Motivations, Affirmations and Mantras - Oh My!

"Smile. It's all good. Trust me."
Photo: Photos8.com

We’re starting to get into that tricky time of our fitness journey where maybe we’ve had some early successes but now things are slowing down and we’re becoming a little bit anxious as to whether we can actually really pull this thing off. Nothing succeeds like success but where’s there a pithy saying about spinning, crashing and burning when you need one? Not that any of us are doing that but if you’re starting to use phrases like “treading water”, “getting back on the wagon”, “keeping the porch lights on for Jimmy Hoffa” – well then, you might need a little pick-me-up.

The great - and horrible - thing about motivation is that it is entirely up to us. It’s easy to stay motivated when things are going well but less so when all your hard work stops yielding results. Staying in a positive frame of mind is essential to reaching your fitness goals and so anything that keeps us upbeat is a good thing.

I don’t get to say this very often but lately I’ve picked up a few good habits. Whether it’s from being a member of Cranky Fitness or just not getting enough fiber in my diet, I tend to get crabbier than your average bear; especially in winter. To try to accentuate the positive, I have been keeping a gratitude journal that I write at least three things in every night. I’ll grant you that some nights I do have some trouble getting all three in. We all have those kinds of days. But then it helps me to look over past entries for an immediate boost, reminding myself that bad times don’t last forever – it just seems that way sometimes.

I’ve also picked up a daily affirmations book that I like to use: The Daily Book of Positive Quotations by Linda Picone. It helps me maintain some perspective in my otherwise self-absorbed existence. There is a huge variety of books in this genre and if you can’t decide on one; pick two. Couldn’t hurt.

Increasing the laughs has been something I’ve been doing more of lately, too. Laughter is a natural and immediate mood booster. There’s nothing like a good laugh to clear the decks of any worries or concerns that have been dogging us lately – if only for a little while. Some great current TV comedies are “The Office” and “30 Rock”. “I Love Lucy”, “Cheers”, “Frasier”, “Arrested Development” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” are classics that are always worth another look. I also found this hilarious article called “The Chuck Norris Guide to Self-Motivation” that you might enjoy. And everyone’s favorite, Jack Sh*t, is truly snort-worthy.

The other, most portable habit I’ve picked up has been to develop a mantra – a short phrase I say to myself to stay focused and lift my spirits. There are even some articles written about how to develop a mantra or affirmation if you’re so inclined with tips such as keeping it positive (duh) or representing the present versus the future (Really? I kind of like both). I have my own homegrown version that goes, “Every Day”: I need to do my exercise and mind my eating “every day”. I don’t focus on how big the overall task is - that's too scary. Instead, I’ve cut it up into one manageable thought that won’t overwhelm me. Stringing enough good days together starts to become a very good habit.

What do you all do to keep your head in the game? Do you have a mantra that helps you stay on track? And if so, what is it?

Relaxation: Will Someone Please Put A Gun to My Head?

Photo: h.koppdelaney

There are many components of healthy living: eating right, exercising, refraining from smoking, keeping up with medical appointments, and not doing dumb-ass things like driving 100 miles per hour or sprinting across the street in front of oncoming tanker trucks.

But there's another healthy habit that's easy to forget: stress management. Stress sucks, and chronic stress can seriously mess up your health--not to mention give you excess belly fat, destroy your sleep, and generally make you a crotchety, over-sensitive pain in the ass. Chronic stress can raise blood pressure, contribute to digestive problems, negatively affect your immune system, and do a whole bunch of other bad things I can't remember off the top of my head.

There are many different methods to fight the effects of stress. These include exercise (which you're already doing, right?), psychiatric medications, psychotherapy, biofeedback, cognitive-behavioral self-help programs, massage, and bonking random strangers on the head with foam baseball bats. (Well, that last one isn't commonly recommended but it sure sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?).

