Inspiration for the Gym

It’s great if you can find a training partner to workout with in the gym; problem is I’ve never found anyone that’s as dedicated at it as I am. Rather motivating me, the other person wanted to work out w/ me in order to pull themselves up.

I’m no motivational expert, but :

You highlighted the reasons in the past why you worked out. You also mentioned you an ex quit smoking for you, and you advised her to quit for herself.

Doing something and having to battle for a motivator is tough to keep up. What seems like a burning red hot fire one day will dim over time. For anything I need to get done, I just schedule it, and then consider the schedule iron clad and do it.

A simple example would be waking up and going to work every morning. I certainly don’t do it because I have a mortgage and bills to pay. I do it because its on the schedule. Does it pay the mortgage? Yes? Put food in the table? Yes. But, I don’t think that every morning, I’m on my way to the train.

Motivation, its been very, very hard for me. Its probably why I’ve spent most of my life overweight and out of shape. I’ve never been able to muster the “do it for yourself”.

But the last 6 years have provided me with a different motivation, mortality. I watched my Father, Mother both die from things that were a result of not taking care of themselves. Then one of my best friends, who was easily capable of literally “hulking-out”, stopped taking care of himself. He came down with Type 2 diabetes and almost lost a foot to it (he ended up losing only a small toe).

A couple of years ago, I took a stress test and the doctor saw a shadow in one part of my heart. He put the fear of god into me and I began working out. I dropped 40 pounds and actually had some visible muscle in places other than my legs. I took another stress test, the shadow was gone, I felt better and was almost off my blood pressure meds. Unfortunately, life kinda fell apart for me early 2009 and now I find myself having to start over again.

Forget looking for inspiration in another person or yourself. Look for it in the simple question, “How long do I want to live and how good do I want that life to be?”

Personally, I stay motivated by looking at buff women. I really want to both buff and an amazing fighter, but I also want to be in a relationship with a buff fighter woman one day. I don’t know what it is about looking at buff women, but I guess it reminds both of what I find attractive and what I want to be. I guess I could look at buff dudes too, but since I’m not attracted to men it does not give me the same amount of inspiration.

Sadly, I recently fractured some vertebrae and tilted them. They’ll heal but I haven’t been able to work out in the last few weeks, at least not heavily. And I can’t fight either. At least according to my physiotherapist. But it should heal in a couple more weeks, and enough that I can continue with what I want to do. However, to keep myself out of depression over what I can’t do, I think about how I’m going to get back into shape when my back is healed and all the fighting I will continue to do. And to stay “extra motivated”, I look at a picture of a buff babe and I feel good again.

I know it sounds a bit silly, but it works for me and that’s what is important 🙂

By reasons outside of yourself, I mean like I had a g/f that quit smoking for me. I insisted that she shouldn’t be quitting for me but for herself. Doing it for herself she was more likely to stick with it long term.