The Four D's to Success.

Training at the track was an an extremely enjoyable experience today.  Today (by accident) this was my fifth time working out this week vs. the 4x I normally work out.  Generally speaking BC is an sufficient amount of work out to drive the changes I want to make, however I signed up for a personal trainer 1x per week to get specific instruction for my individual needs since BC is more of a general type of work out.  It just so happens that I lost track of the days this week and thought Wednesday was Thursday and ended up working out an extra day.  Once I got to the gym and realized my BC group wasn't there (and why would they be? Its not Thursday) I just spent the hour doing cardio (tread mill, stair climber and elliptical).


In my personal sessions I generally spend some time running, stretching (at least one hour) and lastly I focus on my core.  Well today as I was going through my stretching my trainer mentions to me that his 50 years of experience has lead him to believe success has 4 components to it.  He labeled success as having 4 D's and besides paying attention to them closely I thought I would tell you about them too.


Desire
Determination
Discipline 
Diet


I also want to spend a quick second recapping for myself how I have used the 4D's in my life.

Desire- This is obviously the foundation of it all right.  To want to do something is half the battle. I desire to be a healthier person who has conquered this yo-yo diet lifestyle.  I wanted to be in control of my life, weight, and dress size.  Anyone who knows me right now knows how bad I wanted to loose weight/get in shape and knows what I was willing to do to achieve this goal.  I signed up for BC... need I say more.

Determination-Once I made my mind up that I wanted to do something about my fitness situation or lack there of, I was very focused or determined to achieving my goals.  I knew that this process would take time and a lot of energy and thought either way I have to do it.  Giving up was not an option for me (this time) because I wanted this change so bad.  For some reason feeling unhealthy took me away from who I saw myself as.  Being unhealthy affected all areas of my life both professional and personal in a negative way and thus I was unhappy.  This feeling of wanting to focus on this aspect of my life overtook me and has carried me to where I am.  Half way through.  I continue to revisit the idea of staying determined to stay focused.

Discipline-One of the greatest traits that I have had to learn over time is discipline.  I use many external and internal factors to help me accomplish my goals, such as will power, motivation, and self control which go hand and hand with discipline. You might hear me even rationalize through this processes as I blog sometime in the morning when I am deciding to go or not to go to the gym.  It takes discipline to wake up at 4am, it takes motivation to get up and put my clothes on, further more to even walk outside in the cold and drive 15 min away to a gym when I so much would rather stay in bed.  It takes self control to change my eating to mainly fish/chicken and veggies when I really want  1 cheese enchilada with a shredded beef taco (with sour cream) Thank You!  Really what I have come to understand is that discipline is freedom.  Freedom from the excuses not to live your best life everyday! 

Diet- I have come to understand we are what we eat period.  Taking time to understand foods and how eating less of the bad foods and more of the good foods has simply allowed me to change my body size.  I guess this wasn't the hardest part of this process since eating healthy for the most part has been a part of my life since I got married to a fitness guru, however eating too much or eating fast food when time got away from me became easier as I got busy.  It became evident as time went on that if I want to be healthy and look the part, something was gonna have to change.  I can only work out so much, so changing my eating habits had to be the component that I change if I want to see further results.  This is and will always be a work in progress since I love good food. Learning how to prepare foods in a healthy way and eat less of the bad foods have been key for me.  Once I learned about eating fiber foods, overeating became less of a threat as well as taking time to prepare and pack lunches.  The extra time is worth the results I am seeing.