15 Minute Fitness

The post below was originally published on September 26th, 2014 on my other site 15 Minutes of Change. I’ll be writing an update soon and wanted to publish this post on gregsroche.com

Whenever I think of things that people talk about starting, but never do, the first thing that comes to mind is getting in shape.

I believe that the biggest obstacle is getting started. If you've haven't been working out, you tend to focus on how long the workout will be, how you have to go to the gym, how sweaty and tired you will be.

All of these thoughts drain your willpower. The key to getting over these barriers in your mind is: focus on the start instead of the end.

The main theme in 15 Minutes of Change is small steps leading to big changes.

- Lao Tzu

The smallest step you can take on the 1000 mile fitness journey is to get started.

Today.

No excuses why you can't. No "I don't have time" statements. 15 Minutes is about making time.

You don't even have to workout for 15 minutes. You don't even have to do it for 5 minutes. A few minutes a day.

Start today by walking. Then walk some more. If you want to get stronger, do one push up. Tomorrow do two.

No matter what you do, make a few minutes to do something today that you didn't do yesterday.

Don't think, just start

Who am I to tell you to get started?

Great question! I don't have a degree in any medical field. I'm not a certified trainer or registered dietitian. I don't run a gym, I'm not a professional athlete, and since my 6th grade field day, I haven't won any races in which I've participated.

But I have been where you are, and I have taken that first step. I started in 2007. The picture at the top of the page is of me with my daughter Gabby.

It was 2007.

I weighed about 180 lbs. My waist size was 36. I had frequent heartburn, that I attributed to stress. I wasn't unhealthy, but if things didn't change, I would get that way pretty quickly.

Seven years later, this is me in the Spartan Race last May.

It's not a before and after picture so the differences may not be so apparent, but I use this picture for two reasons:

1. I look like an animal. Covered in mud, up to my waist in cold, dirty water, with a look of intensity on my face that lets you know I am doing something cool.
2. In 2007, I could have never imagined doing this race.

Today, I weigh around 160 lbs. My waist size is 32. All my stats - blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI, and glucose are all in normal ranges. I never have heartburn despite being in work situations that I consider to be exponentially more stressful than any I encountered in 2007. As of today, I can do 50 push-ups in a row, 50 sit-ups in a row, 15 pull ups in a row. I bench 1 1/4 my body weight.  I squat and dead lift more than 1 1/2 times my body weight.

I'm not listing my stats to brag, I am listing them because in 2007, I had no idea I would ever know or care about any of of them. None of them were important to me, and I couldn't have ever imagined being able to accomplish any of them. I don't think I could have pulled myself up and over one of the 8-foot walls you have to scale in a Spartan Race.

How did I get from there to here?

It took 7 years of small lifestyle changes. I didn't radically change my diet. I didn't go Paleo or Atkins or South Beach. I didn't buy a program. I didn't go on two week cleanse. I didn't do any of the get-it-done quick fitness or diet routines. I have spent the last 7 years modifying my lifestyle, making small, sustainable changes in my health.

I did two things:

1. I exercised
2. I ate better

Thing One - Exercise The credit for my start goes to my wife. After our second child, Gabby, was born, she started running to get in shape. I started running because she was running. Short distances at first - 5ks, 7ks, 10ks, eventually a half-marathon.

For the record, I am not a fan of running, but when I started, that seemed like the way to get into shape. I think a lot of people feel the same way, which is why they never start. They think fitness is about running, they hate running, so they don't start. It took me awhile to move past running to things I enjoyed doing more.

I moved on to triathlons. Short ones - just sprint distances. That required two things: swimming and a bike.

I was a lifeguard in high school, but only because it was fun summer job. I never really liked to swim. When I started swimming for triathlons, I used a technique called Total Immersion (TI) to improve my stroke.

I got a bike from my cousin and started riding it.

After a few triathlons, I moved onto road biking in rides like the MS 150. I moved on to the obstacle races, mainly because they break up the monotony of running.

