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SPRING FITNESS CHALLENGE: Week 3 Goals

Our theme this week is: INTENSITY.

Once again, I got up as the sun was rising this morning for my A.M. Power Walk. It felt great! It was chilly, but it’s definitely Springtime. Everything is budding & blooming. There are splashes of yellow, pink, & purple in the grass & on the trees. Such a lovely time of year.

As I walked, these colourful signs of life motivated me to give it my all. I thought of the incredible amount of energy that it takes for all of the flowers & the trees to bring forth their beauty. I remembered that that same energy exists within me. The same silent, invisible energy that pushes the petals open is the same energy that pushes the blood through my veins.

“…the spirit reveals itself to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only warriors are consistently attuned to such revelations.” —Carlos Castaneda

This thought inspired me and I pushed myself further and harder as I moved—tighten the core, swing the arms, squeeze the glutes. Just by observing nature and staying committed to my goals, I am bringing more INTENSITY into my personal FITNESS CHALLENGE this week. We’re nearly halfway through now. No matter what challenges we are facing, let’s make Week 3 the most intense, productive, and positive week yet!

Goals for the Week
The challenge this week is going to be to find new and exciting ways to keep our energy levels up and bring more intensity into our challenge. While this goal ties all of us together, we also have our own unique individual goals. My main goal for the next 60 days is to lose 8 pounds. Each week I also share my weekly individual goals.

“Your intensity & determination to succeed lies first within your mind and then within your heart. Utilize both your mind & body to attain your goals, and you will be triumphant.”

Here are my goals for this week:

  • Five minute meditation each morning before I do anything else
  • A.M. Power Walk: Monday – Friday
  • Intermittent Daily Fasting: every day
  • No fried food (except for stir fry)
  • No eating out (I am joining my friend & fellow challenge participant, Brad, in his challenge to stop eating out so much in April)
  • Lose 2 pounds

Intermittent Daily Fasting (IDF) Update
So far my IDF experiment has been going really well! I have lost 1.5 pounds since I began late last week and I haven’t changed the foods that I’m eating or the amount of exercise that I’m doing. It has been easier than I anticipated, too.

With IDF, I eat all of my meals for the day (usually two + a snack) between 12 noon and 8:00 P.M. I do find that I am hungry in the mornings, but it’s completely tolerable and tends to fade so long as I keep busy. I’ll let you guys know how it progresses. I’m going to stick with this for awhile.

Accountability Pictures
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve embarked on plenty of fitness challenges in the past. Many of my efforts failed because of my lack of accountability. This challenge is different because I am 100% accountable to the other challenge participants and to my entire Evolution You community!

Here are my Week 1 vs. Week 3 “Accountability Pictures”.

There is no doubt about it, I am starting to see positive change! I’ve already started to notice my clothes fitting better, too. 🙂 Remember, if you want to post your own Accountability Pictures, head over to the forum and get to posting!

Call to Action

“Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them—a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina. They have to be a little faster. They have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.” —Muhammad Ali

I love this Muhammad Ali quote. I love that he acknowledges that champions are not made in gyms. It is so true! Being a champion is about living with INTENSITY every second of the day: in the gym, in the kitchen, in the car, everywhere. It does not mean that we have to run ourselves ragged. It just means that we have to be present, aware, and focused about every action that we take.

Good luck this week, friends! Let me know how your personal challenge is going so far.

In love & light,
Dena

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    Tired of Conflict Bringing You Down?

    Dealing With Conflict

    Conflict takes many forms—misunderstanding, frustration, ignorance, hatred, envy, and so on—but despite the cause, the result is largely the same: someone walks away with hurt feelings.

    The truth is, however, that this is not necessary. You can choose to be unaffected by conflict. It is not an easy thing to accomplish. You have, after all, lived your life believing that conflict equals pain. But with practice & patience you can learn to live above conflict in a place of true peace.

    “True peace can not be disturbed by gain or loss.”

    The reason that conflict hurts us is because we allow it to. Most pain comes from another person(s) or from our own minds. The key to being unaffected by conflict is to understand that anything that another person says to us (out of anger, frustration, etc.) is actually a reflection of her feelings about herself and is rooted in fear. Likewise, anything that our mind says to us (self-criticism, self-hatred, etc.) is also rooted in fear. All forms of discomfort—sadness, anxiety, worry, rage, hatred, envy, and so on—are rooted in fear.

    When you accept that angry words are actually reflections of fear, it makes them much less painful to tolerate. Even the angriest and most cruel of arguments is based in fear & insecurity.

