How to Motivate Your Spouse to Exercise with You

Lack of motivation?

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In a recent post about relationship traps to weight loss success, I have received great comments and feedback. Partner training for couples can be challenging for both clients and the fitness trainer.

One big obstacle before getting the couple to work out together is often that one is more motivated than the other to exercise. It can be very frustrating for the motivated one. Nagging is usually not working well.

As a personal trainer and fitness coach consulting, coaching and training many couples over the years, I find myself almost like a psychologist, a profiler, or  a mentalist. I have to put my head into their heads and think what they think like.

As a personal trainer, the easy part is design a partner workout program for the couple. The tough part is to get them started  and do it together.

We have to dig bigger and deeper to understand why people are doing or not doing what they know they're supposed to be doing. What really motivates them?

Remember, you can only change yourself.

Think and answer these questions.

What is motivation?

How do you get motivated and stay motivated?

Why do you want or need to work out?

Do you have the power to change your habit and behavior?

Why don't you have the burning desire to achieve the body you've alway wanted?

What's stopping you from achieving your goal?

Let's take a look at human behavior and self-determination theory (SDT). The SDT goes by that the more self-determined we are, the more we're doing what we want to do and aren't forced to do; therefore the happier and more successful we tend to be. Sounds logic and reasonable?

How Motivated Are You?

Five levels of motivation and type are categorized in the following.

Level 1: You have no particular reason for working out.
Motivation Type: Amotivation
No external or internal factors influence your activity, so no activity occurs.

Level 2: You work out because other people like you better when you're in shape.
Motivation Type: External Regulation
The mind responds to outside stimulii, though no internal motivation exists.

Level 3: You work out because you would feel bad about yourself if you didn't.
Motivation Type: introjected Regulation
Internal motivation begin to form, but limited positive outcome occurs.

Level 4: You work out because you believe it's important and beneficial for health and lifestyle.
Motivation Type: Identified Regulation
Motivations become more positive, resulting in prolonged positive behavior.

Level 5: You work out because you simply enjoy it.
Motivation Type: Intrinsic Motivation
Positive activity is performed for extended periods because of pleasure response.

So what's your level of motivation?

The less intrinsic your motivation for exercising is, the more you're working out because you think you should and because you really enjoy it - the less likely you are to stick with it.

If you accept this behavorial model, the next question is how do you transcend to the next level, eventually to Level 5 and stay at it?

Find the Good Reasons to Drive You to Succeed

Anything you do, no matter how simple, has a number of good reasons behind it. Not all the tasks have the good reasons to do them seen at first sight, but if you take just a few moments to analyse them, you will easily spot something good. We also have many tasks which don’t need any reasoning at all - we’ve been doing them for so long that they feel natural.

But if you’re ever stuck with some task you hate and there seems to be no motivation to complete it whatsoever, here’s what you need to do: find your good reasons. This applied to working out and eating healthy. They may not be obvious, but stay at it until you see some. This will bring your motivation back and will help you finish the task.

Too many people have the quick-fix mentality partly due to inaccurate weight-loss infomercials. They quit exercising when they don't see results in two weeks, 21 days or 30 days.

Health and fitness is not a 12-week program. It's a lifelong commitment.

What's Really Driving You?

Material reward? This is quite often. You will get paid for doing something you normally don’t like doing at all. External rewards and punishments do influence our behavior.

Personal gain or pleasure? You will learn something new or will perhaps improve yourself in a certain way. When we're kids playing baseball or any games because it's fun, not because we can put on muscles or stay healthy. We're driven to do things simply for their own sake.

Sense of accomplishment? At least you’ll be able to walk away feeling great about finding the motivation and courage to complete such a tedious task.

A step closer to your bigger goal? Even the biggest accomplishments in history have started small and relied on simple and far less pleasant tasks than you might be working on. Every task you complete brings you closer to the ultimate goal, and acknowledging this always feels good.

Couples Discover 3 Relationship Traps to Your Weight Loss Success

As a personal trainer and fitness coach, I have consulted and trained many couples or partners over the years. It’s an eye-opening experience for me to see and listen how they interact with each other in different topics.

The weight issue is usually a very weighty issue.

As much as you love your partner, there bounds to be some differences that make you unique. The unique difference could cause tension between you and your partnership on your quest to weight loss and fitness.

Generally speaking, people start to get lazy and slack off once they’re in a steady relationship and after they’re married. According to a Minnesota Study, women add nearly 1 point to ther BMI (or about 7 pounds) while men put on an extra 0.7 (or roughly 5 pounds) during the early years of marriage.

One may be the meat-and-potato type. The other may be a vegetarian. One likes to eat pizza or cheeseburger and the other could be a soup-and-salad craze. One could be a gym rat while the other is a TV couch-potato.

Blaming and arguing with each other won’t get you closer in your relationship and to your goal weight. Here are 3 relationship fat traps and strategies to overcome them so that you and your partnership can maintain or even improve harmony in your relationship and shrink your waistline.

#1 Stop criticizing and teasing each other. Find the common ground and support each other. Instead of bashing on eating junk food, focus on healthy food choices and portions. Allow some occasional treats for satisfaction, not deprivation.

#2 Find fun activities and exercise together. It helps find quality time together and improve your relationship. Give the other the motivation.

#3 Make peace with foods. A calorie is a calorie. Calories do count. Calorie quality and nutrient density is just as important as calorie quantity in health and weight loss. Food is the source of energy to fuel your body and mind. Make friend with food, not enemy.