But one of the simplest things you can do is... relax! Studies have shown taking a few minutes to meditate or do other forms of relaxation can have tremendous health benefits. There are lots of ways to approach it, like: mindfulness meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, focusing on breath, self-hypnosis, yoga, chanting, drumming, singing, prayer, and guided visualization. Any activity that helps you focus your attention, relax your muscles, slow and deepen your breathing, and activate your parasympathetic nervous system will do the trick.

So am I the only one who knows that relaxation exercises are good for me, yet can not seem to make myself do them?

I bet I'm not. Seems like lots of people who will spend hours training for a marathon or cooking a nutritious meals somehow can't imagine taking 20 precious minutes out of the day to repeat a mantra, visualize a pleasant walk by the seashore, or focus on their breathing. And no amount of research about the awesome physical and mental benefits this brings seems to change this resistance.

Here's my theory: practicing intentional, conscious, therapeutic relaxation does not feel miserable enough to count in our minds as a chore or an achievement. It just feels wrong to many people to take half an hour, or even 2-3 minutes, out of a busy day to go off and be quiet unless all the other more unpleasant chores have been taken care of first. And how often are all your unpleasant chores ever finished?

Yet for most people, meditation or relaxation exercises are not "fun" enough to count as entertainment, especially not at first. In a battle for precious spare leisure time, a favorite tv show or new novel by your favorite author is going to seem a more compelling choice than sitting cross-legged and chanting "om."

Part of the reason I'm writing this post is that I've decided that it's about goddamn time I started doing some of this relaxation stuff myself again. I already follow pretty much every other healthy lifestyle recommendation, and being naturally wired as a neurotic stress-bucket, this one I really should remember to take seriously.

Years ago I dabbled in meditation, self-hypnosis, and guided visualization, etc. (As a psychotherapist, I even used to hypnotize people too; it's pretty cool.) But then I got too lazy and stopped making time for it.

Here are some things I learned:

(1) The kind of meditation that is most frequently suggested, where you repeat a mantra over and over? It works great for lots of people, but I suck at it, even with lots of practice. Everyone is different, yet many authorities still push mantra meditation as "the" kind of meditation. Phooey to that.

(2) The most helpful resource I found to get started was buying a book with all kinds of relaxation, visualization, and meditation examples. (Of course I can't find the book anymore or remember the title. But there are plenty out there.) Another thing I found helpful was to spring for a few guided meditation or visualization cd's. (There are also free or cheap mp3's and podcasts on the web; just google!).

(3) Once you learn to relax deeply, with practice you can cue yourself to get to at least a semi-relaxed state much more quickly than you did before. But I've also discovered that if you stop practicing, you can lose this ability again.

(4) The more time you spend focusing your conscious attention, the more you start to notice cool stuff around you that you didn't notice before.

(5) Deep trance states can be very pleasurable! However, it was hard for me to get really deep without a live hypnotist (expensive) or a fairly new guided imagery cd that I hadn't heard dozens of times. But I never had much luck getting myself to do anything differently by listening to helpful suggestions under hypnosis. My unconscious mind is apparently just as resistant to gentle nagging as my conscious mind is. But hypnosis still did a great job of getting me relaxed in the moment, even if it didn't miraculously get rid of any bad habits or change me from a slacker to a go-getter.

(6) As an alternative to visualizations, I found that focusing awareness on things that were beautiful or pleasurable in my environment worked much better for me than repeating words or paying attention to my breath. Looking at colors in the garden, watching a fire in the fireplace, walking on a scenic trail, or eating a meal slowly and focusing on all the sights, smells, and sensations involved--these I found more engrossing and they all "count" as meditating. The important thing is to just keep patiently returning your attention back from wandering thoughts to the thing you've decided to focus on. (Without getting all impatient and bitchy with yourself. If you're normal, your mind will wander a lot. Don't worry about it.)

Now here's where a more conscientious blogger would carefully explain all the many relaxation/ meditation options and tell you how to get started. Um, sorry! I ain't that blogger (at least not anymore).

But here are a few links and resources:

Mayo Clinic has a basic article about meditation and its health benefits, as does Web MD.