At the same time, I started lifting weights using the concepts in Starting Strength. All of the cardio from the different types of races helped me lose weight, but it was when I started lifting weights that I and, as importantly, people around me began to notice a difference in my appearance.

I don't get too fixated on the numbers on the scale. It's important to check in and make sure you aren't going the other way, but how I feel and look are more important. The numbers on my belt mean more to me than the ones on the scale.

That makes me sound superficial and concerned with appearances, but as they say at NerdFitness: appearance is a consequence of fitness.

If I look fit, I am fit. When people who haven't seen you for awhile tell you that you look good, all the numbers become less important. In addition, when people tell you that you look fit, it becomes part of your identity. It becomes something about you that you want to keep. It motivates you to maintain your lifestyle. Going to the gym is part of who I am now.

I try to work out 4 days per week. I also try to walk more everyday. I wear a FitBit and am conscious about how many steps I take each day. I look for opportunities to walk or take the stairs.

These are the minimum amounts of activity each day for me.

All of these changes took time, but none of them would have occurred if I hadn't just started.

Thing Two - Diet Like I said, I didn't do anything radical to my diet. Over time, I reduced the bad stuff I was eating. I used to eat a bagel with butter every morning for breakfast. At some point, I traded the butter for cream cheese, and eventually moved from a bagel to yogurt with granola.

One of the biggest things I eliminated was soda. I used to have one every day. As part of a New Year resolution a few years ago, I decided to give it up and was able to break the habit. Somewhere along the way, I stopped have heartburn. I can't remember when it went away, but every once in awhile, I remember that I forgot about heartburn.

Over time, I have looked for small ways to improve my diet: less sugar, less bread, more fruit, more vegetables.  Really simple stuff, in really small increments of change.

On my journey, I can't remember all the milestones. I don't remember the 170s at all. I was in the high 160s for awhile. Lifting weights helped me get down to 160 and into the 150s. This past year, I went down to 155 and have come back up to 160 as I have started focusing adding more weight to my lifts. Even as I have gone up, my waist has stayed the same and I still feel good in all my clothes.

That's my journey. It may or may not work for you. Everyone is different and has to follow a different path.

But, you can't follow a path until you take that first step.

Where do you start?

Here's a couple tips:

1. Get your mind right. This is a lifestyle change. This will not be quick. There is no end to this program. There is only a start. If you need to change you health quickly you need to go somewhere else to fail.
2. Do the shortest, simplest activity you can think of. Go for a walk. Go for 5 minutes or less. When you figure out the simplest thing to do, make it simpler. Make it so simple and short that you feel ridiculous doing it. Then instead of thinking why you can't do it, you will guilt yourself into thinking that you can.
3. Lie to yourself. Your brain will think of a million reasons why you can't do this: I don't have time. It hurts. I need to do laundry. It won't work. You need to tell the part of your brain that provides that resistance that you aren't going to work out, you are just going for a walk to look around the neighborhood. Once you get started, the resistance will go away and you can enjoy your walk.
4. Add a tiny bit more every day. When my wife started running, she would run for a little bit, then walk. Then she would try to run a little bit farther, and walk a little less. Then she got to the point where she didn't have to walk. The most important thing was to do just a little bit more every day. Not a lot more, just a little bit.
5. You are not competing with others, you are competing with yourself. This is an easy competition to win. Every day, be a little better than you were the day before.

I use these tips every week:

Some days, I need to work out at 5AM.  I don't think about working out when the alarm goes off. Instead, I lie to/tell myself that all I have to do is put on my clothes and drive to the gym. I actually say it aloud to myself.  Sometimes, I tell my wife who is still asleep.  I don't think about what the workout is or how long I am going to workout. I put on the clothes that I left on the floor next to the bed the night before and drive to the gym. If I do that shortest/simplest thing, I have achieved the goal. Once I am in the parking lot at the gym, I'm not going to drive home. I might as well go inside and workout. This is known as the Braveheart Technique and comes from NerdFitness.

