Live Like You Mean It

Well look at us, it's February and the time of new resolutions has moved on! So how is it going. or more specifically, how is the exercise routine going? No, I mean really, how is it going - did couch potato win? How can you tell if you are a couch potato? Stand up and turn around - if the curve of your butt remains, that might be your answer. Exercise - have we come up with any other idea that causes twinges of guilt in so many? We could stock entire gyms with all the abandoned exercise equipment and programs.
So what goes wrong so often for so many? Perhaps it is unrealistic exercise programs that don't consider current fitness and mind sets that have been nurtured over time by habit. It has to hurt to feel good, you should feel sore the next day - if we said this about anything else, most folks would think we are off balance. Feel it - yes, anything more and ... well we have a brain and it will win every time.
So give yourself a chance to succeed - plan a routine you are likely to want to do and will at least try; work up to where you want to go with it. If you start where you want to be, well that just may not be the smartest thing you will ever do. Do something, and then go with what develops. If it works for you, then you might actually do it, and will feel good the next day because you actually did it and know you did.
If your desire is to look like the models in the exercise ads, well, I guess it is yours to want. But you will need to change your life - working out will need to become your primary purpose in life. You will need to find someone to pay you to do it so you an eat and live in a house; that might not be so easy to do.
Make your exercise program your own thing; it is all about you. I do a yoga routine each evening; I enjoy it and my dogs enjoy it even more. They think it is their play time - I am going to get down on the floor with them, and the matt is their gym. They know what we are supposed to be doing at that time and let me know it is time to get moving. And every once in awhile, when I get into a stretch to hold for the count, one of them will lean forward and gently place a nose in my ear - gets my attention real quick.
There is no magic to gaining the benefits of exercise, unless you consider the results of perseverance to be magic - then believe in it. And if regular exercise can significantly increase our chances of living a better life and dying of old age, then why the heck wouldn't we do it? And that is what I have to say - for now.