I thought this worth sharing, for all of us who are in our own “middle parts”, seeking better fitness.

Often when we are right in the middle of a difficult situation, it is tempting to look at our results as a disaster. “I’ve failed!” we might lament, feeling completely certain that life’s test has defeated us. A few days ago I was meeting with a client who expressed something like this and his embarrassment at being in the kind of situation that he was. I responded to him that from my perspective he was describing not a failure, but the middle part of a very inspiring story. Think about how some of the stories that inspire you the most have some very difficult stuff in the middle. Everything is OK in the end – if it is not OK, it is not the end! Keep working on your story — you’re not done yet.

— Dr. Paul, 3 September 2008 “M-Power” weekly e-mail, The Middle Part (emphasis mine)

I’ve enjoyed reading your blogs, and look forward to reading your great endings!

I posted earlier about successfully completing 67 miles in the ULCER cycling event this year. Last year’s ULCER was my first cycling activity that involved people other than my own children. Don’t get me wrong, riding with your kids is a great time to bond and have fun. But as far as adult interaction goes, waving at others as we pass doesn’t count as really riding with somebody.

If you’ve never participated in an event like this, I’ll try to paint a crude picture….

I showed up for early check-in the night before. That allowed me to ask questions and chat with people ahead of time. I watched some of the preparations for the morning ride. Supplied were being unloaded by the pallet load. Water, ice, food. People were rushing about while a small fork lift was scooting around. The large quantities had my attention, and I wondered what I was getting myself into.

The next morning I got up before dawn, did an equipment check, and loaded the family and trike. We drove to the starting point, and the wonder started to build.

Imagine attending an event with some twelve hundred cyclists for the first time. Because we were fairly early, the location was crawling with people, but things got crazier as riders arrived and started streaming through the entrances.

I was grateful that I did pre-registration the previous evening. The registration lines were long, the music loud, and the shouting to be heard was deafening. The mood was festive, and people mingled around tables crowded with a variety of breakfast snacks: fruit, granola bars, cookies, water, coffee. Many of the attendees were repeat offenders, but it was reassuring to find a lot of initiates like myself.

I eventually found where we would start. “Go” was still 45 minutes away but a couple hundred cyclists were already in line. I parked my trike behind them, greeted those ahead of me, grabbed my camera and wandered off to where the timed (team racing) events were to start.

The teams fidgeted at the starting line, sporting garish matching cycling jerseys and shorts. Their wiry frames made me cognizant of my opposite extreme. My butterball rotundness was easily twice the weight of any one of those muscled broomsticks.

Finally the first team was released to a bang, a band, and a shout of the crowd. Subsequent teams were given a loud “go” systematically, one team every thirty seconds or so. After taking some pictures, and the team starts got repetitious, I entrusted the camera to my wife, and got back in line. Fifteen minutes to go. The loudspeakers were urging the tardy to queue up for the mass start. Where I was the last in line twenty minutes earlier, the line now stretched far beyond with hundreds more.

The mood grew more festive as the countdown drew near. I was getting giddy like a little kid. I never knew such events existed, let alone think I would be in line crying out “10… 9… 8… 7…”.

1. Pre-register
2. Travel the course the week before so I wouldn’t get lost.
3. Early check-in
4. Show up, meet new people, and have fun.

This year, I was in much better shape, and was able to have a new experience. For one segment of about 13 miles or so, I fell in with a delightful young lady named Amy. Her background is much different from mine, as she comes from a family of avid athletes for whom fitness is a normal part of life.

As we rode side by side, it was interesting to pick her brain and get acquainted with her point of view. I found that I rode 2-4 miles per hour faster with her than any other segment. It stretched me but not so much that it tired me out for the last segment.

That experience, combined with simply participating in these big events have taught me to look out for opportunities to exercise with other people. I enjoy grinding it out alone to give myself some space for thinking, but mixing in some companionship provides value to supplement the routine. Without saying anything to each other specifically, it’s supportive to have somebody along for the ride (literally or figuratively).

The larger events can also serve as training goals, giving something specific to shoot for in preparation. Instead of and endless stream of exercise, day in and day out, they break up the year and give variety to life.

“Get a new body. Get a new life.”

That’s what I saw in the window of a niche gym next to a grocery store that I frequent. There’s usually a parking spot open in front of it, so I see their advertising. “That’s backwards,” I thought to myself. As I was running the outskirts of the grocery store my brain was churning, re-examining the statement from different angles.

Human experience shows that that people tend to think that success comes from the following sequence:

1. Have.
2. Do.
3. Be.

In other words, you must first have something, which allows you to do an action which will allow you to be something pleasant. A template that we’ve all seen comes from the weight loss industry (over $45 billion in the U.S. alone). It tells us that if we have product Z, we’d do weight loss (often without fuss or effort), and thus be happy, successful, popular, etc.

