How Difficult Do You Want It?

I just picked up the latest Austin Fit magazine at the Whole Foods Market, and on the front cover is a forty-six-year-old woman riding a bike and gorgeous enough to stop a war. Jealous? Okay, yeah, I’ll admit it. My point? She looks really great, but then I read what she does to look the way she does, and it stops me cold. First of all, she’s Susan Dell, of the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and she rides her bike 50+ miles several times per week. I can’t do that. Not that I don’t have a bike, which I do, but I don’t have the stamina to ride it up a hill, which is all I have close to my home. So, does that mean that I have to settle for a less than fit body?

NO!

To me, doing what extreme fit people like Susan does vs. what I am willing to do is like the difference between having a million dollars and having ten million dollars. I can do just fine on a million, meaning that working out on my Elliptical machine for thirty minutes to an hour each day, and using dumbbells to tone my muscles, will get me exactly where I want to be without having to bike fifty miles or spend a bundle on a gym membership.

I guess then that begs the question: Why do we work out? It is really to get fit, or is it to relieve stress? Is it really to lose weight, or is it a social outlet? Are we working toward a goal, or are we working off anger from a high stress lifestyle? Before we can plan a strategy on achieving our ideal weight, we need to come to terms with our real motivation for doing so. If our motivation is not clear or if it is based on pleasing someone else, our focus will dim and our motivation will fade. We all need what I call a WIIFM – What’s In It For ME! What will YOU get from achieving your ideal weight? What will YOU get from living a healthy lifestyle? What will YOU get from looking and feeling years younger? And finally, what are YOU afraid of that keeps you from having an ideal body? Isn’t that often what it’s really all about? What we are afraid of might happen if we look too good? Feel too good?

For me, my motivation has less to do with health than it does to do with being able to wear a size four pair of jeans with a pair of four-inch heels. I’m already fit: low blood pressure, heart rate in the low fifties, fabulous immune system – haven’t had the flu in over twenty years and rarely get a cold, although I occasionally suffer from headaches caused by cheap wine – and I am a semi-vegetarian. That means I eat mostly fruits, vegetables, and grains, but if I’m invited out for a steak dinner I rarely say no.

So, that leave me with my vanity, and at 55 years old, I’m entitled to at least that.