By Jackie Smith
I’m talking to you, the unmotivated. I’m not picking on you or trying to say you’re different from anybody else. In fact, you are just like the rest of us majority of the population. I’m talking about that nagging feeling you get when ‘it’s time to exercise’. You begin to view it as just another responsibility. So it starts to bother you. You don’t look forward to it, you start dreading it. Another chore, another “gotta’ do”. It’s boring. It’s just another routine.
That’s your problem.
You made working out a routine. I know I use the term routine a lot, just like I use diet. It’s often taken the wrong way. By diet I don’t mean strict restriction. I simply mean what you are consuming. And when I say routine, I don’t mean to imply same old pattern.
Too many of us develop a pattern type of workout. We write out, or have someone else write out for us, exactly what exercises we do, exactly how many, and exactly how often.
We start out great then suddenly after two or three times, it’s not fun anymore. It’s just plain boring. So we find excuses to skip it and before you know it, we aren’t doing anything.
Try not to view exercise as any formal or deliberate routine. It’s just not working. So just like the way I defined the terms of diet and routine above, start viewing exercise as “movement”.
Any physical activity you do that keeps you on your feet and off you’re a.. is exercise. You really need to do it. Anything is better than nothing.
Since there are too many activities to list that can be done up off the couch, you’re bound to find something you like and can look forward to. Start there. The good thing is it doesn’t have to be the same thing.
A friend of mine just told me she was feeling guilty about not keeping up with her exercise ‘routine’ due to her horse owning chores this past winter taking her two whole hours to complete. That’s two whole hours of constant physical activity that included raking out stalls, pushing the heavy manure laden wheel-barrow out and back repeatedly, carrying heavy buckets of water back and forth for six horses, feeding and walking. I just looked at her………………………….
Guilty?!? I then proceeded to tell her that her chores were probably in one day equivalent to a full body workout of a week. She thanked me for pointing that out. I was actually a little jealous. She was taking care of herself while taking care of her horses.
No need to make any extra effort for deliberate boring routine workouts. I forgot to mention she has chickens and goats she needed to do the same thing for so it was really more than two hours a day.
My point is you don’t need to go buy a farm to get the exercise or movement you need, but you better find some kind of activity that gets you off you’re a.. or you literally will be ‘buying the farm’.