Falling into this thinking is a common human behaviour. It’s comforting and looks like the easier road since it allows us to push responsibility for a segment of our lives onto somebody else or their thing. Unfortunately, it perpetuates a cycle of frustration and dissatisfaction. We become frustrated because having product Z didn’t produce the desired results (usually a sense of happiness or satisfaction)…. though when product Z came along we conveniently forgot that neither did products A through Y.

Change of Mind

My journey has followed the opposite path. The things that we have in the physical world, most especially the things most personal to us — such as (un)fitness — are ultimately outcomes of what happens in our heads. Our thoughts control our actions. Our actions impact our results. Our results… we see as our lives.

Lasting change comes from the opposite order:

1. Be.
2. Do.
3. Have.

If we change our state of “being”, i.e. how we look and think about our lives on a consistent basis, our habits will follow. In other words, we start to “do” the things we think about. As our habitual actions become aligned with those that produce desired results, “having” fitness is inevitable. Be. Do. Have.

Do not confuse this with the “think happy thoughts” or “Law of Attraction” crowd that believe that intense visualization and belief alone will cause change. Beliefs that don’t effect useful action will alter nothing in the physical world.

This is along the lines of how I understand what Ghandi meant when he said, “We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.” It’s not esoteric existentialism, but practical advice.

I have Japanese friends, so you’ll find subtitles.
日本人の友達に「すみません！日本語が下手です！」

2008-08-12: Update: The FaceBook version of the video is much cleaner.

I was at the bottom of the valley, but I noticed that I was within riding distance of a favorite canyon, and struck out for it. I rode up the canyon and zoomed back down to meet family for lunch at the bottom of the canyon. I put the trike on the car rack and we went home. In all, I cycled 40 miles (64 km). I was tired, of course, but far from being “wiped out”.

Compare that to last year, which I mention on the About Page. Last October I rode 50 miles (80 km) in a cycling event. This was a big accomplishment for me, considering I was obese. The ride and some extenuating circumstances really hit me hard physically and psychologically. I was physically spent around 42 miles (68 km), and the last miles were a grinding crawl in low gear, my mind not really caring about anything but getting back to the motel so I could get off the stupid machine. If my hotel wasn’t also the finish line, I would not have cared about the finish line; not one bit. Afterwards, I recovered physically quick enough, but I hung my trike on its place in the garage and didn’t touch it again. Mentally I was beaten. There the trike hung until after I decided to re-engineer my body, mind, and soul… setting myself on a new path.

That was last year. The startling revelation that happened two weeks ago, at that twenty-something mile point, was the following. I was still cycling according to last year’s thinking. I had assumed that if I pushed myself, stretched myself to the limit I might be able to ride 30 miles. I didn’t understand that my improved overall fitness would so dramatically increase my abilities. Where I expected to turn around and commence a slow grind home was in fact a place where I said, “Hey, let’s ride up a mountain!”… and did so.

Yesterday I put this to the test. Until now I envisioned 50 miles to be a barrier. I was determined to discover whether I could best that personal record. In the end I did just fine. I ran out of water at about 46 miles (74 km), but was determined to grind those last four miles out. In the end, I rode 51.55 miles (82.96 km) in 3h50′47″. Not a world record, but something that I would not have believed until I experienced it. I showered, slept for three hours, and have bounced back just fine.

As we deliberately re-engineer our lives, we’ll not know our expanded capabilities until we push our boundaries. At times we’ll be astonished to see how far our limits have ballooned. These unexpected bonus events will come along only if you’re willing to seize the opportunities to test your reach. I enjoyed this moment of personal triumph, and moved onto the next phase.

I hope you all will relish your moments of breakthrough, both big and small, and keep moving. Best wishes!

Status: 60 pounds (27 kg) lighter.

I read people’s fitness and weight loss blogs, looking for people’s successes. I find those personal stories energizing. However, the most common theme that I run across on weight loss blogs is self-criticism and negativity. When I see this, I often think of some principles that I learned from Dr. Fred Luskin’s book Forgive for Good: A PROVEN Pescription for Health and Happiness. I read this before my own fitness journey. A friend, Dr. Paul Jenkins mentioned it.

Dr. Luskin is director and cofounder of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project. The book summarizes scientific research he conducted, including work with some of the toughest cases, such as Irish who lost loved ones in Northern Ireland’s civil war.

What Forgiveness Is Not

In his book, Dr. Luskin talks about some of the myths that surround forgiveness. Let’s get those out of the way. Forgiveness does not mean:

• forgoing the right to anger when we have been mistreated,
• forgetting a past painful experience,
• excusing poor behavior,
• denying or minimizing hurt,
• reconciling with an offender,
• you have to have an “otherworldly or religious experience,”
• not pursuing justice,
• and other methods of denying what has happened, or shifting blame for our feelings.

