Basic Pursuits

Ross Enamait's site Rosstraining is a premier source for great exercise ideas. Ross seeks ultimate fitness for his athletes and is certainly an expert in attaining it.

In reading his recent article The Power of Patience I was struck by how much the patience problem among dedicated athletes resembles the patience problems of folks just trying to learn to exercise for health.

Writing on Dumb Little Man, Craig Harper strikes some chords about weight loss. Some of them are pleasant and inspiring. Others are in-your-face blunt. All are true.

Among my favorites:

• The fat person with all the knowledge, education and resources... and a crap attitude, will stay fat.
• The fat person with limited knowledge, resources and genetic potential.. and a great attitude, will produce much better results every time.

In my experience, people bomb their exercise habit by trying too hard. They overexert themselves and produce a plea from the body which screams louder and louder, "don't do this to me!" They ultimately quit because either it becomes so unpleasant that they can't stand it anymore, or worse, they injure themselves, and their body demands they quit.

Craig Harper at Buzzle.com exposes the real weight-loss secret in an aptly entitled article, Weight Loss Bullshit. Here is a sample.

Q. What really determines weight loss (or gain)?
A. Attitude, thinking, self-control, mind-set and ultimately, decisions.

We know what to do.
But we don't do what we know.
We've never been more educated.
Yet we've never been fatter.
We've never had more resources.
And we've never made more excuses (heard them all).
We've never had more reasons to lose weight.
And we've never wasted more time.