I had lunch with a former work friend yesterday, and we got to talking about fitting in fitness in our busy lives. She said she wanted to work out more, but just could not find the time. She followed with a good list of other priorities that always seemed to take precedence. You know the usual ones… work, parenting and personal energy level. All were legitimate obstacles to exercise.
I rattled off a few ways that I had combined exercise with other activities; running on the treadmill while watching sports on TV; taking a 30-minute walk during lunch hour; isometric exercises in the car; taking the stairs instead of the elevator. None of these required any tradeoffs. The exercise overlapped with other activities I liked or had to do anyway.
These are only starters. They will get you into good enough shape to get past the initial pain and start seeing and feeling benefits. It takes a couple of months (not days) so be patient. You will also find new food that you like to replace the old “convenience” diet. I did not really eliminate too many types of food, just reduced the overall quantity and avoided the obviously fattening stuff.
The real difference for me in the last 2 years has clearly been in goal setting. Without specific measurable goals to strive for, I floundered most of my adult life in fitting in fitness. I played soccer as a weekend warrior and that was about it. Now I have a date with a 26-mile run on December 5th and the last 5 months have been about training to finish that race with pride (and raise money for cancer research in the process.)
I am far from perfect. I have plenty of doubts, lapses, aches, pains and mornings when I wanted to stay in bed. I have researched and networked and bought more equipment than I ever thought I would for a sport that you THINK would only require a good pair of shoes. I have occasionally fallen off the healthy diet and jumped back on again. Right now I’m battling an IT Band leg injury and not giving up until I figure out how to fix it. The overarching goal gets me through it all.
So this is my question to you my friends… what are you willing to trade for your health? Don’t answer right away. Think this one through and don’t let the usual excuses block your thinking. It may be as simple as picking one small goal, announcing your intention and setting a date for completion. There is no Jedi mind trick to force you into doing something you don’t want to do. You have to really want it.
Action overcomes excuses, and success will lead to more success. Trust me… at some point, it won’t feel like a tradeoff at all.
Nice post Dave!
The “I have no time to exercise” excuse is the most popular excuse used by people to justify their current poor health condition. I would argue that it is NEVER a time issue; it’s only a PRIORITY issue! Let’s pretend that a very wealthy person (we will call him Gill Bates) approaches an unhealthy person with the following proposal: If you get up at 5:00 am 4 days a week and exercise for 45 minutes, at the end of 1 year I will give you $10,000,000. But if you miss one day…you get nothing!
The answer that any living human being would give to this proposal is an enthusiastic “yes”! Anybody would find the time to exercise 4 times per week if there was a $10,000,000 payout at the end! Our personal health is worth far more than a $10,000,000 payout. There is no greater investment we can make than one in our own heatlh. Committing to an exercise routine for 1 year won’t make you wealthy, but you will feel like a million bucks!
Suzanne Somers “Thigh-Master” $29.99
Richard Simmons “Sweating to the Oldies” VHS $39.99
Feeling and looking 10 years younger….priceless!!
Thanks Russell! Well-said!!
I managed to motivate mysellf to lose my first 25 pounds with a $20 bet… slightly less than $10M 🙂