There are some basics of Buddhist meditation at How To Meditate, including instructional videos.

Also, Rejuvenation Lounge discusses walking meditation, and there are three quick meditation techniques for busy folks over at Quips and Tips for Spiritual Seekers.

Oh, and our pal POD at Thufferin' Thuccotash shares some of her experiences with meditation, and over at Spirited Women there's a discussion of the benefits of using meditation and other stress-management exercises with kids and teens.

What about you folks: do you practice meditation, visualization or other relaxation techniques?

Physical Fitness: Forget It. It's Totally Not Worth It.

Right now, this is a knee that's very, very wrong.

Seriously. Just bag it right now.

Forget about living better, living longer, being stronger. Eat Cheetos and fudge cake and sit on the couch. Seriously. Being fit isn't worth it.

Yeah, I just sprained my knee.

It's ironic: I had a workout tonight that was fantastic, until I came down off the step in a particularly inartistic manner, felt something go "pop" in my right knee, fell over, and yelled things that my Sainted Mother would be shocked to hear (or not; she's known me a long time).

Scared my trainer half to death, it did. Scared me, too: I wasn't sure if I would vomit, pass out, or cry. Then I wasn't sure I could stand up. Then, I wasn't sure if I could walk. The verdict is: standing, okay; walking, difficult; lateral movement, don't even try it. I can hobble with my knee half-bent, but I have to be careful, because it will allovasudden just stop working and I'll fall over again (hollering more earblistering obscenities).

I'm writing this Monday night to be published Tuesday morning. Come publication time, I'm sure my knee will be swollen, purple, unhappy, and I'll be at the Doc-In-A-Box, trying to get a better brace than an ACE bandage. I have to work, after all. This isn't the first time I've damaged a knee, but it's certainly the most dramatic.

So, take it from me: just give up. Don't try to be fit. Ditch the jumping jacks, the burpees, the mountain-climbers. Get sloppy and pudgy and forget about being strong. All fitness gets you is a three-inch-wide compression bandage that your neighbor was kind enough to go out to get you, two naprosyn, and a bottle of beer. (What? You didn't know that RICE involved beer? It does. Trust me on this.)

Although--and I have to give my right leg its due--if my thigh and calf muscles weren't so strong, the damage would likely have been much, much greater.

Updates to follow after I visit the doctor.

How Did I Get Here?

(Image: 姒儿喵喵)

In case you were thinking the title of this post was some deep philosophical or theological question... Um, nope.

This is Cranky Fitness after all. Depending upon our personal proclivities, we're more likely to be ruminating on scantily clad Italian soccer players,



or buffed female Olympic swimmers,


or cupcakes.


We're not all that big on philosophical or theological exploration.

So the title "How Did I Get Here?" just refers to the perplexed reaction some people must have upon arriving at Cranky Fitness, given the curious and sometimes amusing google searches that led them to click on our link.

And yes, almost every other blogger on the planet has done this post already, but I haven't yet, and always wanted to and time is running out! Looking at the stats and finding out who's visiting and how they found you--it's one of those secret fun things about having a blog, even if it's really hard to explain to normal people at cocktail parties.

Anyway, the weird thing is not just that some of these recent searches are quirky; it's that they led someone here, to our little cranky home. Did the person who came here looking for "Big poo in ladies public toilet" find what they were looking for in the Cranky Fitness archives?

I kind of hope not.

Some searches are totally on target, and I always love seeing a question we can help with. If you're trying to discover "is 1 simple rule a scam" or hunting down "kuru shoe review"? No problem, we're here for you! But many searchers are not so lucky.

Of course one category of Cranky mis-googling is entirely my fault: those coming from Falsely Salacious Keywords. I once wrote a post on sports bras and liberally sprinkled around terms like "Great Big Bouncy Breasts," and even though that was years ago, "big bouncy breasts" still generates a fairly respectable number of hits every day. It boggles the mind how anyone could get here with that query, since the post, being old and irrelevant, must be on page 248,321 of the breast-related google search results. Big breast seekers are apparently a very determined bunch.