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Carey Yang is the owner and master personal trainer at Beyond Fitness Solutions, LLC -- a leading in-home personal training and weight-loss management company serving and helping clients in Morris County, Sussex County, Passaic County, Essex County and Somerset County areas in New Jersey. 


He specializes in helping busy, working professionals who want safe, effective workouts with maximum results in minimum time. To learn more about lifestyle and wellness coaching, personal fitness training and nutritional counseling and to sign up for a free monthly e-zine, receive free fitness and fat loss e-books, and schedule a complimentary consultation, visit http://www.BeyondFitnessSolutions.com.

How to Prevent Aspartame from Damaging Your Health

Artificial sweeteners especially aspartame has gotten a bad rap over the years, most likely due to studies showing they cause cancer. But not to worry Ajinomoto the company that makes Aspartame has changed the name to AminoSweet. It has the same toxic ingredients but a nice new sounding name.

And if you or your child happens to be allergic to Aspartame, well don’t take it personally it’s just  business.  Despite the evidence gained over the years showing that aspartame is a dangerous toxin, it has remained on the global market . In continues to gain approval for use in new types of food despite evidence showing that it causes neurological brain damage, cancerous tumors, and endocrine disruption, among  other things.

Most consumers are oblivious to the fact that Aspartame was invented as a drug but upon discovery of  its’ sweet taste was magically transformed from a drug to a food additive. HFA wants to warn our readers to beware of a wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing or in this case Aspartame dressed up as Aminosweet.

Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the general public is waking up to the truth about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health.

The latest aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public into accepting the chemical sweetener as natural and safe, despite evidence to the contrary.

Aspartame was an accidental discovery by James Schlatter, a chemist who had been trying to produce an anti-ulcer pharmaceutical drug for G.D. Searle & Company back in 1965. Upon mixing aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two naturally-occurring amino acids, he discovered that the new compound had a sweet taste. The company merely changed its FDA approval application from drug to food additive and, voila, aspartame was born.

G.D. Searle & Company first patented aspartame in 1970. An internal memo released in the same year urged company executives to work on getting the FDA into the “habit of saying yes” and of encouraging a “subconscious spirit of participation” in getting the chemical approved.

G.D. Searle & Company submitted its first petition to the FDA in 1973 and fought for years to gain FDA approval, submitting its own safety studies that many believed were inadequate and deceptive. Despite numerous objections, including one from its own scientists, the company was able to convince the FDA to approve aspartame for commercial use in a few products in 1974, igniting a blaze of controversy.

In 1976, then FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt wrote a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy expressing concern over the “questionable integrity of the basic safety data submitted for aspartame safety”. FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill believed that a grand jury should investigate G.D. Searle & Company for lying about the safety of aspartame in its reports and for concealing evidence proving the chemical is unsafe for consumption.

The details of aspartame’s history are lengthy, but the point remains that the carcinogen was illegitimately approved as a food additive through heavy-handed prodding by a powerful corporation with its own interests in mind.

Practically all drugs and food additives are approved by the FDA not because science shows they are safe but because companies essentially lobby the FDA with monetary payoffs and complete the agency’s multi-million dollar approval process.

Changing aspartame’s name to something that is “appealing and memorable”, in Ajinomoto’s own words, may hoodwink some but hopefully most will reject this clever marketing tactic as nothing more than a desperate attempt to preserve the company’s multi-billion dollar cash cow. Do not be deceived.

Sources:
Ajinomoto brands aspartame ‘AminoSweet’
Aspartame History Highlights
FDA’s approval of aspartame under scrutiny
An Overdue Ban On A Dangerous Sweetener
http://www.naturalnews.com/028151_aspartame_sweeteners.html

Learn how to prevent your body from everyday toxins in air, water and food.
http://www.hsu.zeropointglobal.com/

The 8th and Missing Habit of Highly Fit and Healthy People

If you missed my earlier articles on The Top 3 Habits of Highly Fit and Healthy People and The 4 Forgotten Habits of Highly Fit and Healthy People, you can read them in the following links.

http://www.beyondfitnesssolutions.com/beyondfitness/2011/09/weight-loss/top-3-habits-of-highly-fit-and-healthy-people/

http://www.beyondfitnesssolutions.com/beyondfitness/2011/10/weight-loss/the-4-forgotten-habits-of-highly-fit-and-healthy-people/

I received great comments and feedback from my readers and clients on all the 7 habits of highly fit and healthy people.

However, deep in my mind, I feel something is still missing. Some of my clients say the same thing. I listed eating, exercise, making time, setting goal, water intake, no-dieting mindset and tracking program as the top 7 healthy habits — look pretty complete.

So, what else is missing?

After some thoughts and soul searching, I discover that these healthy habits are more about external changes and less about habitual programming and mindset changes for sustaining long term success. They’re more about an individual’s own behavioral changes, than influence from the environment.

Here it is that I name the 8th Missing Habit of Highly Fit and Healthy People:

#8 Habit: Sense of Involvement and Community

If you have top 7 habits and become too obsessed about them, you become a gym rat. You turn into a healthy freak. You isolate yourself from the outside world. You care only about yourself.

You may have a physically fit and healthy body but are lack of emotional health and maturity.

Highly fit and healthy people help and share with other people their success by promoting healthy and active lifestyle. They’re involved in their community in many different ways.

One of them is to participate in community services or charity fundraising events that benefit the disadvantages or for good causes. They have healthy hearts, and more than that, they  have BIG hearts that serve and help the community.

If you resonate with me, now go out to run  5K charity races or serve the spaghetti meals.

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