Adding a Fitness to an already busy life
In an era where life moves fast and every waking moment (and many while you are sleeping) is filled with updates and notifications, adding Fitness to the chaos can seem like you are taking on too much or needing to sacrifice something else. Honestly that might be true since there are only so many hours in a day but the reality is that the benefits you can gain will most assuredly outweigh the sacrifice.
First off is to understand why we bother with Fitness at all. The body which carries us acts either as a vehicle of boundless potential or a cage holding us back from even the simplest of pleasures. For most people, it rides the spectrum in-between and because of that we tend to forget that our bodies will degrade with neglect and will become the cage we fear. Fitness is the process in which we swing that pendulum in our favour and allow our bodies to take us places we’ve never seen and to do things we never thought possible.
Motivation
Now that you’re on board with Fitness in your life or at least the idea of it being a good thing – you look about and find the journey too difficult to start. You already are busy with your career or your family obligations or even just the latest binge worthy show. All of which deserve a great amount of your time leaving little time to organize, motivate or commit yourself to the goal of a better self. You know Fitness is about Eating Right and building your mobility. Those are the keys to your vehicle! Could you imagine if you changed the gas in your car and it slowly turned into a Ferrari! That’s the basic promise of Eating Right. Mobility and working out, sculpting and garage tuning? The analogy breaks down a little. Part of the issue is over estimating/thinking how much effort it will take on your part to make this transition. It’s actually not that much. Small changes which you can do regularly can have huge impacts over time. Swap a coke for water. Swap a fries for a salad. Go for a walk while listening to your podcast. Take the stairs even a few flights instead of taking the elevator. All of these are tiny changes but they add up over time to make a real impact. None of them really took any meaningful time to do and definitely do not count as dieting or working out or whatever word you might be avoiding. It’s very doable. Mentality and approach for Fitness also tends to be a barrier for some folks. Maybe you suffer from the notion that you need to be perky or a control freak to make Fitness work for you but the idea that your personality is standing in the way of a better life is a range of fears that probably holds you back from more than just getting fit. The important thing to note with fitness is that everyone can agree that it would be better if it was in your life. Whatever form that takes and however much you want to put into it, anything is a move for the better.
Try: Small changes to get you pointed in the right direction
Organization
Organization time is a real issue with starting your fitness journey. Finding a series of healthy recipes or a workout routine that seems fun can be like wading through a swamp. There are a lot of resources out there to help on your fitness journey but for the most part that wealth of knowledge just adds to the volume you need to go through. Getting fit though is not a single meal or a single workout – it is many many conscious choices and actions over an extended period of time that will get you where you want to be. There is no need to figure it all out at the beginning. You honestly don’t even need to get it all right! Do what you think is right for today and when you have time to work through that volume of information, go at it slowly because it’s a lot to take in! Recognize that today’s meal choices and today’s workout just need to be good enough for today. As long as the fitness journey is, there will be time to figure out the next steps and to learn about how you can make your life a little better as you go. This will allow you to customize the generic advice to your life and find what works for your life.
The other part to organization which adds layers of complication is that often your journey of fitness exists in tandem with the variables of your family and your responsibilities to them. Eating and cooking tend to be family activities (even in cases where the cooking is done by one individual) and diverging from what might be a normal meal then impacts everyone who is involved. If you don’t cook the meal, then that adds even more difficulty to the process. Encouraging others to follow the health conscious suit is definitely an option but when you are battling your own doubts, this might be premature. Follow your own family dynamic but if you’re looking to avoid confrontation then focus on what you can control. Portion size is an easy way to eat the same as everyone else but twisted to fit your own goals. If you can control the elements of what you eat (Serving of Rice, Pasta, Potatoes, Breads) then try to reduce those elements and emphasize the greener sides. The next level is to start influencing the grocery list or recipes which fit your focus. With more people involved there are going to be weeks in which you don’t hit your goals and that is okay as long as you try to control what you can control which might just be how much of the fried chicken you eat. Try to be as selective as you can be while maintaining the family dynamic with which you are comfortable. Eating can be a sensitive topic as respect and power are often intertwined with how we treat our food and that which is provided for us. It’s a complicated and nuanced social fabric which is way older than any modern diet – but that doesn’t mean it can’t evolve and be supportive of the changes you want to make.
Try: Serving yourself on a slightly smaller plate to control your intake in a very unobtrusive way
Commitment
The big C-Word! Relationship killer. To some degree Fitness is similar to that since it’s not a single event but a long winding road which will take you to a better place. I think it helps to realize that fitness is not just a single event. There are even a few distinct phases in a fitness journey which can be identified, starting with the Start-up Phase where you figure out how to get from 0 to 1. You try stuff, you learn new things, you attempt to find your rhythm as you juggle something new. This can take multiple tries as you experiment with different techniques and will probably stretch for several weeks until you really find what works for you. Phase 2, you’ve already established a routine and you feel like it’s working and at this point it’s about staying consistent. You are likely honing in on the goal you are trying to hit, maybe a weight or a shape or 6-min mile. It’s a long phase since change takes time so this may take 6 to 24 months. Phase 3 is the last phase and is kind of the endless one where you hit the goals you established and assuming it wasn’t pro sport level, you are now looking to maintain this without as much rigor or focus. It stops being a thing you are doing and just a part of your life. Many people don’t figure out how to get into phase 3 and just yo-yo from success to regression and use their well worn map to cycle back. This isn’t the worst outcome but finding a way to maybe stretch phase 2 out long enough is the way to get closest to picturing what phase 3 should look like. If you live as if you were already in phase 3, then when you hit your goal – you won’t even need to change anything to jump into phase 3 – it happens by default! You continue to live your life and everything falls into place.
With the phases in mind, it makes it easier to realize that fitness as it relates to commitment comes down to a change which you want and likely a change that is required to get it. If you want to be x-weight or y-shape (which by assumption you are not today) then you’ll need to take some action to get there. You already knew this, but the forever part is likely which is putting you off. It’s probably because you see those required actions as restrictive or laborious. That is only true relative to your current status. If you make phase 2 your training ground, as you slowly achieve your goal then those actions you are taking will melt away into the same background as brushing your teeth. Sure it’s an effort you put in to keep your teeth healthy but it’s so ingrained in your routine that it feels effortless. I guess that might be hard to believe today but I imagine it was no different for those kids learning to brush their teeth daily. Trust in the power of repetition and your brain’s ability to put that stuff on auto-pilot.
Try: Imagining what your meals might look like if you were just a little bit closer to your goal. It probably is not that different to what you ate yesterday!
