Ep052: Find What Works for You

Note: This is a computer-generated transcript. That means it's pretty good, but not perfect. If you read something weird or confusing, first laugh, then use the time stamp to hop into the podcast to find out what I REALLY said. 🙂

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Welcome to another episode of Reflections of a Recovering Ugly Duckling, a podcast dedicated to helping you discover and develop your full potential as a unique individual. This is Episode 52, and I'm your host, Donna Doyle. Once upon a time, there was a physically active 54 year old woman who loved running. She would run for miles and miles and miles. Each November, she dreaded the time when the clocks would fall back and darkness would fall earlier and earlier. At that point, her outdoor running opportunities were limited to weekends. But this year, things were different. This year, she no longer worked at a job that kept her there until the sun was close to setting. This year, she had pockets of time during the day when she could put on her running shoes and just fly out the door. This year, she took full advantage of the prolonged, mild autumn temperatures. And then suddenly, things changed. First, it was a nuisance snowstorm, and then a drop in temperatures. The winds picked up and bit exposed skin. Ice patches on the road made running treacherous. This lovely woman cried. She knew there were diehard winter runners. She was not one of them.

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She knew many runners who moved indoors and ran on a treadmill. She was not one of them. It distressed her to finally admit that for the most part, her running season was over. But she wanted to remain physically active. She knew that constant movement was a key for her good health, and she knew there were other options. So she went to the shelf that contained row upon row of DVDs. She could choose from Tony Horton, Sean T, Gillian Michaels, and yes, even Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda. She pulled one off the shelf, blew the dust off the jacket, pulled out the DVD, and slid it into the player. She began walking in place as she waited for the video to load. She pressed the buttons to make it start. For 45 minutes, she followed her favorite fitness instructor, listened to the nonsensical chatter, and felt like she'd come home for the winter. Because knowing what works for her, that's one secret to living happily ever after. When I tell people that Leslie Sandstone and her Walk at Home DVDs are my favorite fitness programs, I get a lot of funny looks and I get a lot of people who say, Well, walking at home, that's not really that intense, is it?

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Or, Oh, you should try Gillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. Oh, it's such a workout. I was so sore after doing it. Or, You should try the Zumba video that I've got. Here, I'll bring it over to you. And I am not one to shun options and to shut people down when they're trying to help and sharing their opinions. Well, I try not to, but I'm sure it happens occasionally. But one thing that does bother me and it annoys the heck out of me is when someone will minimize the value of a very easy, very safe, very consistent workout program like Leslie Samson has created. If you're not familiar with her, her Walk at Home DVDs, she's probably sold a gazillion of them. I think there are probably 15 or 20 or 30 different walking based fitness videos. I started doing her videos. I think I bought the first one at Walmart for probably $10.997 or something. At the time, I weighed just under 200 pounds, but it was something I could do. Musically, I am not very rhythmically inclined. And so any DVDs that have a lot of fancy steps or movements, I really have a hard time with them.

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And just because of the way my brain is wired, I am so focused on getting the steps and the movements right that I forget that the purpose of it is physical activity. So three or four or five minutes into one of these more choreographed fitness programs, I would just give up. And so I found for me that these walking DVDs were great because one of the first things she said in the video that I purchased was you can't do this wrong. You are here to move. If you can keep up with the pace of the music, then you'll be fine. You will receive the health benefits of it. And of course, when I first started, I started with a two mile walking program and I couldn't keep up with the pace. But it was so easy and required so little coordination that I was able to keep going at a pace that I could handle. And within a couple of weeks, I was able to do the full two miles at her pace. In that first program that I purchased, there were people of all sizes, which I thought was great. They were not just these little skinny mini fitness models.

