Would you do it for a million dollars?

I had a tough work out yesterday. I mean it really wore me out. I was so tired this morning it felt like I had fought King Kong or something. Haha! As I was getting dressed to hit the gym again it made me think about all the excuses I used to use years ago to talk myself out of going. I mean I was so bad. Hahaha! I can remember some days I would get dressed to go to the gym then tell myself I was going to take a 10 minute rest before I leave. I would sit on the couch, turn on the t.v., and before I knew it that 10 minutes had turned into an hour. After that I would go and take off my clothes and say I'll make up for it tomorrow. Does this sound familiar to anyone?? How many excuses have you made up to talk yourself out of getting your workout in? I know I can think of 1,000 very good excuses. I could have easily used the excuse of being too tired to go the gym this morning, but I sucked it up and went anyway. I felt good after my workout was done.

I have clients ask me all the time about when to take a break and how to tell if they are really too tired to workout. I have a very simple response to that. Ask yourself this one simple question. "If someone was paying you a million dollars to go train right now, would you go?". If the answer is yes then you are definitely not too tired to workout. If money is enough to motivate you to move then your health should definitely make you want to do something. Besides, it wouldn't do you any good to have a million if you are spending most of it on medication because you are in poor health. So no more excuses, lets get moving!

Tortoise Mentality

 Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I've been training myself and my clients. Happy 4th by the way! I want to share with you what happened the other day when I went out for my morning jog. I jog around this awesome lake that is in walking distance from my house. It's about 2.25 miles for one lap around it. Depending on how I feel and the time of my next session I may run the lake multiple times. I start early so that I can beat the heat here in NC. Well, I was maybe a half of mile from completing my first lap when all of a sudden two guys past me running really fast. One looked at me and saluted me as if to say "See you later slow poke". Instead of me trying to speed up and trying to catch them I continued on with my comfortable pace. When I got to the end of my first lap, the same two guys that passed me earlier were laying on the side of the trail on a towel out of breath. I looked over at them and they looked worn out. I continued on and as I came to the end of my second lap they were sitting up. They were still out of breath and they were drinking water. I looked over at them and winked. As I was completing my third lap they got up and ran over in front of me. They asked how many times had I been around the lake. I told them that I was completing the third lap now. One of them said "I wish you could teach us to run like that." I replied " I could, but...." They said, "But what?" I said "If you walked into KFC and asked for the recipe for the 17 herbs and spices, do you think they would give it to you?" They said no. I said exactly! I don't give away my secrets either...Hahaha!

The truth behind it is that there is no secret. It's just plain ol common sense. If you know you are not able to keep up a really fast pace for a really long time then why go out and try to kill yourself running like a bat out of hell. Take your time and learn to enjoy the run. If you are killing yourself you are less likely to do it and you won't enjoy it. Think about this. If I gave you your favorite food in the whole entire world and you ate it in four seconds, how much would you enjoy it? Exactly! Now, if you take your time and savor every bite, your love for that food will increase. That is the way I approach my jogging in the morning. I call it my  Tortoise Mentality. You may move faster than me, but I bet i'll still finish. Not only will I finish but i'll probably finish multiple times and won't be about to die at the end. 99.9% of the time i'll be right back out there the next day doing it again and feeling great. The question is.....will you??