Designing my health around life, not the gym.

No_Knock

The headline was the best I could think of for 530am.

At current, I'm beginning my health/fitness journey from scratch. I had a pretty serious back injury two years ago, went through 9 different docs to finally get one that would treat me for what I had and not what they wanted to assume I had (or make money on).

My mental space hasn't been terrible, but it hasn't been good either. However, in the last 3 days I've managed to collect myself. I'm much better off today than I was several months ago.

I was driving in to work this morning and thought, even if I can't get to the same level I was at 2 years ago... life is more than just that. There are a million other aspects of life that keep on ticking regardless of how far I can run and how often I throw weight around. I need to treat the rest of my life like I did the gym. I ate for the gym. I slept for the gym. I made time for the gym. The rest? That was daily life! It was going to be there. However, I wasn't designing my health around the rest of my life, I was designing it around the gym and my body. Sure, there are benefits that come from my health and impact my life, but I wasn't giving those other aspects the same attention.

How much better could I be if I chose to be healthy to be healthy for my kids? If I chose to be healthy for my wife? If I chose to be healthy for work? I need to aim to design my health around the rest of my life. I was counting macros and measuring every ounce of food out because it was going to provide me something in the gym. I need to find the equivalent of that for my every day life.

It may seem simplistic, but for me... I feel like its a perspective I need to explore. Particularly, after the last two years.

feisty_bucket

No_Knock wrote: »

It may seem simplistic, but for me... I feel like its a perspective I need to explore. Particularly, after the last two years.

Not simplistic! Vital. The lil' philosophical cult I've embraced (Stoicism) has the idea that you're supposed to be training your mind, body, and spirit constantly, to live well. And be focused on growth. If people do that, they'll be more "developed" in all areas a year from now, and continually wiser and happier and healthier as they grow older. That's the goal anyways.

So the gym stuff? Super important! But only 1/3rd of it. Apply the same care to other areas and you'll do great all-around.

Diatonic12

Back conditions or any delicate health condition can be so very hard. Take it back outside and do everything on your own terms. Where I live no one spends any time in a gym because we don't have them. We have the great outdoors but there are functional muscles everywhere I go. Hard work, true grit and functional muscles to survive brutal winters, take care of the livestock and critters.

NovusDies

I have large goals that are centered around things I want to do and the person I want to become. My health and fitness goal is simply to become more healthy and more fit so that I can do all the things I want to do and become a better person.

However, I don't drive myself with those goals. I drive myself with the goal of being happy today and trying to improve slightly by the end of the day. I can't accomplish anymore than that anyway so it keeps me in the moment.

I am not promised a tomorrow so the more time I worry about the things I can't do or the weight I still have left to lose the more time I have wasted. I recently dug a musical instrument back out of my closet. I have always wanted to play one but each time I try to learn something I was annoyed by not doing it well. My new strategy is to not allow myself to practice more than 5 minutes a day. The limit automatically limits my expectations of improvement. I won't be great at it today but I hope to be slightly better than yesterday. I have no idea when I will be able to play a song proficiently and I do not care. My goal for today is to chip away at the part of me that is not a musician. Just like my goal for weight loss is to chip away at the part of me that is not a healthy weight.

girlwithcurls2

^ This.

@NovusDies, I think you basically summed up how I learned to swim five years ago. I haven't been able to put it into words like that, but it's pretty much how I approached it. I thought swimming looked fun. I knew it would be good for me. I knew I was terrible at it. But I just used every visit to the pool to practice. There was so much to work on (there's always something to work on) that I decided I'd focus on one thing. For the longest time, I reached 10 laps and could swim no more. And it didn't matter. What mattered was that I gave it 15 minutes or so each time.

Here I am five years later, swimming 45 laps. Hmmm... I've been thinking of signing up for piano lessons for years. You've given me an idea!