Forget Perfect!

Hey guys.

Because it's January and we're all fired up about our New Year's Resolutions I want to jump in and ask you to perhaps approach this year a little differently. I am going to of course talk about fitness and weight loss but this applies to changing your eating habits, saving money, spending more time with the fam, sitting for meditation, being more social or whatever other resolution you may have chosen to pursue in 2013.

Personally, I am dying to get back on the mat, but until I am able to breathe for more than five minutes without coughing I am on the sidelines and forced to just write about it. Boo! I want to work out too! Anyway...

I know many of you are Tracy Anderson Lifers like me, but there may be a few of you who had fallen off the wagon last year and are determined to get back to it this red hot minute, or you may be brand new to Metamorphosis and are anxiously waiting for your package to arrive in the mail, where ever you sit in the program, a little reminder to forget perfection is never a bad thing.

I know undertaking a program like this can be as exciting as it is daunting. A new diet, a new routine. We get all gung-ho right off the bat and then find a week or two later that we don't want to have to cook special meals for ourselves while our family gets pizza, we don't want to squirrel away in the basement doing our stupid old cardio when everyone else is watching television. The scale hasn't budged. Our body hurts. Or we missed two days this week so what's the point? Or we fell off the wagon and ate those damned cheese doodles. 

I am here to tell you that I've been there. This blog is a testament to the trials, to the frustrations and the guilt that goes along with trying to change your life. But it is also proof that if you hang in there, if you tailor that resolution to fit into your lifestyle rather than turning your whole life upside down to accommodate the new program, you will find success. If you really want to change... guess what? You can!

Listen to me people. I will never have legs like Gisele Bundchen, I will never have Jennifer Lopez's butt, but I am never gonna have blond hair and blue eyes either. You have to accept the clay you're working with and do your best to mold it -- not into some false ideal that you've picked up in an air-brushed magazine -- but into the best you that you can be and believe me -- you are pretty damned terrific already! You are!

So let's forget perfect and get practical.

If you are embarking on this program of Metamorphosis for the first time or you are taking a second crack at it, really take stock of what it's asking from you and be honest with what you can put into it. I know it's a cliche to say that you get out what you put in, but with Tracy's Method that really is true. 

Looking back, knowing what I know now, I want to share a few things with you. For those of you who have been here all along and have had the results and kept them, please feel free to chime in here and comment on tips and tricks you discovered to keep you going.

If you have weight to lose, think about how you got to where you are. Be really honest about what you've been eating. Where have you been eating? It took me a really long time to finally accept that my diet was a huge huge part of this. I am a vegetarian and I cook for myself. I had to be eating healthy right? Yeah, sure... mostly. But my portions were huge and I was also consuming copious amounts of sugar by way of desserts. Keeping a food journal is a pain in the ass but it will save you from having a huge ass in the long run. Get an app, grab a notebook, buy a food journal - whatever -- if you bite it write it. You will be shocked by the number of calories and fat that you are unwittingly and unknowingly consuming. Start there.

Tracy's diet is hard. For a vegetarian, darn near impossible. I had to make adjustments to it. But I could not get the weight off without making adjustments to my own diet - so between her program and my own needs I came up with something I could live with. If you've got a family to cook for and you're working, you don't have time to be making separate meals. How can you adapt that diet to suit everyone? 

It will serve you well, rather than rushing in head first without a thought, to come up with a realistic plan for food using Tracy's diet as a guide and incorporating your own tastes and talents in the kitchen into it.

As for the workout. You have got to make the time for it. No way around it. But there's nothing that says you can't split it up. Do cardio in the morning and mat work after dinner - or whatever works for you. Make it a habit. It has to be a habit that you do everyday. Would you dream of the day when you can stop brushing your teeth? Not likely. So if you want to change your body you have to accept the fact that you have got to use it. If you don't like the Method's moves, you won't find success. In that case, look for something that you do like.

It's no secret that I am not a dance cardio fan, so I run. I love being out in nature with my two best guys, feeling the wind (and often the damned rain - Pacific Northwest weather, argh) in my hair. If you love yoga, do that. If you feel happiest riding your bike or swimming or playing tennis, do that! No one program is going to work for everyone.

My girl Janice gave six dedicated months to the Method and it didn't make her heart sing, so she switched to lifting weights. No one says you have to do one thing or the other. But I will say this. If you want a dancer's body... do what the dancer does.

And finally, no one knows you better than you know yourself. You have got to know when to push a little harder and when to pull back. If you're just starting a new program like Tracy's and you can only do five minutes of cardio, only do five minutes, don't be a hateful meanie to yourself and beat yourself up because you can't do 30 minutes... but don't only do five minutes if you think you can do six or ten or twenty. 

Okay, lecture done. Get away from this computer and strap into your sneakers and get busy! That workout isn't going to do itself!

xo
Shan