We all know how important exercise
is and are reminded of it on a near daily basis. When were in the line at the
grocery store and we see five different magazines telling us we need to lose
ten pounds, or on TV when we see men and women who are abnormally fit showing
off their bodies and even when our doctors weigh us in for our yearly checkups.
It feels like you can’t escape it, especially in this health conscious world we
live in, despite the fact that nearly everyone around us is in the exact same ‘unhealthy’
boat we’re in.
We make New Year’s resolutions that
fail, have skinny and fat clothes and compare ourselves to others, when in
reality we shouldn’t make it a goal to exercise only once a year, but every
day, we shouldn’t keep clothes that fit us at all sizes and we shouldn’t be
trying to look like that one actress from our favorite movie. We are too busy
making excuses and preventing ourselves from being successful.
Being a connoisseur of excuses myself—Oh,
the call of TV, a good book or a nap—I devised a plan one day, while watching a
show, ahem, to ascertain my favorite excuses and spend a month discovering how
to break those down. I exercised five days a week for a month and wrote down
what was difficult and how I overcame it and now you get to benefit from my trials.
Excuse # 1 I
don’t have enough time to exercise.
This was the perfect excuse to start
with, because it is one that I’ve used religiously for the past six years. I
would say, “I have work, school, family, etc. and no time to exercise.” In the
end I decided to make it a priority for school—I needed material to write an article
and from that need something changed. Somehow, magically, I had an hour and
half every day that I didn’t have before—a miracle!
Wrong—my day wasn’t miraculously an hour
and a half longer, it still had the same 24 hours in it that it always had, the
difference being I had made exercise a priority. And not only did I make it a
priority, I also planned which days I would be working out, and what time on
those days and then when those days and times came along I refused to think
about exercising. Instead, I just got ready and did it. It’s surprisingly easy
to talk yourself out of doing it, so don’t, just do it.
Excuse # 2
Exercise is Boring/I’m too tired
Exercise can absolutely be boring if
you’re doing something you don’t like AND if you don’t like it and happen to be
tired then you might as well kiss you exercise goals goodbye. Having a program
you love is vital to killing these excuses. Schedule a month where you try two
or three different kinds of exercises a week and give each different exercise
your all. The more exercises you try the more likely you are to find something
you’ll love and if you love it, it’ll be so much easier to follow through.
It’s also incredibly helpful to get
friends involved. Friends can offer emotional support and help can help keep
you motivated. I wasn’t able to find friends that were available to exercise at
the same time of the day I was, but two weeks into my experiment, I had two
girlfriends who started doing the same workout that I am doing and they
reported back to me on their progress. I found that my overall cardio time
vastly improved when I felt like I was competing with my friends.
And finally, depending on what kind of exercise
you’re doing, I’ve learned that it helps to have good music on and to have it on
loud. Having music play quietly in the background doesn’t get my energy
pumping, but loud energetic music does; the louder the better.
Excuse # 3 I
want instant results
We live in a world where instant gratification
is commonplace, so it can be frustrating when you start exercising to not see
an immediate change in your overall appearance and because of this many people
give up after a short amount of time.
I realized straightaway that if I
was going to stick it out I was going to have to focus my results on things
other than my physical appearance. I made a list of issues that I’d been having
that I hoped exercise would help with, including: back pain, low energy, stress,
headaches and migraines, and insomnia. I kept a daily scale of each and was
thrilled with the results.
I saw quick changes with my energy levels,
stress, insomnia and headaches. I always feel more energized after each
workout, my stress levels began to drop substantially, but the one that I was
most pleased with was the decrease in my headaches. I went from having a
headache every day to maybe one or two a week. One or two may seem like a lot
to some people, but for someone who is used to having daily headaches this has
been a miracle, and from this a good night’s rest also came more easily.
After a couple of weeks my back pain
had decreased by half and now, a month in is almost non-existent. Aside from these
results I am also starting to see a physical change as well. If you can find
something other than appearance to focus on it will help you to value exercise
so much more than just what it can do for you on the surface.
In the end, and most importantly, I
learned not to beat myself up over a missed day or because I ate a cupcake. I
was making a concerted effort to exercise and for someone who would rather be
doing anything but, that’s fantastic. If you allow yourself to feel guilty
you’ll never stick it out. While a lifestyle change will have to occur to be
successful, that doesn’t mean you punish yourself either.
So, to recap, make exercise a
priority, find something you can do that you’ll love, get friends involved, pump
the music up, don’t let your physical appearance be the only thing that
determines your success, and don’t beat yourself up. From one couch potato to
another I say, if I can do it, so can you.
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