Keep At It

On Friday morning after Thanksgiving, still hurting and bulging from the holiday binge eating, I asked Google to find me an exercise program. Google led me to The Fit Father Project, “fitness for fathers”.

The Fit Father Project gives a lot of free information including videos. This is great marketing. I watched an 11 minute video that demonstrates a 24 minute workout designed for fat 51 year old men. Like me. As Dr. Anthony explains, fat 51 year old men can’t work out like they did at 18.

It’s a Metabolic Resistance Training (MRT) workout. The magic in this workout is that it lights up your metabolism for the next 24-48 hours. Great! I’m losing weight while doing my favorite hobby…sleeping. Let’s go!

And it looked so easy. This workout consists of 5 simple exercises with no more than a couple of dumbbells and 6 feet of floor space. You do the reps in an inverted pyramid pattern. Each one once, then twice, then three times, all the way up to 8 and then back down the pyramid. Without stopping and it should take about 24 minutes. Sounds great!

Well…the first time I tried it as a fat 51 year old father I realized that the Egyptians probably had an easier go at building the pyramids. I got to rep 4 and had a coronary episode. Disheartening. Next time same thing. Now before you think I’m completely pathetic (I am), do the math. I have. Five exercises with reps 1 thru 8 and back down 7 to 1. That’s 64 reps of each exercise. Times 5.

320.

24 minutes.

Izakly.

Not as easy it sounds.

The next time I got to 4 again, had another coronary and thought I saw a bright light. But this time I decided I would finish. Even if this 24 minute workout took 8 hours. And it almost did. Today I got up early to give it another go and this time I got to 5. I’ll claim that as a victory. But instead of trying to keep climbing to 8 reps, I decided to come back down from 5 and I did it.

And no near death experience. Another victory.

Instead of giving up, I modified the routine to one I could do and plan to build up until I can do it.

Work from where I am. Go from there.

It’s a good lesson in life. A great way to achieve any goal. Be realistic. Baby step it. Slight edge it. Keep at it. Pray about it. Don’t quit.

I’ve tried to teach this lesson to my kids. You don’t fail until you fail to keep trying.