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Motivation: the first big hurdle
Isn’t motivation one of the biggest hurdles towards whatever the goal is:  how to get it, keep it, and keep it going.  The original life support and development of Selfseeds has been the use of  “Just 5 minutes” as a key obtainable motivational starting point, but there still has to be an action to the motivation to start it on its course.  Here is a great article showing a diversity of motivations for people of all ages and physical conditions.  Hope it can help with the take action part of motivation.  We have to find our own spark, since we are each so unique.  Like trying on clothes,  try different approaches to discover what works and be prepared to change down the road if something needs renewing.
Our readers are the picture of health
Our readers are the picture of health
Eat less. Exercise more. It’s that simple. And that difficult. Making a change toward health starts in the mind. And sticking with a diet or an exercise plan, or any kind of resolution, requires making choices — large and small — every day.
Readers responded to our pre-holiday question, “What motivates you?” with stories of success and surprise. They learned they could run marathons, climb mountains, leap over fire and snap a board in two. Their sports, ages and abilities might vary, but lifelong exercisers and late bloomers alike share a mental commitment to their workouts.
Audrey Krebshas shed the “fat child” whose doctor put her on diet pills at the age of 12, but she battled yo-yo dieting and emotional eating.
“I weighed more in sixth grade than I do now,” says the 54-year-old runner. “The kids on the bus would say ‘Who’s your favorite meatball?’ and yell out ‘Audrey!’ and I would say, ‘At least I’m their favorite.’ ”
A local hospital class taught her to recognize her triggers. “I would think of two people in my life and eat a whole box of crackers,” she says. “Now, I know what’s healthy and what isn’t. I know if I’m eating because of emotion, versus health. I talk to the person I’m upset with rather than eating a box of crackers.”
She joined Weight Watchers on New Year’s Day because it “looked like fun” and says it has made her more aware of snacking.
Running helps, too. “It’s the one exercise where you can get it over really quick and burn tons of calories so you can eat and feel great,” says Krebs, who completed the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon and several half-marathons. Last summer, she ran in the 5K Ovarian Cancer Race for Awareness in honor of her mom, who died of the disease.
Krebs has recently recovered from a torn meniscus, and she now takes care to stretch her hamstrings, quads, and hip flexors after a run. “You need to strengthen your leg muscles around the kneecap —
squats and lunges help,” she says.
Katy Shaw’scommitment to yoga has enabled her to do head-stands around the world. The 62-year-old sent us an upside-down picture from a Mexican beach where she took yoga classes in November.
“I did aerobics for 30 years, and 30 years of aerobics is about all anybody can do,” says Shaw. “Yoga is the hardest thing I’ve ever done — you can always be a little better. It’s so integrative, it puts all the pieces together.”
She attends about four classes a week, plus the occasional workshop, but her resolution is “to do it on my own.”
Cyclist Byron Walker,67, finds fellowship in the Rocky Mountain Cycling Club. Although he played football and ran track through college, the lifelong jock refused to be sidelined when his knees gave out. “So now I speed-walk.” The retired FBI agent goes to the gym for weightlifting, spinning and swimming three times a week, but his real passion is distance cycling. He rode the Triple Bypass (a 120-mile race over three mountain passes) and the MS 150 (a two-day ride from Westminster to Fort Collins and back).
What drives him? “Ever since I was a little kid, we didn’t have all the distractions that kids have these days. It’s just a desire, something in your psyche or your soul that makes you want to do stuff.”
Randy Christopherson,57, doesn’t think of himself as an athlete, but he runs and bikes to work three days a week, weather permitting.
Christopherson describes himself as a “boring federal financial manager by day, Thor, God of Thunder by weekend.”
He keeps a sense of humor while challenging himself, in spite of himself. “I sign up for these things long before I’m prepared for them, and then having that date out there on the calendar motivates me so I don’t completely humiliate myself when the day arrives,” he says. “If you wait till you’re ready, you’ll never do anything.”
So how did he end up jumping through flames in Copper Mountain? “In a fit of stupidity,” says Christopherson, who has competed in two Warrior Dashes, the 5K series that features a flaming finish. “Yeah, you can feel the flames licking at your legs.”
Christopherson credits his daughter with motivating him to stay active. “We’ll be meeting up at Disney World in February and doing a 5K around Epcot Center pushing strollers,” he says.
ForDeb Shanks,47, peer pressure became personal after she committed to a half- marathon at a party. Her friends bailed, but she made good on the promise, and has gone on to complete three half-marathons and the full Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in October.
“I feel like running has given me my life back,” says the part-time office manager and mother of 22- and 17-year-old sons. “I have never been athletic, ever, ever, ever. I did zero athletics in high school, I took the required PE credits.”
But she has found that running makes her feel stronger and more confident as she heads toward 50. Shanks has logged more than 500 miles so far, and thanks her Fast Forward Sports F4 running club for the motivation to keep going.
“This is what’s funny: My first running experience in 2009, I did a 5K and I thought I was going to die, and now I’m like, it’s only a half-marathon, no big deal,” says Shanks, who plans to run the Canyonlands Half Marathon in Moab, Utah, in March.
At 15,Randi Ralstonhas already logged five years of taekwondo practice, earning her black belt in September. She spends at least two evenings a week at The Rock Taekwondo in Littleton, working on the martial art, sparring and kick- boxing.
“I have gotten to meet a lot of friends and it keeps me physically active and gets me out of the house,” she says. Her next goal is to earn her second-degree black belt, which will take a couple of years.
After becoming paralyzed at age 9 from an accidental gunshot wound to her neck,Chanda Hinton Leichtle‘s expectations about physical activity were often bed-bound. But when the 28-year-old went deep-sea fishing and learned to handcycle at a No Barriers USA festival in Miami in 2009, her idea of what her body could do changed radically. “After learning I could do it, I was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’m gonna do it,” she says.
“When I was depressed and bed-bound, I never imagined moving and doing athletic stuff,” says Leichtle, who has quadriplegic impairment in all four limbs, but is able to use her arms. The newlywed now spends as much time as she can with her road-cyclist husband, “on my handcycle or in my kayak or on the rock.”
She climbed Monument Cave in the Eldorado Canyon last summer using a pulley-operated sling chair. “We get to get out and feel our bodies in a different way — with paralysis that is really liberating. Any chance that people can get to be outside of their wheelchairs, it’s just good in general, healthwise.” Leichtle operates a non-profit,thechandaplanfoundation.org, dedicated to improving access to integrative therapies for the disabled.