As the last few days of 2011 whisk by, it’s time for our annual contest where YOU guess how many exercise sessions I completed this year. The winner will receive a set of Catalyst products, including workbooks and CD audio classes worth $295.99, that will illuminate the journey to permanent weight loss!
For anyone who’s new to this blog, I’m a proponent of non-diet, permanent weight loss through true lifestyle change. After all, diets are temporary ways to eat, while changing behavior and the deeper needs for food are modifications that last forever.
My weight loss is close to 90 lbs. and my weight loss will be sustained 12 years on March 13, 2012!
After years of battling excess weight and yo-yo-ing up and down the scale, often attaining and keeping goal weights for 5 weeks, 5 days (or 5 minutes!), I got wise to the diet game and began to make the deeper changes to my mental, emotional and spiritual approach to weight, health and life.
Exercise long ago became a fixture in my life. I love it. It’s the only investment of time and energy I know that pays you back a thousand times and a thousand ways. Stress-busting, muscle building, attitude adjusting… exercise is absolutely necessary for anyone who has a sedentary job. As a writer and coach, I spend a lot of time sitting at the computer. Since my weight loss clients are located around the world, I do most of my coaching by phone, which means more sitting.
I long ago divorced the idea of exercise from calories. I exercise because my body asks for it and I have learned to listen. It took a while for me to learn my body’s language so I could hear those messages (I spent about 20 years saying “I hate exercise” and once held a bona fide certification in couch potato-ing!) but now, if I don’t move much for a while, I can actually feel my blood moving more slowly and the congestion builds in my stress bank.
I have also learned that excessive exercise, especially with long sessions, is detrimental to weight loss because part of the body’s resiliency means it adjusts to what you give it.
Amping up exercise just to lose weight means having to exercise at that level forever. That leads to injury or burnout! Since my aim is long-term, sustained weight loss, I exercise in a way that is consistent and fun.
I track my exercise in the easiest possible way – by photocopying a simple monthly calendar and filling it in day by day. At the end of the month, I tally how many days “qualify” as exercise days and how many don’t.
Minimum Activity Level = 30 minutes walking is the minimum amount of activity to qualify as a session.
2009’s totals were: 346 exercise days and 19 non-activity days.
2010’s totals were: 351 exercise days and 14 non-activity days.
What do you think my numbers for 2011 are?
I’ll warn you! It’s a hard contest this year!
Post your guess here and you’re entered! Tweet, retweet or post on Facebook for an additional opportunity to win the second place prize!
356 exercise days……..and i like the calendar idea…i might just add that to my tool bag!
To me, the simplest tracking methods work best. Best thing about a simple calendar is that it gives you a visual for the whole month. Pop them into a binder and you can look back last year when you felt great and instantly see what you were doing right!
Thanks for playing!
354 Days
I’ve been watching your blog for a while. I say 365 days!
360!
You are getting warmer!
Wow. Are you saying to be successful long-term we have to exercise like this?
No, Ann, what I’m saying is, when I follow my body’s needs, it requires more movement than I realized. But my activity levels this year gave me amazing reserves of energy and vitality and I experienced not one down day of energy lag, illness or fatigue. Not one!
My permanent weight loss journey has taught me how to care for my body in a way that fuels my life.
Believe me, not what I expected at all! I was always the person trying to “get out of” exercise. Excuses. Pretending. But, as I get more in touch with what my body needs, I find I move more and feel more alive when moving.
Also, notice many “activity sessions” were a simple 30 minute walk (that’s my minimum). Given my sedentary coaching/writing profession, this is not excessive at all.
A 30-minute break between clients when I’ve been sitting for a while is welcome both physically and mentally.
Think how much more productive offices would be if they had a quarter-mile track built around the perimeter of the office! All that sitting/computing does a body sad!
Ok, new guess: 363! You inspire me, Pat!
400! It sounds incredible tho!
A perfect 365. I can’t imagine exercising every day but I bet it would feel wonderful!!!
Awesome guesses everyone! Here’s the tally:
In 2011, I had 417 exercise sessions!
There were 365 days.
I had 9 days with no activity.
There were 61 days where I accomplished 2 sessions a day, such as yoga in the morning and a walk in the evening, or I was teaching a full day seminar and split a walk into two thirty-minute morning/evening sessions.
That’s it. No dieting. No deprivation. No sick days. No excuses.
I have a bum knee with no meniscus and they want me to have a knee replacement but, so what?
It looks like our winner is Teri and our 2d prize goes to Jules! I will be contacting you to send your prizes!
Congratulations!
Love, Pat
Wow Pat!
417 exercise sessions, Now that is inspiring. I have been able to tell the difference working out at least 30 minutes this past year. I will now have to add a new goal to the 2012 plan — find a way to get a 30 minute walk into bowling day and to strongly reconsider not taking days off and making excuses.
Congratulations on keeping your weight off permanently and sharing your wisdom with me.
I appreciate you
Bonnie
Thank you Bonnie. Don’t forget that YOU can define what an activity session is for yourself. I have clients who define it as “turning on the music and dancing like crazy behind their desk for 10 minutes” and I have executives that have it defined as “a 13-minute walk around their office park.” That’s cool! Make it YOUR decision, your limits. My purpose of the post is not to tell anyone what to do, or to suggest they do it my way, but to demonstrate how I’ve found my groove. After all, this works for my lifestyle and has evolved over time. Find something that works for you.
Just remember, YOU are the most important person on earth to YOU.
Love, Pat