I’m pretty sure using the words ‘pro-choice’ when talking about fitness and exercise are likely to sound incendiary, but hear me out. People choose to be inactive and they choose to be active. People choose their own lifestyle. So I’m jumping on the fitness pro-choice bandwagon. Why? Because fitness is preventative medicine and it self-enables you to handle the challenges of life.
Too often, we wait for an acute event whether it is medical or social to do something about our fitness. Then we perform intense workouts, geared towards specific fitness goals. Once those goals are achieved or the medical event is averted, we drop back to our old patterns and wait for the next major crisis to get us up off our collective butts and working again.
It’s damn hard to work out everyday. Some mornings, it’s all I can do to get out of bed and have five minutes to myself much less take the time to work out. Sure, I could get a lot of work done in the 60 minutes I allot for my workout. Those mornings I sleep a little too late, I may be shorting myself with only a 30 minute work out, but I’m doing it.
That’s the point. I am doing it. Sure I can use that time elsewhere, but that 60 minutes I do most days pays me back in spades for the next 23 hours in the day. We are only given one body and how we take care of that body will help us determine our own quality of life.
Do you want to be tired all the time?
Of course not.
Do you want to be getting sick a lot?
Heck no.
Do you really like being stressed out and unable to sleep?
Nope.
Do you feel sore and achy all day long and just wish you could get an upgrade for your joints and muscles?
If you don’t live a fit and healthy lifestyle, that’s exactly what you’re going to have.
Now – woo hoo, pay attention. I did not say if you do not work out that’s what you will have. I said if you do not live a fit and healthy lifestyle. If I take my dog out for a good thirty-minute walk, I’m not hitting the treadmill. When my daughter and I spend an hour at the playground, running around together – nope, not gonna hit the weights. If I get a chance to go horseback riding, why would I want to treadmill?
See – that’s my choice. I can live fit and healthy without exercising all the time just by choosing my activities. You don’t need to be an expert on fitness and you don’t need to buy a lot of equipment. I’m a self-avowed fitness junkie. I love new toys. I love new workouts.
Cause for me – they’re fun.
That’s how I keep myself coming back again and again, by enjoying it. I’ve been talking a lot at home recently about buying a bike again and getting back into biking or maybe pick up some inline skates so I can follow my daughter around on her bike. But would either of those really be fun for me?
I dunno.
I do know I love to go bowling and we’re going to go bowling once a week as a family starting this summer. I know I love swimming and we have a pool here in our subdivision that’s plenty big enough to swim in and still have a good time without being overcrowded. I know I love to go horseback riding.
See – fitness is about choice. You make the choice to work out or to live fit. But it’s your choice and don’t let anyone else take that away from you. The fitness clubs, the health experts, the fitness gurus and even the personal trainers – they know their way for getting fit. They understand it, they’ve quantified it and they’ve studied it. It works for them. It may not work for you. I for one personally hate step aerobics with a raging passion.
You couldn’t PAY me to take them.
Course, those people do look pretty fit. Still – my fitness, my choice.
Make fitness your choice and discover how fit and healthy can be fun and healthy too.