The Last 10%
19 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in GRAVITY Experiment Tags: gravity, marketing, math, parenting, pounds, Seth Godin, Total Gym, treadmill, weight loss
GRAVITY Experiment Day #35 (my math’s a little off – cut me some slack because we are neck-deep in end-of-the-school-year stuff with three kids)
Today’s weight: 146.5
Pounds lost / pounds to go: 4.0 / 11.0
Exercise: 30 min GRAVITY training on the Total Gym; 30 min intervals on the treadmill – 4.4 mph at 0% grade for 2 min alternating with 11% grade for 2 min
One of my favorite bloggers Seth Godin had a great post today titled “Hardly worth the effort.” It’s definitely worth the read if you have a few – I’ve listed the link under my Blogroll at the right.
While the blog mostly deals with marketing and customer service, a lot of the points he makes can be related to life in general. This particular post talks about how much work must be put into the last 10% of quality (i.e. getting your golf score from 77 to 70 is more difficult than getting it from 120 to 113 or 84 to 77).
The first thing that popped into my head was losing weight. After reading the post, I though it was ironic that I was trying to lose 10% of my body weight. The last 10-15 pounds are tough to conquer. Lord knows I’ve not been able to accomplish this goal for 15 years! But I never anticipated it getting progressively more difficult as I got closer to the end…
Beyond weight loss though, how often do we set out to accomplish a goal and do it halfway or give up along the way? I have no problem with the last 10% when it’s something I enjoy or something I excel at…but the real reward comes when I go further than 90% with the tasks that are tough. For me, this includes losing weight, parenting, dealing with difficult people, etc. (I could go on and on).
I find though that people get critical as you branch into the last 10% (and even more as you near the last 1-2%). Godin states, “The hard part is the last ten percent, sure, or even the last one percent, but it’s the hard part because everyone is busy doing the easy part already.”
The last 10% might require 90% of your time and effort – the tough part is determining what is worth figuring out all this math.
My Three Moldable Lumps
03 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in GRAVITY Experiment Tags: athletic, BOSU, cardio, gravity, Lowe's, lumps, parenting, squats, Total Gym, WaterRower
GRAVITY Experiment Day #21
Today’s weight: 146.5 (ate great yesterday so it had to be revenge of the stuffed crust pizza)
Pounds lost / pounds to go: 4.0 / 11.0
Exercise: 30 minutes GRAVITY training with continued “heart rate bumps” on recumbent bike, Pro II (arm & leg bike), and WaterRower; felt great at the end of my workout on the Total Gym so I did Get-Delt-With-It, Roman lifts, plank on the BOSU, mountain climbers, some type of push up I have no clue what its name is and about 5 min on my abs (30 each of reverse crunches, heels to heaven, and alternating oblique crunches)
Okay, gut check. I’m 3 weeks into this experiment and I’ve lost 4 pounds. I’ve done 18 workouts alternating between GRAVITY training on the Total Gym and cardio. I’m feeling awesome about the workouts and really look forward to the endorphin buzz I get. Food intake is probably my weak point but I’m definitely making smarter choices. I have a love-hate relationship with food so I’m not going to get too obsessive about it – this needs to be something I can maintain after the experiment is over.
During church today, it was reiterated that parents have the single most influence on their children – more so than media, other adults, their friends, etc. Before I started this experiment, I voiced to my husband how I regretted the fact that my children never saw the “athletic” side of me. I was super active and sportsy when I was younger but my own kids have never witnessed this.
I have made oodles of mistakes parenting. I remember being horrified when I dropped my first child on the bathroom floor at Lowe’s when she was 3 months old. I know, awful. I thought she was strapped into her carrier and she just slid right out as I lifted it up. I was absolutely beside myself and crying more than her as we rushed to the doctor’s office. That now 3rd grader reads at a 12th grade level – she’d probably be at a college reading level if it weren’t for me;-)
But after you learn to hold, feed, burp, and change diapers, there is this moldable little lump that is looking to you as an example for behavior – scary. This experiment has changed my kids’ behavior in a very short amount of time. The two youngest munchkins wanted to go into the clinic today with Daddy because they wanted to ”workout.” By the time I got there, the 7-year-old said she’d been doing squats on the Total Gym for ”at least 30 minutes.” The youngest – well his big thing is to make faces and grunt when he does his lat pullups. Wonder where he learned that?
The oldest isn’t quite there yet. When we go to the clinic as a family, she opts for reading as opposed to sweating. I do think there is a point your kids pass where shaping their behavior becomes harder and harder. I’m not giving up but I know that I am going to have to be diligent and creative with her.
Maybe a reading stand on the equipment will do the trick?
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