Why is it so hard to stick to a weight loss routine?

Flow 385 class at ageless

Think about this…

Your goal will determine how likely you are to stay committed to exercising, which in turn, determines how likely you are to succeed.

If your goal is to gain muscle mass, you’re more likely to be committed to your exercise regimen. If you’re training for a half marathon, you are more likely to be committed to your exercise regimen. If you’re training because you enjoy running, you are more likely to be committed to your exercise regimen.

However, if you want to lose weight, you’re less likely to be committed to your exercise regimen. Why? Exercise is just as effective for weight loss as it is to gain muscle or run a marathon. Thus, it’s not an efficacy issue. In addition, if you’re interested in gaining muscle, the rate is almost the same (if not slower) than the rate of fat loss for those interested in losing weight. Thus, there’s no difference in instant gratification. So what is it?

Imagine playing a basketball and not keeping score. How many kids do you think would keep playing over the years? How many kids would leave to play another sport that kept score? Let’s go one step further. Can you name a game that doesn’t keep score?

The difference – immediate feedback. At any point in the game you can look up at the scoreboard and see exactly how you are doing.  You know in an instant if you’re getting closer or farther away from your goal.

When trying to add muscle, we also get valuable immediate feedback. If the weight on the barbell isn’t increasing or we’re not adding a few more repetitions each set, we know we’re not getting closer to our goal. Just imagine what would happen if we didn’t keep track of how much weight is on the bar or how many repetitions we did from week-to-week, and instead only had to go by the scale or mirror. Almost all of us training for muscle mass would immediately lose interest and quit because those two feedback loops take WAY too long to tell us if we’re getting closer to our goal.

The same thing is true for people training for a marathon. Their immediate feedback loop is even better. At any point during their workout, they can see their pace or total distance and know immediately if their workout is getting them closer to their goal.

Both of those goals have keystone habits with immediate feedback loops built directly into their workout.  For muscle mass, progressive overload is key, and it’s tracked by the numbers of repetitions performed week-to-week or the amount of weight lifted per exercise. If you’re improving week-to-week, you’re more than likely adding muscle mass despite what the scale or mirror says (delayed feedback loops). Much like a scoreboard, your workout log lets you know immediately if you “won the workout.” For marathon training, progressive overload is also key and is tracked by the number of miles ran or pace (time trials) of the workout. Again, if either of those loops are improving from workout-to-workout, you know you’re getting closer to your goal.

With weight loss workouts,  currently we don’t have a built-in keystone habit with an immediate feedback loop. Instead, we have these long, delayed feedback loops (the scale and mirror) that may or may not be accurate and are easily influenced by other variables (stress, poor diet, etc). Essentially, we’re playing a game without a scoreboard. Worse yet, the scoreboard we’re currently using may be incorrect.  Our workouts may be moving us toward our goal, but we have no objective immediate feedback to let us know we’re on the right path. Our poor diet may be overshadowing our great workouts, but because we have no keystone habit with an immediate feedback loop in our workout, we assume our workouts aren’t working and switch to a different workout.  Is it any wonder why weight loss workouts are so boring, frustrating, and at times, ineffective? Who would honestly commit to something like that?

So, are we destined for failure? Should we all just train for muscle mass or marathons?

No. No we shouldn’t. We just need to find a keystone habit for weight loss, and then incorporate an immediate feedback loop into it so that we have a scoreboard for every workout letting us know if we “won the workout”

Enter MyZone.

Getting Started with MYZONE® from Emereo on Vimeo.

We started our search for a keystone habit that can be used for weight loss via exercise. Of course, it was pretty obvious – calories burned. Everyone can agree that the more calories you burn, the more weight you lose pending everything else stays relatively the same.  Much like miles logged or weight lifted, it can be recorded, tracked, and improved. It’s also objective, and is literally the foundation for which weight loss is built upon. Calories in < calories out.

The tricky part was trying to find an immediate feedback loop that could be incorporated into that keystone habit. We tried with the Polar Flow heart rate monitors, and unfortunately, they were too inconsistent. On Polar’s behalf, the system we were using was so new it was only in the beta version. Thus, it had a lot of bugs that Polar has supposedly improved now that they released the final version.

However, after speaking with my gym in Edwardsville (Iron Orchid, IO), we chose MyZone. They’ve been around for years and are the leader in real-time heart rate monitoring. When I asked IO if the members liked MyZone, their exact words, “They couldn’t imagine training without it.” Amber has echoed the very same thing. If you’ve ever seen her exercise, you’ll notice she keeps her phone right by her. She has the MyZone app on it, and uses it to track all of her workouts.

Sold. We found our workout scoreboard. It’s the immediate feedback loop we needed. Not only do you see on a 55″ TV screen how many calories you’re burning in real-time during your workout , it also tracks your total calories burned over the week, month, and year. On top of that, it shows your heart rate in real-time and keeps track of what heart rate zones you spend the most time in during your workout.  Thus, as you improve, you’ll be able to see how you’ve pushed yourself progressively harder from week-to-week. Game on!

Unlike Polar, this will work consistently. We’ve been secretly using it for the last 3 weeks without any issues. IO has never had an issue with it either.  And that’s not all. Not only will we be using this for spin, Flow 385, and our bootcamp classes, but we’ll also have a live screen in the 24 hour gym.  Those of you that don’t attend classes can utilize it too (or if you decide to exercise on your own one night) even if it’s during non-staffed hours. As soon as you enter the gym with your heart rate monitor on, you’ll be picked up by the MyZone device and put on the 55″ TV screen. It will log your workout just like if you used it during one of our classes. And if you ever do a workout outside of the gym, put on your MyZone chest strap, download the app, and it will log that workout too.

We’re offering 3 different payment options:

  1. Purchase one for a one-time fee of $60.
  2. 12 month members can purchase one and have $5 added to their monthly membership fee for 12 months.
  3. Rent one for $15 per month.*

*If you rent one, you will keep the chest strap. However, the monitor must stay in the gym. You’ll pick up a monitor before your workout and drop it back in the box when you’re finished. If you decide to purchase the monitor after the monthly lease is expired, the $15 will be applied to the $60 purchase so it will only cost $45.

Because we had so many problems with the Polar Flow heart rate monitors, we completely understand if you are skeptical about the durability and usefulness of the MyZone heart rate monitors. So, we’re offering a 100% money-back guarantee. If after 30 days you don’t like the monitor or aren’t using it enough, simply stop by the front desk, send us an e-mail, or drop us a message on Facebook, and we’ll refund your $60 in exchange for your monitor. No questions asked. No hassle. Just make sure you do it before 30 days.

And if you purchased a Polar strap or heart rate monitor from us, we’ll apply that credit towards your MyZone monitor.

Because we’re so excited about MyZone and truly believe it will make a huge impact on your workouts, we’ve tried to make it as affordable as possible. We’re not marking them up a single penny. They cost us $60 just like they cost you. If you try to buy one on their website, you’ll pay almost $150.

Of course, if you have no interest in the monitors, absolutely no worries. You can still join any class, including the new Flow 385, even though you aren’t using a heart rate monitor.

Now let’s go have fun and burn some fat.

#BeTheChange