    For example, you have a large project due at work. You bring it into your boss’s office an hour prior to the deadline. She notices that it is riddled with errors. Her face turns red and she begins to scream. “You idiot! How could you be so stupid? This is unacceptable. I can not believe I ever hired you. Get out!”

    On one hand, you are devastated. Her words have stung you at your core. You are insulted, sad, angry, afraid. But if you really stop to analyze the situation, why do you think she acted this way? Most likely, she is afraid. Most likely, she is terrified about the way that your “failure” is going to reflect on her. After all, wasn’t it her who hired you, gave you this assignment, failed to give you proper instruction, and so on? What will her boss think when she turns this project into him? Her explosion was based in fear.

    Another example, it is Saturday afternoon and you are sitting on the couch. Your husband comes in the door and notices that you have not swept the floors. He begins to speak angrily, “Haven’t you swept the floors? Didn’t you see this dirt? You’ve been so lazy recently.” You are crushed and devastated. How could he be so mean? But then again, you stop and analyze. The lawn is not mowed, the gutters are uncleaned, there are piles of crap strewn about the yard. Your husband is insecure about all of his unfinished chores and is projecting his self-frustration onto you. His remarks were based in fear and insecurity.

    If you take the time to truly analyze, you will find that almost every conflict is rooted in fear. Therefore, the vast majority of hurtful things that are ever said to you actually have absolutely nothing to do with you. This is an incredibly liberating concept (not to be confused with the rare scenario when you are actually wrong by the way). Still, just because the other person’s (or even your own self-inflicted) anger is based in fear, that still doesn’t make it right. Yes, perhaps both your boss and your husband were entirely out of line. It is alright for you to tell them so, but what is more important is the way that you process the conflict within yourself.

    Most people internalize the conflict. In any case, you take what was said and push it deep within yourself. Perhaps you believe the other person words. “Yes, I am lazy, stupid, ugly, etc.” The conflict turns into emotional pain and festers within you eventually becoming depression, anxiety, and so on. But as I mentioned at the start, none of that is necessary.

    You must accept the conflict (words) for what they are—someone else’s (or even your own mind’s) fears and insecurities. Fear is nothing to be afraid of or affected by. Most fear is completely unnecessary (read more about that).

    After the conflict, words, and judgments have passed, simply allow all of it to pass through and around you like water or air. Understand that it is something outside of you, that has nothing to do with you at all. It is not inside of you, it did not come from you, and you do not have to absorb it. Simply let it pass and then move on.

    Holding onto the pain of conflict is insane and unnatural. What do the birds do after the great storm has passed? They sing, of course! You will never hear the birds singing so sweetly and so loudly as they do after the storm has passed and the sun shines again. They do not mourn the broken nest, the wet feathers, or the lost supper. They simply sing and praise the light in gratitude. They rejoice that the sun has come again.

    In his book, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle talks about his observation of duck fights. Two ducks approach one another. They squawk in anger for mere seconds. Then they turn away from one another, flap their great wings a few times, and swim on as if it never happened. This is true wisdom, true peace, in action. There is so much that we can learn from this simple observation.

    There is really no need to hold onto anger or discomfort. There is really no need to suffer. In life, you will find many reason to suffer. But a good reason to suffer, you will never find. Let conflicts pass through and around you. Do not hold onto them. You will almost always find that it never has anything to do with you anyway.

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    My Journey to Financial Freedom | Part 1: The Fall

    Three years ago, I was nearly $60,000 in debt. I had a Bachelor’s degree that didn’t appear to be worth its weight in salt and a job that couldn’t cover a fraction of my monthly bills. I was terrified.

    Today, I am closer to complete financial freedom than I ever dreamed possible. Last week, I paid off my last remaining credit card balance. This two-part post is a celebration of this incredible milestone in my journey.

    In part one, I will explain how I got to that terrible place. In part two, I will explain how I’m getting out of it (and how you can do it, too).

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    A financial prison is the worst sort of prison to be stuck in. A financial prison does not have steel bars or a prison warden. You will not get sent to financial prison for committing a crime. There is only one person that can sentence you to financial prison. That person is you.

    There are two primary types of financial prisoners:

    1. There are those in financial prison who got there because they truly did not know any better. This type eventually realizes the error of their ways and breaks free.

    2. There are those who knowingly commit themselves to financial prison. This type is well aware of the consequences of living beyond her means; but she does it anyway.

    Of course there are also those who fall somewhere in the middle, like me… (Cue dream sequence.) It all started when I was 18. The guidance counseling systems in my high school and college were either completely inadequate or I simply refused to pay attention. I can’t honestly remember which it was, though I think it was the former. Either way, I was screwed.

