Determined To Succeed

Sometimes the best things come in simple packages.

I am asked all the time, “Bill. What’s your secret? How did you lose all that weight?” Each question asked like the answer is going to be like the wave of a magic wand – quick and easy. When I give the answer you can almost see the person deflate, as if I had just told her she or he would never be happy again.

“Watching what I eat and exercise.”

Bah! Who wants to hear that? But it get’s better. The next question I’m asked is the one that really separates the adults from the children.

Q: “Bill, how long did it take?”

If you follow my blog (and I hope you do kind of like the old Prell commercials. I’d love for you to tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on…) then you’ll know there is no magic pill. There is no “oh you can do this by next week (or even next month). My answer is simple:

A: “It took me three-and-a-half years.”

Again, if the person wasn’t deflating before this really put the pin in the balloon.

Q: “You mean to tell me I actually have to exercise and it might take that long?”

A: “Yup.”

Response: “Sigh.”

I get these questions a lot and I really do not mind answering them at all. I have always been a person who tries to set an expectation so that anyone else attempting what I did isn’t going into it with blinders on. But I heard a question yesterday I hadn’t heard before and the simple yet beautiful answer shocked even me.

I was talking to a new weight loss buddy of mine and she shared with me the story of her conversation with a personal trainer. I can’t remember whether it was she who asked this question or the trainer relayed it to her as part of an overall answer but the question was justified and the answer simply incredible.

Q: “What is the best exercise to do if you want to lose weight?”

A: “The one you will keep doing for the rest of your life.”

For some reason that hit me like a ton of dumbbells. I was expecting something like “Well, you could do 100 abdominal crunches followed by 25 ABC and then 25 XYZ.” But no, the answer was simply “whatever you’ll do for the rest of your life.” And that is so true.

It took me a while to find out what exercises I like doing. The elliptical intimidate dthe crap out of me the first time I even looked at the bloody thing. I had heard such stories about it. “Oh man, that thing kicked my ass.” Or “I can only do ten minutes on it before I’m ready to fall over.” But I ended up loving the elliptical and now I can do half-an-hour on it (maybe more) each time. And today, I am visiting a personal trainer for the first of two trial sessions to try to learn new exercises to further break up my exercise routine, tone up and lose the last 12 pounds I need to lose to reach my goal weight. And you bet your butt I’ll be blogging about that tomorrow.

So as you get ready to start (or even continue exercising) do the exercises that excite you. Do the exercises you get into and want to keep doing. That you miss when you don’t do them. The exercises that kick your butt but in a good way. Everyone’s exercise m.o. will be different but you really should enjoy exercising or else you won’t be able to keep it up as part of a lifestyle for the rest of your life.

The answer to that question really put the classic “good things come in small packages” spin on the age-old question. Except this time the phrase should be “the best answers come in simple packages.”

Q: “Do I really believe that?”

A: “Yup.”