This was week 138 of my Operation Melt journey that started with my goal to escape obesity and lose over 100 pounds in under a year. I launched the Operation Melt blog as a way to share my journey to both keep myself accountable and to help you as you work to crush your own goals. My hope is that something that I am doing will inspire you to try, will motivate you to keep going and will equip you to succeed in your own journey.

Making it work

As I have said before one of the keys to getting and staying fit is exercise. Fitting in exercise every day is one of the clearest paths to success, particularly when paired with smart eating decisions. But exercise takes time and that’s tough sometimes.

All through this week I have started being shown my Facebook memories from two years ago. That was a pretty important time in my life. I was in the midst of month seven of my original goal of losing over 100 pounds in under a year and I was already at almost 90 pounds lost. Plus I had just been laid off from my job of ten years and was starting to use my severance as an opportunity to have a sabbatical. I was taking my first real break in almost a decade since graduating college.

During my time off I had lots of flexibility in my schedule. I would start almost every morning with a trip to the gym. I would spend some time on the treadmill and then time lifting weights and probably spend close to an hour at the gym every day or every other day. Then I would spend my late mornings working on the job search. I would grab some lunch and would spend time writing my book in the early afternoon. I would also usually work in about an hour or two of walking and podcast listening through the day.

I had ample time for as much exercise as I wanted. I had tons of flexibility and it worked great. I hit my 100 pound loss in the ninth month of my journey and just kept going. But what worked for me then doesn’t fit into my schedule now. I simply cannot fit two or three hours of exercise into every day today in between work hours, commuting and living life.

Fast-forward to today and I am still getting plenty of exercise. I fit in usually 2 trips to the gym per week for treadmill runs and weight circuit training including my weekly session with my trainer. I usually get 1-2 runs in per week including a long run usually on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Plus I try to fit in a long walk nearly every day for between two and five miles depending on my schedule and what else is happening. I do tons of walking and it remains my top form of exercise in addition to my chosen form of meditation, decompression and learning time via audio books and podcasts.

The other thing I do to fit in exercise is try to find places where I think outside the box. For example I participated in a team-building exercise for work this week. The even was held at COSI (for those unfamiliar that is a massive science museum and activity center in downtown Columbus) which is exactly two miles from home. So I worked from home in the morning instead of driving a half hour to the office and a half hour back for a 4-hour work day. But working from home means that I don’t get the normal level of exercise associated with walking around at the office. I pretty much sit in one place so not the healthies day.

Knowing I needed to find a way to fit in exercise into my day I knew that I needed to do so in a creative way. So, instead of brewing coffee at home, I took a brief walk early in the morning to get coffee at my favorite shop in the neighborhood. Then I came back and worked through my meetings and to-do list for the day. When it was time to go to COSI I decided just to walk there. A two-mile trek through my neighborhood and downtown Columbus was a great way to fit exercise into a day that was going to be a little lower activity and a little higher calories from happy hour. The walk, despite being cold, windy and snowy, was great and I got a great workout for the day.

My entire fitness day turned out just fine because of fitting in exercise a times that worked for me.

Whether you are trying to fit exercise into your life or pursuing some other goal you need a plan that works for you. Adopting somebody else’s diet, exercise routine or any other strategy for achieving your goals likely will not work for the long haul. You have to be true to yourself and the realities of your life and build your plan around that. And beware that your plan will change over time so it has to work for you where you are today.

If you make your plan work within the realities of your life your goal is way more in reach.

Thanks so much for reading. I hope that my experiences and my tips can help you achieve your own big goals. If we work together we can build a world where goals never die of loneliness!