two hours swinging that weighted thing around my waist while chatting. My clothes fit better, and I can see my abdominal muscles returning. My weight has gone down very gradually, and because of the wisdom I am afforded with age, I understand that incremental change is more valuable than a drastic drop. Our bodies try to protect us from extreme alterations: you have heard of homeostasis? We are built to maintain and this is why three months of consistent effort, is so worth while. If you endeavour to add lean calorie burning muscle to your body, you must take your most excellent medicine in the form of fitness and wholesome eating. There is no other way that will satisfy, and give you a sense of accomplishment. Time and effort in, equates with results; these are the facts. 

Think, then take action

An inside out approach to life is what we must work toward, meaning we must think about what we want, followed by a reasonable plan to complete the tasks required to get to where we say we want to be, without short cuts or cheating. Ozempic is now the weight loss drug of choice, and from what I have heard, it does, like most pharmaceuticals, more damage than good. If weight loss is the only goal, then I guess the quick fix will suit the impatient among us, but if efficacy and a sense of self-control in choosing the good for us over the bad is part of the plan, then a wise and prudent person will take one day at a time, measuring the pain and pleasure as valuable, with every workout and weigh in. NOTE: I know that Ozempic is considered a drug for diabetics ... and we all know that people take drugs for numerous reasons, and not all of them are "medicinal", thus the abuse of the body via poisons and potions concocted by drug pushers that make their millions from susceptible and sometimes desperate consumers. 

What am I really saying, you ask? This is it, dear reader. 

Exercise, daily. Eat food, not "fun stuff" that is flaked and reformed and grotesquely coloured, resembling a painters palate. Drink water, or blended whole fruit and vegetable juices that you have made, instead of odd chemical concoctions that bubble and fizz when the lid is removed and the liquid hits your tongue. Eat whole foods that you have to prepare with your own hands, in your own kitchen. Come on now, you have time to go to a restaurant, peruse the menu, order, wait for someone to bring you your "food" after some bubba in the kitchen has done all the chopping and compiling for you, followed by looking over that desert menu and ordering something overpriced and artery and heart damaging and waiting for that too, and next, waiting for the big bill ... Perhaps, worse than the scenario you just read, you know exactly what to order and lickety-split, it is in front of you and hoovered down in no time at all, because you frequent the joint so often you have the menu memorized. YIKES!

I add to my YIKES ... WHY? 

• Why would you do this to yourself? 
• Why wouldn't you take all that time and go to the produce section of the grocery store, after planning some healthy, nutrient dense meals? 
• What about your body? how do your joints feel? 
• Are your clothes cutting off your circulation? 
• Do you feel tired most of the time? 
• When you walk, are your thighs rubbing together, wearing out your pants, or are you perhaps hiding under oversized clothes that were loose only a month ago, but seem to have "shrunk" since then? 
• How about that self-esteem of yours? 
• Are you feeling confident or perhaps, a whole lot of self-conscientiousness?

Part One

Dear reader, I can describe how you feel so well, because I have been there! All my life I was on the slim side, until I started putting on weight while working at a young offenders open custody facility. Eating the food cooked for the residents had me packing on pounds. Fortunately for me, I was invited to a fitness class by an instructor friend, and when I went, I thought I was going to pass out from the effort. Older overweight people were able to keep up, but young and unfit me felt like I was close to death with every side step and arm lift. I became determined to turn things around, and the gym became my home away from home, and in no time, I knew I wanted to help others feel great too, so I became a personal trainer and fitness instructor, and have enjoyed this work since 1996. NOTE: I no longer work as an instructor. 

Part Two

Here is the second half of the story. I was extremely fit, and then I was pregnant. I admit to having gained forty-three pounds, but I do believe there was a little more on me than that! I wasn't even hungry, I just felt fat, and kept eating, even things that did not agree with me. My son weighed 7.11, and I weighed far too much for my bone structure. Returning to the gym was necessary, but man alive, I didn't fit into any of my clothes, and had to resort to wearing my husband's t-shirts (we are no longer married). He was a slim guy, and those shirts were tight across my bulging tummy. It wasn't just pregnancy weight I had gained: it was chocolate weight ... 

When I returned to the gym, those adorable girls in the fitness classes I attended looked so great that I wanted to reclaim that fitness feeling, and the body that had served me so well when I fell in love with the gym and became a gym rat. It took some time, but because I knew what I was working toward, the energy, effort and time, were well worth the investment. I am finding the same to be true now. Three weeks, will turn into six, then nine and eventually, that three month mark will arrive. 

Time passes whether or not you choose to workout. If you decide to become fit, in three months you will see results. If you decide to continue doing as you have done that has caused weight gain, you will get similar results, and perhaps you will have the added expense of having to head on over to a store or two to buy baggy clothes, once again. If I sound harsh, then know this: it is for the love of God and his people that I speak truth, so that we can freely move and be all that he has made us to be, and not trapped and immobilized in the skin we are in. 

Fit mind, fit body, more confident choices. It is that simple.