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Competition Shape…Minus the Competition (Lisa’s Journey) – Entry 11

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Lisa had texted this pic to me with following, “I’m wearing Melissa’s coat (her youngest daughter). Please note, it’s buttoned”.

[Lisa] Hello December.  The holidays are upon us.  I will start this entry by saying, “Yes Virginia, you can lose weight during the holidays.”  Five months down and 21 lbs. gone.  I lost 3.8 lbs. in November.  I did enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner that included stuffing, pumpkin ale and a piece of apple pie for desert.  However, I woke up the next day and realized Thanksgiving was over, time to get back to my food plan.  I also need to mention that, although I did have the aforementioned treats on Thanksgiving, I had small portions and still recorded everything in my food log.  Last year I continued eating like it was still Thanksgiving straight through until Christmas when I transitioned into eating like it was Christmas through the New Year.  The tears set in on January 2 right after I stepped on the scale.  I am determined NOT to start 2013 the same way.  Mike is doing his part, adding new methods of torture; I mean training so I am never bored!  I am enjoying being able to wear mediums instead of large size clothing.  My daughter Melissa recently told me that she does not care how much weight I lose she will not allow me to wear a bikini.  Hmmmm, sounds like Mom has a new goal.   Might be just what one needs to stay focused.

[Mike] I think it’s easy to see that 2013 will not start off for Lisa the same way 2012 did.  It can’t!  And that’s because Lisa finally has the two things going for her that everyone needs to be successful at transforming their body…and I am not talking diet and exercise.  It is a goal and a plan for completing it.

Just look at the difference this has made between last year and this year.  Last year: no goal, no plan and Thanksgiving turned into a six week free-for-all and an inevitable backslide forcing her to have start all over in January.  Depressing.  Yet this is how it will be for an unfortunate majority of people.  This year: a goal and a plan for navigating through the holidays without depriving herself and a New Year in which she’ll start around 25 lbs. lighter than she was this past July.

Oh and to address the “add on” goal of getting into a bikini…I love it.  What better goal than to make your children uncomfortable about what you will wear in your 50’s that you couldn’t wear while they were growing up.

Competition Shape…Minus the Competion (Lisa’s journey) – Entry 7

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[Lisa]  This past week many either went back to school or have children who went back to school.  In my case I added teaching 3 college courses to my schedule.  As I sat at my computer, all day last Sunday, preparing lessons I felt the familiar tug of sweets calling my name.  I was not hungry, but eating has always been the way I have dealt with the stress of a deadline or the stress of anything for that matter.  The blog saved me once again.  I admit, even knowing I was going to be writing an entry for the blog, I was still tempted.  Two months in and 9 lbs. down I worry that I won’t be able to stay motivated for the long haul.  Years ago I lost 50 lbs. in a little less than a year.  I remember the excitement as the numbers went down.  I was able to stay focused and get to my goal.  Since then I have attempted to lose the weight I had gradually let creep back on numerous times.  I would last a few weeks maybe a month or so and then it was over.  I’m thinking I need some additional ideas.  Mike, I know competing is the motivator for you but is there anything else that keeps you on track?

[Mike]  It’s not important what motivates me, what’s important is discovering what motivates you.  In my book, PURE PHYSIQUE: How to Maximize Fat-loss & Muscular Development I wrote about this topic at length.  In short, everything we do—everything—is to achieve pleasure or avoid pain.

Nothing is more gratifying than looking in the mirror and knowing your present condition is a result of your own doing.  Conversely nothing can make you feel worse than looking in the mirror and admitting your present condition is your own doing.  You see there comes a point when external motivators (like fitting into a certain dress or winning a contest) are not enough and it is your values and standards that move you towards your goal or keep you from slipping backwards.

If you’ve been accepting sub-standards for yourself then it becomes easy to justify eating things you know you shouldn’t or when you shouldn’t, as well as skipping workouts or avoiding activities that are critical to your success.  Raising your standards and holding yourself to them is the key to staving off temptation.  If the thought of not achieving your goal does not elicit negative feelings that you would do anything to avoid rather than harbor inside then it might be time to assess what you value most.  Similarly, if achieving your goal does not elicit excitement and make you want to take proper action then it might be time to assess your values.  Namely your value of self.

