Exercise! Do you love it or hate it? How important is it anyway?
I have a love-hate relationship with exercise. The good girl in me says, you must stand up and exercise. The first step is always standing up. The bad girl says, let’s have some coffee and think about it. I usually listen to the bad girl—though occasionally the good girl wins. What I hate about exercise is knowing I should do it, not doing it, and having the resulting guilt hanging over my head like a storm cloud. What I love about exercise is when it’s over. I feel so righteous, and the day blooms bright.
Another reason for not exercising is that it takes that precious hour out of our day for the multitude of other tasks we want to complete. For me, it cuts into my writing time. I like to exercise first thing in the morning just to get it out of the way, but then by the time I get to writing, I’m tired. So I’ve tried writing and then taking a break to exercise. That’s okay, but I get antsy to get back to writing and cut the exercise hour short. Then I’ve tried exercising at the end of the writing day when I don’t have anything pressing other than relaxing, but that martini starts calling my name, and I just want to sit down and bliss out with my cocktail and a magazine.
We’re women of a certain age. Do we really need to punish ourselves with exercise at this stage in the game? I hate to say it, but the answer is probably yes. Why? Because it energizes us and keeps us strong, lean, and toned. It’s good for our hearts and our circulation. We could also consider it part of our beauty routine. Plus, if I exercise, then I really do deserve that massage or facial I love so much.
Herein lies the problem with that: I’ll get the beauty treatments anyway, regardless of whether I exercise or not, but then as I’m beginning to relax with the massage, I start telling myself that the massage therapist probably thinks I’m a flabby mess. Now I’m not enjoying the massage and I’m scolding myself for not exercising and making promises that I will exercise every day from here on out. Right! Until tomorrow morning when I again get up and listen to the bad girl.
Maybe I’ve developed this love-hate relationship with exercise because I’m tired of it. After all, I’ve been exercising all my life. For forty years I got up every morning at the crack of dawn and ran out my front door, running four to ten miles, and occasionally training for a marathon. In addition to running, I lifted weights, did aerobics and spin/cycle classes, took stretch classes, and engaged in Pilates and yoga. I miss the great physical shape I was in, and I’d also like to drop ten pounds, so I’m going to make a commitment to do some form of exercise five days a week. That’s reasonable. I think the good girl and the bad girl might be in agreement—though the bad girl is moaning just a bit, and the good girl’s feet are itching to hit the pavement.
What about you? What sort of exercise do you engage in? How regularly? How’s it going? Maybe we could be workout pals, commiserate when the going gets tough, or help each other stay accountable by sharing our progress. Comment below with your thoughts on exercise. I’d love to hear from you and post some thoughts on the subject other than my own.
As far as committing to exercise: if we don’t try, we’ll never know.