You name it, I'm doing it. I've been a certified personal trainer since 2007, a licensed Captain with the U.S. Merchant Marine since 2009, have B.S. degrees in business, biology, education, and am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution. I am a high school science teacher and crew a ship for DHS.
My schedule is understandably full, which leaves me very little time to work
You name it, I'm doing it. I've been a certified personal trainer since 2007, a licensed Captain with the U.S. Merchant Marine since 2009, have B.S. degrees in business, biology, education, and am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution. I am a high school science teacher and crew a ship for DHS.
My schedule is understandably full, which leaves me very little time to work out. In response, I have developed a personal routine that I am able to get through in 30-40 minutes a day, and is strong enough to either maintain or improve my physique in the process. I say "either" because the other variables in the equation are diet, of course, and intensity. My diet is fairly constant; I eat healthy, but I also eat what I want. If I want to have a bag of pop corn at the movies, stop for fast food, or eat the fried shrimp basket and fries, I will with no fear of seeing it appear elsewhere.
So, that leaves "intensity." Intensity in the workout is probably the most forgotten aspect of working out, and can mean the difference in slaving away for 90 minutes a day and not seeing results, to seeing drastic changes from only a 30 minute, thrice a week routine. Intensity is one of the reasons fad workouts like P90x work for people, is that it forces you to keep up your intensity. People don't realize how important the mind is in physical training; if the mind is not there, and is looking forward to the end, the body follows. I could get into the physiological reasons why intensity in exercise is vastly superior to "going through the motions," but I'll save that discussion for my classroom. Suffice to say, that if you jumped rope with intensity, you could see losses in fat and gains in self esteem, as with pretty much every workout there is.
I've never used any of the fad workout routines, nor do I ever plan to. My routines work more than fine for both my clients and myself. Hard work, dedication, and intensity are what is needed to shed fat and improve self-esteem, not idolization of a fitness deity. Health is a lifestyle, not a fad, so fitness should also be a lifestyle, incorporating every aspect of one's life, not just the latest and greatest workout regimen.
To everyone who has ever lost a pound of fat, dropped a dress size, looked in the mirror one day and finally liked what they saw, or just felt better with themselves after a workout: YOU did it, not someone on the TV, not your personal trainer. YOU lifted that weight the extra rep, YOU ran that extra mile, YOU did those extra 10 situps. What it comes down to is summoning the mental strength in order to improve the physical, needing the mental intensity in order to push the physical. At the end of the day, the personal responsible is YOU and only YOU, so if you don't feel proud of yourself, you should. No one is going to lose the weight for you, you have to do it.