So What Is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness consists of releasing grievance stories and/or unreasonable expectations in our lives. This means that we stop directing attention on them in our mind. We stop bringing them into our mental home and giving them the seat of honor at our table.

Forgiveness is:

• for you the individual, and you alone;
• the peace you learn to feel when you stop feeding the grievance,
• taking back your power given away,
• taking responsibility for how you feel.
• a learned skill.

He summed it up best for me with the single sentence, “Forgiveness is the practice of extending your moments of peacefulness.”

That’s Nice, But What Does This Have to Do With Fitness?

So how does this relate to fitness? When I look at the atmosphere surrounding weight loss specifically and fitness generally, it’s easy to find people publicly whipping themselves. This contributes to my general aversion of anything with the word “diet” in it. The word “diet” tends to carry with it promises of sunshine quickly followed by roiling dark clouds of frustration and disappointment.

The Western concept of forgiveness overlaps heavily with the Zen notion of unattachment. Events happen. Choices are made. Unexpected curve balls hit us in the head. Forgiveness is about acknowledging these things but not allowing ourselves to get caught up in them.

For example, say I choose to binge on jumbo-sized jalapeño “Bahama mama” hot dogs, juice, and chips. I could choose to get out the cat-o’-nine-tails and flog myself (mentally) into an unrecognizable bleeding pulp. In the past that would have been normal behavior. I would choose poorly, and build my own personal hell.

After a while I realized that Hell’s not the best place to camp out in. The company sucks.

Courtesy of the I Can Has Cheezburger site:

more cat pictures

Get the Hell Out of Hell

I had decisions to make, such as:

• Why not acknowledge the counterproductive choice, acknowledge my feelings of disappointment… and choose to not let it go past that? I can anticipate the circumstances that contributed to my poor choice with a plan to choose successfully in the future.
• Why not make a practice to seek out and extend my peaceful moments? Exercise often carries with it a rush of “feel good” chemicals. I can supplement my physical exercise with mental exercise.
• Why not give myself credit where credit is due? Even if I were a “failure” and had no improvement in my weight, the process has taught me much about myself and my relationship with myself.
• Why not put forth the effort to develop the skills and disciplines that allow me to stay out of Hell? Choosing pain over peace is, well, painful.

I’m completely average here. I sometimes get caught up in those moments of anger. Last week was tough for me and I slid sideways almost the whole week. I’ve never seen my weight spike up and down so sharply. I have to admit that there were a handful of days in the row that dredged up similar “up and down” emotions.

I would like to suggest that if I can, we all can learn to have more moments of compassionate forgiveness for ourselves and increase our moments of peace. When our hearts and mind are in this state of peace, we can think clearly and use our reason more effectively. From a sanctuary of peace we can also rewire our subconscious mind with greater ease. This allows us to replace our old habits with new, making the process of becoming fit more automatic; becoming a joy rather than a war.

I’m past last week’s roller coaster, and quite frankly forgot about until I started writing this section. Lessons learned, for which I can express gratitude.

I hope this post isn’t too heavy. I’ve been somewhat pensive since last night. I considered writing about something else but it’s a part of the human experience and I have hopes that somebody else might benefit.

Status: 59 pounds (27 kg) lighter

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

After I wrote Pick Nits Only When Useful, Then Stop, I realized that while I had been monitoring my change in weight, I wasn’t really tracking. In other words, other than progress reported in this blog, I wasn’t really recording and reviewing my progress. It’s funny how even when we know something, that we humans try to cut corners.

Now, I don’t like tracking things closely unless it’s useful. It’s a bother. I don’t like doing it. I assumed that I could get away with simply monitoring my progress without actually putting date and weight into a spreadsheet because I had hard evidence that I was succeeding.

When decided to move up my accountability a notch and actually record and review, I plugged the numbers into the spreadsheet and graphed the result, I was completely caught off guard. Put these two things side by side.

So, given what I was doing, and what I thought was happening, which carried the day? Take a look for yourself. Here is a graph from the spreadsheet, showing weight over time. (Forgive the Japanese labels.)

Notice how there is no plateau through May. Mother Nature carried the day. Because I remained quite consistent in my daily disciplines, I reaped the natural consequence of my actions.

I don’t know where the phrase “You can’t fool Mother Nature” came from, but for me it represents a vital bit of real life. Actions have consequences independent of our intentions, beliefs, hopes, wishes, etc. Jump off a cliff naked and you’ll make a mark on the floor of the canyon, every time, despite any beliefs to the contrary.

