big bad blog

Hate your body? Depressed at how out of breath you get walking up hills?

Well, never fear, for we have a marvelous new invention called “exercise”.

Garuanteed to get your body in awesome shape, make you stronger, fitter and all round happier.

Except most of us don’t bother.

We’d like to, but the sofa is very comfortable and the tv so very interesting right now and it looks like its going to rain and I’ve got too much to do today and, and, and a ton of other excuses…

So, here is my guide to making that first step to getting off the sofa and out into getting on with getting in shape, a collection of hints and rants on getting good with minimal pain.

(note, most of this will only apply to people starting an exercise routine, some of it won’t apply to people who already so regular exercise)

screw exercise, do something fun

No pain no gain?
Bugger than for a game of soldiers, I’m off to play footy with my mates, you have fun with that pain business…
Excerise doesn’t have to be a gruelling, punishing experience, twist it around and do something that you actually enjoy doing, but that will get you fit in the processes. Hardly anyone starts climbing purely for the health benefits, but after a few goes most people are back every week like crack addicts pushing themselves faster and harder and their body has no choice but to keep up.

do something, anything, even if its small

Starting an intensive exercise regimine of running every day, pushing yourself constantly harder, giving up your current comfortable state for a never ending gruelling workout every day is a daunting task. So, most people don’t bother.
But, unless you’re on a serious time limit, you don’t have to start big, as long as you get started.
Just do one run a week, even if its only a mile or half a mile. run only for as long as you feel like and don’t feel too guilty about going slow or the distance, the important point it getting off the sofa in the first place.

Exercising without doing any exercising

Back in ye olden dayes, people didn’t need ye gym, a hard day working in the fields was more than enough of a workout. The world is full of opportunities to burn off calories- take the stairs instead of the escalator, pick a hilly route to walk to work instead of the quick way, cycle instead of taking a car, lift heavy stuff instead of letting other people do it for you. Take every opportunity the world gives you to put your muscles to work and eventually it all builds up…

to hell with doing it right, just jump in and do it anyway

Do you use the excuse of “I’m no good at it” or “I’m too unfit to do that” to avoid doing something? Screw that and wade in anyway. No one cares if you screw up and if you just sit on the sidelines you’ll never get good at it. Feel free to fail gloriously, knowing that next time it’ll be a little easier and you’ll be a little faster.

eat well

dieting without understanding nutrition properly can be worse for you than what you were eating before and lets face it, almost no one sticks to a diet for more than a month before the chocolate craving becomes uncontrollable.
Eating well is much easier than you think just cut down on stuff thats obviously bad for you and add things that are good for you. Add more fresh fruit and vegetables to your diet and try and cut down on fatty and processed foods. With a bit of thought, its not even much effort, for example fruit smoothies taste awesome, do your body great and are easy to make (just open the carton ). You don’t even have to give up anything, in fact its probably a bad idea to give anything up completely, since when you finally snap, it can be hard to unsnap and go back to eating healthily. The key is eating the correct amount. A bit of chocolate or some bacon every now and again isn’t a sin, its only a problem when the bad outweighs the effects of the good.

bring someone along for the ride

Everyone needs a little motivation to resist the urge of the sofa and the tv, so having someone else exercising with you can be a great help. Not only do you not get quite so bored, but it means you have to make your excuses to them as well as yourself and are less likely to slack off.

Do something regular

Much like having an exercise partner to keep you going, doing a regular group activity can help keep the pattern going. Instead of having to decide on a day to day basis what to do for yourself, you know Wednesday=circuit training day. Then you only need to get up the motivation to get to the event…

keep track and set goals

being able to see how far you’ve come is a great motivator to keep going and to keep pushing yourself further the next time. Setting goals also lets you split exercise into manageable chunks, where all you have to do is reach your next goal of a 1 mile run, then set a goal of a 2 mile run instead of trying to go from a couch loafer to marathon distances instantly.

don’t set goals, just get on with it

On the other hand, setting goals can take too mcuh effort and you can get discouraged if you set your goals too high and fail to meet them. Sometimes its easier just to go for whatever you feel like doing confident in the knowlege that bit by bit, every step you run today is giving you a stronger body for tomorrow.