But recently I happened upon a fun sport that fits me well: Disc Golf. If you haven’t heard about it, you really should. According to the PGDA (Professional Disc Golf Association) there are almost 2700 disc golf courses in America (including 148 in Iowa). And the best part? Most all of them are FREE! Just invest in a few discs (most of which you can buy for under $10) and hit a course.

Most areas have leagues with tournaments and doubles nights (you are randomly paired with a partner) so you can begin to learn from better players and develop a network other golfers.

Go to http://www.pdga.com/ and find lots of information about the sport or read from my blog, http://www.discgolfed.blogspot.com to hear about my introduction to the sport.

If you’re like me and need some fun to motivate yourself to exercise, crave some competition and camaraderie, but don’t have the money for “ball golf” greens fees, you really should check this sport out. Beware, it’s addictive.

for those who like pictures-find a picture of a relative you resemble who has gained way too much weight. That’s a scary motivation!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage

@Matt, I find that an unused gym membership is a waste of money, but a well utilized one is not. It’s like buying food: if you just throw it all at the end of the month, then it was worthless, but if you eat it all, then you can’t really say it was a waste of money.

I think a great motivator is to have your exercise be a useful thing. Use your feet or your bike instead of your car. Think of all the gas you will save and the wear and tear on the car! Bike or walk to work. Bike or walk to pick up a few items at the grocery store. Bike to the bank or to run some other errand. For leisure activities, go for a long walk on the beach or hike some interesting trails. I think people hate to exercise because it is something “made up.” Use it for a real purpose and low and behold you may enjoy it more.

Good luck!

Gal

BMI is a great tool for the farther extremes. Kinda like the old Classic physics equations. Great on the macro scale but for atomic stuff crap. Same for BMI, as you get closer in to “normal” it starts to fail since its statistical. Hell alot of professional atheletes are obsese on those things.

My doc, trialoner as well as iron man, says about 18%. Not sure if that’s gender based or not. Most new scales can show that to ya.

Trent, you have some great resources right at your fingertips. Your wife and your son. Any lifesyle changes should include your son as he is in a critical point in his life. They say that our charicter is set by age 3. If you get the whole family exercising, you will be giving him a positive influence.

Why not put on some music and dance around? It doesn’t matter how silly it seems, nobody is going to see you and your son will have great fun. It will also help him develop motor skills and others. Or do some areobics together. I don’t recomend using a video with your son at this time; a lot of info has been surfacing about TV and children, there is a strong recomendation that children under 3 recieve *no* screen time. Of course this is largely ignored.

Taking a family walk is another way to get everyone motivated. This may be hard to do at this time of year as it starts getting colder and colder, but on nice days, you could take advantage of this free resource.

Eating healthier is a big componet of excercise, it will increase the results. I think it’s great that you are thinking about cutting meat from your diet. When I did, I lost a good deal of weight with out doing anything else. I also felt so much better: more energy, clearer thinking,etc. If you are using the volumetrics diet, the vegetarian diet works well with it. take small steps. Start by cutting meat out of a meal or 2 each week. At the same time, add more veggies and whole grains to your meals. As the volumetrics diet teaches, you want to make your diet more nutrient dense as opposed to calorie dense. If you aren’t set on the typical ‘meat and potatoes’ diet, you can find so many different ways to make vegetarian meals. A lot of the ethnic diets contain little to no meat and would be a good place to look for ideas. Look into Chinese, Mediterainian, Middle eastern, Indian, etc. recipes for interesting ideas.

You can also use some meat replacements and experiment with them. The Morningstar Farms Grillers Prime are surprisingly good. You can use them in recipes to replace the meat. For instance, chop an onion, saute it in a little olive oil, then add the Grillers (crumbled up) and cook them with the onion. Then use them in a recipe that calls for hamburg, like shepherd’s pie. I have served these and others, such as the “chicken” nuggets to unsuspecting friends who couldn’t tell the difference. You might be amazed.

