Why I Started to Work Out, and Why I Continue
The pursuit of a flat tummy? To get my high school body back?
In August 2019, my dad measured my blood pressure with a home monitor. For the first time ever, it was 135 over something. I was startled. My blood pressure had always been perfect… that top number was always 120. I thought it might have been a temporary fluke. But the next time I went to the doctor, it was still in the 130s.
Although I had been pre-diabetic for a long time, this blood pressure thing bothered me… a lot.
I walked into a gym in October 2019, and I agreed to personal training. I was a 42-year-old mom of two young children who had never done a sport and who worked out maybe a handful of times a year… going directly to lifting weights twice a week for an hour at a time.
I was sore for the first few weeks, but it went away surprisingly quickly. Plus, my trainer would ask about my day, my plans for the weekend, etc. It was great to have regular interaction with a human again. I missed having that feeling of office camaraderie, of interacting with the same non-family person on a daily basis, of knowing what was going on with them and sharing what was going on with me.
Ahhh… the ease of friendships formed of being in the same place regularly, like at school or at a workplace.
Working out gave me the energy to pursue the social interaction that I had been craving but that had been missing from my life. I wanted to get to know people. I wanted to have friends again. I wanted to have fun. Since I worked from home, there were no easy or natural ways to do this. It required effort.
2020 was one of the best years of my life (unlike most people who suffered through the pandemic). I started by reconnecting with old friends. I got to know people who valued friendships and had extensive friend networks.
Observing their lives ultimately gave me the courage to expand into new friendships as well. I discovered that having close/daily friends was a game-changer as far as shining a light on my own behavior.
It helps for the patterns that we all get into with our spouses and children to be balanced with external social inputs. Having more people see us helps us figure out what we can do better in all of our relationships and be nicer.
And then, I experienced another major bonus. After only two months of lifting regularly, my sex drive basically went from nonexistent to “impossible to ignore.” The lifting alone had brought my hormones into balance!
Every Tuesday and Friday for two whole years, I was lifting with my trainer. My trainer helped me slowly incorporate things like drinking 60 oz of water a day, cutting out sugary drinks completely, adding cardio for 45 min twice a week, and learning about nutrition — total calories as well as getting a balance of carbs, protein, and fat. It was expensive, but it was worth every penny. It literally changed my life.
What I discovered is that a regular workout routine with lifting and cardio components is key to a balanced mental state, balanced hormones, and the energy to pursue the things that fulfill us.
In my case, it was close friendships that made life fulfilling. This is, of course, in addition to the more widely recognized physical benefits of increased strength and agility, minimizing long-term health issues, and extended life. Although I started out wanting the flat tummy I had in high school, how my body looks is no longer the reason why I work out.
Readers: I want to know what you think. Have you had a similar experience? If you do exercise regularly, what makes you stick with it?
