What can you do?

In my last post, I spent a bit of time writing about how changing your thinking can change your life. Sounds good in theory - now how do you put it into practice?

The best thing you can do is give yourself some credit for a job well done. It may seem odd to everyone who knows me as an RPM instructor who loves to work really hard, that my first foray back into exercise was to ride an exercise bike I had hired from the local pharmacy for 5 minutes. Yes, on my first day of committing to change my lifestyle, I lasted on the bike for 5 minutes! Now rather than call myself a complete failure and imagine all these successful Lycra clad RPMers around me, I decided to simply say to myself, "nice work". This was then all I needed to hop back on the bike and try for six minutes the next day. As you all know, the rest is history!

I applied the same credit towards my changes in nutrition. I found learning to eat less carbohydrate and more protein daunting, but each time I got the balance right, I would tell myself that I'd just taken a step in the right direction. I'd praise myself for eating more vegetables - a few years ago you couldn't get me eating tomatoes and cucumbers but today, they feature in nearly every salad. I'm still working on alfalfa sprouts though!

I went back to the gym. I saw members I knew in my thinner days. Some told me I'd "gained weight" (duh!). I just put my head down and trained..."good job, another step, awesome ride.." - I would tell myself. Because, when the going got tough and I made mistakes or overate at points, I would tell myself, "this is tough, but I can do this. I'm just learning from my mistake, keep swimming!"

Then I started getting positive reinforcement from others around me. It was nice, but didn't really mean as much to me as learning to like myself the way I was at any given point in time. Sooo, don't forget to give yourself positive feedback for a job well done and remember fit, strong girls are gorgeous!

This morning I taught RPM which today was sheer hard work! This was reflected in my HR monitor stats telling me I'd burnt 550kcals in 45 minutes. Wowsa! I made a few mistakes into Track 7, but at that stage I was willing myself home (see more positive talk~) - think it's a combo of humidity and holidays :)

Best be off now. As our dear Rae says, "keep training hard and eating well!". Couldn't agree more really!