Exercise – The Real Magic Bullet

Apr 24, 2011

Probably the only reason I finally got started exercising regularly was because of Smokenders.  Oh, I had been “intending” to exercise since my early 20’s (and I had 3 expired health club memberships to prove it).  My third time back to Smokenders, I decided to do something truly unique for me – I decided to follow all their directions.  This was one of the big ones.

In fact, if you’d ever have told me that I would be considered one of the “regulars” at a local gym, I would have laughed.  Me?  Me, who’d rather read than take a walk, who still thinks that tennis sounds like torture, who wouldn’t to this day play Frisbee at your BBQ?

What had gotten in my way for years was that I kept waiting for the magical transformation, you know, the one where I‘d want to exercise, where it wouldn’t be a struggle any more.  In hindsight, I realize that I got the exercise ball rolling one walk at a time, one class at a time.  That, in fact, it was a long slow process of baby steps – which, had I realized it, I wouldn’t have had the patience for.

Here is what finally got me going.  Humbled, and smoking yet again, I had finally surrendered to the advice of Smokenders to exercise, and made a date with my friend Joanne to meet her at her club for a class.  Notice that I had to commit to someone else?  Promising myself had become absolutely meaningless, laughable even.  While we were in the ladies locker room changing for the class, I said to Joanne quite flippantly, “Joanne, you can’t imagine how hard this was for me to show up here tonight.  I almost cancelled about 10 times today.  And here you are, just coming every day after work like it’s no big deal.”  Joanne’s response turned out to be one of the most influential comments ever made to me about my struggles with making difficult changes.  “Oh no,” she said.  “It’s not like that at all.  For the first 6 months that I came here, I used to cry while I was putting on my leotards.”  She stopped me dead.  I had always rationalized that if you could do something and I couldn’t seem to, them it was obviously easier for you – that it was uniquely difficult for me.  What I realized was that it had been at least as difficult for Joanne, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t do it.  And, or more importantly, she wasn’t crying now.  She said that she was acutely aware that she often didn’t want to come, but that she’d learned not to participate in any negotiation – just to persevere until that little voice gave up.

I’d like to say that “the rest is history,” but nothing is really ever that simple, is it?  One thing has become clear to me along the way:  I often really don’t want to exercise.  My success at maintaining my continuity is based upon one thing – when the pitfalls and stumbling blocks have show up, I’ve more often than not chosen to treat them as problems to solve not reasons why I can’t.  Because, one thing I am absolutely clear about is that I personally must exercise to have a chance at managing my weight.

Without a doubt, maintaining continuity is the single most critical focus.  My absolute priority is never to stop for any real length of time – never let my couch potato self get a grip again.  On the one hand I try to be kind to myself.  I don’t expect every workout to be a major effort.  They can be very half-hearted.  Actually, almost anything will count in my book as long as it’s deliberate.  When I think I’m too tired (in other words, all the time), I make a deal with myself to just do 10 minutes before I decide to quit.  If I’m really too tired, I‘ll find out, and I have permission to stop.

If it is at all possible, I do it first.  Then I spend the bulk of the day congratulating myself and feeling relieved every time I remember that I did it already, versus spending the bulk of the day feeling guilty and thinking of creative ways to justify not doing it later.  The very same exercise becomes a burden rather than an accomplishment.

On the other hand, I’ve mostly learned not to listen to that part of me that rationalizes not doing it at all.  No exercise just begets no exercise, and a few days of nothing is the kiss of death.  There goes all my hard won momentum and I’m back to struggling with myself about doing it at all.  Since I’m clear that any chance I have of managing my weight long term depends on maintaining exercise, I don’t want to waste energy fighting with myself about it all the time.

Most of my strategies are geared around this concept of continuity.  I schedule exercise into my calendar just like everything else I truly plan to get done.  I know that if it’s not specifically planned into my day, then I’m not really planning on doing it.  It also helps if I hook my exercise to something I know I will do with regularity, like walking during or after work, or making phone calls I already have to make while walking on the treadmill.

Here’s what I learned not to do:  don’t say I’ll do it later if I can do it now.  If I’m not willing to do it now, why am I going to be any more willing to do it later?  Especially when I just practiced (again) talking myself out of it.  Don’t stop exercising to answer the phone.  If I were in the gym I wouldn’t have heard the phone anyway.  Don’t  “just do this little thing first.”  Anything that I really need to get done will get done, but I’m likely to blow off the exercise if time gets tight.  Usually the time I take exercising doesn’t preclude the other thing getting done anyway.  Don’t wait for the “mood to strike”.  It doesn’t.

Then there is the time thing.  There are lots of things I don’t do because I spend that time exercising just like people do when they commute or take on volunteer work or sing in a choir.  The bottom line is that if I truly want to be a regular exerciser, then it needs to be a time priority.  There are many other things in my life that I thought I really wanted to achieve also, but apparently not, because I never made them enough of a priority to get them accomplished – like playing the piano.  I was never willing to make the time sacrifices it would take to learn to play.  My piano teacher actually told my parents to stop wasting the money.  So, to this day, I can’t play the piano.  I chose.

Fortunately exercise generates its own momentum (which of course you can only find out if you do it).  It’s not nearly as hard to keep it rolling as it is to get rolling.  It’s actually easier to do more.

Why am I willing to make the sacrifices I make to stay active?  For the same reasons that anyone does anything I guess – it’s worth the payoff to me.  I’d like to give you some noble reason, like I do it for my health or so that I’ll be around for my family, but here’s the truth:

• Vanity – I hate to admit that.  But I am more fit, and look it, than I have ever been.  I like that.
• Calories – the exercise calories I burn literally buy me my more indulgent meals over the weekend.  I can eat for someone who weighs 40 lbs. more than my actual weight.  I really like that.
• Mood – exercise is mood elevating and it helps me to feel more in control of my life (illusion though that may be!).
• Psych – it’s the closest thing to a magic bullet for me.  I truly believe that it is the only reason I began to develop any health behaviors in the first place.  Thank you Smokenders.
• Sense of accomplishment and self-mastery – every step I take is still a personal victory.