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And I felt like I belonged. She talks incessantly through her videos, and that drives some people crazy. So you can turn the volume off. I still, after working out with her during the winter months, maybe 10 or 15 years, I still listen to her chatter. It's comforting for me. And while I'm exercise and working out, I just enjoy it. I feel like she's a friend. So this is the type of fitness program that works for me. I do indeed have some Tony Horton training programs. I have P90X. I have Sean T's Insanity, and I have Hip Hop Abz. But I may have donated that one, finally. I do not actually have a Gillian Michaels because just watching her on The Biggest Loser and seeing clips of her workouts, I just know that the intensity that she, as an individual, brings to these, whether I was capable of doing the workout or not, it's her presence that impacted me enough to just stay away. I do have a Richard Simmons' Wedding to the Oldies on my DVD shelf. It's one that I just can't quite part with, even though I have not watched it in a long, long, long time.

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But it's one of those classics. I actually do not have a Jane Fonda, but she was the queen of fitness way back, and she started the whole video revolution. I did at one point have Jane Fonda videos. Today I'm not going to just talk about how wonderful I think Leslie Samson's videos are. I just want to remind you, there are so many options out there during these cold winter months, especially here in the Northeast, in the Northern States, where we're not outside as often unless we have discovered an outdoor activity that we really enjoy. And for many of us, those great outdoor activities require larger blocks of time, and they're more weekend based. For myself, Earl and I still go hiking, we go snowshoeing, we put on our cross country skis, we are still outside on the weekends. But what do you do about the five days during the work week? For me, running probably is not much of an option because once we have some snow and ice on the roads, even though the center of the roads are clear where you're driving, the edges of the road or the sidewalks still have icy spots.

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It's a little bit too treacherous for me. I have not tried running with traction on my shoes. I just don't know that it would work for me. I'm perfectly fine with doing my Leslie Sandstone DVDs. And she does have some pretty high intensity ones. And probably a couple of days a week, what I'll do is I'll just do two 4 mile workouts back to back. And that will give me the equivalent of eight miles. Granted, it's not at a full run, but these workouts actually use upper body movements as well as not just a walking, running movement of your legs, but you're doing knee lifts, you're doing kicks, and you're doing sidesteps and kickbacks. So using your leg muscles in a little bit different way. So I do feel like it's a great workout. It gets me sweating, gets my heart rate up, and that's what we want from any exercise program. But if a program like Leslie Sandstone's Walking DVDs is not a good fit for you, be mindful that there are other options. And these are all activities that you can do at home. But if you belong to a gym, go to the gym, use the weight machines, use the cardio equipment, participate in some of the classes, mix it up a little bit.

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If you have fallen into a routine and it's starting to feel a little bit boring for you, try something new. If your gym has a trainer, book an appointment with the trainer. Find out what you can do to either increase the intensity or the duration or the number of exercises you are doing, or just get more information on different activities that you can do. Even if you want to keep it at a lower level. Any activity is so good and so healthy for our bodies. Sometimes we just fall into a pattern and it becomes so ho hum, and we start thinking, Oh, I don't want to go spend 30 minutes on the elliptical again. Well, can you do the bike? The treadmill may not be an option for you at a high speed or a high incline, but perhaps at a slower speed and a lower incline, it may be something that works well for you. There are so many options and you need to find what works best for you. The change of seasons can be difficult for many of us, and it is a matter of finding something that works for us. So if you're at home in the evening, just dance around a little bit.

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Put some music on and just let yourself sway to the music to start. Especially if you're fairly deconditioned, you don't want to overdo it. We don't want to leave you huffing and puffing until you're ready to be huffing and puffing. But initially, it may just be swaying to the music, doing a little two step or little waltz in your kitchen. And yes, you can even waltz by yourself. You can do some Calisthenics. Oh, Calisthenics. You remember those from gym class, don't you? Just the name of it puts the fear of goodness in us. And it's like, Oh, my gosh. I automatically think of the old green gym suit that I had to wear. It was a one piece polyester, stretchy step in through the neck uniform. And the thing that killed me was that the year I got to the high school, they changed out the gym suits so that instead of wearing this ugly green gym suit that you had to step in through the neck, and I think the color was white, they started allowing people to purchase the cute little running shorts and a T shirt to wear for gym class. But the price for the gym suit, the one piece step in through the neck ugly gym suit, was probably about half as much as the shorts and the T shirt, and my family couldn't afford that.

