Would you believe that I ran 48 miles by my 48th birthday?
Inspired by a client's friend, I embarked on this challenge and realized it was the perfect preparation for an even bigger goal - overcoming obesity by my 50th birthday.
In this episode, I share my journey and reflect on the importance of setting and achieving major goals, just like I did at 38 when I set my sights on finishing college before turning 40 and before my oldest son graduated high school.
Join me as I reveal my plan to beat obesity - breaking down workouts, trying new foods, and setting short-term goals to stay motivated. I'll discuss how I'm keeping myself accountable with a "#I Beat Obesity" t-shirt and focusing on the process rather than the end goal.
Get inspired and follow along on this personal and challenging journey towards a healthier future.
Would you believe that I ran 48 miles by my 48th birthday?
Inspired by a client's friend, I embarked on this challenge and realized it was the perfect preparation for an even bigger goal - overcoming obesity by my 50th birthday.
In this episode, I share my journey and reflect on the importance of setting and achieving major goals, just like I did at 38 when I set my sights on finishing college before turning 40 and before my oldest son graduated high school.
Join me as I reveal my plan to beat obesity - breaking down workouts, trying new foods, and setting short-term goals to stay motivated. I'll discuss how I'm keeping myself accountable with a "#I Beat Obesity" t-shirt and focusing on the process rather than the end goal.
Get inspired and follow along on this personal and challenging journey towards a healthier future.
Welcome to the Mind Body Project podcast. After over a decade in the health and wellness industry, erin realized that our bodies change only short-term unless our mindset changes. for long-term success, both our mind and body are forever linked. We are continually building up new ideas and tearing down old ones in our construction zone we call our mind. After this podcast is over, make sure you give it a like and a share and please subscribe and review this podcast. I would now like to introduce you to your host, the man connecting your mind and body to create a limitless life, erin Zegler.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Mind Body Project. Thanks for taking the time to join me today. A couple of months ago I had a client and we were visiting as she was working out, and she mentioned that she had a friend that was about to have a birth. I can't remember how old he was going to be, maybe 50. So he was a runner, and so he decided that on his birthday he would run 50 miles and he did it all on the treadmill. So that's what he did For me. I'm thinking well, that's going to take, that would take all day, but he's a little faster runner. So I think it took him six, seven, eight hours, something like that. It was way less than I thought. I thought he would probably get up in the morning and do it all day, but anyhow he did 50 miles. I think it was 50 for his 50th birthday. Oh, that's a pretty cool idea.
Speaker 2:And so, as I thought about, i thought I'm about to turn 48. I don't think I don't want to do 48 miles in one day. So I thought well, you know what I can do 48 miles the month of my birthday. So this month is June, is my birthday. Just this past weekend was my birthday And so I thought you know I can do 48 miles in a month. That's doable. I was thinking this back in May And then I thought about more. I thought you know, really the challenge would be I'm not going to do 48 miles on my birthday. That just sounds like zero amount of fun for me And so I thought you know what I can do 48 miles by the 18th. I can do that. So I put it down in the calendar and figured out how many miles I needed to get each day. You know I only have during the week. I'll have a limited amount of time to get my exercise in. So for me I had to. It had to break down until I had to run every day to get in my mileage by time I turned 48. So it was 48 by 48, 48 miles by time I turned 48.
Speaker 2:And this past weekend, on my birthday, i accomplished actually finished up my miles on my birthday. For a couple reasons I could have done had been done before, but I always feel like on at least for me on my birthday, i like to do something that can get at me up moving, whether it's workout, whether it's go run, some sort of activity that pushes me a little bit. So that's, i think you know, on a new year of birth. It's a great way to start out your birth year. It's just a great way to say you know what, i can still do this, i'm going to do this, i'm still active, i'm still physically able to do these things. So so I did So that was important to me to finish my just. It just was just under three miles, just to finish up those 48 miles on my birthday.
