Good morning

Happy humpday – thanks to everyone who’s commented on the banner – much appreciated. With that being said – let’s jump right into Wednesday’s feature the “Rick the Stick Diet”…

To recap our last two posts:

Water – Drink plenty of it.
Eating – Smaller portions. Use your ‘sane brain’ to your advantage.

So looking at the first two “secrets” of the Rick the Stick Diet, you’ll notice – they’re not really secrets. In fact, I’ll bet you’ve read or heard of them before. But if you’ve read the posts, then I hope maybe you’ve thought about how it can work for you. That’s the most important key to anything. Making it work for you. We’re not clones. What motivates me definitely doesn’t motivate my wife or 90% of my friends. And yes, I have friends.

For instance, the biggest motivator for me to lose the weight was that I wanted to be at 222 lbs by the time my child reached his first birthday. Great goal – and I set it in October. The problem was by late February, I had ballooned another 15 pounds to top the scales at a horrifying 276 pounds. I say horrifying because to me it was. I was a stickman myself growing up. My point is – I had the motivation, but I needed a mechanism that would keep me focused, that would keep me on track. So I started a weight loss contest with a coworker. I needed to stir my competitive juices to drive me towards my goal. Now I had what worked for me – the motivation and the mechanism. At this point, it’s all within my reach.

Now that I’ve mentioned that I’m competitive, the next thing I’d like to talk about is exercise. Another “secret” right? Well yes and no. I’ve been pretty active most of my life and I would consider myself athletic. The problem is – I only like doing certain athletic things.

Walking? Hate it. Jogging? Despise it. Hiking? In Florida? Please – no thank you. So what do I do? Haha – funny you should ask. I do the first two despite my distaste for them. I walk my dogs with my wife and son. I find it horribly boring and during the summer (as it is now), it’s worse. That being said, if I don’t think about that and look at the benefits, such as getting my dogs much needed exercise, quality time with my wife and my son gets to know 9 billion mosquitoes. If you’ve noticed some sarcasm in my tone, you can see that I’m still not entirely sold on it. Jogging? Since I took 3 months off around the birth of my son (helping keeping up the house so my wife could rest and getting used to no sleep), I lost my quiet place and my “peace” with jogging. I’m squarely back to jogging in my head. What do I mean? Every stride feels like it’s taking every ounce of energy and there’s no way I can make it the whole way without stopping – at least that’s what my brain is screaming out over and over. Of course, it’s not that painful and I almost never stop. But the thought is there in my head from the first step to the last. And I actually really like the feeling when I’m done. Mostly because it feels awesome and partly because I know I have a reprieve until the next time I have to head back out there.

So now this is getting long and I haven’t gotten to how it can work for you. We’ll get to you in a minute, as I need to tie this all together.

So I do what I like to do. What does that mean? I play softball when I can get on a team. BTW – that’s a GREAT starter for anyone who can play even just a little bit. I also play basketball three times a week. At 5:30am. Now, I know what you’re thinking – I AM NOT GETTING UP AT 5:30 TO PLAY BASKETBALL! And I don’t blame you. To be honest – I wasn’t able to do three days a week at first. Sometimes I only made it out there once a week. But I kept plugging away – soon I was making it there at least twice a week and now I wish I played more. Because I like it. Because it makes me happy to play. Playing a sport. Getting exercise. Losing weight.

I workout best in the morning. You may enjoy afternoons or evenings. Again, these are things that work for me. I found the way, you have to find yours.

So what do you do now? Find something you can do to exercise and enjoy it. Biking, hiking (blech), walking, running, tennis, swimming – if you like it…go do it. Start tonight. Set a goal for the end of the year. Find your motivation, find your mechanism. As of today, you have a solid six months to get down to a weight where you can feel great about yourself. I know I do.

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

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