Diet Culture pushes the narrative of “no pain, no gain” and other hardcore exercise mentalities.
If you based your workout decisions on what you’ve heard over your lifetime, you’d probably think anything less than intense exercise is not good enough.
This a limiting belief that needs to change.
There’s a time and a place for pushing yourself to your limits, but it’s not required to be healthy.
That mentality can also keep people from exercising at all, as it cultivates an all-or-nothing mentality. It makes the barrier to physical activity very high.
Instead, I like to think of exercise a little differently, and that starts with understanding one very important idea.
The most important aspect of exercise that leads to a healthy body and mind is consistency.
This might seem obvious to you, yet so many people aren’t optimizing for consistency. They’re optimizing for body change.
And more times than not, the exercise behaviors people engage in to change their body end up hurting their consistency.
The way to ensure consistent physical activity is to choose movement that meets your needs of the moment.
The more you meet your needs, the easier and more enjoyable exercise will be, which leads to effortless and consistent movement – for life.
This all starts will putting the body manipulation / calorie burning mentality away, and shifting your prime focus to enjoyment.
This might be high-intensity exercise, but it certainly doesn’t have to be.
It might be walking, biking, hiking, swimming, strength training, playing sports – whatever gets you a little excited.
The goal is to have an enjoyable experience. Because just like any other enjoyable experience in your life – if you had a good time doing it, you’re likely to want to do it again.
You won’t feel obligated or forced to do it. You’ll go out of your way to do it.
Also keep in mind that all types of physical activity can be adjusted to make it more enjoyable.
This starts with removing any self-imposed rules you place on exercise.
There might be parts of strength training you like, and parts you don’t. Do the parts you enjoy.
There might be different aspects of other movement you like. For example, being outdoors, in a community setting, or whatever. Do more of those things.
Make the exercise your own.
I promise you this – moving your body for 300 days of a year for the rest of your life (because you like the exercise you do) will be infinitely healthier than doing 12 weeks of high-intensity fat burning workouts (if you can even hold out that long), and then taking 3-9 months off from working out because it sucked.
Have fun out there. Exercise is meant to be enjoyable.
Talk soon…