The other night, a friend of mine described the way she thinks about food as constant chaos in her head.

What a perfect description.

I’ve mentioned before that the inside of my head is like an episode of hoarders. I have this vision of turning sideways to negotiate falling piles of yellowed newspapers from the Reagan administration as I try to remember where the door is.

Then, every time I try to get to a door, there’s a ninja monkey, sitting on a unicorn that is Salsa dancing with a warrior elephant and by the time I’m done refereeing them, I don’t remember why I was at the door in the first place.

All of this takes place under the watchful eye of a one-legged lemur who is playing twister with a rat-tail Irish water spaniel.

You can see where discerning information becomes difficult.

There are any number of things that can get in the way of you achieving your goals and one of them is information - either a lack of - or too much. And in this information heavy world, analysis paralysis happens quickly. We spend our days consuming a Niagra Falls waterfall of information. And if your mind is anything like mine, that information sticks in weird places and clutters much of your decision-making process.

Then throw in a day full of decisions - do I hit the snooze button? Should I wear the socks that have swear words on them or will I cross my legs in that meeting with my boss? Should I tell Carol how much her email yanked my chain?

Decision fatigue is a thing. It’s one of the reasons I’ll never go grocery shopping after a trip to the eye doctor.

But what do we do about all the Noah’s Ark tornado swirling around in our heads?

I’ve rained in my ninja monkey enough to throw out a few suggestions.

1. Grab a pen and do a brain dump.

Mel and I sometimes use this strategy together when we’re at the gym. When we find ourselves so distracted by that water fall of to-do’s, we stop what we’re doing, set a timer for five minutes, and put pen to paper. Often, getting all of those tasks out of your mind and onto the paper can help bring some clarity to help you figure out where to start.

2. Use the 10 minute timer and start.

I’ve written about this before, but one of the best strategies I’ve found to get out of my head and into action is to set a timer for 10 minutes and pick a task. Spend 10 minutes making your grocery list or looking up recipes. Spend 10 minutes answering emails. Pick a task and set a timer. I’m willing to bet you’ll go for longer than 10 minutes and you’ll feel better having done something.

Action breeds motivation. Once you make a decision to take some action, you’d be surprised at how much calmer you’ll feel.

3. Pause.

I’ve written before about what Buddhists call the sacred pause. Choosing moments throughout the day to stop what you are doing, even if it’s only for 30 seconds, and breathing can settle that ninja monkey down just a little bit. If you can, stretch that pause into five minutes of silence - with no distractions.

We numb ourselves with our phones - distraction is constantly at our fingertips, but our brains can be like velcro - we read about current events and even though we think we’re unwinding by sitting for a minute and scrolling through social media, we’re not giving our brains the break they need.

So take a minute right now, and stop what you’re doing. Put the phone down - slide your chair away from your desk, and inhale deeply and exhale slowly.

There. Feel a bit better?

Good.

Now rinse and repeat one more time and enjoy the rest of your day.

Ok, so last week I went on a mini-rant about how using push ups and pull ups as a litmus test for fitness is a bad idea - especially for women.

And I was reminded of this yesterday when, while taking a boxing class for the first time, a fellow female classmate looked terrified when we were asked, as a class, to mix push ups in with our heavy bag hits and squats.

“Um….” She looked terrified. “I can’t even do a push up.”

I waved her over to a stack of giant tires.

“Not many females can - let’s use the tire.”

I took a minute after the class to give her what has become my soap box talk on push ups - the one I gave all of you last week. Click here if you missed it.

Push ups are an incredible exercise and even better than that - make for the perfect performance goal. Remember that setting a performance goal can be a helpful way of guiding your training. (In other words, you want to lose 20 pounds, but if you focus on working your way up to a push up, there's a good chance you'll see some weight loss as a by-product of training your strength.)

If you want to work your way up to a push up, here are a few strategies you can work in to your routine.

1. Elevated push ups

Doing what used to be known as "girl push ups" or push ups from your knees, actually only makes you better at doing one thing - push ups from your knees. Core strength is a crucial component to performing push ups, and if you want to work your way to doing this exercise correctly, you'll need to keep your core involved.

2. Negative push ups (with a positive attitude :-)

Also known as eccentric push ups (no, not push ups with flair), this style of exercise means that you are going to spend more time under tension - blah, blah, blah science. I can just tell you that this style of training will do two things - get you to your goal quickly, and make you sore as hell the next day.

Start in a high plank position and lower yourself down as slowly as possible - when you can't hold yourself up any longer, drop to your knees. Use your knees to raise back up to the high plank position (remember, this movement is only about going down) and repeat.

Technique tips:

Don't let your core sag - you want to keep your body in a straight line, and there is a tendency to keep the shoulders away from the floor while your hips and lower back sag. If possible, balance a PVC pipe on your back or record yourself for form. I used to do five sets of five in my office back when I had an office job.

With the door locked...

Slow is the name of the game here.

3. Push ups to a stack of cones

Similar to the elevated push ups, training yourself to a stack of cones can be a helpful way to gauge your progress once you've been training for a month or two. In the video below, I've got a stack of 13 cones. Once I can hit 10 reps, I take off a cone and train until I can hit 10 reps to the cone. My goal is to get down to one cone. 

On an almost weekly basis, I hear clients or strangers at dinner parties make the following statement:

I mean I can’t even do a push up. Or a pull up!

They’re often surprised at my response.

It took me a year to work my way up to a push up from the floor, and I can’t do a pull up….yet. (Keep that mind open.)

Yesterday I put up a social media post about push ups - and one of the comments I received was perhaps the most telling:

"I hate push ups....they make me feel so defeated."

I’m not exactly sure why so many people, women in particular, use those two exercises as the gold standard of fitness, but I’m going to blame it on Dwight Eisenhower, and his implementation of the holy terror that was known as the President’s Physical Fitness test.

My memories of this torturous misery largely revolve around trying to run a mile in jeans when I was eight years old. (Chaffing. So. Much. Chaffing.)

There was also the goal of climbing a rope without using your legs.

As an athletic kid, I learned two important lessons from this challenge - running was God’s punishment for not listening to my mother and I didn’t know much about Ronald Reagan, but hated him for making me do distinctly not fun things in gym class.

While doing push ups wasn’t part of the President’s challenge, it was still a measure of fitness prescribed to many of us by well-intended coaches and gym teachers. I remember my college lacrosse coach telling us to do 25 push ups at the end of many sprints - and there I’d be trying my damndest to do some measure of push ups from my knees and wishing that we could just switch to the 50 sit ups already.

Between these coaches and the media’s portrayal of the push ups in many sports movies (Remember Rocky doing one armed push ups??) we are mostly made to feel that an inability to perform a push up from the floor means that we’re weak.

When really it means that we are just human.

That's because, according to MRI's, females have 40% less upper body mass than men. So yeah, not many females are going to just drop to the floor and bang out 25 push ups, despite our experiences with gym class and even some sport preparation.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you are looking for a performance goal to strive for - the push up is an incredible place to start. The exericse requires core strength and can help improve muscular endurance with the upper body. But what nobody tells us, is that being able to perform a push up with proper depth and proper form takes time and hard work. And a lot of both.

So how can you train your way to a proper push ups?

Check back for part II and I’ll give you a couple of exercises to help you build towards that goal.