Competition Shape…Minus the Competition (Lisa’s Journey) – Entry 4

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[Lisa] The sun has set on July and I, therefore, have completed one full month of my journey through hell, I mean to health, towards competition shape.  Although I am convinced my scale snickers as I walk by, I decided to step on board, with my eyes open for a change, and see if I could smack the smugness out of my digital friend.  Hmmm, down 5.2 lbs.  Not the 50 I had hoped for but progress nonetheless.  Further, I did wear apair of jeans that prompted the following text message to Mike:

“For the blog!!!!! Just zipped a pair of jeans that I bought months ago with the intention of fitting into them.  Understand I could not pull them up when purchased.  I still hate u but I kinda love you too.”

One must remember to make sure Mike knows he is still causing pain during and after workouts, hence the hate.  If you let on that your workouts are not challenging you will suffer the wrath.  Besides, you would not get away with faking it anyway.

Looking back on July, I have incorporated some positive changes into my eating and exercise program.  While I did eat out about 5 or 6 times, I had grilled chicken or Tuna and stayed away from the bread.  I continue to workout at PURE PHYSIQUE 2-3 times per week.  I have, for the most part, kept my fat and carbohydrate intake to “prescribed by Mike” levels.

My concern is that a little over 5 lbs. just does not seem like very much.  How do I lose at least that much this month?  What do you plan on doing about this Mike?

[Mike]  It’s true, if I feel (or any trainer at PURE PHYSIQUE feels) that your workouts are not challenging then you will feel the wrath.  But contrary to popular belief it is not because we’re sadists.  We simply recognize that the level of effort most people put into their workout is not enough to improve their fitness no matter how long they exercise for or how many days a week they exercise.  Effort is the single most important factor for productive exercise and if you are not being challenged you are not changing.

A loss of 5 lbs. in a month might not seem like much but it is, especially if it is 5 lbs. of body-fat.  Considering that a pound of fat is slightly larger than a can of soup dropping five of them is no small accomplishment and is the reason why in just one month Lisa could fit into pants she could not fit into previously.

When the objective is fat-loss it is best to aim for a loss of 1-2 lbs. per week.  Attempting to lose more than this—unless you are morbidly obese—can result in the loss of muscle tissue which will negatively impact your strength, muscle tone, functional ability, and your metabolism to small degree.  This is the reason why people who lose weight very quickly tend to regain it twice as fast.

If Lisa is able to lose another 5-8 lbs. in the next month and the month after that and continue at this pace then she will undoubtedly reach her goal.  It will not be easy and will require that she continue to make good choices when eating out as well as tightening the screws on her diet by eliminating another 50-100 calories per day.  We will also look to address her activity level by adding 10-20 minutes of high-intensity aerobic exercise on 1-2 non-training days.

Competition Shape…Minus the Competition (Lisa’s Journey) – Entry 3

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[Lisa]  I will be having five ounces of steak tonight as part of my dinner.  It has 12.7 grams of fat.  This is more than half of what Mike has allotted me daily for fat intake.   Nevertheless, I want it and am going to have it.  I have planned for it and logged it in my food diary.  Why is it I have to keep a food diary in order for me to lose weight?  I watch naturally thin people go about their lives without writing down what they eat or what they plan on eating.  Yet, they remain at an ideal body weight.  Whether I am seriously focusing on losing weight or not I am very much aware of the caloric make-up of foods that I eat.  Further, I also know and/or look up how many calories are burned for any exercise I do.  For example, a half gallon of plain vanilla ice cream (one serving in my world, I mean my OLD world) is 1200 calories.  This translates to jogging for 2 hours at about 5 mph.  Not gonna happen!  I guarantee you my naturally thin husband has no idea how many calories he eats and burns in a day, week, month EVER!  This is not fair and I demand to know why this is.  Mike?

[Mike]  Why keep a food diary?  Why have limits on your food/caloric intake? Why worry about what others can eat and you can’t?

Here’s the deal, by definition a calorie is a measure of energy expenditure.  You require food for one reason and one reason only and that is to supply your body with the energy (calories) it needs to sustain proper function and support your daily activity. Whether you like it or not or, think it’s unfair, there are limits to how many calories you can consume regardless of how “healthy” you eat.  Because your body only needs so many calories to do its job as soon as those needs are met any additional calories, whether from ice cream or Cream of Wheat, get stored as fat.