Now, I know this. I’ve experienced this. I have the victories and scars to show for it. But as I heard in a writer’s conference today, emotion exaggerates [distorts] reality. What I was perceiving and what was happening in the real world were two separate thing.

So I had reinforced a fundamental lesson: have faith in the process.

• Fall in love with your vision.
• Live it in your mind daily.
• Live and act in the moment according to your vision.
• Track your progress and make course corrections when needed.

Joe Average needs reminding.

Status: 46 pounds (21 kg) lighter.

It was a narrow plateau, however, since I wasn’t ever going to approach 200 pounds again. I felt trapped between two disquieting walls. There’s a very human reaction, one of doubt, of despair, of emotional surrender.

Despite the extreme temptation to call this “good enough,” a part of me could would cry out, “No!” So I faltered in my progress, caught myself, and rested a bit to think.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for those who are able to stay on top of their game for extended periods of time. They’re excellent at managing the cycle of effort and rejuvenation. While I’m improving with time, this is not a natural area of strength for me.

I wish I could enunciate what the trigger was, that allowed me to rekindle some of that fire, and touch 190. I didn’t give into darkness. The thoughts were not me. I still could choose to not surrender.

This was my “terror barrier.” It was personal and real to me, which part of the definition. Everybody has their own peculiar points of weaknesses. While undesired, they also represent moments of growth which are appreciated later, in retrospect. We can have gratitude for our liabilities.

To shift gears from a contemplative mood to one of celebration, today I went shopping for some new dress slacks as I’ve trimmed up quite a bit. I went from a 42″ waist to a 36″ waist. How’s that for a pleasant victory?

Status: 41 pounds (18 kg) lighter.

I have had to come up with another strategy to help keep the calories in/calories used scale tipped in the right direction.

As I mentioned before, I focus on (1) deliberate eating and (2) nutritional basics: a foundation of grains backed up with veggies and fruits.

Obviously, some foods are packed with more nutrients than others. After I broke my toe and was slowed down from an exercise standpoint, this started to be a minor problem. Things that are high in nutrients tend to also be high in calories. For example, take an orange. Uhm… no… let’s talk tangelos. I prefer them over oranges. Take a tangelo. Cut it in half, and get all that yummy juice out. Repeat until you have a nice glass of juice. I love a good glass of fresh juice.

Now, put that glass of juice in the refrigerator for a while. Pick up the same number of tangelos that we used to make the glass of juice. Now eat them. All of them. In one go. I don’t know about you, but If I were to do that, I’d be sick of tangelos for the day. Curiously, if given no restrictions, I could drink a number of glass of juice in a day.

Other than fiber, there’s no significant difference (nutrition-wise) between the pile of tangelos and the glass of juice… and I get fiber in spades elsewhere. The difference is that in squeezing out the juice, the nutrients are physically packed into a smaller space. The same volume of juice has more nutrients and calories as a piece of fruit.

So what? A broken bone imposed a temporary lifestyle change on me. That wrecked the calories in/calories out balance that I had figured out. In order to help re-balance my food intake, I chose to cut back on juice and eat the fruit. It’s just as tasty.

Where I had stagnated slightly, this single change was enough to tip the balance in the right direction again. Keeping the momentum moving forward takes a little experimentation and patience. Life happens. Enjoy it as it comes.

Status: 38 pounds lighter

In moving past my “terror barrier”, I’ve been able to play off the changes in the world and work a new image of myself into my subconscious. It has taken some real effort. I deliberately set a side just a few minutes daily, several times a day to stand in a quiet place and go through my new statement of personal fitness.

To build any new habit, from the most mundane to the most ambitious, two things are required: meaning and repetition. The more each is present, the faster the brain builds new connections to create that habit. (Yes, the brain literally rewires itself. That’s the magic of neuroplasticity.)

Repetition should be an obvious component. If any person desires to improve their ability in an area, practicing (repetitiously doing it correctly) is indispensable. Note that one must practice doing that thing correctly, otherwise one produces a bad habit rather than an improvement in one’s life.

The part that may be most unfamiliar to people is meaning. The more meaningful the practice, in other words, the more that the new habit is done with an emotional connection, the faster the mind will build new connections.

Combine this with what I wrote earlier, that the subconscious mind cannot distinguish between the real and the imagined. The repeated, vivid visualization of the next milestone slowly trains the mind. Progress towards the new milestone slowly become more automatic.

The initial emotional rush is almost two months past, so that energy has pretty much faded. However, I keep the image of “me” + “fitness” fixed in my mind, no matter how many times that little voice on my shoulder has a laughing fit.

Status: 36 pounds (16 kg) lighter

I occasionally take my camera with me when I ride my trike.