An Ex-Couch Potato’s Guide to Getting Fit and Staying Motivated

I think it’s fair to say that I was an athletic slacker for most of my life. Maybe you’re one too. For me, it has its roots deep in my childhood, when I grew up detesting any kind of athletic endeavor (probably because I was the nerdy drama club piano-playing type). I hated watching sport, I hated talking about it, I hated everything it stood for, and most of all I hated doing it.

It stayed that way through the majority of my life. I mean, I did try and do things. When I was in my twenties and drinking copious amounts of beer and eating fast food whenever humanly possible, I realized that if I didn’t do something, I was probably going to die from a stroke or a heart attack before age 40. So I took out gym memberships, went religiously for maybe a week or so, and then before long inevitably found myself snacking on crisps and playing video games while my gym membership lapsed. That little routine repeated itself a few times.

Then, in 2014, I discovered running, and it was something that transformed me — literally and figuratively. I went from couch potato to finishing my first marathon within 2 years. I lost twelve kilograms in ten months. But most importantly, I was running three to four times a week, without fail.

How do you get that kind of motivation? I don’t know enough about you to answer that, so I’ll just explain how I was able to make fitness a new lifestyle, and maybe that helps you. Who knows?

I got to that point.

It helps if you get to the point of desperation. I don’t mean that point where you make that New Year’s resolution to get fit. I don’t mean the third time you take out a new gym membership with the promise to yourself that “this time will be different”.

No, I mean rock bottom. The point where you say, “I literally cannot go on like this.” For me, it was after working in the States for 3 months. I had a daily allowance of 40 dollars, and so I did what anyone with that much money every day would: hotel buffet for breakfast, fast food for lunch, and a restaurant meal for supper. Every. Day. For three months. Oh, and I did no exercise.

When I returned home, I was the heaviest I’d ever been, and I just felt depleted. I was, maybe for the first time in my life, absolutely desperate to get healthy and fit. At that point, it didn’t matter to me what I did, I just had to do something.

I found the thing that I love doing.

I picked running simply because I didn’t own a decent bicycle, and my swimming laps frequently illicit full-blown rescue attempts by lifeguards. The practicality of running was what made me choose it.

And once I got into it, it unexpectedly turned into something much more than just a way to get fit: it became a passion of mine. I started doing it because I loved it. I loved the feeling of improving and getting faster, I loved having the time to mull over thoughts and come up with new ideas as I ran, and I loved how relaxed I felt afterward.

And once you love something, it’s almost harder not getting out the door every day to go and do it. I can’t tell you why I enjoy running so much, and I have no idea what you would enjoy doing; I only know that you should try to find the thing you love, or at least the thing you mildly like. Or, if nothing else, the thing you hate the least.

I ate better.

Since my diet was half of my problem, I had to eat better. And I did: I cut out sugar as much as possible, I limited myself to one cooked meal a day, and I tried to eat a lot more salads and vegetables. I didn’t go crazy with my diet; I just started eating better. This was the hardest part for me, especially because my body was used to me stuffing it with two 1000 kcal meals a day in addition to muffins for breakfast and chocolate snacks in between. But after the first few weeks, it got better.

And doing regular exercise also did a lot to improve my diet: once I understood how much work it was to burn off 1000 kcals, I was a lot less willing to put those kcals into my body in the first place.

My own progress inspired me.

I’m a bit of a tech fan, so when I started running I bought a watch and synchronized my data to a fitness Website. Every run was tracked: I could see how far I was running, my pace, and my heart rate. I could track my improving fitness. When you see yourself getting better, the motivation to get out there and get even better is really high. It’s like a positive feedback loop, where you can see how much better you’ve gotten over a period of time, and so you want to keep getting better.

The same goes for when you start seeing the weight come off, or muscle mass building up: progress begets progress, and it is an invaluable source of inspiration.

I only competed against myself.

When I first started running, I couldn’t help compare myself to other runners I knew at the time — and I was way slower than them. Like, way slower. I was half running, half walking, half hobbling through my sessions, and I had thoughts of just giving it up since I wasn’t anywhere close to what I thought were “respectable” levels. The thing is, I just decided to stop caring how fast I was compared to them and started caring about improving on my own times.

If you’ve been slacking your whole life in the athletic department, chances are you will be really bad at whatever you decide to do. “Bad” is a relative term though. There’s always going to be someone faster/stronger/fitter than you. Unless you’re competing at Olympic level (and you’re probably not), you do not have to be the best. You just have to improve. That’s it. So don’t even bother with the comparisons.

Yes, I know how stereotypical this post is. I’m just another annoying athlete rattling off advice. But actually, I’m not. I’m very much an average Joe who has spent most of his life hating athletic activities. Even though I’ve been running for 5 years, I still go through phases where I need to drag myself out the door (happening right now, in fact). But somehow, since I started, I keep coming back to it more or less regularly. And if I can do it, anyone can.

Originally published at perennial-xennial.com on March 28, 2019.