The only time fat gets used for energy is when your body is in a caloric deficit.  Meaning you are not taking enough calories to support your energy requirements so now your body goes scrounging for them.

The reason why keeping a food journal and tracking your calories–as well as your carbs, proteins, and fats–is necessary is so you know precisely how much you can eat instead of taking a guess or being erratic. It’s a scorecard.  Just like in golf the way you win the fat-loss gam is by shooting under par.

If your baseline requirement is 1200 calories a day, then you need to take in less than that in order to start using the calories stored as fat to fill the gap.  If you haven’t read it yet check out my blog on how to figure out your caloric needs for fat-loss at: http://yorktown-somers.patch.com/blog_posts/fat-loss-its-a-numbers-game

Now regarding your husband and other naturally thin people who don’t have to track their food intake, who can eat whatever they want, who have metabolisms like race cars…GET OVER IT.  Sometimes life just isn’t fair, boo-hoo.  Why don’t we just throw a pity party because others seem to have it easier in one small area of life than the rest of us.

The fact is some people inherently have fast metabolisms—it’s genetic.  You can blame your parents (and they are the ones to blame) or you can make the necessary adjustments to your diet and do proper weight training to increase your metabolic rate.  Just stop whining about it, whining does not have a positive effect on your metabolism.

Competition Shape…Minus the Competition (Lisa’s Journey) – Entry 2

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[Lisa] The numbers, they don’t lie or do they?  Maybe you are like me; you begin a fitness/diet program and expect because you weigh xxx (fill in your own number) the weight should come flying off in the beginning.  You prepare for your first weigh-in; it should go without saying that you only get on the scale, naked, first-thing-in the morning, having shaved, removed all jewelry and having trimmed your nails.  You certainly don’t want any of those things weighing you down.  You gingerly step on the scale, if you see a number you are happy with, “Woo-Hoo,” if not – throw scale out the window, buy a new one and repeat weigh-in steps in seven days.   Losing weight has never been easy for me.  No matter what I do, it comes off painfully slow.  The scale, for many of us, is the measure of success.  Are there other things that even matter?

[Mike]  There are certainly many ways aside from the scale to measure your success.  I’ll get to that in moment but before I do I want to share the following text message I received from Lisa the other night just before going to bed (yes, I do field messages from clients at all times of the day because like a doctor, I’m always on call).

If I weren’t doing this f***ing blog I so would have had ice cream right now.

That’s what I call leverage!  Having something hanging over your head—a consequence—that forces you to stay on track.  I cannot stress the importance of having leverage which is why I dedicated a huge section to it in my book.

Back to the scale…or backing off if you can’t handle the truth.  What we’re talking about here is measuring progress. You need an objective means of determining whether or not the the actions you are taking are moving you towards your goals. There are numerous ways to measure progress.  You can go by how your clothes fit, a tape measure, pictures, the mirror, skin fold calipers or a body composition (bioimpedence) testing machine.  You don’t necessarily need to use the scale but it is a quick and easy way to track your progress.

What you need to know about stepping on the scale is that your weight can fluctuate day to day even if your caloric intake is the same due to changes in your total body water.  These changes in water weight are influenced by your sodium, carb and water intake.  With that in mind, take your daily weight changes with a grain of salt and use your average weekly weight to track to your progress.

Competition Shape…Minus the Copmetion (Lisa’s Journey entry 1)

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[Lisa] I did something this past January that caused a lot of people to call me the “F” word, I turned fifty.  As you know, they say it is harder to lose weight after you turn fifty.  While that may or may not be the case I decided to add it to the litany of reasons why I can’t shed the pounds.  I have been working out with Mike at Pure Physique for a few years.  I have lost some weight and I am down a size.  In addition, I am lifting, pulling and pushing much higher weights then when I started.  (Mike can fill you in on my “impressive” numbers, ha!)  But, I constantly bemoan my inability to make that darn scale register lower numbers.  Mike insists it is my diet.  My four basic food groups are: ice cream, pasta, bread and Starbucks.  I don’t see a problem.  Apparently Mr. Lipowski does.

I am, for the most part, a driven person.  However, I just can’t seem to find the motivation to make serious changes to my diet.   I am hoping “going public” will help.  Maybe it will help some of you as well.  I told Mike a few months ago, “I don’t want to compete in a body building contest.  I just want to look like I could”.  Is that even possible?

