Nobody will sympathize with a person
who constantly lets chances pass by
without making any efforts to salvage them.

We normally don’t realize how important our loved and close ones are until they leave us,
and then we start regretting, which results in misery.

Lost time is NEVER gained again

When I come across this above phrase, what comes into my mind – WHY? WHY we wait until we are sick (diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure ….etc) or lost of your loved ones (friends & family members) leave you before we realized the importance of health in terms of healthy lifestyle (exercises and food). Sigh!

Some ask me why I have not do my ‘assignment’ like a good student as before or why I did not come to workout last Tuesday.

My answer as below:

What is motivation? What will make you ‘volition’ – What about loss of a parent last Tuesday due to illness (for not leading a healthy lifestyle)or loss of a team members (Hazli) or a ‘illness victim’ for not eat proper and exercise proper.

NO EXCUSE FOR NOT LEADING A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE – Be late than never as you don’t want be the one like me or at the same situation like me. HELP YOURSELF AS WELL AS OTHERS by being a model and motivate other to lead a healthy lifestyle.

P/s If you happen to see me at any LTW sessions, please do not give me any concerns …….. I may not able to take it and breakdown. Thanks. It takes me a lot of effort/emotional to share the above.

I also noted that some of our campers is slightly down. Not so “high” as we first join. I think we must go back to our CHEER !! Cheer every station before we leave, this Cheer will bring up the “high” fighting spirit to start again in another station. Don’t you think so ?? Do you all agree with me ??…. Sham…Zhywee…

I feel it myself. When we are doing the exercise we join in the counting/ shouting /mentally we forget how tired we are, this will make us move on. But last week I noted many of us do it so quietly….. feeling so down… down…. (only the Trainer do the counting and talking)

The Best Part is Most of us completed 5 sets of the insanity Zhywee instructed us on the insanity Exercise. I can see most of our members from Bravo 1 & 2 take up the challenge to complete 5 sets. YESSS !!! Bravo 1 & 2 KEEP IT UP !!! lets show Alpha we can do it. Slow never mind at least we complete.

BOOTCAMPERS !! days passes very fast we are getting nearer to 22nd May, our 4th Assessment… Lets enjoy the fun, put in 100% of all our energy till the end !!

Honestly, honest, I had my downside since my personal loss in February and depression set-in. It’s difficult to rebound.

Once LTWR started, slowly gets to my sense to do my routine exercise. Start to do my walk again and had fun last Sunday cycling from EC to Changi jetty (with stayfit group).

Prior to the loss I had good time doing TRX suspension training it really rawks. Hope I can do it very very soon again – Trainers please don’t give up on me !

Mental block, emotional downside is my worst enemy to fight now.

Anna Ahmad

I don’t really enjoy the 1st workout on 24.04.10, perhaps the floor was dirty and wet, but it was perfectly ok and all right after that and so much Fun on last Tue, Azmi really can shake and I believed all, including Mr Lam enjoy the workout on last Sat as well.

Average i do achieved 250mins exercise per week, this included the daily jogging, climb stairs to 13 storey, morning stretching and the very fast paste Step Aerobics (1 Hr) by Dee Dee on Sunday morning.

My boss mentioned to me since i have attended the LTW program, why don’t we organize some jogging or brisk walk session for staff and i said ok, hence we started this in Mar 10 and the distance is about 5km, location is somewhere near Bishan Park. I am also having fun and more family bonding with my kids as i always share and demonstrate to them on what ever i learn on every session.

Last but not least, many thanks to Heather Lee for sharing with us on all information about “Pedometer”, it is very useful for those who intend to buy one.

Cheers.

You could say that I was momentarily stumped when I heard the secret word of the day, “Volition”. For that brief moment, I didn’t quite know what it meant. However, as Sharm went on to define the term, I realised that it was simply the more “cheem” word for the usual phrase “following through”.

Good old Dictionary.com defines Volition as such:
vo•li•tion1.
the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; exercise of willing: She left of her own volition.
2.
a choice or decision made by the will.
3.
the power of willing; will.

Sharm went on to give a few examples of how to apply “volition” in our existence. Starting with identifying the very factors that would directly conflict with one’s choice in his pursuit (e.g. laziness, comfort, lack of time etc) before talking about how important the choice to pursuit the goal while being aware of the environment you are in – i.e. if it’s raining, do static exercise at home, if it’s a hot day, go to the gym, if you’re just lazy, get a few friends.

While a 5 min pep talk probably wouldn’t do justice to all he would have loved to share, I realised that my suggestion of “reasonable expectations” was somewhat ignored =P So I shall continue on here:

Let us unpack the definition of volition further:
The main elements of pursuing a goal/objective includes:
i) identifying the goal/objective
ii) internalising the goal/objective (this is also called ownership)
iii) Carrying out the goal/objective

It is at the ii) stage where volition comes into play. There is the old phrase that ‘you can bring a horse to the water, but you cannot force it to drink’. The recognition of the individuality of a person is of equal importance as the recognition of how one’s individuality is always affected by one’s community and responsibilities.