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I was one of just two, maybe three girls that were still wearing these, Oh my gosh. I feel like I suffer from PTSD from that gym suit. But yeah, off on a tangent. Calisthenics. So those are the pushups, the sit ups, the jumping jacks, the burpies, the squats, those types of activities where you're using your own body weight to increase your strength. And you may be saying, Donna, there is no way that I can do a push up. I get that. At one point, there was no way I could do a push up. And my preference is still to do pushups, modified pushups on my knees. There's nothing wrong with that. Because a push up is improving your core muscles. It's improving your arms and your shoulders and your back. Maybe some chest in there too. But if you can only do a half a push up, if you can only get into the position you have your knees and you want your back straight and you're in the up position. And if you can only get down and you can't push yourself back up, that's okay. It's really okay. That's where I started. Now I can do 15 or 20 pushups, modified pushups without any problem.

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But I didn't get there overnight. It was collapsing to the floor and then struggling to get myself back up and then collapsing to the floor again, struggling to get myself back up, collapsing to the floor. And then there was that one magical day when I released myself down to the floor and my stomach, my boobies, everything touched. And then I was able to push myself back up. Oh, my gosh. I was so proud of myself. And if you can't do pushups right now, you will be so proud of yourself when you do that first pushup. And then before you know it, you'll do two and then three. And it's amazing the transformation. You just have to stick with it. So calisthenics is something that you can try at home. Just one or two or three minutes. One or two or three different types of calisthenic. Start slowly. I am such a big believer in committing to no more than five minutes. Doing one or two, something is so much better than nothing. And something small like that is something that we can do and have no excuse to not do it. Because you can commit to doing one push up, whether it's a full push up or not.

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You can commit to getting down on the floor and attempting one push up. There's barely any time requirement. You don't need special clothes or special tools or anything. All you need is the commitment to do it. And if you don't do it, all you have are excuses. It's your choice. Which do you want to be? More physically active or just an excuse maker? Because those are the two choices. Because attempting it and not fully succeeding at the actual push up, the result doesn't matter. It's that commitment to the action to do it. That's where your success comes from. Okay, I think I went off on a little bit of a tangent there, but you know me well enough to know that that is what I do. My original thought for today's episode was to encourage you to find your own voice, to find the things that work for you, and don't worry about what everyone else thinks. I started off talking about the Leslie Samson Walking DVDs and how other people scoff at the value of them. They think they're not intense enough. They think that the results are not there, but yet these friends will swear by Gillian Michaels but not stick with it.

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There are people that swear by P90X, and then two or three weeks into the program, they're hurt. I don't say that to minimize the value of those programs because I know they're wonderful for some people. Some people love them. They perform them consistently, just like I do the Leslie Sandstone DVDs. So today I want to encourage you. No, I challenge you. In fitness activities and in many things in life, find what works for you. Listen to the other options, try them out, see how they feel, see if they're a good fit for you. But ultimately know that what you're looking for is something that feels right to you, something that you will do. Because it's wonderful to have all of these options for DVDs on my bookshelf. But the reality is I probably will stick with my Leslie Sandstone DVDs. In fact, just on Monday, I pulled out one of the Tony Horton DVDs and I watched it for about 30 seconds. There was this skinny mini fitness model who was showing the exercises and I just thought, No, that's not real to me. I turned it off, and then I went back to a Leslie DVD because that's the way that my mind and my approach to physical activity, it matches.

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So whether it's physical activity or anything else that you're doing in life, whether it's the books you're reading, the types of movies that you like to see, whether it's your career choice, your relationship choice, take a look at whether or not it works for you, because that's the most important thing. Finding things that work for you, that's the secret to living happily ever after. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Reflections of a Recovering Ugly Duckling. If you like what you just heard, I hope you'll stop by my web address, donna d oyan. Com. That's D, O, N, N, A, D, O, Y, O, N. Com for a visit. And feel free to bring along your friends and colleagues. You can listen to past episodes from the podcast tab. The music for this podcast is called Drifting Upstream by Hyson.