The most expensive electronic device I own, besides my computer, is my iPod. It’s out of the range I would normally be willing to spend for a recreational-type item, but since it helps me so much when working out, I consider it an excellent investment. I tend to buy new, but you don’t have to.

For vegetarian recipes I love Recipes for a Small Planet and Diet for a Small Planet. There are some very yummy ones in there.

I just wrote about routine yesterday at
http://mcmvoices.com/blog/2007/11/hitting-ground-running.html so it’s especially fun to see Trent’s post today and others’ viewpoints. Many thanks!

1. Cut your grass with a push mower, not a riding mower. For me, thats 3 hours a week. As I like to say “My neighbors all have health club memberships and riding mowers, and I have neither”.

2. Take the steps and skip the elevator.

3. Walk/bike instead of driving, whenever you can.

1. **A regular schedule**, when I’m **most energized** — for me, 7:30A-8A, when everyone else has left the house. After work, forget about it. Too tired.

2. **Moderation** to avoid burn-out — I only work-out 30 minutes a day. That’s moderate, and it means that I don’t dread it. I’m self-competitive in so many areas of my life. Not this one.

3. **Elliptical trainer** — its low-impact and the **only** exercise that hasn’t led to some kind of joint or specific pain-point. I would never, ever run on pavement again. That’s a joint-killer.

4. **Watch great TV** — My wife and I both watch TV shows on DVD, shows that we really love, and that’s a HUGE motivator, b/c you get hooked, and you want to watch again, and guess what, you exercise while you do it.

#4 above has made the most difference in terms of getting me to exercise, when in fact I don’t like to exercise.

Exercise is not a thing we should do to fix a problem, but a thing without which there will always be problems.

VC

I have a bet with myself (I’ve posted it on my fridge) that if I make boot camp classes every week for 52 weeks, I’ll reward myself. Not only do I get in shape but I have something to look forward to at the end. Plus myself and a friend go together to motivate each other; we laugh and talk our way through the pain.

As for eating healthy, I do that by default. An old trainer told me once to eat colorful (meaning lots of fruits and veggies). Plus, now that I live on my own, I find myself not buying a lot of meat because it is usually the most expensive item in the grocery store. I do buy chicken on occasion but whole-wheat and black-bean veggie burgers work just as well.

For me it’s a first thing in the morning at the YMCA three days a week with a friend. Wouldn’t dream of not showing up. (Sharing a ride really helps) And now that we’re on a roll, it seems as normal as going to work.

Several years and a marriage later, I feel much more secure about myself as a person…and I’ve also got 20 more pounds to be secure about.

I normally take an evening walk and work out sporadically at my apartment’s pithy “gym,” but in the last few months, my apartment management has neglected to maintain the few machines the facility has. The multi-purpose weight machine has several broken cables — so lifting the weights is out of the question. The only working machine in the room is a grimy treadmill. It’s really grimy. No matter how many times I clean it, it’s always sweaty and gross again when I return.

To stop the constant creeping of pounds (did I mention I love to cook?) while waiting on my lame management company, I finally purchased a membership at the YMCA. However, I applied for financial assistance and was approved for a 30% discount. I love using their cardio machines – they look through a large second-floor window over a vast, beautiful field – and the classes really help me stay motivated.

So far, it’s been a great investment!

Several years and a marriage later, I feel much more secure about myself as a person…and I’ve also got 20 more pounds to be secure about.

I normally take an evening walk and work out sporadically at my apartment’s pithy “gym,” but in the last few months, my apartment management has neglected to maintain the few machines the facility has. The multi-purpose weight machine has several broken cables — so lifting the weights is out of the question. The only working machine in the room is a grimy treadmill.

To stop the constant creeping of pounds (did I mention I love to cook?) I finally purchased a membership at the YMCA. However, I applied for financial assistance and was approved for a 30% discount. I love using their cardio machines – they look through a large second-floor window over a vast, beautiful field – and the classes really help me stay motivated.

So far, it’s been a great investment!