Human Guinea Pig

I love this idea.

Emily Yoffee over at Slate.com does something called Human Guinea Pig: Humiliating myself for fun and profit and she experiments with different lifestyles, jobs and habits so you don't have to.

Her most recent experiment is called
Spandex Fantasy: I have a lifetime's worth of flab. Can I turn it into muscle in four months?
.

During the trial, Emily hires a personal trainer who works with her two days a week and expects her to work out on her own 3 more days a week. Although Emily has had a gym membership previously, she says that what she normally does at the gym is nothing like what the trainer expects her to do and at first, she skips out on her own workouts causing the trainer to say "If you don't do it, we can't make a miracle here, you have potential, but you need to work harder."


At some point, Emily decides to really give it a go and what do you know? She sees results.

Then one night, after six weeks of serious effort, I was pulling down on a triceps machine when I caught sight of my upper arm in the mirror and saw a long, diagonal bruise running across it. I didn't remember hurting myself, so I examined my arm and realized I wasn't seeing a bruise, but a shadow cast by my deltoid—my first "cut." Later that week, my husband came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth and said, "Hey, look at your arm! You've actually got some muscles—for the first time in your life."
I started out being able to do five push-ups, now I did 20; I went from 15 dips to 22; I could do a chest press with only 7.5 pound weights, now I was using 20 pounders.


This brings up a great point. If you try something and are consistent with it, you are going to see results. That's a given and not usually where the problem lies. The problem is motivation.

In Emily's case, it's really what she does for a living, and it's typically temporary (although it doesn't have to be). Her motivation is she has to post her results to the whole world in order to get paid. It won't make a very good story if she just says, "Oh it was too hard, I gave up".

So, if you know for a fact that you can make a change, lose the weight, gain some health and muscles, where do you get your motivation?

For me it was my pants. They were so tight I was getting ready to buy bigger ones, again. And that was it. I refused to go up one more size. I told myself I was skinny before, I could be skinny again and be damned if I was going to move up one more pant size. Anger and disgust have always been great motivators for me.

And that's just what I did. Instead of going up a size, I ended up going down 5 sizes. It took awhile to be sure but I did it. And how you may ask? By following The Business Plan for the Body and keeping track of my calories.

What is your motivation? Have you found it yet? What is it going to take?

0 comments

Disclaimer

The contents of this site are for informational purposes only. The content is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Always seek the advice of your physician, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of content found on this site.