Among people who do struggle with weight loss, how do they stay motivated when they fall off the wagon?
Successful people average about 6 to 7 times of trying and failing – losing the weight only to have it return, or changing the behavior only to slide back. Change is hard and it’s hard for a reason. You migrate to certain behaviors in your life for a reason and those reasons come back: You’re in a bad relationship, you don’t like your career, or you regret some of the choices you made early on. Those are tough things and, essentially, you’re re-wiring yourself.
Many people have things happen in early life, for example, someone in authority reinforces that you’re not good enough or you’re not deserving of good things. They are basically wiring that child to continue believing he or she is not good enough. To re-wire that is difficult as an adult and you’ll find ways to sabotage it if your core belief is that you’re not deserving of love or happiness.
In this re-wiring, you make a change and, temporarily, you’re excited because the scale is moving, but that wears thin. The real change requires other life adjustments and you don’t know how it’s going to wear you down. You’re going to be tested on every change you make and that’s part of the process. One change might have 6 other life complications attached to it and, most likely, you are going to try something and fail a few times. Then you readjust and make the real change which was at the heart of it.
What are you proudest of in your fitness career?
Pride isn’t my favorite word, but I think one of the reasons most of us go into this field is the moment when someone has that revelation and you, in a small way, contributed to that. I think it’s a mistake to think you caused that to happen, but maybe you facilitated that. That’s one of the greatest things in life, when you know you helped someone make a major change.
What is your overall philosophy when it comes to health?
We all have the ability to positively change our lives in an unlimited fashion. If you believe that, you can improve your life. There are also unlimited ways to derail your life as well. If you can understand that premise, then you will wake up each day and you will find ways to have your best life.
With your busy life, what is your biggest struggle when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle?
The word struggle is a funny thing for me. It reminds me of training Oprah for a marathon a number of years ago. It’s hard, training someone who to this day hates exercise -- and she’ll be the first to tell you that. I remember her frustration about all the hours we had to put in to complete that marathon. First of all, she’d just lost all this weight, down from 240 pounds, and now she had to train for a marathon. One day we’re putting in the miles and she says, “This is such a struggle, this is such a struggle. Why does it have to be this hard?” I said, “First off, why are you viewing it as a struggle?” She told me, “The people you work with, they view this as a struggle. I’m representative of most of the people you’re working with.” That was a point well taken, but I said as long as you view this as a struggle and not something benefiting your life, you’re always going to struggle with this. You viewing improving your life as a struggle is what’s holding you back.
That’s why I don’t like the word "struggle," but what I do find challenging is having a family along with the commitments that prevent me from spending time with them. I get to spend more time with my kids than many fathers, but making that work with the commitments I’ve made professionally and to other people is the hardest part. It’s tough when I have to go away, but I have a newborn or a two-and-a-half-year-old who is dependent on me. It’s really tough if I go out on the road for 3 weeks, but I’m working through that. I do it actively and I practice what I preach every day. I wake up and ask myself how I can accomplish what I want, which is to spend time with my family.
What do you do with your family to stay active together?
We’re in Hawaii right now, so I take my daughter in this stroller I love – it’s a 4-wheel-drive stroller called a BOB Stroller (it’s not because it’s mine or related to me in any way, but I love it) and I push my daughter up these crazy hills out here, which is a tough workout. My wife and I go together on a 6-mile loop to the park. We take my daughter with us and we play on the swings, making her a part of it. We find creative ways to exercise with the kids whenever we can.