I lift weights. I'm currently working on adding to my bench, squat, and deadlift. I am doing small reps, heavy weight. On week 1, I do one rep of my max weight on each of these exercises. Next week, I do two reps of the same weight. Week three, I do three reps. Then I add five pounds to the weight and start with one rep. This is another one I got from NerdFitness. I progress at the tiny amount of 5 pounds every three weeks. That sounds painfully slow, and believe me it is. It takes me longer to load and unload the weight than it does to lift it. But that's ok. Right now I am lifting more weight than I ever have. If you think about seventeen 5 lb. increases in the course of a year, that adds up to an 85 lb. gain in all of my lifts.  (Don't worry, I do other exercises while I am at the gym.)

Once you take that first step, a couple things will happen:

1. You will hate it as much as you have ever hated working out and you will stop - that's ok, because you are no worse off than you are if you never started. Try something else and start again.
2. You may find out you actually don't mind it as much as you thought, and you will show up again tomorrow.

Get your mind right, then take small steps, and keep moving forward.

Here's some ways to take those steps. All of these will not work for you. Just try one. Don't argue about why it won't work. Don't over think it.

Websites:

If you haven't already noticed, I believe one of the best sites for starting your fitness journey is NerdFitness. Steve Kamb runs that site and has all the resources that you need to get started.

Here's one specifically for getting started: Struggling to Start: Pick A Quest

There are plenty of other sites out there, but there are a lot of them that will get you started for free.  If you are just starting, there is no need to pay for a program.  Use the free stuff first.

Apps:

• Gym Goal: Tracks workouts. It's a paid app, but it allows me to keep track of all my exercises and lifts. I can track weight and reps. It keeps the history for me so I can see my progress. For me, it is important to see this progress to determine if I am staying on track.
• Tabata Timer - Free App - I do Tabata at the end of my workout.  If you've never heard of it, it is a type of interval workout.  It only takes 4 minutes, but will get you sweating and breathing hard. Your heart will beat faster for about 10 minutes after it - that's the after burn. You get an elevated heart rate and your body keeps burning calories without doing anything in those 10 minutes. This app just counts down 20 seconds and then 10 seconds for 8 intervals and frees you from having to manage the timer while you are doing the exercise.
• Quick 4 - A tabata/interval workout that gives you eight different exercises and counts down for you. The base app is free with paid upgrades. Awesome for giving you the exercises and the timer all in one.
• Deck of Cards Paid app where each suit is a different exercise that you can change. You figure out which four exercises you are going to do, then you tap the screen, a timer starts, and a card comes up. You do that exercise and the number of reps based on the number on the card. If hearts are push-ups and you get the 8 of hearts, you do 8 pushups, then tap the screen to move to the next one. Take as long as you need to finish the whole deck. Next time try to do it faster. If you still have a clam shell flip phone or can't afford the $1.99 the app will cost you, just get a regular deck of cards and do the same thing.

The last three can be used at home and without any equipment.

Equipment: If you want to get one piece of workout equipment, get a pull up bar. Don't buy a treadmill or a Bowmaster or anything else that they sell on Saturday afternoon on TV. Just get a pull up bar. I own this one and bought it to successfully complete the PLP challenge. Put it in the door way of your closet and every time you go in the closet, do a pull up. If you can't do a pull up, work up to it. Flex your arms and hang as long as you can. Once you can do one. Try to do two.

If you want to track steps, you know I recommend a FitBit. There are alternatives you can use as well, but I have found this to be a useful tool for seeing how active I have been every day. It keeps you conscious of moving, especially if you have a job where you sit down all day.

These are the things I use.

One or more of them may be useful for you or you may find something completely different, but keep trying until you find the thing that works best for you.

Ok, you got going - now what?

Take the next step. Don't think about how much weight you want to lose. Don't think about how many days a week or how many minutes each week you did.

Just take the next step.

I use this approach to get to the top of a mountain. I use it to add weight to my lifts. I use it to train for Spartan Races and Tough Mudders. I use it to stay in better shape at 40 than I was at 30.

It may take longer than you expect, but if you keep going, a little bit each day, you will change your life.