Let me give two extreme examples of a person who wants to strive towards achieving the goal of walking the 2km test in 10mins (i.e. 2 mins a round) A person who leans heavily as being a ‘lone ranger’, would shut out all other distractions and head to the track everyday to train, (much like the professional athletes who often say that all their time goes towards training and resting) at the expense of his community. The converse would be someone who has social appointments and responsibilities, a birthday party, a baby shower, etc who ends up being unable to follow through with the training because of the presence of other competing and equally valid factors.

Of course, where most of us fall, would be somewhere in between the two. But what other factors should we consider to being volition to its fruition?

Frequent and Continued Reasonable and Realistic Expectations – Ultimate Destination
Assuming someone who had been a couch potato [i.e. never engaged in any form of exercise in his life, has a BMI of 39, has a fat percentage of 40%] for 23 years wants to turn into a professional athlete [with a BMI of 21, fat percentage of 9%] in a year’s time. Assuming that he did not take an entire year off just to pursue this goal [and even if he did], and he went through one of those empowerment courses that says “I have the power! I can do it!” let’s examine the difference when his focus is primarily on i) the ultimate destination ii) the reasonable expectation.

So he starts with the “professional athlete” image in mind, he starts the first week, dieting immensely, running intensely and simply pursing a completely different lifestyle insanely – after one week of aches, pains and bruised egos, he looks into the mirror and he sees the same self staring back at him. [Remember, he’s a couch potato who NEVER did any exercise, not some former athlete who simply slacked off his training and went to seed, for such people, give them a week and you can see results…]. His motivation might be a little affected, (or assuming he’s incredibly motivated) he pursues it for the 2nd week, he MIGHT start seeing a little change, but he’s still no where near his ultimate destination, so assuming that he starts to lose confidence and only focus on the ultimate destination, perhaps by the end of the 4th week, with competing factors, he would be back on the couch, eating potato chips.

Reasonable Expectations – two phrases “you do not build Rome in a day” and when you feed a baby do you give him the whole steak or do you break it down into bite size, mashed up, digestible bits?”

Reality and reasonableness – reality is that you wouldn’t see your ultimate destination until perhaps 5 years later. Unfortunately for us, we live in a materialistic, “instant-right-now” society. If it wasn’t the case, how is it that so many of us were conned into buying those crappy exercise machines from Sell-A-Vision, or even worst, slimming products that “promises” instant results? I dare to say, no one in any of those ads, ever went from being a true couch potato to being ripped in 30 days. And even if they did, most of them, as mentioned above, are former athletes.

We have to see ourselves as infants/babies. A reasonable expectation would probably be: I shall cut down my late night snacking from 5 times a week to 3 times a week. I shall work up a sweat/increase heart rate twice a week. I will write down my goals on a piece of paper. I shall communicate it to people around me, I shall look at it as a short term goal of 3 weeks.

3 weeks pass and we kept to it, frequent and continued reasonable expectations would include making the NEXT short term goal. Is it tiring? Yes. A suggestion? Get a small white board, hang it up in your living room and write your short term fitness goals on it. Why the living room? So that your family members can see it too. That your fitness goals would become a reality for them as well. That as you and them internalise it, it becomes part of your lifestyle. They might ask if they see you on the couch, “How many times have you been on the couch this week?” Or they might ask, “have you worked up a sweat twice this week?” But the point is to go from short term goal to the next short term goal. A very successful concept on the internet is Adam Waters’ Real Time Physical Transformation (RTP) Program where people who are pursuing a 90 days weight loss/muscle building program, post photos of themselves everyday on the internet. While I never could believe that Adam Waters’ original Day 1 to Day 2 includes him losing half his belly…I still see the advantage of his concept of…accountability.

Accountability
So you have set realistic, frequent reasonable expectations in hopes of eventually reaching the ultimate destination. What’s next is accountability. I have given two examples above of how accountability can be practically carried out – one by hanging the white board in your living room, two by posting photos of yourself on the internet daily. Of course, you could always have a group of friends (that’s why there is the term gym buddies) whom you are accountable to for your fitness goals. (And that’s why you should sign up with http://www.teamfitnessguru.com so that you can have a group you are accountable to weekly with regards to your fitness goals!)

Easier said then done. Following through would include having your accountability group to keep you in check, and you might have to keep them accountable too! Accountability groups could be see in therapy groups like alcoholic anonymous where a support group, meeting up weekly would check on the progress, defeats and victories of the group’s members.

When that day comes, 7 years down the road, when you reach your ultimate destination, you can look back and say “I was. Now I am. And I still will be. Let me help you too.” (Just go ask Azmi and he would agree with this!)

