Bike Forums - View Single Post - Beyond frustrated with all the giving up..

05-15-08, 12:03 PM

#41

Pinyon

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Quote:

Originally Posted by The Historian

I just tell people, "eat less and better, and exercise." When they question it, I repeat it. It drives them away soon enough.

Some truths people don't want to hear.

That's what I tell people too, but I also throw something in there about how you have to have multiple motivators for it to work long-term. My motivations include my health, I love bicycling, not having to face the other physical and social limitations that comes with weighing amost 400 lbs (physical activities, fitting into chairs/airplane seats, "fat" not being the only thing that people notice about you at first, etc.).

The only way that I've been able to maintain the direction of a real "life change", though, was through a complete change in perspective in how I live in the world and interact with it. I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, by nature, and in the past, if I had a few setbacks, I would throw my hands up and give up. Not because I was lazy, but because I felt like it was useless to try. I used to get stuck in what I did in the past, and feeling worthless and weak (yep, from Animal House), instead of paying attention to what I'm doing right now to change things. I had to convince myself that what I'm doing right now, is more important than what I did in the past, because right now controls the future.

One other piece of advice that I give them, is that they need to find a couple of physical activities that they REALLY like to do, and they should train for them. One of them should be aerobic, but the other can be just about anything from skydiving to playing table tennis. Being active in general is a fantastic motivator, and there is no easier way to stay active than to participate in something that you really like to do. It is a lot easier for me to skip an hour on the treadmill, than it is for me to skip a pretty ride on my bike outside.

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