In California, May is Health and Fitness month. This year 1.3m Californians are making pledges to improve their fitness, which apparently is way ahead of all similar efforts in other states. Even The Governator himself has made a pledge to lose 10 lbs and quit cigars in May (video here skip to 2:10).
Although I’m not a Californian, I am a big fan of doing things for a month, so I’ve made my own pledge to lose 11 lbs and not eat any chocolate in May. I encourage you to make your own pledge, whether you live and whatever month or year you might be reading this in. Make it public using social media (or plain old-fashioned talking), and get started.
If you’re on twitter, you can use the #FitChallenge hashtag to keep up to date on everyone’s pledges, and to give your peers some encouragement.
Before you do though, read the tips below to help you sustain your efforts across the whole month (and beyond).
1) Go public
If you make a goal public, you’re more likely to see it through. This is probably due to the fear of social disapproval – you don’t want to be seen as someone who is wishy-washy and not true to their word, so you feel more motivated to take action. The more public you are, the more likely you are to achieve the goal. Ideally, get others to make pledges themselves!
2) Make the goal concrete
‘Lose 10 (or 11 ) lbs’ is a better goal than ‘lose weight’. ‘Go to the gym 3 times a week’ is better than ‘exercise more’. This is because goals that are not concrete are open to interpretation. You’re making it easier for yourself to rationalise that your goal has been met, and slip into the behaviours that you’re trying to avoid.
3) Track your progress
You need to set up some kind of self-tracking system so that you have direct feedback on how you are progressing. This essentially means using exercise logs and a food diary if your goal is to lose weight. Keep track of how much you are doing, what you are eating, and review your logs at the end of each week. Don’t trust your memory or your gut on this one. You might also get a cheap heart rate monitor to measure the intensity of your exercise too.
4) Make the goal difficult
I said attainable, not painful! (Photo credit: cdw9)
There is a linear relationship between the difficulty of a goal and the effort you put in to achieving it, and your performance on tasks related to the goal. The only time this is not true, is when your goal is outside the limits of your ability, or when you lose commitment to the goal. The above points will help with commitment, so make the pledge difficult but attainable.
5) Remind yourself of the benefits
Studies have shown that people who frequently remind themselves of the benefits of reaching their goals, are more likely to achieve them. This doesn’t mean airy-fairy daydreaming, but making a concrete, objective checklist of ways you will be better off once you reach your target. I will be posting many such benefits on this blog and on twitter over the course of this month, so follow me!
Exercise can be a bit of a dirty word to some people. Maybe they associate it with effort, pain, and difficulty. But the benefits do not come simply from set sessions of exercise, but from physical activity generally. Think ‘movement’, not exercise. Anything that is fun and involves movement is completely fine – dancing, sports, walking, Nintendo Wii; anything active.
7) Spread activity throughout the day
You don’t have to have this hour of pain in the morning where you do all your exercise. On the contrary, it is far from ideal to do an exercise ’session’ and then be sedentary for the rest of the day. If you can do 10 minutes in the morning, then 2 minutes 10 times throughout the day, that’s 30 minutes of exercise and you’d hardly even notice it.
There will be more tips to help you stick to your FitChallenge. To make sure you don’t miss them be sure to subscribe, either via RSS or email!
Sorry for the delay in getting new content up here. I currently have an assignment due for next month, and I’m also writing a book for GenerallyThinking.com and these things are unfortunately taking up all my time at the moment.
However, I do have 5-6 articles at various stages of completion which I’m working on whenever I get spare time (which is not very often at the moment, I have to say). Soon I should be in a position to start putting up some more articles!
Please check in from time to time, or subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss the updates!
I’m sure you’ve heard of TED, but if not, go bookmark the site now. Twenty-minute talks by experts on various fields. Here’s one example. Dan Buettner talks about how 10% of our longevity is accounted for by genetics, the rest is lifestyle. He identifies ‘Blue Zones’: areas with high longevity and high numbers of centenarians. These areas have 9 common denominators which he believes promote a long and healthy life.
He talks of the 97 year old who was taken for open heart surgery after attempting to put a large fence around his property. To perform the operation. He performs about 20 surgeries per year.
Or there’s the 103 year old who enjoys water skiing, the 100 year old who beat a 40 year old in an arm wrestle.
The nine common denominators of longevity
Don’t exercise – But DO be active and work physical activity into your routine. When you do exercise, make it something you enjoy doing.
Downshift – Take time out of work, rushing around, to relax.
Purpose – Know what your reason for waking up each day is.
Drink – In moderation!
Slant towards a plant-based diet – Not necessarily a vegetarian diet, but definitely plant-based
80% rule to eating – Don’t overeat; stop when you’re 80% full
Put loved ones first – Self explanatory
Belong – Blue Zones have a faith-based community
Find the right tribe – In other words, get the right social support
Notes:
(1) Interesting. Doing a martial art you love, having a garden, walking instead of driving; there are always things you can do to ad more physical activity into your life. I am ashamed to admit I use an electric tin opener (the manual one broke, in my defence!). No more, I tell you! No more!
(2) I have been doing meditation as part of a project at uni, and this is the perfect way to do this. See The Relaxation Response for the reasons behind this (a quick read and highly recommended book).
(3) Apparently, birth and retirement are the times when you’re at the most risk of death – one because of infant mortality, the other because your purpose just got pulled away from you. Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search For Meaning talks about the survivors of Nazi death camps were the ones who had something to stay alive for.
(4) One drink with your meal – preferably red wine (the video gives the name of the best red wine for this purpose!). I can’t find the link to hand but there is a study showing that you are more at risk for heart disease if you don’t drink at all than if you have one drink per day (or something similar; don’t quote me).
(5) This goes without saying, and it’s something I’ll be looking into as the year goes on
(6) A high caloric intake is negatively associated with longevity – people who live long tend to eat less
(7) Loneliness is a killer – having a strong social support system is essential, and we find that the blue zones have customs and traditions that enforce these ties, and even giving greater reverence to older people than we do.
(8) Prayer helps; what can you say? This may tie into point (3) also.
(9) This is a tried and true personal development method. As social beings, we adopt behaviours and attitudes from those around us; particularly people we identify with, which are likely to include our close friends. The method goes, if you want to make a person change, then change your social circle to one that endorses the change you want to make. Dan notes that if 3 of your close friends are obese, you have a 50% chance of being so yourself.
Check out the video, it’s about 20 minutes long and entertaining throughout!
) lbs’ is a better goal than ‘lose weight’. ‘Go to the gym 3 times a week’ is better than ‘exercise more’. This is because goals that are not concrete are open to interpretation. You’re making it easier for yourself to rationalise that your goal has been met, and slip into the behaviours that you’re trying to avoid.