So here, arranged by category, are a few random searches from the last few weeks that brought folks to this blog:

Sorry, wish we could help!
Some offbeat queries make me wish Cranky Fitness actually did have some useful information on the topic in question:

Free sex romance movies
magical weight loss
elliptical machine bubble butt
80’s aerobic porn
exercise videos for lazy people
Kirstie goes beserk
Sex and the country lady
evil blender poems
Brad pitt’s butt
Doctoral degrees that earn big bucks
Cranky yoga pants
Aerobic oops
Drill sergeant love

Not So Sorry!
But others just make me think: eww, go away:

2 girls chased in gym porn
embarrassing pictures of girls
Afv Pull underwear down video
Absolutely free bouncing breast
Dyke gym teacher showers
Adult drinking breast milk
Housesitting coworker cheating sex
Don’t wash I’m coming home
fitness teen sex
bit tits, white girls
crossfit porn
fat ass pussy girls model
women penis size
Breast milk is gross

The Apparent Death of Introspection:
And then there's the category of: Is google really the best place to ask this question? It makes you wonder what people think google is, exactly.

Am I naked?
can I get rid of all my belongings and start over?
can I put carrots on my salad?
can I quit the gym?
Why do i look so young naked?
What can I change about myself to make next year better?
What motivates me?

And, Um, Why do you Ask?
Then there are the searches that seem to suggest a curious, disturbing, or intriguing back-story behind the question:

“chia" seeds "stolen"
Can a dog overdose on splenda?
fat acceptance salad
can your earlobes die
earlobe serial killers
furman eat to live gas
unusual vaginas
braces boyfriend circumcised
burn notice flavor of yogurt
turkey weight loss training
Big breasts with fish oil
fall of bellydancing is hard to handle
chin hairs Czech women
can you sit by the window and not get rickets
calling in sick at sears
when your cat thinks its in charge
fish oil on booty

And I'd be curious to hear what other bloggers find brings folks to their own sites. Do you get interesting search terms?

Or, if you don't have a blog, you can still play a voyeuristic google games. The Bloggess tipped me off to one: type in the beginnings of a search into google, then see what the auto-complete suggestions are for finishing your question. These are presumably the most popular inquiries, and yet... hmm. Innocuous beginnings like "why are..." or "is my..." may lead in unpredictable directions. You can also throw in a celebrity's name: "Does Oprah..." "Is Sarah Palin ..." and see what issues people are wondering about. (And if you figure out whether Oprah really has 6 toes per foot or not, let me know okay?))

And does anyone remember how they got here to Cranky Fitness in the first place?

TMI BMI

"I'll give you guys your own monument if you show me a good place
to hide the Halloween candy from Michelle."
Photo: Obama-Biden Transition Project

Politics aside, you’ve got to admire the way Michelle Obama keeps those arms of hers so firm and toned. All the better to throw her daughters under the BMI bus with. I’m referring to last week’s news about her getting a “wake-up call” from her daughters’ pediatrician about their BMIs sneaking up on them and her taking corrective action. And for a parent who pleaded with the media to respect her daughters’ privacy (and rightfully so), I found it shocking that in her efforts to tackle the childhood obesity problem, she would reach into her own family fold to underscore her point.

I posted on “Generation BMI” back in November and there was some excellent commentary that followed. Upon researching further, I learned that experts generally have the opinion that girls who develop eating disorders do so between ages eleven and fourteen. The eldest Obama child is eleven. Imagine being an adolescent on such an international stage in the first place. Do you remember the confusing mix of emotions when you were that age? The desire to fit in and the self-consciousness of your every move? It’s bad enough to have to grow up in the public eye where people are scrutinizing everything you do, but when your mother calls you out about your BMI, well, that’s just a boatload of therapy waiting to happen.

