I’ve watched my fellow Americans trade treadmills for type 2 diabetes diagnoses for decades now, so I assumed most people feel like I do: I know I’m not terribly fit, but I don’t really care. Which is why I was surprised that “Physical Health” ranked so high in my survey (second to “Work” and ahead of “Lifestyle”) as an area in which people say they need help getting their shit together. Live and learn!
Me? I did all that shit in my teens and twenties, from “Buns of Steel” videotapes to six-mile runs on Sundays, and I hated every minute of it. I did it because I thought I had to, to be thin and consequently to feel good about myself. But my priorities changed over time, and just like you might be at peace with a messy bedroom, I’m at peace with a little extra jiggle in my wiggle if it means I don’t have to spend another hour of my life sweating to the oldies ever again.
However, I have recently decided that I would like to be a little more limber. Maybe it’s spending all day hunched over my laptop writing, or maybe it’s just “being almost forty,” but whatever the case, I’m starting to feel a touch stiff and creaky. So before this becomes a permanent condition, I’m going to do something about it.
Well, well, well, looks like I just set myself a goal. Now, to strategize…
First, I shall Google “stretching” to get an idea of what I could be doing to free my neck and back from the early-onset rigor mortis that currently holds them in its grip.
Next, I’ll set aside some time for my new “must-do” item. Since I currently give myself an hour every morning to drink coffee and check my social media feeds, I think I can shave fifteen minutes off that lower-priority activity to free up room for stretching. (Note: I’m not just adding something to my day, time-wise. I’m fitting it in by reducing time spent on a less important task.)
Finally, tomorrow morning I’ll wake up and do the deed. I’ll let you know how it goes.
While stretching seems pretty easy (she said, before she ever tried it), other types of exercise will be more demanding, requiring longer focus and potentially hernia-inducing commitment. As I said, not my bag of stank gym clothes, but it could very well be yours.
So the question is, how important is it to you to make this whole physical fitness thing happen? Sure, a few hundred people clicked a button on an anonymous survey, but they clicked that button because they haven’t done anything about it yet. Why? Probably because the motivation hasn’t quite caught up to them.
The Power of Negative Thinking can take you from an online survey to a kickboxing class.
Are you kinda sorta disgusted with yourself for being physically unfit? If the answer is no, then proceed to your fainting couch like the queen you are. If the answer is yes, then it’s time to get your shit together. And if it’s time to get your shit together, then you know where to start.
Gentlemen, set those goals!
If you actually like exercising, this goal shouldn’t be too hard to achieve; you just need to prioritize it over two or three hours’ worth of something else in your week that could be sacrificed to the gym. Watching Ab Roller infomercials in your sweatpants is not actual exercise.
If you don’t like exercise that much, you have to weigh your distaste for squat-thrusts against your distaste for saddlebags. Negative thinking got you all fired up? Great, take that motivation to the mat! I’m the last person in the world who’d tell you that it’s easy to run five miles a day or power through a power yoga class, but I’d be the first to tell you that committing to an exercise plan is ultimately a hell of a lot easier than wallowing in self-destructive behavior and crippling depression. So there’s that.
And if you hate exercising more than a Scooby-Doo villain hates those meddling kids and their stupid dog—but you’re unhappy about how you look or feel—then maybe you need to get your shit together in a different area, to improve your health without sacrificing your joie de vivre.
I’m a big fan of not doing things you don’t want to do (fact: I wrote a whole book about it), which means I’m also a big fan of finding the work-around. That could mean watching what you eat instead of watching your step count rise, or it could be exercising while doing something fun like, oh, I don’t know, listening to an audiobook about not doing things you don’t want to do?
Just an idea.
Regarding the other part of physical health—dieting—I have complicated feelings about that, which I’ll touch upon in part IV. But the concept of a good diet itself is not complicated. As far as I’m concerned, it looks like this:
Eat what you need to eat to function the way you need to function, don’t overdo it if you want your heart and liver to keep functioning, and enjoy life while you’re at it. Everything in moderation.
What? You didn’t come here for low-cal smoothie recipes; you came here to get your shit together. I’m just calling ’em like I see ’em. Getting your shit together is all about being happy. Content. Not annoyed. Are you content and not annoyed when you’re munching on your third pile of bean sprouts in one day like some fucking rabbit with a modeling contract?
Maybe you are. I don’t know. Dieting makes me uncomfortable. Which means the only way I know how to help YOU do it is by whipping out my keys, phone, and wallet and getting GYST-theoretical with this shit.
Strategize: If you want to lose weight by eating less food, figure out how much less food you need to eat per day. SMALL, MANAGEABLE CHUNKS OF FOOD. Calorie counting is a very straightforward way to accomplish this. Half a can of BBQ Pringles (475 calories) oughta do it.
Focus: The time necessary to shed X pounds will depend on how many fewer calories you can realistically remove from your day without dying of malnutrition, plus some other shit like what kinds of foods those calories come from and whether you are also exercising (and what your metabolism is, but that’s none of my business). Generally speaking, it takes 3,500 calories to maintain a pound of body weight, so if you can shave 500 calories/day off your current diet, you stand to lose a pound a week. Need to lose ten pounds? Give yourself ten weeks.
Commit: Don’t eat the Pringles. Don’t keep the Pringles in the house for anyone else. Don’t walk down the Pringles aisle at the grocery store. Definitely do not marry a Pringles sales rep. Is your dog named Pringles? Get rid of your dog.
For most of us, losing weight is just math + willpower. If you want it badly enough (see: The Power of Negative Thinking), you’ll get it done. And you might relapse, and you might have to do it all over again, but there IS a way to do it. Eat less, move more.
Although, come to think of it, I hear weight loss is a $60-billion-a-year industry, and while self-help books with curse words in the title are a growing market, Jenny Craig is outpacing me by a good $59.9999 billion.
Maybe I’m the one who needs to get my shit together?