Speaker 2:And, as I mentioned, i turned 48 and I got to thinking about it. I thought about you know, what was I doing when I was 38? And I had a big goal when I was 38. I was going to be, you know, just a couple of years shy of 40. I was thinking what, what can be a goal? And so I had been off and on trying to get my college degree done. You start, stop, start, stop. So we're all a couple of years from my 40th birthday It's 38, a couple of years away from our oldest son graduating high school. And I said, okay, by the time I'm 40, which was in June, i'm going to, and by the time our oldest son, kobe, graduates, i'm going to finish my college degree And so, just two weeks shy of our son graduating high school, i finished my degree and just one month away from my birthday, i finished my degree. So it was took that whole two years of of working towards it. You know I couldn't take tons of hours, but I just kept plugging away. I went during the school year, went during the summer and was able to finish it up before my 40th birthday. And so that was is I hit 48.
Speaker 2:I think what can be a big goal that I really want to achieve by the time I'm 50. I'm only two years away from that. Because I thought that's a neat to have a big goal, and for a couple of reasons. One, it's something that I wanted to achieve A college degree had been something I'd been working on for a long time. And second is I wanted to show my kids that if you can set a goal and you can work hard towards it and just plug away at it a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time, and you'll achieve that goal. And so that's why I wanted to show them. And I thought, as my 48th birthday approached and I go, man, i'm just a couple of years away from 50. What? what can I do?
Speaker 2:As many of you know, my entire life I have struggled with my weight. It's been up and down, been the best. It's been for the last 16 years All started because of weight watchers and losing 100 pounds and, starting on my health and wellness journey, even more so. Than you know, i've exercised my whole life But really got serious about it. But even even within those, since then it's been up and down 10, 15, 20 pounds And still as a personal trainer again, i've mentioned before I don't have the ideal body type of a personal trainer. I don't have a six pack, i don't have the ideal body type, but I'm always being consistent. I exercise daily, i eat right, i do all those things And I thought, man, what can I do? for in two years And I thought, my whole life I've been classified as obese My whole life. Of course.
Speaker 2:Your BMI body mass index. I've never been a big fan of BMI, just simply because it takes your height and weight And that's all it takes into account, doesn't take anything into account besides that. So like if you take a bodybuilder or anything about Arnold Schwarzenegger, sylvester Stallone really, according to the height and weight chart, they would be considered obese. Now, our general population that doesn't lift weights, that doesn't really work out, doesn't do anything. Bmi is going to be pretty close. It's going to be a little off, but it's not going to be 100% accurate, but it's going to be a little closer.
Speaker 2:And so I thought, you know, i don't want to go based on BMI, but I thought, what can my goal be? And thinking about being all the diets I've been, everything I've done, i thought, you, i want to beat obesity and I want to beat obesity for me. And so I thought, wow, that's. I've never done that. I've never been to a point where I can say I beat obesity and where I feel like man, i mean it just can't get any better than this. And so that's my two year goal is I'm going to beat.
Speaker 2:Now, i didn't say I want to beat, i said I am going to beat obesity. So I used that, thinking about that, and I used the 48 by 48, 48 miles by the time I turned 48. As mental preparation going. you know, even before the month started of June, i started thinking about you know, what's it going to take? What am I going to have to do to make that happen in the next two years. I mean, i've done a lot of things over the years. I've exercised hard, i've dieted eight, you know macros, calories, everything that I've done And so I wanted to use 48 by 48 as a goal to hit those miles by the time I turned 48, but also as a time for mental preparation about the journeys that is ahead. I know what journey I went through to lose 100 pounds. It was hard work. And to beat obesity. It's something I've never done And I know it's going to be a challenging journey. I know it's going to be very, very tough to do And so for me, i'm going to to beat obesity.
