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FORWARD!
Move It! Move It! Move It!	Janelle Kennedy
March 2010 FORWARD Move it! Move it! Move it! By Janelle Kennedy Since I began working out and changed my diet seven weeks ago, I’ve noticed several positive changes. Physically, my acid reflux has nearly disappeared, and the nighttime leg cramps that used to wake me at night with pain that lingered well into the day have vanished. My knees still ache, but feel stronger and my range of motion has improved, helping restore my gait to near-normal. I have better balance and don’t fret when going downstairs with an arm full of stuff. I have had to buy two successively smaller pairs of jeans as I went from size 22 to18. Perhaps most importantly, my cardio-vascular fitness has improved. When I began, my trainer at Bodyworks advised me that for maximum fat-burning I should aim for a heart rate between 119 and 130 beats-per-minute; where once I fought to keep below 130, I now have to exert myself to stay above 119. The changes in mental fitness have been just as pronounced. I fall asleep faster, sleep better and feel more rested during the day. I’ve noticed an improvement in mood, an increased ability to concentrate, I am more patient, and I even enjoy folding laundry! With all these advantages, you’d think I rush down to the gym every morning, eager to get started. But guess what: you’d be wrong. So the question becomes, if I always feel better after I workout, and I always feel better after I workout, why don’t I always workout? The weight-loss psychiatrist who answers this question and determines how to get people like me to exercise regularly should win a Nobel Prize. So far, none of them have succeeded, but that didn’t stop me from trying to figure this out. In my quest, I conducted a completely unscientific poll: I asked friends bending elbows beside me at Kybecca for their thoughts. Lori chimed in with the ever-helpful, “One of those big life questions, I'm afraid.” Wayne channeled Barney Frank and answered my question with the question, “Why, if we know that by setting aside a little money every month we will be able to retire in leisure, don’t we?” Shawna commiserated that she ponders mysteries like that every time she steps on the scale. It looks like this group won’t need to worry about how to split the Nobel Prize money. Maybe the answer is emerging from the world of consumer psychology. Baba Shiv, a professor of marketing at Stanford University, studies decision neuroscience, focusing on the underpinnings of emotion and motivation in decision-making. Recently, he gave two groups of people either a two-digit or a seven-digit number to memorize then asked them to go down a hall and wait. Along the way, the subjects were offered a snack of either cake or fruit. Those who had the more difficult task of memorizing seven-digits were nearly twice as likely to pick cake over fruit, suggesting the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for both decision-making and short-term memory, was overloaded and less capable of making good decisions. One implication of this study is that we make better decisions when less stressed. I try to keep this in mind on days I just don’t wanna work out. I try to objectively assess my current stressors. Sometimes I succeed in getting to the gym; sometimes I fail. So far, I have been successful more often than not. When not, I forgive myself and move forward, not just because I must, but also because I choose to. This is part two of Janelle’s 12-part column chronicling her experiences with weight-loss, chronic pain, and unemployment. Visit our e-zine edition at frontporchfredericksburg.com for previous columns.
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