Begin With What You Like
Stop forcing yourself to eat Lima beans, seriously.
There must be some insane nutritional benefit to Lima beans based on the amount I was forced to eat as a child by my aerobicizing, 10k running, personal training mother; but it does not change the way they taste, which is horrible. When we are children, our parents (hopefully) make us eat our vegetables, and play sports or get some sort of outdoor activity because they know it is good for us, and we must comply because they have authority over us. When we grow up, it becomes us forcing ourselves, and more often than not we obeyed our parents as children better then we obey ourselves as adults. What we need to learn is, there are other options out there besides ‘Lima beans’, that are just as healthy and are far more palatable.
The wellness media bombards us all the time with the newest exercises and diets: HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), intermittent fasting, ketogenic diet and forgoing cardio for heavy weight lifting. Yes, there is some merit to all of this but it doesn’t mean it’s for you. If you’re just starting out - start with something that you enjoy, even better start with something you’re ‘good’ at.
“Results revealed that adherence was associated with motives focused on enjoyment, competence, and social interaction, but not with motives focused on fitness or appearance. Post-workout ratings of enjoyment also predicted adherence.” Ryan, R. M., Frederick, C. M., Lepes, D., Rubio, N., & Sheldon, K. M. (1997).
“The more people think they can successfully do the exercise signifies they will more likely adhere to the exercise program” – Len Kravitz Ph.D. https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/ExerciseMot.pdf
For me this was yoga. I had taken a semester of Iyengar yoga in college, and found that not only did I enjoy it, but I had a natural ‘talent’ for it, and being competent in what you’re doing aids in adherence. Yoga is not just about being flexible, it’s about connecting the mind to the body, being present and actively aware of how each pose feels from pinky toe to head, from breath to mind. I never thought that yoga would change me because I looked forward to practicing it. It wasn’t until almost 15 years later that I allowed myself to fully explore and experience the changes that can happen when you truly enjoy what you’re doing.
Start with building confidence in your ability to move and your ability to make time for that healthy habit. Build the habit on a foundation of enjoyment, make it a ‘get to’ instead of a ‘have to’. Once the foundation has been firmly set and supported then you may want to try new exercises or add sporadic jogs into your walks, and most likely these additions will feel more pleasant then if you started with them. From yoga sprang the appreciation of what my body and mind can do, and from that awareness grew my willingness to add multiple modalities to my physical regiment: running, weight lifting, HIIT workouts etc., and I actually look forward to doing them (for the most part) but I never would have, if I hadn’t let myself just be happy with practicing yoga.
Most true change comes through consistent effort and action, with the key word being consistent. If you’re miserable doing what is required for you to change then it will be that much harder for you to be consistent. Who wants to be consistently miserable? We can still challenge ourselves and grow while smiling. We can still push pass our current limits and stretch out into new horizons while laughing. Just because something is hard, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.
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