Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Breaking Your Limitations


No matter what your fitness goals are, do you put in just enough effort to maintain or do you take it beyond your comfort zone to be extraordinary? If you want to be great, you have to push your mind and body beyond your limitations.
You wouldn’t know it by looking at me that I have asthma and I’m also allergic to my cats. My symptoms of asthma and cat allergies are: wheezing and shortness of breath. How does this affect my workout? I have two choices:
1) Avoid my cardio exercises all together in fear of an asthma attack.
Or
2) Push myself beyond my own limitations.
Having asthma and cat allergies, running would be the most challenging to me. Instead of replacing running with an easier exercise, I choose to master it.
As a society, we have hundreds of reasons not to workout but you only need one good reason to workout and that is to be healthy. I can pity myself for not having perfect lungs by not exercising but I choose not to. In fact, I use that weakness to motivate me to be stronger. Amongst other exercises, I jog 4 miles every other day and over time, I’ve trained my body and lungs to the point where I have so much control and endurance. Cardio is by far my top workout as it builds up my endurance and nothing is better to me than a runner’s high.
At home, I have my 2 cats that I’m allergic to plus my asthma, which makes it even harder for me to breath when I jog. I normally jog a 10 minutes mile, it takes me 40 minutes to complete my 4 miles jog. When I do my home workouts, it takes me longer but I don’t avoid it just because it’s harder and uncomfortable. My lungs work extra hard having the cats around. But no matter how long it takes to complete my 4 miles, I just do it! I’ll stop and walk if I need allowing me to catch my breath but I would never compromise my workout just because I have a less than perfect lungs. I give it my best effort and I improve upon it. I fight to become great.
The way I see it, you can train your mind and body to break your limitations. You have two choices, push yourself and become extraordinary or you can just be average. The choice is yours.

Self Motivation


Here’s an excerpt on motivation from my upcoming fitness book:
GET THE BODY YOU WANT!
Finding motivation is difficult for most people.  I found my self-motivation at a very young age.  I was an immigrant at 7 yrs. old living in the United States, and if being poor isn’t enough, I did not speak any English nor did I understand the western culture.  I remembered when I was in first grade, I was always the last kid to be picked for a team sport because I was the smallest in size and didn’t understand the game or sport.  Like most immigrant families to this country, we were extremely poor.  I remembered going to school dressing like a little tomboy and my clothing and shoes never quite fit me properly.  It was probably a good thing that I didn’t understand what the other kids were saying but no matter what language we speak, teasing is universal.  I could tell that I was being made fun of.  It wasn’t until I was in fourth grade and after taking a few years of ESL (English as a second language) classes, I began to get the hang of things.  I worked really hard to learn the language and practiced the games/sports and was learning to adapt to the western culture.
Fast forward to my high school years, I was still the smallest in size but I was the captain of ever team sport in my Physical Education classes.  I’m proud to say that I have never lost a game and we always won with at least double the opponent’s score with me scoring at least half of the winning points.  I never let my size stop me from participating in any sport or anything else for that matter.  If it wasn’t for the lack of support from my family, I might have pursued a profession in sports.  Sadly, because of the cultural difference, I was brought up that sports were only for boys.  I was not allowed to participate in any extra after school sports.  No matter what obstacles my life had taken me, my passion for fitness never died but was simply on hold.
Nevertheless, not wanting to be the last to be picked for a team sport gave me my motivation.  I knew how it felt to be an outcast.  It’s awful but in some sense I’m glad to have gone through my experiences early on as it made me into the strong person that I am today.  Life is not always easy when you’re dealt a bad hand but you have two choices, you can either be a victim of your surroundings or you can be a survivor.  Our greatest tragedy sometimes can be the motivating force to achieve greatness.
My experience is no different from you wanting to reach your weight or fitness goals.  You can do it if you work hard and put your mind into it. I truly believe that if you want something badly enough, you can achieve it.  Sometimes your pain or humiliation can be the motivating force to change your life and truly that’s what I did.  If you have ever been teased, stared at or laughed at because of your appearance, use it to fuel your motivating force. Your natural and first reaction is anger but try not to react, use that energy and choose to take action instead.  By reacting to anger you’re allowing people to dictate your emotions and your life.  Turn a negative into a positive.  Stop feeling self-pity and do something about it. Don’t let the humiliation keep you from action. Who cares what other people think?  This is your life!  Use it as a fuel that drives you to get up earlier or take time out for yourself to work out.
I have nothing but love and encouragement and want to help you through your journey.  Find what drives you and fuel your motivation, you’ll be amazed what your body is capable of doing if you only put your mind into it.

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