[Mike]  Lisa’s situation is not at all uncommon.  In fact I would go so far as to say that it’s pretty much falls in line with what I’ve seen from 75-80% of those I’ve trained over the past 13 years.  The story goes something like this (from the clients perspective):

I realize I’m out of shape and since I really don’t know what to do I’ll hire a trainer.  The trainer tells me how he can help, explaining that it will take a combination of proper    exercise and a healthy diet. Since I know I need someone to push me and help me be    accountable, I’m in.

I start my training and within one to months I’m feeling better and I’ve even lost a little bit of weight and my clothes are fitting better, and I really haven’t even changed my diet that much.  A few more months go by and DAMN am I getting strong.  I’m lifting weights in the gym that I never imagined being able to lift!  Unfortunately the weight on my scale doesn’t seem to be moving anymore.  I know I should be eating better but I love my (insert ice cream, pizza, burgers, alcohol, sweets, breads, etc).  Besides I have to have a life. …At least I have my trainer to complain to about this and he’ll come up with a workout to do the trick.

Lisa touched on good point before when she said she: “can’t seem to find the motivation to make serious changes…” The problem however is not just motivation it’s leverage.  You not only need a reason to be excited about getting in shape but you need a reason to be fearful if you don’t.  Taking her goal “public” is certainly a move in the right direction since there is now a consequence to not staying on track—everyone will know and I won’t hesitate to put it out there.  I also won’t hesitate to publicly congratulate her should she meet her objective of looking like she could compete.

No trainer or fitness instructor is capable of creating a workout to make up for a person’s overindulgence nor can we follow you around and make sure you’re adhering to the plan we set forth. If we could, believe me we would.  There’s certainly a wee bit of personal accountability necessary to get one’s self into “competition shape” and the real work takes place outside of the gym.

Killin’ It through Competition

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I love competition, I always have. But not for the reason people might think.  Everyone assumes that if you love competition it’s because you always win.  Not true.  I have accumulated more 2nd – 5th place trophies than I care to remember, found myself on the “2nd team” more times than I’d like to admit and I probably fall flat on my face more than 70% of the time I try something new.

The fear of failure is the primary reason why people do not like competition. They’re afraid they will be branded a “loser” if they don’t come in first or even worse, if they don’t place at all.  But the real failure is not recognizing that competition is merely a means of pushing yourself beyond your perceived limits by having a goal to move towards.

People who compete—be it with themselves or against others—achieve greater results than those who do not compete…fact.

Think about this for a moment. If you were in the hospital about to undergo surgery do you want a surgeon who competed to be recognized amongst the best in his/her class, who had a desire to be the best or one who wanted to learn at their own pace?  Just like in any profession, sporting event, or life in general there is a top and bottom and to be at or near the top you need to be “in the game” so to speak.  You won’t always win, you won’t always be the best but you will definitely be far better for trying and achieve your personal best in the process.

As I mentioned above I have a lot of 2nd—5th place bodybuilding trophies.  But I can say with absolute certainty that from my very first competition twelve years ago until today, not a single year has passed that I have not improved my appearance from the year before regardless of my placing.  I know I don’t have the genetics to be the very best but, to be better than I was previously and to compete and hold my own amongst the best is everything I could ever ask for, and that’s why I do it.  Does this make me a loser?

We all need to get over our fear of competition and realize that competition is healthy.  Look no further than the PURE PHYSIQUE 12 Week Fitness Challenge report on page 3.  We could only have one winner, Mike Flannery, but everyone who got in the game saw results and many achieved personal bests.  Even though Mike earned the title of Champion for this year we still had several winners.

You may have noticed that we recently put up a Leader Board in the studio.  We did this for two reasons.  First, we want to publicly recognize those who are putting forth their best effort and achieving their personal best.  Second, we want to encourage a friendly competitive atmosphere so no one gets complacent.  We expect to see EVERYONE’s name up on that board at some point because they’ve either lost a certain amount of body-fat or gained muscle over the course of a week or month, lifted more weight or lifted longer for a particular exercise, or achieved some personal best.

However, we’re not going to be like Little League and give every kid a trophy just for being on the team.  While we do expect to see everyone on The Leader Board at some point we expect you to compete and earn your way onto it.  We want to see you get greater results and killin’ it through competition.