Change Your Outlook

I've been (happily) living without television for well over a year now. When I moved into my apartment last February, I decided I wasn't going to get cable because it was an expense I could live without. Many of the TV shows I watch are available online and my friend Christina shares her Netflix with me. I barely have time to watch that as it is! But when I do hop on Netflix these days, I watch a lot of random TLC reality shows. Last night, I watched some episodes of a 2010 show called Freaky Eaters. The show profiles someone who takes an eating habit to an extreme. When I came home from work yesterday, I sat down to unwind for a bit before heading to the gym. I watched the first episode, which followed a woman addicted to sugar. I started to watch the next episode about a man who ate up to 4 cheeseburgers a day and couldn't eat anything else. About 5 minutes into that episode, I realized I couldn't spend the night sitting on my butt watching people with food addictions. I could, however, resume my viewing on my iPhone Netflix app while working my butt off on the Stairmaster at the gym. So that's precisely what I did.

My stair climb is coming up this Sunday, so I decided to do an hour long session on the stairs. I always do a program setting on the stair machine. My first session was 30 minutes on the calorie burner setting, the second session was 30 minutes on the fat burner setting. I've always wondered if one setting was better than the other. Turns out the results are pretty much the same:

Calorie burner: 30 minutes, 2.86 miles, 140 floors, 265 calories
Fat burner: 30 minutes, 2.89 miles, 139 floors, 270 calories

I just like to change up the sessions because the speed and resistance are different for each one, so it keeps things interesting.

But back to Freaky Eaters. During my hour on the stair machine, I watched an episode on a cheeseburger addict, a pizza addict, and a 20 year old woman who drinks 30 - yes, 30 - cans of cola a day! It was interesting to see the health professionals show you how much saturated fat the pizza addict consumed in a year and how much sugar the cola addict consumed in a month. Besides marveling at the number of pizza boxes displayed and gasping at the amount of soda cans, the show reminded me that it's important to ask ourselves what "healthy" really looks like. I say this because neither the pizza lover nor the cola guzzler were even close to being overweight. If you saw them on the street, you wouldn't think they were unhealthy. Many of us often think thin = healthy, but we need to look past that. Could these people run a 5K? What are their cholesterol and insulin levels? Do they feel energized or run down? What is more important, the way you look or the way you feel?

Many of us are often cutting ourselves down. We need to focus more on what is good and then apply that positive thinking to the goals we want to achieve. For example, I would like lose 4 or 5 more pounds. Instead of thinking things like, "Oh you just had to give in to that slice of cake, didn't you?! You'll never drop those pounds!" I should focus on positive things I've already accomplished:

• I've maintained my most recent weight loss for 3 years now.
• I've completed a mini triathlon, 2 stair climb events and 2 half marathons.
• I haven't visited a fast food restaurant once in 2013 - that's 66 days and counting!
• I haven't drank soda for 12 years (except for a few mixed drinks here and there back in college).

What does your list look like? I bet your list includes things that at one point, you thought you could never do. When I was 15 years old, I couldn't run a mile in gym class without stopping to walk, and now I can run 13 miles without stopping. If there are other things I would like to change or do, I can make that happen.

The other interesting part of the Freaky Eaters show was seeing how people approached making a change. Some focused on how miserable they were going to be without their food addiction, and those people did not do as well with making a change. I know so many people like this. They focus on how deprived they are going to feel. They focus on how much they are going to miss the food. They focus on how they are going to miss the feelings they get when they eat a certain food. If you don't view your change as positive, worthwhile, or even fun, then it is not going to go well for you. Focus on how you are going to feel healthier or more energized. Focus on one change at a time, and when you've attained one goal, move on to the next. That's exactly what I did when training for my first half marathon; I focused on adding one mile at a time instead of worrying about how I would reach the end result. Change your outlook!