If you’re an athlete, or if you’re one of those lucky people who was born into a physically active family, then this post is probably not for you. However, if you’ve spent your life thinking of exercise as penance for overeating, this post might help you figure out how to change that.
Like a lot of young women who were born in the 1960’s, I grew up thinking of exercise as something you did when you needed to lose some weight–and when you lost the pounds, your reward was that you could stop working out again. I have memories of my mom working out with Jack LaLanne on TV, or taking a walk with a friend once in awhile, but even that level of physical activity was always linked to “slimming down.”
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that I grew up to be a person who exercised only once in awhile–usually when I found it hard to zip up my favorite jeans. I went to an occasional aerobics class with friends in college. I bought the Jane Fonda workout tape, thinking I might exercise more reliably on my own. Years later, I bought the DVD of Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred (forgetting, I suppose, how little use I’d made of Jane Fonda.) But I never made exercise a priority, and I never stuck with any routine longer than it took to lose about 10 pounds.
After my own kids were born, though, I had an epiphany: I realized they were going to learn their attitudes about fitness from their parents, just as I had learned mine from my own. And I wanted them to think of exercise as something they should make time for, just as our family made time for having dinner together, going to church, and reading every night. But the only way to model that priority was–you guessed it–by becoming a person who made time for exercise.
To become that person, I was going to have to change the way I thought about exercise: not as a short-term means to an end, but as a way of life. Here’s how I made that change.
I got honest with myself.
When I decided to exercise regularly, I had to be honest about what I was really willing to do. No workout video was going to be powerful enough to overcome a lifetime of bad habits. (I think I always knew that, even when I had that Jillian Michaels DVD in my basket at Target.) I’m an introvert, so something I could do on my own seemed like the best option. I’m also not a morning person, so I avoided any plan that required getting up at 5 a.m..
Ultimately, I decided to buy a treadmill. Just walk, I told myself. No big deal. You walk every day. The treadmill was expensive, and I could have walked around my neighborhood for free, and I enjoy being outdoors–but, being honest with myself, I knew I’d make all manner of excuses. Too hot. Too dark. It’s about to rain. With a treadmill in my house and my children watching, all those excuses disappeared. I started walking.
Then I set actionable fitness goals.
Actionable goals are specific, measurable, and have to be achieved by a certain time. At first, my goals were very basic: “Walk one mile on the treadmill at least three times a week.” (I’ll be honest: at first, I couldn’t walk one slow mile without feeling like I might collapse. Thankfully, that didn’t last very long.)
These days, “Go to the gym and exercise for one hour three times a week” is a more typical goal for me. To be more specific about the type of exercise: “Go to the gym three times a week and do 40 minutes of cardio exercise plus 20 minutes of weights.” Better still? “Go to the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Do 40 minutes of cardio exercise plus 20 minutes of weights.” A designated workout time is helpful for some people, but I keep mine flexible so that, if I get busy with something else, I can’t use “I missed my workout time” as an excuse. (That’s right, the excuse-maker is still alive and well. I’ve made peace with the fact that she isn’t going anywhere.)
Finally, I learned that empowering myself is more important than meeting goals.
Let’s face it: you can go to gym, amble along on the treadmill for 30 minutes, and tell yourself you’ve met your goal. The real question is, how do you empower yourself to meet your goals in a meaningful way?
I focus on improvement to keep myself feeling empowered. When I can lift a weight that used to be immovable–even if I can only lift it once or twice–I focus on the fact that I can move that bar. There are few things that make me feel more powerful than doing what once was impossible. (And that’s a good lesson to carry into other areas of your life: very few things remain impossible if you’re working toward them on a regular basis.) Even when I have a slow day at the gym–and I still do, sometimes–I remind myself of how far I’ve come. On my worst day, I’m still miles beyond where I began.
If you’ve spent the majority of your life avoiding exercise, as I did, then changing the way you think about it requires some effort. But if you’re ready to change the way you think about exercise, you can stop making excuses and start making your health a priority.
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