Home

While it was a chilly one this morning, we were fortunate to experience an absolutely stunning sunrise. While the colder winter temperatures (2.5º) may be a little challenging, once you are out of bed, the hardest part of the mornings exercise regime has been completed.

I always like to say that moving your feet that 30cm from the bed to the floor is really the hardest part of any exercise program, once you are up and about the rest is a lot easier.

One massive benefit apart from feeling great after the session is watching these amazing sunrises with crisp blue skies and the warmth of the sun filtering through the trees.

In the 5 years I have been running boot camps, I can say that I have NEVER have had one person mention that they are cold after completing the session.
Provided that you undertake a thorough warm up & stretching regime prior to engaging in intensive exercise, you body will reach operating temperature very quickly.

Unfortunately for our Melbourne water storage levels, there is very little rain to fill the catchment areas but on a positive note it makes for more rain free days for boot camp training.

Struggling with exercise motivation? Well try to treat your exercise session like a business appointment.

It was interesting when I was at a business seminar chatting to another business owner about there exercise regime. Out came the usual preamble about why they are not exercising regularly, too busy, not enough time……, well you may be familiar with the other adjectives.

My next line of questions was something apparently unrelated, “so you have business meetings/appointments” Yes, “When do you arrive to the meeting, late, on time or 5 – 10 minutes before?” 5 minutes before, “have you EVER been late to a meeting”, NO.

So when we say we don’t have enough time, tooooo busy etc, what are we really saying?
Well it’s about priorities and what weighting we give to any given activity in out lives.
Appointments maybe = $$$$, or making a good impression, keeping your job, keeping the boss happy, making sure you get the deal, keeping the client happy.

So back to why we don’t exercise, we need to give exercise a higher priority in our life and remove the negatives about why we cannot exercise, maybe it’s about being lazy or can’t be bothered. Once again it’s down to priority, if your Doctor said if you don’t lose 20kgs or improve your fitness you are going to die, then the priorities change and suddenly there is time to exercise.

This example is more about showing how priorities can change, so we need to prioritise our exercise and treat it like a business appointment.

I came across an inspirational person on 2 counts, firstly she had lost a massive amount of weight and secondly hiked up the face of Cradle Mountain in ballet type shoes.

Over a 12 month period this person through commitment and dedication went from a size 22 to size 16 in 12 months, a result of controlling her energy intake and walking regularly. An awesome achievement that demonstrates with the right mind set, anything is possible with the belief system in place.

The second part of the story is the not giving up and making do with what is available. The day before, this person went on a 6 hour hike and got blisters from her runners so not wanting to miss out on the walk to the summit of Cradle Mountain, she used her ballet style shoes to make the hike to the top. The section of track she climbed was marked “Extreme” meaning appropriate foot wear is recommended. With a top temperature of 15º and misty conditions, climbing over wet rocks is difficult at the best of times.

You can see from the photo the track follows the front of the face of the mountains in the background.

So it just goes to show that anything is truly possible is you really want to make it happen.

Like many emotions in our mind, fear is one of the stronger ones.
So often I hear the same reason for not joining our Boot camp, I’m waiting for my friend to commit, I like to train with a friend, it’s more fun with a friend etc.

There are many activities whereby sharing the experience with a friend is great but is not the core reason for achieving your goals, it’s a supportive belief that exercise cannot be performed without a friend.
Ultimately any goal that you have in life is YOUR goal and not contingent on the outcomes of other people.

Imagine if your goal is to go trekking in Nepal, you have dreamt about it for years, pictured yourself high on the mountains tops, overlooking the valleys below.
Finally it becomes a reality, you pick a time and decide to go with an organised tour company and you chat to your friend about it, you’re both excited, what an awesome adventure.

Suddenly your devastated, your friend has started a new job and can’t get the time off, something totally unexpected has now happened.
So what do you do? Pursue you dream as your friend is understanding and doesn’t won’t to stop you pursing your dream or do you wait for another window of opportunity to travel with your friend?

But if we dig a little dipper to determine what is driving these outcomes, probably fear may be lurking in the depths of our mind; fear of commitment, of discomfort, performance anxiety, meeting strange people, making changes to your lifestyle.

What we need to do is change our belief system that we can exercise to achieve our goals and we will be successful.

So maybe fear is not the only reason but something to consider when you are held back from achieving your goals.