Speaker 2:I'm going to use body fat to put me within the right Healthy range. I'm going to use Waste circumference to put me in a healthy range. Measurements to use a to put me in the healthy range and that the Not obese, not overweight, in the normal Healthy range. Those are those are what I'm going to use to to determine what when I get there, because if I just say, you know, i won't look in the mirror and say, oh, i'm not, i don't feel obese anymore, that's, that's not good. I need to have Measurable numbers that I can go by and the scales not good because I'll be, i'll be lifting them, so I may. I'll gain muscle, i'll lose fat. So those really aren't, you know, just the scales not a good way of Judging either. So I need to use all of those together. Also, had a dexa scan done, had blood work done, had all that done in preparation for These next two years to kind of see where I'm at, to every few months, to Also check in with that, see how my blood work is doing, how, how my body fats doing. I'll redo my dexa scan in probably six months. So all those things to see where I'm at and see how my progress is going.
Speaker 2:So to do that, i bought, i got a t-shirt made One of my clients, she makes t-shirts. I said, hey, i need a t-shirt, need a black t-shirt and on that I need to say hashtag I beat obesity and So it's what size do you want? I said I need, because you know when you order get a t-shirt, just because it says a medium, small, large, Extra large doesn't mean that's the actual size ever. Every, every company has their own version of small, medium, large, extra large. I said I want you to get me the smallest large you can get that typically where An extra large to a large to X pen on the shirt. I want this thing to be.
Speaker 2:You know, i said large because I thought for my, for me, that's realistic, and so so I put it on and the first of every month I'm gonna take a picture of me in that shirt and I will post it on some form of social media, having decided where exactly it will be. But you better go to one of my social medias and find it. But I took the picture and To tell you how good it looked, kim, my wife, she laughed and said you cannot post that. That is, that's bad. And I said I know I'm gonna post it. So Because for a couple reasons. One, it's gonna help me with accountability to I want to show the the progression each month on how that shirt Starts to become looser and looser and looser and, trust me, after putting it on, we have a long way till it's loose, a long way. But that's my goal for the next two years and It's.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be tough Because I'm gonna have to do some things that I'm you know I'm not That are uncomfortable, have to do maybe some new foods, some new combinations, some new exercises, some new cardio, so just some different things. I don't have to be creative and come up with those things and do those things. Do I know the process yet? No, do I know all the how? No, i sure don't, but I'm gonna figure it out. I've set my goal. I know that's what I'm gonna hit by the time I'm 50 and And. But I just have to adjust Things as I go along. I have a general idea of where I'm gonna start, some things I'm gonna do And we'll work those until they till they don't work anymore. We'll switch some things up and we'll keep it going.
Speaker 2:But but, as I started thinking about you know my, my big two-year plan of I'm gonna beat obesity, because, too, i want to show I Want to be in that normal, healthy range. But also I want to show everyone that it's possible, no matter in age. It's possible. Anything is possible when we set our mind to it and When we set a goal, and sometimes the goals big. And I thought, when I was thinking about goals and we set goals and sometimes we set really, really big goals and You know, can I tell you necessarily what weight I'm gonna be at when I beat obesity? I don't know what I'm gonna be at. I've never been there before, so that's why we're checking all those things to see where I need to be.
Speaker 2:But when I think about a big goal, big goals can be overwhelming. When I started weight watchers, if if someone had told me, you, you, you're gonna have to lose a hundred pounds in the next year, i'm like, oh, that's too big, yeah, that's too big, i can't now, i can't do that. That's, i can't even fathom that. I've never done that before. And Because Don't we get like that when we have a big goal? You know, i'm going to finish this college degree in two years, working a full-time job, having four kids, going to sporting events, doing some homework, working, you know, keeping my business, going all these things, all these two big goals too big. All of us have had those big goals, and so I just want to share a couple of things about how do we make those big goals possible. How do we make that happen?
Speaker 2:And one is is break the goal down to the process. As I talked about, i used the 48x48 as a mental preparation time running every day. I didn't necessarily want to get up and run every day, but I did because I wanted to use it as mental preparation of you know, this is going to be part of the process For me. It's going to be some running, it's going to be doing some different treadmill workouts, it's going to be doing some different combinations of lifting, whether it's HIIT workouts, whether it's Tabata, whether it's just strength training. But. But so I started thinking about that on the 48x48, getting ready for the big goal, and because I, because we have to break down the goal down to the process.
