A 121 Degree Walk To Remember

Negative Motivation and Extreme Exercise 

Phoenix broke extreme heat records for two days in a row now, the car thermometer read 121 but the official high was registered at 116 degrees.   At around 4:00 pm today I decided that it would be a good idea to take a 44 minute outdoor walk around the neighborhood.  In case you are wondering I am okay, other than the fact that I realised that it is time to get a different pair of sneakers. 

So what motivated me to participate in this extreme cardio session?   Some people have told me that it is because I am weird and that might have something to do with it however, the real reason is because of a fellow i ran into at work today. 

I was following this fellow on the sidewalk towards the front door of my office and I was kind of in a hurry because I was running late coming back from lunch.    This gentleman was walking r e a l l l l l l y slow,  probably in his mid to late 50's, was using a cane to walk and did not appear to be healthy by any stretch of the imagination.   Normally I would get annoyed if I was being slowed down by such a fellow but today I had a different reaction.    A voice started playing in my head which said, "Jaxon, if you don't start exercising regularly and eating better this could be your future."

   

This short mental movie was enough to make me walk for almost an hour in the scorching Arizona sun.   Now it's up to me to decide weather or not I want to use this image to motivate me to move away from a destination that I do not want to arrive to. 

Moral of the story is if you need some extra motivation to work towards your exercise and fitness goals maybe you just need to observe an unhealthy individual and realise that your sound nutritional choices and diligent exercise will help you travel down a more desirable spot.    

Until we read again, 

Jaxon

Cause Someone Had A Bad Day? Day Two 88 To Go

Start with the less than perfect news and end with the better news.    Today was somewhat a nutritional bust due to stressful emotional eating, breakfast consisted of a sausage breakfast sandwich, followed by two Taco Tuesday overstuffed tacos (not too bad with the exception of the cheese and shell), supper was pretty good had some chicken soup with brown rice but I followed it up with a stress buster ice cream cone.    Which is pretty weird because I don't particularly care for sweets.     The biggest take away from this is to curb and be mindful of the emotional eating by not allowing my emotions to control my nutritional choices. 

The better news is that I completed an at-home body weight work-out that I found online.     This is a workout based on progression, I am very excited to do more.  This goes into the Progress Not Perfection that I was talking about in yesterday's post. 

I was reading the most fascinating article the other day about Roger Bannister and how he used the power of visualisation in order to be the first person to ever run a Four-Minute mile.      The gist of the article was because no one else had already completed the goal that Roger Bannister had set for himself that he had to see himself running a four-minute mile in his minds eye before he could actually did it.    We all know the rest of the story where Bannister successfully ran a Four Minute mile and how many countless number of people continue to do this through to this day thanks to Bannister's pioneer spirit. 

How are we imagining our future selves?    When we drift off into sleep at night do we see ourselves in better shape, effortlessly making the best nutritiously sound food choices, getting the correct amount of exercise and living a better overall lifestyle?   Or do we liberally should our beds as we fall asleep and allow your minds to fester in negative self-defeating thoughts about how out-of-shape you are, how you only eat crappy foods, how you hate the way you look in the mirror, etc?

The morals of today's story is:

1. Be Mindful Of Emotional Eating
2. Focus on Progress Not Perfection
3. Visualize Yourself Running Your "Four Minute Mile" Before Bed And During Down Time 

Until we read again, 

Jaxon

p.s.    Thank you for the read.    If you have something to say I would love to hear it, COMMENT BELOW.