A lot of interesting new observations as we wrap up filming…trying to get the last remaining bits of potential out of our documentary subjects, without actually demanding that they do anything.  It can be a tricky thing!

This week, we learned a great deal about how important encouragement can be to our mindset, and our ability to stay on course…or to stay motivated.  Again, as most of what I write here falls within the category of “common sense” – I often have to remind myself of these things and how important they are.

No matter what we are trying to accomplish, doing something really great takes a lot of hard work — sometimes for an extended amount of time.  Day in, day out, we try to eat the right things, exercise, and while we may find a lot of personal satisfaction in doing things right, we ALL need to have some sort of confirmation that what we are doing is worthwhile (or at least the majority of us).

What we have found, is that it is critically important to revitalize our motivation periodically, and this often comes in the form of positive and sincere encouragement from others.  If we’ve worked hard to achieve something, like fit into a new size of clothing, and a friend or spouse says, “just a little bit more and you will fit into a smaller size” – we can take this to mean we haven’t done a great thing…yet.  So in many ways, we must all pay attention to our ability to propel someone forward, or to pull them down.

The difference between providing encouragement that involves constructive criticism and encouragement that is pure and simple, is sometimes very subtle, but it can make all the difference.  For example:

“It’s great you fit into a size 6, you should definitely be able to get to a size 4!”

and

“I am so proud of you for reaching such a great goal.  Let’s celebrate by going shopping!”

Even though our intentions with both are positive, and meant to be encouraging, we have seen a profound difference in the impact on a person’s motivation to keep going.  It has something to do with our own feeling of being in control of our own goals, and if we feel like someone else has set goals for us, that we may rebel against these, even if they are in line with our own goals.

So even though we agree with what a person is saying to us, we may not like the fact that a new goal is imposed upon us without our consent.  This often depends on who is saying it, since a mentor who we look for very critical feedback might push us no matter what we do.  A spouse or friend however, we do not expect such judgement at times.

In the end, we cannot control what is said to us – so the best we can do is to realize how the words we choose impact the motivation of others to keep going harder than ever, or to lose motivation all together.  So encourage someone today, and you can more difference than you think.

The universal nature of this idea is evident in our own journey to create this film.  When a friend tells us they are so proud of what we are doing, or when a stranger sends us an email of encouragement, it re-energizes us, and propels us to work harder, which is a pretty basic, yet amazing part of life.

What we say matters.

We continue to learn even after two years of filming, that often the things we don’t think should really matter much at all, matter more than we can imagine.  As with so many things in the film, there is so much common sense that goes along with these things, that many people will think that we haven’t really uncovered much at all.

I’d disagree.

Often, because of a bit of laziness, we forego a few things that we know are beneficial to what we are trying to do, unaware that these subtle things can make all the difference.  I will try to give a few examples of this:

Food containers: There are so many levels to “eating good” – most of which is relative to the way we each “used to” eat.  A couple years ago, my wife and I met Jenn Hendershott at a seminar she held in Atlanta.  I remember sitting in on one of her talks where she discussed how she ate.  Now for most average people, these talks are the ones that define what we may feel is on the “extreme” end of eating.  I guess that is because this was a discussion on how to eat if you are trying to become Ms. Fitness Olympia (another topic).  The interesting thing I picked up from her habits was the size of her food containers.  They were pretty small as I recall. 

Up until this point, we never really paid much attention to this.  We had a few different shapes and sizes of plastic containers, most of them medium to large size, and we didn’t always use them (because we just ate what we prepared).  We decided that we were going to “stock up” on a smaller size and try to use them more often.  We purchased a lot of 9 oz. containers.  When we show these to most people, they gasp at how little it is…mostly because people in general are so used to eating too much!

It wasn’t long before we’d make food for work or for the day, and we would put our portions in these small containers.  We’d keep some in the fridge, and Mariah would take them to work with her.  Although we were already in pretty decent shape, we always try to improve each year (a mindset I’d suggest everyone adopt because it keeps you going in the right direction).  We found that our eating and portions were more consistent, and we noticed how much easier it was to make progress or maintain.

While it may sound a bit extreme to some, by using these smaller containers to control our portions, we were no longer storing large amounts of chili, mashed sweet potatoes, grilled chicken, etc. into larger containers, where each meal we’d serve ourselves into another bowl or plate.  We were separating our portions out in advance.  We still do this – and it ultimately becomes someone natural to us to do this.  We do not think about when will stop this habit — because this habit is aligned with our goals…it is part of our current lifestyle.  This may change someday, but for now, it fits.

