Oh the Irony

I was browsing through the fitness section at Chapters and came across a book that my friend owns and has strongly recommended to me. "Body Sculpting: A Women's Bible" or something like that. The titles are always the same basically, but the content of this book is actually extremely helpful. Since reading through the first introductory chapters, I've learned several things, including:

*You don't start burning fat stores until you have been working out at your target heart rate for at least half an hour. This is why it's important to start out with weights and THEN do cardio following the training session. You're more likely to successfully burn fat doing your exercises in that order.
*Working out is most effective early in the morning, as you are jump starting your metabolism for the day, and your body is still burning fat stores during the eight hours of no eating that you slept through. So you should ideally work out, and then eat a high protein breakfast.
*The ideal weight you should be using for weight lifting should allow you to do 10-12 reps, but no more and no less.

And this I just learned from the first few chapters.
So Marcia, you might say, what's the irony about all this? You're learning how to more effectively train and change your body! This is a good thing.

Well, at this very point, all I feel is depression, that I've been doing it wrong all this time, and that I will have to drastically change my diet and exercise AGAIN, in order to keep losing weight and become fitter. Even more depressing is the idea that I will have to work out and be careful about what I eat for the rest of my bloody life.

Don't get me wrong...I love going for a good run...but now that I know the run does basically nothing for me unless I exceed a half hour at my target heart rate...how am I supposed to feel good about that? All I feel is the fact that I'm am under achieving once again, and am most likely going to remain in this state.

And THIS is why people get personal trainers. I've never had a problem with motivation before, and now all of a sudden, I find myself struggling to go for an easy jog or walk around the block. My brain keeps saying, "what's the point? what's the point in even trying?"