Are we afraid of commitment?

I want you to take a moment and think about your life and all the things in it that you've committed to. No seriously, think about it. Most of us have car payments that we've taken for 3-5 years, mortgages for 20-30 years, marriages, fiances, jobs, student loan debt until we're dead, credit card debts until we get around to paying them off, and let's not forget our contracts with our cell phones, computers, pda's, and all the other fun toys that we've financed all so that we can be technologically savvy. Looking at this list, it would seem that we are pretty deep into our commitments and that we're not scared of it at all.

But I want you to stop and think a moment about another aspect of your life. I want you to stop and think about your health and fitness. We're all just fine signing away years of our lives for new houses and new toys, but when it comes to what really matters, when it comes to our health, our well being, it doesn't quite seem to measure up.

You can't turn on the tv these days it seems without somehow landing on an informercial for the latest workout craze which can have you lean and amazing in less than 20 minutes a day 3 times a week, or in as little as 6 minutes a day! There are constantly diet ads, new pills, and a variety of assorted gizmos and gadgets designed to help you get fit with you actually doing very little work. Isn't the idea of being fit and healthy all about doing work and well, getting in shape? To me, the pieces of this puzzle just don't seem to quite fit.

I've had friends and other aquaintances who have decided not to join a gym because they felt a year was too long of a commitment to make. But yet these are some of the very same people who will turn right around and go sign a two year contract with Verizon so they can get the newest Blackberry on the market. It just doesn't seem to add up to me. In reality, which is more important? Your health or your Blackberry?

If your Blackberry is good enough for a two year commitment why isn't your health? I get frustrated because it seems to happen so often with people. People walk through the door of the box, and not just ours, but any box, and don't understand why they can't automatically do things, why they can't just throw massive weights over their heads. Being fit and getting back in shape is a commitment, it's like your car, and I don't understand why when it boils right down to it some people are absolutely commitmentphobic. It's going to take you five years to pay off that car. Why do you automatically expect that in 3 weeks you'll be able to snatch and jerk like a pro? You were willing to dig in and work your hiney off for that HD tv you bought, why aren't you willing to give that same time frame for your body to progress?

I've had people who've been around CF for just a short while tell me that they're never going to be able to lift like me, and that makes me very uncomfortable. Not only am I really horrible at taking compliments and the like, I feel like they're selling themselves short. I almost feel like it's like that loan car loan, only, they're trying to stop paying on the loan before the term is up. You can't just jump in and assume that CF will be a quick fix. CF will produce results, but you have to commit to giving it time. And not 1 month, or even 2, but sometimes it may take a year or more. You have to remember that the work you are putting in is undoing MONTHS and YEARS of destructive behavior. Not only with regards to your eating, but also in terms of exercise. Bad habits are learned AND unlearned over a period of time.

Look, if you had told me two years ago that I'd be lifting 175 lbs over my head in a few years, I'd probably have laughed at you. I was ready to put in the work and get busy at CFOT, but in my wildest dreams I never thought this sort of stuff was possible for me. But the bottom line is though, that I stuck with it, and all my really awesome great success stuff that everybody likes to ooh and ah over, has really only happened in about the last 7 months or so. It takes time. Stop trying to duck your car payment and get busy with it already. You know, the more you put in, the faster it gets paid off. So dude, hit the box already. Ditch the prepackaged dinners, the diet plans, and don't sell yourself short. Commitment is great dude, not scarey. So hell, let's get some tin cans and a cake and get 'er done already!! ;)