Speaker 2:The process is I'm going to have to cardio, i'm going to have to make good food choices, i'm going to have to do some combinations of different things for food. I have to do some carb cycling, i might do some intermittent fasting. There's all kinds of things that are going to be totally safe, but that I'm going to change up. One because I don't want my body to say, oh, i know what's going on, i want to keep it guessing, i want to keep, i don't want to get bored And I want to keep going towards my goal. But I have to focus on those, those processes. When I focus on that big number or that big goal, i think, man, that's too big. But if I can get up in the morning and focus on my cardio for that day, that morning, that 20, 30 minutes, i go, man, i can do that. If I focus on my meal for lunch, okay, i just have to focus on lunch and I can do that. And then when it gets to supper time, okay, if I can just focus on that supper, i can do that. Okay, when I hit the gym for some strength training, okay, i just got to focus on this 45 minutes. I need to give it all I got for each rep, each set. I can do that. And so that's the process.
Speaker 2:And in the process we're focusing on, as I've talked about before, focusing on the micro. What's the small things you know. We talk about the workout And then how do we break that down? Okay, now we got the sets, we're going to break it down into how many sets we're doing, okay, great. Now let me focus on the micro of that set And that's the rep. That's one rep. The micro is down to that one rep. Okay, did I do that one rep? good, good. Did I give it all I had? Yeah, i'm gonna move on to the next rep. Did I give that rep everything I had? Yes, same thing with my cardio. I got to get a 20, 30 minute cardio session in.
Speaker 2:Okay, i'm gonna you know, maybe I'm gonna do some walking and running, doing some hit. Okay, i just have to worry about this 30 second of hit that I have to do And then I'm gonna rest. I'm gonna rest, good, i'm gonna do my 30 seconds of easy walking And then I'm gonna hit my next 30 seconds of a hard run or sprint. Okay, all I gotta do is worry about those 30 seconds. And then in that 30 seconds, okay, i got to worry about this one second, this two seconds, this three seconds, this four seconds. When I want to stop, i want to hands on the rails, i want to hop off, just keep going. You can do this, you can do this.
Speaker 2:That's the micro, that's the micro of the process. And when we start focusing on that micro of the process, we took our big goal and we broke it down into processes. And then we took the processes and we broke those down into the micro. And when we focus on the micro in the process, the process will then take care of the macro or the goal. And along that way, i'm going to set some short term goals. We have to break that big goal down into some short term.
Speaker 2:For me, one of the things is that visual is when I try on the short term is that every month, the first of the month, i'm putting on that shirt that says hashtag I beat obesity and is again a little looser. That's a short term goal. The next month I try to launch a little looser. Take progress pictures Hey, you're looking a little better. Take some measurements. Hey, we lost an inch, lost a quarter of an inch. Hey, body fat percentage we lost half a percent this month. Great, oh, this month we lost a percent and a half. Man, we're really doing good.
Speaker 2:So I'm setting long term short term goals So I can focus on those. That when I hit the man, if I can just lose 1% body fat this week or this month, i'm going to be on point. Then in the month rolls around, i do my weight and body fat. I lost 1%. Well, i hit that short term goal. Good, what can I do next month? I'm thinking I can probably do at least 3.25% percent. Okay, super, i think I can lose probably two inches in my mid session next month. I know some things I can tweak and do better. That probably didn't do as good on this past month. Okay, i can do that. So you start setting those short term goals. And again, i'm using weight, i'm using my next two year process, but I encourage you to set a couple of your goal. Okay, what's that? How big is that goal? Don't let it overwhelm. You Break it down into the process and then break that down into the micro and then set up some short term goals. So you know, as you go from week to week, month to month, you're hitting those short term goals. And two, what's that? help with, helps, keep you a little bit more motivated.
Speaker 2:And, like I mentioned, i know from doing things in the past that I'm going to have to adjust along the way. I'm going to have to adjust a little bit. I might have to adjust my food plan. I may have to adjust my exercise plan. Well, what if I get injured? What if something? what if I pull something? What if something happens? What if I'm lifting and I strain something? Well, i'm going to definitely have to adjust it. I'm going to have to adjust my plan to make things work, because I'm still, because I'm not going to use use those injuries if, if that were to happen, as an excuse of oh, i got hurt So I had to put on a hold, so now it's maybe 51. No, you know, twist and ankle, i can still do some upper body stuff. I can still lightly do a bike, i can still do some things. So just adjust as needed is going to be what I'll do along the way. And same thing for you.
