Okay, so this is the first time I’ve ever ‘blogged’ and, being unsure as to what the exact content of a blog entails, I figured I’d just write about some advice I’ve given to many of the campers who’ve come to our boot camp in the past. My advice on mini-challenges has definitely worked for some, and maybe it’ll help those of you presently in the trenches, engaging in the throes of our extreme weight loss program.
More often than not the people who come to our camp get extremely caught up in reading the scale, obsessing over how many pounds they lose every single week. While I agree that weight loss is an important factor in what we do here at Camp Technique, I submit that it is not the only watermark to gauge how well you are progressing toward your own personal fitness goals. Time and time again I’ve spoken to individuals who’ve become depressed and frustrated because they didn’t lose the amount of weight they’d hoped to in that particular week (usually this entails someone who’s only lost three or four pounds in a week as opposed to the ten or so they’d hoped for, and it should be noted that a few pounds in a week is still an exceptional standard for anyone to achieve). My response to this problem is always the same: the scale is not the only measure of fitness. Still, it’s the most commonly utilized tool, and it’s usually regarded with extremely broad ambitions: “I’d like to lose fifty pounds,” or “I sure wish I looked the way I did when I weighed 120 pounds,” are common aspirations. More often than not, when a person thinks in these terms, their goals seem grandiose and far away, almost unattainable, and a simple ’setback’ like only losing three pounds (which may put them off the pace they’d set for themselves in order to lose an extreme amount in not a lot of time) becomes nearly devastating.
What I suggest to people, instead of seeing their fitness goals in broad, grand terms, is to instead set ‘mini-challenges’ for themselves that have nothing to do with the evil scale and the numbers it spits out at you. Personally, I stopped paying attention to my weight a long time ago, knowing full well that I am in better shape now than in previous months when I actually weighed less. Instead, pay attention to how many dunes you can climb in an hour. Count your laps when you go swimming. Time yourself in the mile. Try to bike to the pier and back. Then, every time you engage in these activities, try to go farther and faster… try to beat your time… always challenge yourself to do more, even if it’s just slightly more, slightly faster, slightly farther — slightly better — than you’d done previously. Even if it just means counting your steps when you’re running in the soft sand at the beach, seeing how many steps you can run without stopping, then resting and trying to take one more step the next time, you will find, by constantly challenging yourself, you’ll keep yourself motivated, inspired, and interested in pushing yourself to whatever your next level of personal fitness might be.
I’ve used this technique in the past, and it’s always worked. Even if a person doesn’t succeed in their ‘mini-challenge’, it’s not such a big deal that they become frustrated by it. They can always console themselves in the knowledge that while striving to do more, even if they don’t accomplish what they set out to do in that particular moment, they’ve taken one more step toward a leaner, more fit body, better conditioning, and yes, losing weight. That slight frustration in not being able to do one more lap than they did the week before provides incentive for them to want to try again harder the next week. In this way, working out becomes interesting, fun, and the person remains motivated.
When Mimi looked at the dunes the first time, she was extremely intimidated and very apprehensive about even attempting to climb it. I made her take her shoes off and walk with me, “just part way up the hill” as I put it. She agreed. Once we got part way up the hill, I told her to just try twenty more steps. She continued on. After resting, I said she might as well try to do twenty-one steps in a row, since twenty wasn’t really that difficult. She did it. Pretty soon we were standing at the top of the hill. Then I told her how long it had taken her to summit the dune, and she tried to beat her previous time. She didn’t do it, but it didn’t matter, because at that point, she’d climbed the dunes twice, and that was two more times than she thought she would. For the next week, she determined she’d attempt to do one more dune than she’d done that day. She actually looked forward to going. Just in that one broad challenge, the dunes, which seemed ominous and impossible for her in the beginning, three or four mini-challenges enabled her to conquer her fears and actually enjoy what she was doing. And, yes, she lost weight while doing it. Mike and I employ this technique right now in the gym when we lift weights. He writes down how much weight he’s benching or shoulder pressing, for example, and also records how many reps he can do. Each time he tries to do a little bit better. Even if he doesn’t do it, it keeps him actually excited to get back in the gym, and yes, he’s losing a lot of weight. When Sargon went on the hike in the hollywood hills, he got about half way up the trail and decided he couldn’t make it any farther. The hill was just too steep. So, I presented him with a mini-challenge. I told him to just try to make it to the next wooden board which served as steps in the hill and were spaced about twenty feet apart. He did it. We rested. I told him to try to get to the next one a little bit faster. He did it. We rested. I told him to try to climb two steps in a row without stopping, then three, then four and so on, and he kept going. Eventually, he was on top of the hill, sitting on the bench at the peak, very satisfied and happy with himself, smiling that big joyous grin that Sargon gets, looking out contentedly at the entire city. It was a nice moment.
The weight you all are trying to lose is the hill or the dune. If you stand at the bottom of it and look up at the top, all that way away, it seems impossible, and people often give up. But if you just take a few steps, then a few more, and continue to set mini-challenges for yourself, soon you’ll be at the peak, sitting on top of the world, smiling a big joyous grin.
Good luck everyone, with your own personal challenges.
Eric Viskovicz