Purchasing the right size, and enough of the right food containers can change your life? Subtle, I know.  It wasn’t until a year later when we met Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating, and we realized what we had learned was scientifically studied in a research lab.  Pretty cool!

So we have learned that, a simple action that seems insignificant, can make all the difference.  This is something I remind myself each day and it always applies to some aspect of what I’m trying to do.  Other actions that can impact our health more than we think…

Music: If we are not listening to our favorite music that is fast paced, we are missing out on the incredible difference it makes when we are exercising.  You do not need an iPod – any 20 dollar mp3 player will make us walk or run faster than normal, and make it seem easy with the right music.  I once watched Rocky IV on my portable DVD player and the visual stimulus even made the workout more intense.  The right music affects exercise profoundly.  I know common sense.  Do you follow it?

Food journals: I hate doing it too…but it always boils down to how badly we want something.  If we can try a new habit, such as writing down what we plan to eat, and what we eat each day, it can soon become habit, and not so annoying.  Most of us (me included), believe that we can keep all of this in our heads, and that it is not really necessary.  However, the subtle difference of knowing we have to write it down when we have 10 french fries, will change what we do.  Don’t forget those 2 pieces of candy you ate…and the handful of nuts…if it’s really possible to understand how such small changes in our daily routine can affect our focus and consistency, then we can use these “tools” to get us where we dream of going.

Training logs:  What speed did you walk at yesterday?  Was it challenging?  How fast can you run a mile?  Are you improving over time, or just doing the same thing everyday?  A training log, just as a food journal, impacts what you do in the gym, or wherever you exercise.  It allows you to see more clearly what you are doing, and most of the time, this is telling you to stop doing the same thing every day!

Proper shoes: Prevent injury, right?  Most of us procrastinate to buy the right ones until we’ve already felt some pain.

Heart rate monitors, enough exercise clothes, pre-planning meals, the list goes on…the point is, when you come across a tip that you feel you do not need to succeed…first try it for a couple of weeks to be sure.  You may be overlooking the subtle, yet profound impact it will have on your life.

None of this is groundbreaking, I know.  Or is it? 

Have a great week, and try something new!

A lot of times we seek absolute answers – the best diet, the best abdominal exercise, the best type of cardio…I guess this is probably just in our human nature to want to quantify things in some way.

What we have come to learn is that from a bigger picture, these classifications of absolutes often don’t help us with our consistent behavior, so there is so much variability on what we get out of any diet or exercise program.  This holds true for our motivation as well.  There are so many factors in life that affect our motivations to focus on one thing or the other, in this case, our physical condition and lifestyle…

We have seen one person be extremely motivated to eat the right thing, for a single meal, a single day…even as long as several months.  But the truth is that motivation is a difficult thing to predict, and it has so many different variables which affect it.

For example, if we turn our cameras on a documentary subject who hasn’t been eating right for several days, suddenly the motivation to eat properly or exercise a little bit harder increases, because of the external factors in our environment.  When we turn the cameras off, and the kids start screaming for McDonalds, it can be a different story.

So ultimately, our motivation has a tendency to ebb and flow, and we must accept this to a certain degree. We will see periods of intense motivation, where we do everything right, and then we see other times when there is little to no motivation to do the “right” things that will advance us closer to our goals.

How then, can we change this unpredicability?  (remember, that these are only theories we are constructing as we continue to piece together this film)

Remember how our mindset affects what we do?  As our motivation ebbs and flows, we can try to practice a couple of things:

1) We must remember that no matter what our last bad action was, that each new day represents a chance to change the direction of our lives.  It is sometimes a difficult thing to change our direction, but we must remind ourselves that despite our lack of motivation to eat right and exercise for the past week or month…this can change instantly.

2) We must remind ourselves of the long term outlook.  The longer we prolong our decision to change, the worse the problem can get…and our depression or unhappiness will persist.  In other words, the problem will not go away unless we attack it with a new strategy, NOW.  Common sense of course…but sometimes we need to be reminded of this I think.

3) Sometimes we are not capable of pulling ourselves out of a rut (ok, well most of the time).  We must realize this ourselves!  We must then, take specific action to change our own mindset, which is an extremely difficult thing to do.  Sometimes this means finding a friend, mentor, or coach who we know always can motivate us.  These people challenge what we do, create interesting perspectives that help us rationalize positive behavior, and give us a little boost in times when we are not too interested in doing the right things.  When we can do this, we can improve our ability to stay motivated or to get remotivated. 