I’ll grant you that childhood obesity is a serious problem but I don’t think using your children as examples on the world stage is the way to go. Yes, it personalizes your passion but let’s remember that these children never signed up for this fishbowl existence in the first place. That was their parents’ decision and they would do well to keep their girls as sheltered as possible. But now that the BMI genie is out of the bottle, the cute vacation scenes of the First Family going out for ice cream will take on a whole different meaning. “Dear, are you sure you should be eating that?” Please tell me that’s never going to happen.

I leave open the possibility that I’m just getting crankier in my old age and most of you won’t see a thing wrong with this. I believe that open dialogue is a good thing against bad problems but I wish adults would leave their children out of mature matters until they’re old enough to make their own decision on whether or not they want to be involved; especially when it’s on such a personal level. Looking out for our children's well-being is every parent’s responsibility - and that goes for their fragile little psyches, too.

What do you think? Should Mama Obama keep the family BMI to herself or are the daughters fair game in this childhood obesity battle?

Self-Sabotage: We Have Met The Enemy....And It Is Us

Have you ever gotten to a point in your weight loss journey when things are chugging along nicely, you’ve passed a few important goals and should be coming down the stretch for your ideal weight in the not too distant future? And then suddenly you revert back to the behavior that got you into this mess in the first place. Frustrated at your seeming inability to close the deal – yet again! – you throw in the towel and go back to living a life well beneath your capabilities. Why does this keep happening? Why aren’t you proceeding toward your goal anymore instead of backing away from it? Don’t you want to accomplish this more than practically any other thing in your life right now?

"...and please help me stop chasing my tail. Amen."
Photo: snuzzy

Anybody who’s ever fallen into self-sabotage mode will tell you, usually through tears and not for the first time, that getting fit is what they really, really want. And yet every time they get close to their goal, they fall apart. You have all the information and resources that you need but you just can’t seem to finish what you started. How can you really want (or need!) to do something so desperately and yet get in the way of your own progress just when things are going well?

Getting your head and your body on the same page is not as easy as it sounds. There are daunting statistics about how few people really succeed at losing weight so clearly, getting your whole body geared up for the same mission is vital and not something a lot of us have mastered.

If you’re like me and have Googled “self-sabotage” (that’s a lousy picture of me, too, by the way), you probably wound up with a real mish-mash of information. There are a lot of lead-ins to products people are trying to sell you: hypnosis, past life regressions, dealing with addictions, seminars that “will change your life”, and so on. Some of the articles skim the topic but for me, I needed to find something that dug deeper. I know I do this and I need to learn WHY if I’m ever going to navigate my way through this successfully. Telling me I fear failure or fear success is only scratching the surface. I have a hunch there are a few more layers to it than that.

I bought a great book entitled, Fattitudes, by Jeffrey Wilbert and Norean Wilbert, and if anyone else is struggling to overcome self-sabotaging behavior, then this might be the book that will shed some light as to why you do what you do. The emotional baggage many of us carry but haven’t truly faced and resolved seems to be at the heart of this self-sabotaging behavior. We’ve been given all kinds of reasons why we should lose weight but could there actually be a part of our subconscious that thinks the status quo is just fine, thank you very much? As crazy as it sounds, could there possibly be a payoff for staying fat?

Think about it: If we start succeeding, will those closest to us resent us for it and start to distance themselves from us? Could we live a fulfilling life without our closest friends and families – even though they don’t have our best interests at heart, as evidenced by their reaction to your success? Or are we afraid that if we succeed on such a grand scale, more will be required of us and maybe, just maybe, we feel we don’t really have what it takes to keep up that kind of pace? Or have we failed as this fitness thing so often that we’re afraid this latest effort will simply be another notch in the loser belt? We keep insisting that we want to change our lives but what other things we will be inviting into our lives when we do change? Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.

