Working out is supposed
to be a challenge. We are setting out,
on purpose, to give our bodies work to do.
We want to get breathless and tired and probably even a bit sore. The goal is to make sure that the actual
workout is the only hard part of the process.
That means we need to
remove as many of the other obstacles that we can. Different people will find different
obstacles, but many of us share similar ones.
Time pressure is a big
one. I am big fan of planning as a way
to reduce this one. I believe in alarm
clocks, getting out our workout stuff the night before, meeting a friend to
work out or take a class so we have accountability, making grocery lists, and
the like. Maybe we need to do a little
advance thinking about how much time we fritter away on things that don’t give
us a lot of joy, like the fourth episode in a row of that show we’re addicted
to, or the ninth funny cat video online (please note: I’m not saying we don’t get joy from shows or
cat videos, just that we don’t need to overindulge!). We also might want to consider that the
science suggests we will actually get more done in the long run if we invest
time in our fitness—it makes us more energetic and sharper.
Some of us think of money
as an obstacle. News flash: walking and running are free. Sure, we can spend money on gym memberships
and classes and personal training, and I am the first to agree that making an
investment in health is worth it, but when money is tight, we can work out on
the cheap using nothing but our own marvelous bodies.
Other people can obstruct
our workouts, directly or indirectly.
When we have small children, sometimes we struggle even to get a shower,
so a workout seems totally impossible. The
good news is that babies and toddlers love outings and, as mentioned above,
walking is free exercise. We may have a
partner or spouse who is less than supportive of our fitness goals. In that case, the first thing we need to
strengthen is our backbone—we deserve to be healthy and strong and anyone who
does not want that for us is not loving us the way we deserve. Sometimes we can recruit the obstructive
person to join us. Sometimes we just
have to do the right thing for ourselves, even if it is hard.
Then there is the part
where we obstruct ourselves. We may be
afraid of getting stronger or more fit or thinner because it is a change and
change can be hard. Or we may know,
intellectually, that fitness is good for us, but we don’t like it much. In either case, we need to figure out what we
want fitness for. It is not an end in itself. Maybe we want to be fit because we want to
outlive all our relatives. Maybe we want
to impress the mean girls at the high school reunion. Maybe we want to play with our puppy until
the puppy is worn out instead of until we are.
When we find a real reason to work out, we’ll do it.
We can do this.