Speaker 2:When you have that big goal, you know things may not be going exactly right. You just tweak it, you just adjust it. It's a two-year process. You know, if something didn't work today I can adjust it for tomorrow. If that worked but not great, i can adjust again. I can just again. And just like anything, when we adjust it gets more fine-tuned, more fine-tuned, more fine-tuned And as my body hits new fitness levels, new health levels, it's going to be able to do more. I'm going to have to push it harder. So what I do this week, i'm going to have to do way more than that in a year, because my body's going to be way accustomed to that. That'd be like in a year. My body would be going, that's easy. Are you just sitting around? So it's going to have to adjust to keep that challenge, to keep that go going towards that goal, and you know our goal is, big or small, They're really reaching the same manner. We set the goal, we break it down to the process, we break the process down to the micro. We set those short terms to hit those as we go, and then we just adjust as we go along to make sure we're hitting those goals. We're focusing on the process, we're focusing on the. You know what it's what we're doing to try to get to that big goal. So, big or small, you'll use these same things for for that, and I would encourage you and hope you would join me on my journey over the next couple of years, as this comes out.
Speaker 2:I haven't quite decided what social media it will be on. It'll most likely be on Instagram and TikTok. You can go to my Instagram now, though, and you can find that picture of me in my extra small large shirt that says hashtag I beat obesity and follow me along through stories and reels and all that kind of fun stuff, because I want to take you along the journey with me, one for motivation and one, hopefully I I'll show you some ups and downs, because it all won't be great. I won't come on and say, oh, this is the best thing I'm doing, so good. No, there's going to be days when, like, i don't want to exercise, i don't want to eat right today, i don't want to do what I'm going to have to do today, to the process I'm going to have to do to hit the micro, to hit the macro. I don't want to do all that today. Then I'm going to share that with you. I'm going to be open and honest. It's going to be a tough road And, again, that's why I use that time, those 18 days for the 48 by 48, to get me mentally prepared For for the journey ahead.
Speaker 2:And it's gonna be rough days, it's gonna be good days And all days in between, but that's what it is. That. That's what a challenge is. If it feels easy, we wouldn't call it a challenge. It'd be. It'd be like, oh, just another day. But this is a Big challenge for me and so it's gonna be something I've never achieved in my life before And at the age of 50, in just two years, i'm going to achieve That goal of I be obesity. So I hope you join me along the journey So you can support me, you can encourage me, you can.
Speaker 2:I'll share the, the things that work, things It didn't work and and everything in between. So, and I'd love to connect with you. You can go to my website, errandeglercom. We can connect there via text, via email. I'm joined to get my, my weekly Email. I'm gonna send one out at every. You know, most every day.
Speaker 2:Monday is is more of a story and and a challenge that I present to you from The story about me for the previous week. Fridays are always Fitty. Friday Give you a little information about health and wellness and fitness, and in between is just some podcast, and so you don't miss a great podcast like the mind-body project or my hometown. You can also Check out my. You know I have the 360 effect. I have coaching, personal training, all those great things. I'm gonna help you Achieve your goals, whatever they are, and we'll break them down. We'll take those big, hairy, scary goals. We'll break them down to the process. We'll break them down to the micro and we'll break them down to those attainable short-term goals. So thank you so much for joining me today. And hey, is that tell my wife Kim? every night before I go to bed, it's bomb of the ninth double a out.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to today's podcast. If you would like to connect with Aaron, you can do so by going to Aaron digler comm or find him on social media as Aaron digler on Instagram, facebook and YouTube. Once again, we greatly appreciate you tuning in. If you've enjoyed the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. We greatly appreciate that effort and we'll catch you in the next episode of the mind-body project podcast.