How I Managed to Workout Regularly for Four Years and Counting
How many times have you heard or read something along this line: “12 weeks to your perfect beach body”. Almost too good to be true isn’t it? Good enough to get me started at least.
In December 2012 I started working out. As time passed I started measuring my macros, bought my first protein shake, many other supplements, and so on. Soon enough, I also started to develop an obsession towards my body — are my thighs unusually large compared to the rest of my body? Why am I not losing weight? Am I in plateau?Why am I always so bloated?!
Throughout my journey I had given up many times: ran out of willpower to exercise, feeling guilty, defeated and disappointed. I tried all sorts of the popular diets (Keto, clean eating, IIFYM, Paleo, etc). Also tried all sorts of conventional training program, Crossfit, Yoga, basically everything I could get my hands on. Well here are a couple of key learnings!
Get the mindset right
Fitness is a lifestyle, it is a long term process built by habitual changes overtime. You need to make time and effort for exercise, proper nutrition as well as keeping your mental health in check. When I first started working out and such, I wanted quick results. I wanted to get lean and I had an unrealistic ‘goal body’ I wanted to achieve within a set period. I gave up many times because of this. It is setting yourself for failure as it is unrealistic, short-termed and led to no results.
For someone to gain weight, you are living in a lifestyle that caters it. As such, it will take you a different lifestyle to change it. If it takes you years to put the weight on, don’t expect it to lose it overnight.
Research has shown that habit-formation is key to having a realistic potential for a long-term impact. It does not need you to be obsessive or restrictive on everything at once. Make small habitual changes overtime and remember this change is permanent. For example, start with a 10-minutes workout thrice a week, and slowly increase the duration or frequency of your workout if you want to. If it’s becoming too much to handle, adjust. The key is, don’t let it stop.
Keep it as convenient and simple
Many times life gets in the way of your plan. Work, stress level, personal problems, school, lack of time or energy are the most common excuses for skipping your exercise or eating badly. Before you know it, you are out of habit of exercising and you find yourself at the start again.
Keep your workout schedule as convenient and simple, it will help you to follow through your planned workouts and to keep it from overwhelming your day. I hated going to the gym as the commute itself would take at least two hours. It is unnecessary, inconvenient and drained my motivation. Soon after I stopped my gym subscription, bought a couple of home-based training programs, started running and bodyweight workout instead. It doesn’t cost much and I can adjust it easily to my schedule.
With the abundance of resources available free online it should not be hard to find workout plan that suits you.Keeping it simple and convenient has allowed myself to fit in that 30 minutes of exercise while I was juggling university, thesis and internship at the same time. Now that I am already working averagely least ten hours a day, I am still able to exercise at least thrice a week.
Fitness is for the mind as it is for the body
This was by far the hardest part for myself. Exercise was good at first, then it quickly turned into an obsession as I become fixated into a certain physique. This behavior is common amongst women and is analogous with OCD. Robert Sprafkin, PhD said
With society’s values, which emphasize thinness and perfectionist fitness, one finds plenty of encouragement and justification for going to whatever extremes necessary to achieve these goals.
It was a tough process as I was putting myself into a mental pain for the first few years. I ignored my injuries, am very critical about how I look and the guilt for skipping a workout is overwhelming. and I learnt that fitness is pretty much in the mind as it is on the body. This is the moment I realized that looking fit does not guarantee the same for the mind.
Remind yourself that you should get committed and not obsessed with working out. In the end, what matters is your health, not how you look. If you have a severe obsession with this, please by any means, get help. Don’t let yourself live in pain.
That is how I managed to exercise regularly for the past four years. Boy, time does fly. It’s not perfect and there’s so much more tiny details that I would like to share. However, I believe everyone’s journey is different and these three things are the most important for me. It’ll take you less time to learn about technique than it is for you to change a mindset.
The author is the founder at The Millenial where she aims to bring back a quality, thought provoking articles. If you love this article, please share.