4) During our motivated “state”, we must take specific actions that will reduce the chances of us losing motivation.  The most powerful way to do this is by creating an environment for ourselves that improves our chances.  Making little bets with friends, joining a community of other forward thinking individuals (weight watchers, overeaters anonymous, running clubs, boot camps)…these are steps we should take when we are motivated, even if we feel we do not need them at the moment…mostly because we must remember that our motivation, while very intense at one moment, can be lost very quickly.  When we go to dinner with friends that are trying to be healthy and motivate each other, our ability to resist temptation is far greater than with friends who don’t particularly care.

5) Remember the things that lift us up.  An inspirational movie, website, or book of positive sayings.  Often when I get stuck during this filmmaking process, I go back to the documentaries that inspired us in the first place.  Sometimes this is hard to do when we are feeling negative or in a rut.  Keep a list of these things, to remind us when we forget!

We can rationalize away why we shouldn’t do these things, why we are waiting for the perfect moment.  Just remember the perfect moment is rare.  We might wait for the perfect moment for a long time. 

Today is the perfect day to get remotivated and set some new goals for ourselves, that make us excited about our future.

This week we were fortunate enough to meet up with Bone Crusher, who is a great rapper out of Atlanta, as well as one of the greatest success stories from VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club.  Whenever we try to get someone else to help us with our project, the trick is to get them to see how valuable it could be to the world, as well as their own interests.  We’ve been really lucky with celebrities so far, but the key is to just keep on trying.  Sooner or later things fall into place.

No word yet about whether he will help us out, but we are crossing our fingers…

See me trying to pitch it to Bone Crusher…

  

Click To Play

 

 

Sometimes, for a moment, everything may seem clear in terms of how to explain this whole process of change…weight loss…and success.  Other times, it’s really confusing!

As things piece together, bits of information we gather watching others and they overcome obstacles, get discouraged, find motivation, and keep searching, I sometimes try to find some sort of metaphor that can better explain it all.  While I don’t quite have it, here’s one that may work.

Let’s say that the space between where we are now, and where we would like to be, is separated by a chasm.

Now if this chasm is too wide, such that we cannot see where it leads.  We will have a tough decision about whether to cross it or not.  So sometimes, we may need a telescope in order to see what’s in store for us on the other side.

This is what gives us hope.  Something worthwhile is across this chasm.  (perhaps our documentary represents this telescope)

This chasm may or may not have a bridge that spans it’s distance, and sometimes there may be gaps in the bridge.  It is this bridge, that is made up of planks which allow us to continue to cross.

As this relates to our film, each plank represents things like environment, knowledge, accountability, consistency, faith (this may be the invisible plank), and many others.

Having each of these “planks” make it much easier to cross this chasm.  Some of us still may cross without all the planks in place.  Some of us may never cross unless all planks are in place.  This has to do in part, to our ability to overcome missing planks…or our determination.  Some of us are so determined, we can leap across large gaps in the bridge, and still continue on.

Each step we take toward the other side, when we can more clearly see what is on the other end, gives us the motivation to keep going, even if things have been tough.  If we cannot still see the end, and turning back looks like an easier option, we may not be able to cross…

Still working on this one.  Stay tuned!

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” – Michelangelo

If you’ve not been on track to reaching a goal…Set a new one today, and set it high. 

Have a great weekend!

It’s been a while, so I figured I’d cut a new trailer.  It’s still pretty rough, but I thought I’d try a different feel…let me know what you think!

There are many, many complexities when it comes to successfully losing weight that is for sure!

We have found though, that among the most overlooked aspect of any endeavor, is the idea of consistency.  While this applies to doing anything, it applies to weight loss so much more than other things.  This is because we are always choosing to be active or not, and we are constantly choosing what and how often we eat so many times a day.  This means we can lose ground on our goals quickly, if we make the wrong decision.

Should I skip breakfast today?  Should I eat pop-tarts?  Should I make an egg white omlet…toast…with butter?  These are all small decisions we make throughout the day, yet each decision has a cumulative effect on what the scale may say at the end of the week.  Additionally, we have to understand our ability to consume calories compared to our ability to burn calories…

To burn 500 Calories, you may have to run on the treadmill for 40 minutes or more, at 6 miles per hour.  Yet, we can consume 500 calories in just a few minutes!
The average Combo Meal at any Fast Food Restaurant is over 800 calories or more!  So that means if you have two Fast Food meals that could equal more than 3 very intense workouts for your week.  And if you are only walking on the treadmill at a slow pace (even every day), that means a whole lot of walking!

