In episode 68 I was really trying to move beyond the biggest loser contest, and fill out some gaps in my diet or supplement regimen. That contest was not healthy in the sense that to win it I had to just basically starve myself for 12 weeks. That’s not a healthy lifestyle. The one thing that did come of it, other than learning what NOT to do, was that I had an external motivation to move me along.

I do have the podcast, but I’m thinking of some other things I am involved in, like getting back into playing music with a band. That requires a certain amount of fitness, and being overweight makes it harder. You may not normally think of making music as physical activity, but it is, outside of just programming it with a computer.

Fitness doesn’t just impact how much weight I can lift or how far I can walk or run. Think about doing a bench press. If you have a weight, you can do ten reps with that much weight on the bar. You will be more in control and therefore safer doing reps one through nine. This is why, if you are structuring your workout properly, you don’t really need a spotter. But if you jump up fifty pounds over your ten-rep weight and try to live that, well, you may lift it, but it won’t be controlled. Your arms may shake and you may have to let some weights slide off and try a lower weight.

I said all that to say this. If I want to stand on stage for an hour singing and strumming my guitar and doing a little dancing around, I need to make sure I can do all that for longer, so I can do it right. I don’t want to be huffing and puffing through those last couple of songs.

So that’s my external motivation now. Along with you, my listeners.

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