Are You Making Fitness Harder Than It Needs To Be

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Have you ever looked at someone else and thought “they make it look so easy”? Or, you look at others and you think “no fair, I am working way harder than them and not getting the results they are getting”. There might be a reason. You may be making fitness harder than it has to be. The damage may have started before you ever began working out. So, it may not be about how hard you are working now, but what led up to where you are now that is giving you such a beating.

Laziness: Disinclined to work. Slow moving, Idle. Sluggish. Slothful

Laziness is very interesting to me. It’s not like anyone would want to be called sloth, yet we all have had our own battle with laziness at times. Have you ever thought how hard we actually work to be lazy?

I think of all the times I have dropped something, all because I was carrying too much to avoid making multiple trips. The final result is often more work than if I just did things the right way the first time. Some of the things we do out of pure laziness can be just plain silly (like the person in this car rolling his trashcan to the street). Actually, it’s not silly, it’s really kind of stupid.

We do it with fitness too. I have worked way harder than I needed to at the gym when I’ve been lazy with my diet, simply because I’m not doing the work I should in the kitchen to manage my calories properly. Again, the lazier I am, the harder I have to work.

Procrastination is the same way. Just think of all the unnecessary stress we would have if we did everything we should do when we should do it. We wouldn’t be totally freaking out to meet a deadline because we waited to the last minute to do the work. Our priorities would be in order, and our life would be so much more fruitful.

Unfortunately, we often wait long enough for things to get even WORSE before we start working to make them BETTER. For some (like this cartoon) it ends up being too late. We say “tomorrow” day after day, but as each day passes, we have fewer fewer tomorrows ahead of us. Time is always running out.

Procrastination: To put off. To delay.

Everyone has something they are putting off. Think of what your something is and replace it every time I use “this” in a sentence.

To delay means you will eventually have to do “this”. You think you can choose, but really you are fooling yourself – and making life harder.  You can do “this” now, when you have more time left to get it done, because there is one thing I know - you are younger today than you will be tomorrow. So, if doing “this” NOW is most definitely better than tomorrow, tell me again why in the world you are putting “this” off?

In the world of fitness, there are no shortcuts. Yet, most people will choose to attempt a shortcut before they ever attempt to get fit the right way. They put the PRO in PROcrastinate.

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” Proverbs 13:4

My Take: This one is easy to understand. Lazy people want – but never get. It’s interesting to me that it doesn’t say “the hard worker” is richly supplied, it says “the diligent” will be richly supplied. Unfortunately, I think many people work very hard at times, but they are aren’t steady or consistant. This is a great reminder of how powerful consistency is.

I see this in the gym all the time. People are so impatient. They work SO hard in bursts, but they lack consistency. Like I’ve said before, it’s not about what you do today, it’s about what you can repeat daily. Everyone can do something amazing at times, but can you keep repeating that day after day? That is what success requires – consistency, dedication and constant correction to stay on the right track.

“The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.” Proverbs 12:24

My Take: This one is particularly interesting to me. It implies that people who actually avoid work, are going to likely end up working hard (probably even harder). If you think about it, this applies to every part of our life – relationships, our spiritual life, our job, and definitely to our health. After years of being lazy and lacking discipline in their diet, a person can have a wake up call, and then it IS much tougher for them than other people who has been working on it all their life.

Fitness Columnist and Lifestyle Coach, Resident Trainer for Designer Whey, Fitness Advisor for FitStudio, powered by Sears, FitFluential Ambassador and Owner of Max Fitness Club, home of BCx Boot Camp in Vero Beach, Florida.