I Want To Be Fit December 11, 2005
I’ve made the decision that I want to be fitter.
I don’t like being tired when I’m running around with my kids. I don’t like the creaking and groaning and effort involved in getting down on the floor to play with them, and getting up again afterwards. I know I need to do regular exercise to stay healthy.
Until now, I’ve had a few problems with sustaining regular exercise:
- Time: I have three daughters, G (3 years old), S (2 years old) and H (8 months old). Any parent will understand the workload that involves, and the difficulty I have finding time for any kind of regular exercise. In addition to that, G (the eldest) has Down syndrome, so she develops slower than the others and needs additional care and attention. Besides my family, I work a full-time job, I’m a keen photographer, I’m the librarian and webmaster for my local camera club, I’m the webmaster for my state Down Syndrome Association, I’m an occasional weekend wedding photographer (maybe 1 wedding per month on average), and I run several other web sites.
- Boredom: Any kind of repetitive exercise (walking, jogging, stair-climbers, treadmills, etc) just gets boring after a few sessions. This is a killer for me, and I can’t ever seem to keep myself motivated to keep up with the exercise.
- Guilt: If I go out exercising, I leave my wife at home to look after the three kids. I don’t like to dump that on her, especially since she gets that all day while I’m at work. Besides, my wife runs her own bookkeeping business, so she has stuff to do too.
- Laziness: I’ll admit it, I’m lazy. It’s easier to sit in front of the TV or computer than it is to get off your butt and exercise. That probably ties into the next one…
- Feedback: It can be hard to get any sense of progress when you just start out with a new exercise program. You go through the motions, repeating the same routine, and you don’t really feel like you’re getting anywhere. I need to see some progress and get some positive feedback in order to stay motivated. And if (when!) I wander off track for a day or two, I need a carrot to lure me back into it rather than just beating myself up and packing it in. This ties back in to the Boredom thing – I need each exercise session to be entertaining so I’m motivated to do it, and I need a higher-level, longer-term game or progress score so I’m motivated to stick with the program.
The thing is, though, my health should be more important than all those things. I know that. I need to find a way to either deal with or work around them, so I can get on with being a fitter person. They’re kind of just comfortable excuses that allow me to do nothing. I’m 109 kg today.
My proposed solution is to go out walking early in the morning, before the rest of the family gets up. I’ll take my iPod and listen to podcasts, so the time spent exercising is productive and enjoyable rather than boring and repetitious. We’ll see how this goes…
Update: See Fitness Obstacles for a more detailed explanation of each of the problems above.
Technorati Tags: weight loss, exercise, boredom, guilt, laziness, exercise tips, health
- Posted in : Fitness Obstacles
- Author : admin
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