During my workout, the idea to do a fitness bootcamp for people who want to exercise, but have issues with obesity. Many times, just like it was with me, these folks start off doing something, then fall right off for a lack of support. I believe that this is a part of something I am supposed to be doing. It’s all about giving back.

Even though I have not reached my goals, I have come a long way. I still consult with a group of extremely fit people so that I can continue to challenge myself and stay on top of things. My goal is to start this project on October 1, 2009. Now that I have put it out there, let’s see what happens when I take a leap of faith on this vision of mine.

Dreams mean work,

Lou Riley

I decided to give a friend a call to chat while driving to the gym. I started off by saying that I didn’t feel like exercising. The followed up with the foul mood they were in. Before long, the conversation turn into a complaint festival. It’s not hard to find people that will feed into your negativity. We all have it. Still, I was headed to they gym, so I figured at the least I would get in a sub par work out. I figured some exercise is better than none.

I was dreading the thought of exercising. I had visions of turning my car around and heading back home. I wanted to just go to bed and worry about not working out later. As I pulled up to the gym, I noticed a familiar vehicle. It belonged to a mentor of mine who is a fitness guru. God must have know that I needed the extra push this morning. The first thing he said was “What’s up slim! Man you have lost a lot of weight!” Being the human I am, that immediately changed my mood. To myself I was like “yeah, I’m really going to work out today!”

After putting in about 1.5 miles, I came back inside and started my routine for the day. I was shown a few finer point of some of the exercises I was doing that made them much more challenging. Call me crazy, but a part of me likes the pain and discomfort that comes along with being challenged in the weight room. I guess the more appropriate thought would be that I like conquering the pain and discomfort. It gives me a sense of accomplishment.

After three rounds of a strenuous workout, the bad mood I started my day with turned into an appreciation for the challenge. I am so glad I did not turn that car around and listen to the voice in me that was telling me to give up. I battle against this demon on a weekly basis. I don’t know if it will ever leave. What I do know is that the stronger I become, the better equipped I am to deal with things. I always hear that coal must first undergo pressure in order to turn into a diamond. I know that the success I am looking for exists. In fact, it lives inside of me. I will remain constant in my efforts and I will not give up on becoming the person I am supposed to be.

Dreams Mean Work!

Sadly though, many relationships fail because of a lack of commonality. One or both may lose interest after a period of time. Often, weight gain plays a role in this. Women may be looking for a more fit and active man. Someone who represents strength and commitment. Men may seek out a younger, sexier woman to host on his arms and he feels the need for a shot of youth in his life.

Exercise IS the fountain of youth, strength and commitment. Everything you are looking for is probably already inside of you. Make plans to exercise with your significant other. Discover an entirely new world where health and wellness live at the forefront. Change for all of us is inevitable. However we always have the ability to make ourselves feel young forever!

It’s incredible to consider how powerful perception can be. We can convince ourselves of anything if we think hard and long enough about it. Sadly though, most of us allow the negative to enter our minds and become our prevailing thought. As the Law of Attraction teaches, we can make heaven or hell out of most things. So many of us have become used to disappointment. Bad things happen in our lives and it comes as no surprise. Some of us would admit to expecting things to go wrong. It’s almost as if we have built in mechanism designed to protect us from disappointment by never allowing us to have hope. This is why many of us never bother to thing big.

It’s even worse once we are in the midst of our depression. We already kick ourselves for the things we either have become or have not become. We drown ourselves in the problem and fail to give any thought to a solution. Things then begin to compound. We feel like we are holding on by the thinnest of threads with no solution in sight. Then, to pour water on your drowning spirit, you have people around you who fall right into misery’s trap. They offer no real words of encouragement. Only cliches and shallow quotes.

Such is the case with weight loss. Many have convinced themselves that being overweight is who and what they are. “That’s how God made me!” Some will explain. They have tried everything and nothing seems to work. To that, the voice in my head wonders if they have ever thought to try commitment. I don’t say this to sound rude or cold, however it has been my own personal experience that whenever I would commit to losing weight, things would work out in my favor. Sure, I could be biased, however, I have only my own story from which to relate. I would fail at losing weight whenever I would allow myself to stop believing. I had to learn the hard way. I got that covered, so now you can learn from my shortcomings.

This is why, in our moments of clarity, we must arm ourselves with positive people and positive talk and positive vibrations. These are the things that get us through the lean times. Those positive voices can be the very thing to move you forward to your next challenge. This is why I love self improvement/development books. I see so much of myself in them. They help me to better relation to people, places and things. It also helps to listen to the perspective of others who have been where you are and have made it through. I don’t focus on weight loss stories at all. Instead, I find books on how people go from nothing to something to be extremely fascinating. If you read and pay close enough attention, you will find certain secrets buried inside the pages. Those my friends are our solutions. Stop bathing in the problem. Knowledge is all around us. We only need to reach out and bring it into our lives.

Until the next time….remember:

Dreams mean work!

2 Corinthians 4:16-17 verse

Blog Post #31

It takes more than me to be able to maintain my pace. This journey to losing weight has morphed into the journey to achieve success across multiple areas in my life. Although my videos and blogs have been from a “me first” perspective, trust when I tell you that I have a lot of others who have contributed to my effort. My good friend, who initially challenged me to get back on track was at the gym when I finished today’s Big Run. I told him I just ran 3.8 miles. He asked, “how do you feel?” “Pretty good,” I said. Then he says, “well hey, come work out with us!” I realized I had no excuse that would fly in on this occasion, so after running almost 4 miles in over an hour, I then underwent another hour of weight lifting and resistance training.

I remember just looking at the weights at some point during the workout because there was nothing in me that was saying I could do it. There he was in the background saying “Come on Louis Riley,” and in my sarcastic undertone I said, “yeah, yeah, yeah….” You see, its moments like this when you learn to appreciate how the mind controls the body. I had so many thoughts of I can’t running through my head, until it was slowing me down. I kept looking for a reason to accept the “I can’t” as my truth, but nothing would stick. I knew from a place deep inside that at least, it was possible…and if it is possible, then why not try. I pushed through fatigue and soreness and I completed the workout. I must admit, I would not have pushed myself as much if I were exercising alone. ‘

In every effort of success, we need to be certain we keep certain people around us who can see our lighter side and not settle for our darkeness. We all need someone in our circle who pushes us to become great. We need that someone who believes in us even when we may not believe in ourselves. I have a few people in my life who fit this description. I would supposed I am fortunate to have them. However, it sometimes takes a lot of swallowing my ego. As I state in the video associated with this entry, I have a rather high opinion of myself. When you tell me I can’t, I automatically think I can. When you doubt me, I want to prove you wrong. So when I hear criticism, like many, my first reaction is to push it aside because I feel like I am being attacked. However, I am built for success. I know that these people come from a sincere place. I listen to their opinions and I then allow it to run through my mental process so that I can pull the lessons I was supposed to learn.

Sometimes when we drop our ego, we will learn the it was standing in the way of what we really need in our lives….

Dreams Mean Work!

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Dreams Mean Work