Ok, back to consistency.  So there is a common mode of thinking we’ve seen, where the “good choices” we make are magnified in our minds, and we seem to think we’ve been good for a whole week, if we’ve gone to the gym 3 or 4 days in a week, or we’ve had 2 or 3 really good days of eating.  These days we are really proud of, so we rationalize that they outweigh the bad days.

There are two ways to look at this. 

1) Because we have been pretty good – better than normal…and we’ve exercised several times in a week, and ate really good on some days, we should feel good about what we’ve accomplished.  Of course, we are headed in the right direction!  And many often say it’s about “progress not perfection”

2) Because we have not been entirely consistent, we do not really see the big picture.  Let’s say we’ve had 3 or 4 great workouts, and we’ve burned 500 calories or 2000 more calories than normal for the week.  This unfortunately will not really show up on the scale as a pound of weight loss, even though it’s a lot of calories we have burned for the week.  Then we’ve eaten really great for 3 or 4 days during the week, and eaten really bad for 3 or 4 days.  Eating really good may mean eating anywhere from 1200 to 1800 calories in a day, and the other days we may consume our normal 3000-4000 calories. 

The problem with this mode of behavior is our expectations.  We expect that because we have been “pretty good” this week, that it should equate to a drop in weight.  Yet since overall our bad days normally outweigh the good days in terms of calories burned, we don’t end up seeing much as a result.  The net effect is frustration, and often a belief that it’s not worth the effort it took to exercise at all, or to eat the right things.  There was no reward for our efforts.

Does this mean we have to eat good, and exercise every day?  It depends.  It depends on if we have a goal in mind, so we don’t feel like we’re on an endless path to anywhere specific…

The truth is, the more consistent we are, each day, each moment, the more results we will see, and the more it will appear worth the effort.  Try it for a couple of weeks and see if it makes a difference!

So, we’ve been working on this film for nearly 2 years, all with our own savings and some donations from family and friends.  To those people who have contributed to this film – thank you.  You have made all the difference in getting us this far (which is pretty far, I must say!)

As we forage ahead, I’ve come to the realization that like all things, we must force ourselves to do the things are are not so good at, in this case…it’s asking for money!  I hate doing it, perhaps like the same hatred of getting on the treadmill each day…I’m not so sure it will come easier the more I do it, but we’ll see!

Today we added a PayPal link for donations on our main website…maybe it will help.  Tshirts are coming soon too… 

In theory, from all that we have learned, we will get better at it.  Stay tuned!

My good friend Charles pointed out that I didn’t comment much on Step 12 in my previous blog…I did try to group many of the steps together to simplify what they may be trying to do…but it is true that Step 12 is a unique step, and also a very important one.

Step 12:
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

There is a notion of “Service” in most 12-step programs, which provide an outlet for those who are trying to change their behaviors, to help others.  It might just be handing out literature, or cleaning up after a meeting…but the idea of becoming more involved in helping others can have a very powerful effect on our own behavior.

A “spiritual awakening” sounds pretty heavy to me.  I used to always think of such a statement as way out there, really!  But since beginning this project, I have realized many things about myself, and I believe I have come to understand it much better.  While many of us may never feel as though we have had a spiritual awakening…I’d liken it to an epiphany or a paradigm shift…a profound change in our view of the way things are.  This is because, although we began this project to help others, I didn’t actually understand how everything is interconnected.

When we believe that our actions have a major impact on what goes on in the world…when we find a strong purpose for our lives…it can be viewed as a spiritual awakening.  For me, it has less to do with religion, and more to do with the way I live my life…it is an interesting and great feeling to believe you have a purpose in your life…as everything you do begins to make more sense, and have more meaning.

So, from my own reflection of our experience creating this film, and helping others each day to find their own potential in life, it maps very closely to Step 12.  Basically it means, that if we can incorporate our own experience and change into the way we fundamentally think , if we do what we can to have a greater purpose outside of ourselves…then ultimately, this form of Service to a greater good in turn makes us stronger in resisting negative forces that may lead us down a bad road.

Do I shop healthier at the grocery store because I know what our movie stands for? Yes!

Do I exercise every day to set a good example for the others I help each day? Yes!

In many ways, this ability to become part of our own change, and to use it to help others, makes us more accountable for our actions.  If nobody was watching us, if we didn’t feel like it really mattered at all…maybe I’d go to McDonald’s more often for a Big Mac (because I do like them).  You can see this often with people who have lost a great deal of weight — they maybe become trainers or coaches…and while this may help other people, it helps each of us to keep our own behavior in check.

If that makes sense…