Focus
At the end of the day, it’s a mental game. Being that volition is defined as an act of will to choose/resolve, the “will” is in the mind. Focus would also include prioritising. Let me give you a very personal example. So after LTW, I reached my never before weight of 71kg. Did I keep up with the exercise? Yes I did. Did I keep up with the intensity? Nope. The bigger question is, did I keep up with the diet? (This is where I try to find a hole to bury myself). Somewhere around Feb/March, with the pressures of the reunion show on the horizon (and not wanting to disappoint HPB (and wanting to give them something which they can proudly put in their assessment report of the LTW programme) and all you guys!), and with the pants growing tighter again, I started to arrest the problem again at 77kgs. Where did my focus go post Oct 31st? Month of Nov – Bar exams, Dec – March – intensive attachment program which is still going on. But mostly, back to late night snacking (I would attempt to run back home, run into little India and buy a naan before taking a bus back) Comparing exercise to dieting, I would say that dieting is the greater of the two evils, yet it’s common nutritional science that weight management is 80% diet.

However, there is a difference this time round – I knew that because I did it ONCE with LTW, I could do it again. That my friends, is actualisation. Pre- LTW, I had wrote that I never saw myself ever being able to lose weight in Singapore. LTW debunked that myth that I had internalised. I knew that it would be tough, but arresting it before it became even tougher was the plan. Taking my focus back and doing remedial measures, I’m back on track again, and it did take some 1.5 months to warm back into the swing of things, the challenge of course, is this time round, my main goal lies in this one word:

Sustainability.

Conclusion
Volition on its own, is probably like someone saying that he wants to fly like superman, only to fine that jumping out of the window with a blanket for a cape results in…a sad situation. The act of will must be buffered with tangible, reasonable and realistic expectations in the goals and objective set. A sustainable, frequent and continual setting of such short term goals is once again vital to the success of any program. Take it one step at a time. Cool it if your neighbour has something that you don’t. You are running your own race. Focus on your lane.

1) What do you thoughts on the workouts done (Reunion workouts) so far

It was more fun than the last boot camp as Team Fitness Guru have introduced more variety into the training – like flow Fit. Athough it was tougher than last boot camp (Flow Fit) because I cannot coordinate lah!

As for the Tuesday, I love it so much and look forward towards it on every Tuesday – after the 1st session – Kickboxing (27/4). I believe the others are like me too. I like the Hip Hop and Yoga conducted yesterday, although I cannot do all the action well.

2) How you can achieve your 150 minutes minimum a week? [Week 1 task – 24/4 – 30/04]

To clock in 150 minutes (2.5 hrs) was not a problem for me as I have joined both LTW as well Kfels boot camp (SHED), which allowed me a minimum of 4 hours for both activities. In addition, I also joined brisk walk club weekly (approximately 1.5 – 2km) + Jurong Point Mall Walk (1.6km) and other HPB activities like Fitness @ work, Total Fit, etc whenever I am free.

3) How you can achieve your 10, 000 steps daily [Week 2 task – 1-7/5/10]

To hit 10, 000 steps daily by taking extra detour in terms of alighting early and walk home, take stairs instead of lift, go further away toilet instead of the nearest, take more trips in carry/transport files rather use trolley to transport them, make more marketing trips to NTUC instead of weekly marketing, etc.

4) What you see in others that’s inspiring during our sessions?

To see the others (bootcampers/camrode again) still working towards ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ by doing exercise, made me feel that I am not alone striving towards my weight losing goals. Of course, in the midst, we grow/ expand and meet plateau in our weight loss.

With this reunion, meeting our trainers and with the new set of training method, believe we are back in line after the training. Looking forward to losing some more weight and the tough training to keep in line, of course to see the next award winners (to motivate me to the next plateau and learn from them the determination to achieve their goals).

Not forgetting to see them after half year separation even though some of us are linked by Face book.

P/s Dear Comrades, please be my face book friend – so that we can keep update on each other and motivate each other [Look for ‘Heather Lee’ and the same cute profile picture show in this comment page. Thanks]

Last Saturday, Sharm mentioned regarding Pedometer, the following for your information

1) Omron Step pedometer HJ 005 [$19.25] – only count steps only
2) Omron Step pedometer HJ 109 [$27.80] – Count steps & calories and fat burned
3) Omron walking sytle[$40.65] – clip st bags or pocket

If you questions to ask me regarding the item 1 & 2, I may be can helps you not item 3 – because I do not owe one before.

cherio. Happy counting steps – 10, 000 steps/day.

p/s Some guideline for you – if you stay at 8th floor = about 200 steps climbing up/down and 2500 steps about 1km.

see ya all this Sat Esplanade 9am…selamat..

Azlin

You all look fabulous. We are so glad to see most of u hv maintained n some even look fitter than us :p EXCELLENT JOB!!! Kudos to All Of U.

Anyway, for your homework as instructed, take a little step at a time. Take every opportunity to make u move to reach 150mins per week or 10000 per day.

Cheerios
Lisa J