Fitness is NEVER Easy

People have told me that staying in shape and "doing fitness" is just so easy for me. They are dead wrong. Fitness is NEVER easy.

What I have found is there is a key to making fitness appear easy by molding it into your life. But there’s the rub – life change is NEVER easy. So adding fitness to your life is NEVER easy. For me my body clock causes major issues that make it seem like fitness is never easy.

Progress or Retrograde

We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.  – James Freeman Clarke

What a quote. Think about it. Right now one of two things: your are progressing or … not.

I’m either getting better, or not. When applied to fitness it is so true. I’m either progressing and fighting the devastating affects of age, or not. There is not “stationary” where I get to somehow magically maintain my youthful appearance and abilities.

But life isn’t full of free time that just allows me to ramble into the gym at 10:30 every morning. There are meetings, and deadlines, constantly looming. There are demands for my time. Sure those demands have rewards – they pay for our lifestyle.

The question that I have been facing is what makes it feel like fitness is never easy.

Body Clock Makes Fitness Never Easy

Your battle may vary, but for me it is my body clock, or my Circadian rhythm. That innate time clock that regulates when we wake and when we sleep.

Biological clock and the demands of life rarely match. If left to my own I quickly become a night-owl. I’ve said before that I would much rather never see a sunrise. That worked fine when I lived in the Delt House on the University of Minnesota campus. While there I avoided all classes that started before 10am. It worked.

But life beyond college as a cubicle dweller doesn’t fit that same schedule.

Life with family doesn’t fit with that schedule, either.

I’ve had to find ways to pummel my biological clock to meet the demands of life. I’ve had to force myself to become a morning person and it is NEVER easy. While the schedule works it is fragile. Toss anything into my schedule that either forces, or even just encourages, me to stay up late and all is lost.

Okay all is lost may be extreme, but my schedule as a morning person fails. And it takes extreme effort on my part to recover.

Discover What Triggers Problems

Knowing your problem areas is the first step at solving anything. So for me recovering from feeling like fitness is never easy means examining my schedule. Examining closely what works, what doesn’t, and what triggers seasons of issues.

I’ve learned through the years that my fitness is toast when the Christmas and New Years season hits. As a family we love that time of year and I often take time off from work. That gives me freedom to let the schedule slide and enjoy being with my family. But that also means I start avoiding early mornings.

That’s all fine and good, until regularly scheduled programming starts back up. Then nothing seems to work. I can’t get to sleep. I don’t sleep well when I do fall asleep. I grow a sense of disdain towards my alarm clock. My tension levels just seem to grow.

It feels like a downward spiral. I start to daydream of new careers. Wondering what I could do that would enable the night owl schedule to sync with my reality.

Truth be told that’s just nonsense that comes from a lack of sleep. Face it. I don’t need a career change, nor the world to change. Tolstoy nailed it when he said …

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.   – Leo Tolstoy

Or turn to the King of Pop and sing a long…

Fitness Can Appear Easy

Find a way to fit fitness in. Find a way to battle what trips you up. Keep at it.

Keep at it for more than 2 weeks. Others, like Leo Babauta from ZenHabits, will say 30 days makes a habit. But I’ve found with fitness there is so much good that comes from it that it only takes 2 weeks. Stick with a workout schedule for two weeks. Force your schedule to adapt. Endorphins, more restful sleep, increased energy levels, etc. all of them help reinforce the fitness habit.

If you are like me at some point you realize that you’ve won the battle and fitness is indeed easy. I am not a morning person, but when I force my schedule so fitness fits all it takes is two weeks. By that point I often find myself waking up before my alarm, rested, excited, and ready to go.

So take time to figure it out. Let me know how it goes. Does two weeks work for you to build fitness into a regular schedule so it no longer looks like fitness is never easy?