These reasons for your behavior are not going to be crystal clear and easily accessible – you’re going to have to dig for them. There are a lot of questions you need to ask yourself and answer honestly. And then you have to take those answers and look at them with fresh eyes to figure out why you have been blocking your own success. Everyone’s story and background are different but what seems to be a common denominator for emotional eaters is that for some reason you made others and their feelings and expectations of you trump your own and you have carried that into your adult life. You have adapted your station in life to where they think you belong. You may have grown up in chaotic, neglectful or abusive circumstances and adapted a certain way of coping in order to deal with your situation. Overeating may well have become one of those coping mechanisms instead of you developing healthier, more basic ways of dealing. This book offers some wonderfully illuminating examples of why people do what they do in terms of pursuing weight loss. Maybe you’ll read about someone with a very similar experience to yours: the emotional eating, the self-worth issues, the people-pleasing behaviors. And hopefully you’ll figure out how all those experiences got mixed up into undermining our best selves.

The second part of the book offers suggestions of how to right this wrongheadedness through a series of questionnaires and exercises. It tries to help dissect your issues and teach you how to accept the ideas of worthiness and deserving and self-care such that they will fit more comfortably in your vocabulary from now on. Yogi Berra was right (even if he was referring to baseball – it still applies here): This game is “ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.”

Do any of you feel that you’re self-sabotaging your efforts to get fit? Why do you think that is and what are you doing to try to correct it?

On blogging, self-discovery, strength, body image, and all that Kumbayaa stuff

Lisa Folino, "Nana was always a strong woman"

It would happen that Crabby decided to take a Crabbatical just as I'd figured this Blogger template out and quit cutting off my own posts right in the middle. *heavy sigh*

The biggest compliment I ever got as a blogger was not the invitation to have my work appear in a book. It wasn't the time my sister, who's an actual published author, and my dad, who's a *way* actual published author, complimented what I wrote.

It was the time Crabby sent me a tentative email that started, "So...uh...listen, I know you're really busy and stuff, but would you maybe consider sort of, you know, posting on Cranky Fitness? As a co-blogger? If you don't, that's okay, no problem, but, you know..."

At the time, I had just started writing about weight loss and fitness under my own nom de 'Net at Wednesday Whine (now on hold; soon to be restarted). I had been working with Attila for about two and a half years, and had made considerable progress in terms of strength and conditioning. I was a regular reader of Charlotte's blog, MizFit's blog, and many others.

But I wasn't ready, in any sense of the word, to start blogging about fitness. I mean, like, *seriously*. After all, I was still kind of a lump: twenty pounds overweight, not the sort of lean, mean, cranky machine that Crabby is. Plus, I still hated myself for being fat and lumpy. Role model? Keep looking.

In other words, my mental fitness was about ten years behind my physical fitness, and it was not catching up with repeated workouts.

Attila asked me once how long it had been since I'd looked in the mirror and been happy. I honestly couldn't tell her. No matter how hard a workout I'd managed to finish, or how much I'd been able to lift, I still saw nothing but lumps and flab and imperfection.

Boy, I thought to myself, isn't *that* a pathetic commentary on Miss Fitness Blogger?

Things changed, though, without my even really noticing. Posting about Attila's torture sessions and having bloggers I respected shoot back with "Jeebus Grits, that's HARDCORE!" made me realize how much I'd really accomplished in the last (now three) years. Posting about body image issues and what to eat and what to wear showed me that other people have the same problems--even people I look up to. Reading new-to-me blogs gave me perspective on just how stinkin' fortunate I am.

I looked up in surprise the other day to find that I really, really like my shoulders. I like my legs a lot. My lats are pretty freakin' fantastic. I can look in the mirror without wincing. The mental fitness is catching up to the physical fitness, finally.

And that is entirely due to you guys. Crabby built one of the healthiest (in every sense of the word), most supportive, most intelligent communities on the Web with this blog. You all have been accepting of one another, respectful in disagreements, encouraging in hard times, and celebratory in good ones. You're smart, funny, and goofy as hell when it's called for.

You have, in short, made me a better blogger--and a more confident, more concentrated person.

Thank you.

(We will return to the usual round of Dammit, I Want A Cupcake and You Guys Will Not Believe What Attila Made Me Do Today posts later this week. Thanks for your patience.)