I am an expert at coming up with excuses on why not to exercise. Environmental factors, physical factors, dietary factors, and even look-at-all-the-other-important-things-I-have-to-do-today factors all contribute to my sedentary life.
Since I began obsessively tracking my steps last year, I have realized two things about myself.
First, I move far less than I think I do. Apparently, in order to maintain your weight and health, you have to walk at least 5 miles a day, or roughly 10,000 steps. On a typical work day, I average only around 3,000! On weekends, unless I leave the house, I move even less.
Second, I will rarely ever exercise just for the health benefits. For instance, I will ride my bike to work or the store or to a friend’s house because, well, I’m going somewhere to do something else that I consider fun or necessary. I have too many things to accomplish (writing my novel, paying bills, working to support my family) to make time for exercise, of all the silly things.
Over time with this attitude, however, my lack of exercise starts to show. I pull a muscle. I don’t feel as well or think as clearly. Then I jump into fitness. I get back to where I want to be, eating healthy, running a mile without breaking to walk—and then I stop and check the fitness box, letting myself backslide again.
This cycle is setting me up for failure, and a lifetime of disappointment.
Endurance is defined by Merriam Webster as:
I am young, so sometimes I am blinded to the long term benefits of healthy activity. I think that my body will continue to bit fit even if I hardly move day-in and day-out. If I’ve learned anything from being a gymnast though, I know that this is not the case. Ten years ago, I could do something called an oversplit. Now, I can barely get all the way down into a normal split. It wasn’t until I quit gymnastics and lost a significant amount of flexibility (and twisted my ankle in college) that I realized how important it was for me to continue stretching if I wanted to keep doing the things I was able to do as a teenager.
My husband put it this way. He works out to maintain his fitness so that if he wanted to go on a ten-mile hike in the Rocky Mountains one day, he could, and would actually enjoy it.
If I considered a long-term fitness goal, mine would be to maintain my strength and energy so that I can be consistently active with the kids in my life. I want to be able to chase after Pokemon with my brother in 100 degree heat, stretch and do cartwheels with my sister, go on long bike rides or hikes with my husband, and to one day do the same with my own kids.
The chance to have that joy in the future, for me, is worth taking that extra flight of stairs, doing that stretch, going on that two-mile run, and eating my vegetables today.
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” 1 Corinthians 9:24
Against a field of possible future mes, I aim to win. Having endurance requires focusing every day on that ultimate long-term motivation. Figuring out my prize was the first step.
What’s yours?
Hiking the Ozarks, October 2015