I received an email from a client this week:

“I have faced the fact that gardening season is over and it is time to make my winter commitment for cardio. I started back on my elliptical on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the winter season. I hate the elliptical but I drag out of bed early and do it anyway because I know that at the end of the holiday season I will feel better about myself. I also find that by putting it in writing to you it sure makes it harder to skip when I have a day when I just don't feel like doing it. So, here's to those cold winter morning when I just want to stay under the covers and decide to do something good for myself instead.”

ooh! Who is up for a winter commitment for cardio? I am! In fact, I need it. Winter is tough for me because I like it hot outside, not cold. I have the right pants and coat and gloves and hat to work out outside, but I would still rather throw on a t-shirt and shorts and go walk like that. However, that does not mean I can use cold weather as an excuse not to do it.

I have to do it.

Cardio keeps me mentally healthy. I really feel my energy drag and my emotions darken when I go without it. Knowing that helps me find the motivation I need on days I don’t feel like exercising, because I always feel better about myself once I’ve done it.

Cardio keeps my body moving. All of us over 40 know about the aches and pains. (I know my clients 60+ are saying honey you don’t know nothing yet.) I understand, but I also know that when I keep exercising consistently, I feel better. My muscles, my joints, everything seems less stiff and painful when I am moving regularly.

Cardio keeps my calorie burning machine humming. This is important in the food season, or as one of my clients calls it, Halloween Navidad! We go from Halloween candy to Thanksgiving pies to Christmas parties to New Year’s ham. Better keep moving and burn those extra calories so they are not around making us feel like crap about ourselves on January 2nd.

Cardio keeps our heart and lungs conditioned. We may be very active in the warmer months, but when winter hits we slow down. This can cause us to lose our cardiovascular fitness, which is a key component of overall health and wellbeing. We want that heart rate in the zone but that’s impossible from the couch. Get that heart rate monitor out and get moving.

Cardio burns fat. Yes, directly. Right off your ___ (insert trouble area here).

I personally like the challenge from November 1 – February 28. That gets me through all the holidays and the heart of the winter, right to my birthday and a few weeks before the official start of spring. That’s 120 days of consistency. How far, how fast, how often is totally up to you. If you are already doing cardio regularly, awesome! Keep going or step it up a notch. But if you aren’t, here’s a great opportunity to join others, set your goal, and do it.

Here’s what I know. If I tell myself I will do two extra days of cardio from November 1 – February 28, that’s one thing. I might do it, but I don’t have a lot of accountability to help me when it gets tough. But if I tell YOU that I will do two extra days of cardio for the next 120 days, there’s the empowerment. That’s how I plug in to the power of community. I know that telling you will be the extra push I need to do it, on days when I feel like it and on days when I don’t.

And I need to do it to feel good about myself this winter. Do you? If so, send me your goal. I will write up everyone’s goals in next week’s newsletter and we will share in this empowerment together. Taking good care of ourselves is important, but it’s hard. Let’s harness the superpower of this excellent community and give each other the encouragement and support we all need to take the next step. We are so worth it.

It takes focus and courage to be radically present in the moment.

We spend so much of our day doing things and being busy, sometimes we don’t get around to just being present. But it is important. If I walk into the gym and pick up my weights, but never really connect with what I am doing, all I get is a strength workout. Nothing wrong with that, but there is more.

Think of a time when you picked up your weights and started working out. There is often a flood of thoughts that come with that. Things like:

I don’t have any balance.
I am not strong.
This would be so different if I had started years ago.
I’ll never lose this weight.

When this happens, it is important to understand that these thoughts exist in you all the time. You have just done something out of your comfort zone, which triggers them to come up. So now here they are, and right in the middle of a workout.

I understand that they can make you feel less confident about your workout, and even criticized. But here is where you have to access your focus and courage, because these thoughts are not truth. They are just thoughts. It is time to pull them out by the root and plant better seeds.

What if, every time you heard, “I don’t have any balance” you stated confidently, “I have great balance!”

Or for every, “I am not strong” you spoke with conviction, “I certainly AM strong”.

“I should have done this years ago” becomes “I am so proud of myself for doing this now.”

The lie, “I’ll never lose this weight” can be dismantled with “I am going to lose this weight.”

That is your priority; your most important assignment. The bicep curls are important, and so are the squats. But the life changing thing about exercise is it brings you to the present moment. You feel your biceps. You feel your legs. You hear your thoughts. And you get to decide if those thoughts are true.

I did the Columbus half marathon yesterday and as soon as I started to move, I heard all kinds of chatter from this head of mine. “You’re too slow. You’re too old. If you would stop eating ice cream, you wouldn’t have all this jiggle. You could be faster if you were more dedicated. What are you doing out here?” But I know this one. I know there is nothing true about any of this. So instead of cranking up my iPod to escape the tsunami of lies, I become fully present with them. I know this is the moment of healing.

