Run for Fun… What the Hell kind of Fun is That?
Doc: And in the future, we don’t need horses. We have motorized carriages called automobiles.
Saloon Old Timer: If everybody’s got one of these auto-whatsits, does anybody walk or run anymore?
Doc: Of course we run. But for recreation. For fun.
Saloon Old Timer: Run for fun? What the hell kind of fun is that?
From Back to the Future III
There is a great deal research indicating that when we engage our bodies in physical movement, our endorphins become stimulated and it does a whole bunch of good for our health. And this is absolutely true…for those of us that enjoy the physical activity we are participating in. But for many of us, engaging in exercise and staying generally active feels like no fun at all. It feels tiring, stressful, confusing, and fills us with a sense of duty. When we partake in physical activity while feeling negative emotions about it, it can actually have greater negative than positive effect on our body, leading to a number of health issues.
With so much pressure in today’s day and age to be healthy and exercise regularly, the fitness industry has sucked a lot of the joy out of physical movement. Light hearted moving our bodies around, playing games or playing sports for fun (or competitively by choice) has been replaced by a serious, restrictive, compartmented, analytical everyday battle. Everything is about “what is the best type of exercise…cardio, resistance, interval, fartlek, plyometrics, core training, strength training, and what are the best exercises for it, and how much of each should I be doing… and how many days a week for how many minutes for how many sets for how many reps…? Seriously! And yes, it is that serious isn’t it? But it doesn’t stop there.
We still have to analyze or calorie or kilojoules intake and from what different sources we are getting them, and at what time we are taking them, and how often we expel them… Seriously, how can exercise possibly be fun? Mind you, no one has the same answers to any of these questions. There are so many opinions on what is the “right way” to exercise and diet, it’s friggin’ ridiculous! Think about it; have you ever met a person that is regularly active and enjoys being active that isn’t fit and healthy?
In all my years being involved in active living, I have found that those that are the most relaxed about being active are the ones that are the healthiest and happiest overall. They don’t feel the need to break everything down into micro-bits and analysis the crap out of their exercise and eating habits – because they realize they don’t need to. They just want to be generally healthy and happy. They’re not trying to win the next Tour de France or trying to be the next Lance Armstrong or the likes. And perhaps it wouldn’t feel like a chore to break these things down if they were. Think about it. For Lance Armstrong competitive sport is his full time occupation. It’s what he loves to do and lives to do. I bet if you asked him, he’d tell you he wouldn’t be doing anything else, and that absolutely he finds his training fun!
Most people are out there following a Lance Armstrong recipe, when all they want to do is lead a healthy lifestyle. As an analogy, say you wanted to build a tree house for your kids. How inspired do you think you would be if you first had to go do an engineering degree? Get my point? You can’t possibly stay motivated long enough to be “active living” – which mean your entire life by the way – if almost every work-out feels like work from which you want out. It has to be fun! Keep in mind, fun is both challenging and supporting, but relative to your level and relative to where you are at.
So start with something small. Something that has enough challenge to be interesting, but supportive enough for you to feel excited about doing it. Get off your diet and eat healthy relative to what you are currently stuffing your face with. If you eat McDonalds 5 days a week for lunch, start by substituting 2 days with a healthier, but still enjoyable choice (i.e. not a tofu salad with no dressing). We all need to grow by taking small steps; even it is your ambition to win a Tour De France – start small and dream big. If nothing else works, look at kids for inspiration – although you might have to look at toddlers now a days as the whole fun of being physically active is getting sucked out of kids at a younger and younger age.
To learn more about inspired living, see my blog post Stop Needing to Be Motivated.. Become Inspired!
With love, gratitude, presence and certainty
Karl
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