    Before me, no one in my family had ever been to college so I didn’t receive much advice. I was thrilled to be out of high school and ready for the next step. I took my SATs one time and applied to one school. My parents, being average folks, made just enough money to prevent me from receiving financial aid; but not enough money to be able to pay my full tuition. For me, this meant loans: “lovely” student loans from “lovely” Sallie Mae.

    My mother co-signed and it was a cinch from there. Each semester I filled out a relatively simple form and like magic, Sallie Mae sent me a check. In fact, Sallie Mae was so generous that they allowed me to take out as much “extra” money as I needed every semester. It was fantastic! Yes, I had money to pay for books, meals, and extra curricula. I also had money to go out and binge drink, buy clothes I didn’t need, designer purses, and more. Sallie Mae was wonderful to me. And the best part if it was that there was no need for discussion. No one guided me, no one advised me, and no one asked me any questions. I showed up at the financial aid office a couple of times each year and it was always smooth sailing.

    On top of that, another great thing happened when I was 18! The credit card companies started to send me applications. And that was just as easy. I got one and then another and then another. Whatever I couldn’t cover with those pretty little checks from Sallie Mae, I could simply charge on my credit cards. College was good to me. I joined a sorority, I partied hard, I shopped until I dropped. What more could a girl ask for?

    It wasn’t all fun & games though. I worked through college. I worked at a children’s camp each summer; I was a Spanish teacher for two years; and toward the end of my college career I was a bookseller at Borders bookstore. All of the money I made working was spending money for me. I had Sallie Mae and the credit cards to pay all of my “real” bills.

    When I finally graduated, I was making a cool $8.25 an hour at Borders. I loved it. I was happy… until one day, out of no where, a letter came in the mail. I had a six month grace period and then I would have to start paying back those loans. My paychecks barely covered my minimum credit card payments. How was I going to make loan payments on top of that?

    So I sat down and did something that I’d never done before. I wrote up a budget. It was horrifying when I realized that even if I’d had no other bills, my monthly wages from Borders wouldn’t even cover half of my monthly student loan payments. The jig was up.

    All told, I came out of college with about $45,000 in student loan debt and almost $15,000 in credit card debt. I hadn’t even lived on campus; I commuted from home; my parents paid for some of my tuition; and I only went to a mediocre school. How the hell was this possible?

    All of a sudden Sallie Mae and the credit card companies didn’t seem so lovely anymore. There was one thought that kept repeating over & over in my head: Why didn’t anyone warn me? I felt cheated, betrayed, angry, afraid, and helpless. I wondered what the people in the financial aid office had been doing all that time. I wondered why my high school guidance counselor didn’t press me harder about applying for scholarships or grants. I wondered a lot of things, but mostly I wondered how the hell I was going to get out of the mess.

    I started sending out resumes for jobs with starting salaries that would at least cover my monthly student loan payments. I sent out resume after resume but before long, I realized another harsh reality. That Bachelor’s Degree in English with a Creative Writing Focus wasn’t so great either. Nobody was calling me back. I couldn’t even get an interview.

    The clock was ticking. I was halfway through my grace period. Then one day, one of my best friends mentioned an opening in her office. I looked over the job description and realized that it had nothing to do with what I’d gone to school for. I didn’t even know what it actually was, but the starting salary was more than what I needed. The rest was history.

    I’ve been at my current company for almost three years now. And yesterday I paid off my last remaining credit card balance! Additionally over these few years, I’ve cut my student loan debt almost in half and by next Winter, I will have it down to a quarter of what I started with.

    Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, where I will share how I am doing it and how you can do it, too.

8 Comments

  1. You’re doing great, just be carful not to go too hard in the morning without eating a little something after the power walk. The IDF works fine, but, you may want to consider the snack part in the mid morning so your energy levels don’t fall off too much. If the body thinks it is hungry, it will store fat to protect itself.

    Love the courage you have to post photos of the week to week improvement, very neat and yes, we can see a difference. keep up the great work as you keep us on our toes and inspired as well.

    Reply

    1. @ Lou – Thanks so much for the feedback. I really appreciate your sharing your knowledge. 🙂 Also, YES!, I can’t believe that I’ve got the courage to post the “Accountability Pictures.” I was so incredibly nervous before I posted the first set, but it’s like pulling off a band-aid. You just gotta do it!

      Hope your week is off to a great start.