I invite the truth. What is the truth? We’re never too slow. We’re never too old. We’re doing great! If being out here is an expression of your authentic self, then you absolutely belong out here. Right now. In this moment. And you are no longer at the mercy of the old lies of never enough, never good enough. You are enough. You always have been. Just because you are you.

I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor; 4 feet wide, with 10 lonely seconds to justify my whole existence. But WILL I?- Harold from Chariots of Fire

I might do the Columbus Marathon this Sunday. I might not.

I’m signed up for it but I can’t say I care too much about whether I do it. This was not always the case. When I first started personal training, it was very important to me that I do at least one marathon a year. I felt it gave me credibility. I believed that if someone looked at me and accused me of not being fit enough, thin enough, strong enough, or fast enough to be a personal trainer, I could say, “yes but I’ve done the marathon.”

My own little street cred.

It worked for awhile, like counterfeit versions of things often do. But then I got hurt and couldn’t run. I was having the best year of running I’d ever had. 5K personal best, half marathon personal best and registered for the Air Force Marathon in Dayton. Then, back injury.

I was in pain, but not just from my wrecked SI joints and herniated disk. I was in pain from all the fear that came at me, because I’d been using distance racing to feel OK about myself; to justify myself and my dream career that I didn’t feel worthy of.

What would I do now? How would I earn my place? How would I prove I was good enough? That I was worthy? That I mattered?

And as all this fear was brought to light, I started wondering if anyone really cared if I did the marathon. Maybe this was a false belief. I’d already dealt with so many of them, this could be another. So I named it and sat with it. I am afraid that I am not good enough to be a personal trainer, and that I will be found out, exposed as a giant fraud, and left by everyone.

What freedom I found in even saying it! I had been working and working and training and training, in part because of fear. I thought I might not be good enough. I might not be worthy.

I started walking instead. WOW! Walking didn’t hurt and I loved it. Walking felt like it was for my body and soul, and not at all for street cred. I started to heal. I learned that what makes a good trainer is not her own ability to be healthy and fit, so much as her ability to encourage others to. I could do that! I am enough.

As the old false beliefs fell away, so did the compulsion to do more, run more, train more, work more. I got to slow down and find peace in my fitness. I got to take another step in healing that old I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy wound. What a gift.

I know we are not all marathoners. But I also know we all have our counterfeit ways of trying to justify ourselves and getting street cred. Listen, all that extra work, over work, over train, over strive is rooted in a Lie. This may apply to fitness, career, relationships, or family. The lie is you need to over-perform to be considered good enough, and you need to keep up that level of performance to prevent being exposed as a giant fraud. The truth is we all fall short. And we are good enough because we were born good enough, and nothing can take that away. Nothing can change that. No level of performance can ever damage or change who you are. You are perfect, beautiful, healed and whole.

So I’ll see you out there on Sunday! I’ll be walking and loving every minute of it.

I have a pair of $100 brand name jeans that I bought at one of the boutique stores at Polaris Mall. They were quite a splurge for me and they are nice and long so I could wear them with heels to dress them up.

If I wore them. I don’t wear them. I’ve never worn them.

For 3 years, they’ve  sat in my closet. Every so often I’ll feel particularly good about myself. You know, one of those days where you slept great the night before and have been eating clean, drinking lots of water, and feeling lean and mean. And I will think, “Maybe those jeans will fit today.”

So I pull them down off the shelf and wiggle into them. Damn. The waist is so low that, where they sit on me, they squeeze me up and over the top. They ride up. They feel awful. And suddenly I also feel awful and I think to myself, “If only I would cut the carbs and get rid of this belly these would look great. I need to get serious. I need to tighten up my abs. I need more cardio. I need to count calories. I need to quit eating crap. I need to…”

Really?

I have other pants that look awesome. They have a higher, wider waist and they fit me and they feel great. Maybe it’s not me, maybe it’s the jeans.

Geneen Roth says:

“Almost every woman I know has three sizes of clothes in her closet. Thin clothes, fat clothes and in-between. The fat clothes–what I call the “just-in-case clothes”–keep you frightened of gaining weight, and the thin clothes keep you waiting for your life to begin.

Your thin clothes, the ones you need a shoehorn to shimmy into, function as baseball bats to the head. Get rid of them. You have enough mean, abusive voices in your head without having to hang them in your closet. Replace them with clothes that fit you now. Clothes that are soft and gorgeous and allow you to feel the same.”

I realized this week that my $100 jeans are a baseball bat to my head and I need to get rid of them. So here I go. I am going to clean out my closet this week, big time. I might end up being down to six items. That’s OK with me. But if I don’t feel great about myself when I put something on, it is getting donated. Right now, this week. And I might end up wearing the exact same pair of pants over and over that fit me great, but I have decided that’s OK with me, too. No more closet torture.

And as I give those $100 jeans away, I am not going to think of it as a waste of money. I am going to think of it as well worth the lesson I have learned. That no piece of clothing is worth giving up my self esteem to. I am taking that power back today.

Want to join me?