Plant. Cultivate. Harvest. - Decide. Commit. Succeed.

I've been in the fitness industry for over 6 years now, and the amount of people who give up on their fitness goals always amazes me.  You would think that I'd be used to it by now, but I always hold out hope when a friend or client of mine makes the decision to get back in shape.  The odds are stacked against most people though.  And I can tell you it has nothing to do with genetics, gender, age, positive thinking, negative thinking, rewards, feeling deprived or any of the other excuses that I have heard or read.

I started reading "The Slight Edge," by Jeff Olson. It arrived in the mail yesterday and I was eager to start reading it.  The book 's subtitle is "Secret to a $uccessful Life." Yes, the "S" in "successful" is actually a "$"sign.  I knew a lot of people reading the book and the reviews were pretty good. But what I didn't know is that the author was going to tackle health and fitness and why some people will succeed, but most will fail and give up.

Again, this isn't about positive thinking or imagining our way to the perfect body, perfect life, perfect bank  account. I actually did read a book once that said if you picture yourself healthy and thin, you will become healthy and slim. Yeah, right! Or other books will tell you that if you think positively about exercise and getting healthy, you will want to do it more often.  But realistically we can't be positive 24/7. We're going to have bad days, and days where we'd rather not exercise or eat right.

In the book it says "We plant the seed by joining the gym, and then we get frustrated when a few days go by and there's no fitness harvest." OMG, this is so true. We want to plant the seed and go right to the harvest.  We expect that if we just jump on the treadmill for a week or start our first week of P90X we should see results now.  We want results after only 2 days of eating healthier. 

Our problem is that we're such an instant gratification society, that we forget it takes time to cultivate our "harvest."  In this case I'm talking our "fitness harvest." But this is also true with relationships, money, learning a new skill, paying off debt, etc... We have the good intention of starting something good, but if we don't see the results that day, we want to quit.

And as the author states, the results of quitting aren't very dramatic either, which makes it easy to do.  You're not going to drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow, if you decide to stop your exercise or eating right. But over time, if you continue to do so, it will happen.  But its the same with deciding to stick to a plan and cultivate it. You won't get that body you've been dreaming about right away, or your cholesterol might not go down yet, but in time will happen.

Too many times I've heard from people that they've been doing a week of P90X or Insanity and they don't notice any changes. Or they've started eating right (for a few days) and they still weight the same.  This always send up a red flag to me, because if they can't keep their focus on the unseen, big prize ahead of them, they may never make it there.

As Beachbody says, " DECIDE. COMMIT. SUCCEED."

So how about you? I'd love to hear your feedback, thoughts or questions.  You can leave a comment here or you can email me at fitwithjessica@live.com.