      Reply

  2. Dena, there are some visible differences between your week 1 and week 3 photos. The fact that you look great has stayed the same, however. Congratulations for sticking to your goals so far. Keep it up!

    IDF would not work for me. I am so accustomed to eating 5-6 small meals throughout the day and honestly, I feel great doing this. I tried IDF for a few months, but had a wider window (10 hours rather than 8) and I just could not fast for that long without feeling miserable, knobby-kneed, etc. I’m glad it’s working for you, though. As far as diet selection and meal timing, it’s all about what feels best. 🙂 I need to feed myself in small amounts constantly throughout the day, but I didn’t know that until I tried A LOT of other options.

    Lovelovelove. It was good to hear your voice today, albeit briefly!

    Reply

    1. @ Kristin – Thank you so much for taking notice of the differences. I can see them – however small – progress is progress. 🙂 I lost another 1/2 pound this morning. Yippee!

      Yes. For a long time I subscribed to 5-6 small meals per day, too. That is what Matthew does currently, too. When I was very active, it worked extremely well for me. Currently, however, my activity is minimal. Light stretching during the day + my morning power walk. So, IDF is working really well! If I pick up/increase my routine (Matthew is thinking of getting a membership at my gym) I may have to reconsider.

      I’ll keep everyone posted. It was so good to hear your voice, too. XO

      Reply

  3. Brad checking in…finally! 🙂

    Okay so this week I have struggled a bit with discipline. I haven’t really done bad, but I definitely could have done better. Just not counting calories, and have worked out hardly at all.

    On the other hand I am getting ready to start a 90 day program called Rev Abs from Beachbody that is going to kick my ass into shape. It uses breathing techniques that causes you to fire up your abs with every move and uses a martial arts style called Capoeira that is awesome to watch in action.

    Anyway, for the first 14 days I will be on a very strict eating plan. No starchy carbs, no sugar, no soda, no dairy, low sodium etc. Lots of water and of course Shakeology which I can’t say enough good things about. 🙂

    A part of me has slacked off a bit and I think it’s because I know things are about to get real strict for 14 days. I want to maximize my results and I have a financial blogger conference to attend in Chicago in October and want to look my best. 🙂 I even bought some ice cream tonight and I LOVE LOVE LOVE milk so not having milk is going to be tough!

    This is my weekend of relaxation and Monday there’s gonna be no stopping me! 🙂

    Reply

  4. Haha! You can tell I’m out of sorts. I went on a dairy rant right after saying I need to get in shape for the conference. LOL

    The funny thing is I haven’t had ice cream in almost 2 months so I don’t know why 14 days scares me so much. No MILK?? Aghhhhhh! LOL

    Reply

  5. Dena – You ought to give P90X a try (or any of the other many home fitness products available). Gym memberships are so expensive and inconvenient if you ask me. I promise you that if you did 90 days of P90X you would be right where you want to be.

    P90X is 3 days of strength training (different muscle regions) and ab ripper x, plyometrics – one day, kenpo X – one day, and the hour and a half of yoga I think you would rock at! On the seventh day you can rest of do a stretch routine that really works nicely.

    P90X uses muscle confusion and variety to keep your body from hitting the plateau most people hit after a few weeks. The programs have you hitting it hard for 3 weeks and then the recovery week before hitting it again. I can’t wait to start P90X again after my shoulder heals from my injury (non P90X related). I wanted to cry when my therapist told me no more upper body workouts. LOL

    Anyway, I saw your comment about maybe joining a gym so I thought I would try yo talk you out of it. 🙂 I’ve personally spent a lot of money on gym memberships but I have never been as satisfied as I was when I was doing P90X. There’s nothing like it!

    Reply

    1. @ Brad – Thanks for checking in & letting me know about your progress. It sounds like you’ve had a tough week — just like me! (See today’s post.) The good news, however, is that we both obviously have the right attitude about moving forward! That’s what matters. 🙂

      As far as the gym membership goes… I already have a gym membership. Planet Fitness is the only gym I’d even consider. It is only $10 a month. My fiance, Matthew, is thinking about joining with me. If he does, I’ll keep the membership. (He is a free personal trainer for me!) But if he doesn’t, I’ll definitely cancel and stick with at-home workouts. Both work well for me. For me it’s really about JUST DOING IT whether at home or in the gym. But as far as the anti-gym mentality — when it comes to most gyms I am on the same page as you. When I hear of people spending $50+ a month on a gym membership it makes me crazy. (Even sadder, I used to be one of those people…)

      Alright, Brad. Here’s to Week 4 of this Challenge. Let’s kick some bootie! 😉

      Reply

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