Working Out: The Hardest Part

You’ve kept a log of how much physical activity you do a week (as we suggested), and you realize that you need to do more than you currently are. The next step on the road to fitness is to start adding movement to your day; you might not want to call it “working out” just yet since that term might not apply for a while.

If your fitness/activity levels have been low, then you do NOT want to jump right in with a vigorous aerobic or strength routine right off the bat. Instead, you want to increase your daily exertions gradually, in small increments that will be easy to accomplish. Few, if any, can successfully go from doing nothing to 10K runs in one day, so it only makes sense that you would take baby steps initially and literally.

So take a look at that log you kept. Begin by seeing how much time a week you spent in dedicated physical activity. By that, we mean stuff you did just to move your butt. The other activities which are already a part of your daily life will continue no matter what you decide, so you can use that as your baseline. What you have to do for work or around the house won’t fade away any time soon, so you don’t have to make any changes there, at least for now. If you’re like most people, there won’t be many (if any) extra, purely physical activities on your list, so you should probably begin with something so easy and short that you will barely notice it. Something like a quick walk. You’ll also be able get it done at the end of the day when you forget or procrastinate. That’s why walking is the best way for most people to get started.

No, you won’t be getting yourself ready for the Olympics with a short walk every day, but you will be using more energy and calories while you’re proving to yourself that you can manage to fit in some extra body work each day. (If you’ve got an exercise machine collecting dust in your house, feel free to substitute using it for the walk. As with walking, you’ll want to use minimal resistance in the beginning so that it won’t be overly challenging.) The single goal here is to dedicate a part of each day to your fitness until it becomes habitual, something you always do.

Start with short walks that you might be embarrassed to tell anyone about—five minutes. That’s all: five minutes each day, at least five times a week. Do that for as long as you want before doubling it to ten, then fifteen, and so on until you’re taking five half-hour walks a week (two-and-a-half hours). Viola! The hardest part of working out has been accomplished—finding the time. If you can devote that many minutes to physical activity each and every week, you will have reached the tipping point in your battle to increase your activity to a healthy level. There are many experts who have weighed in over the years on what is the “appropriate” amount of time we should work out, but five times a week for about a half hour each is a commonly recommended minimum. Nobody’s stopping you from doing more than that—some would argue for forty-five minutes up to six times a week--but the sheer volume of our daily lives makes putting in hours more than that every day impossible for most of us.

You will probably struggle to reach even this level, but that’s where your log practice should be able to help you. If you keep missing days or can’t reach that half hour a day, then you should start keeping track of other things you are doing that could be shortened to give you walking time. How much TV, internet, texting, reading, napping, etc. are you managing to squeeze into your day? All of those could be cut down so that you can get that needed half-hour a day (well, maybe not reading—as a retired high school English teacher and writer of two blogs, I would be loath to push that too much). But there are probably many things that you could steal of couple minutes from if you wanted to.

So, we’ve come to that crucial issue which plagues every aspect of any fitness attempt: Do you want to? We can ratchet that up many levels on the melodrama scale if you so desire: Do you want it bad enough? Your life depends on making the time. Do you have the time to be so weak and flabby that you get sick constantly? Are you a total loser or what?—but none of that changes the fundamental nature of that first, simple question—Do you want to?

If you do, then you will. Nobody is suggesting that there has to be intense work and sacrifice in every fitness program, but time is the one thing for which there really isn’t much of a substitute. You can get pretty fit using twenty, maybe even fifteen minutes a day, but most people are not capable of pushing themselves as hard as it takes for fifteen minutes to be effective and won’t be for many months (years), if they ever can habituate to that level of intensity; so allocating a half hour is really the only way reinforcing changes will occur. And yes, you can do wonders for your health simply through your diet, no doubt. But without some strength, aerobic, and flexibility work tossed in there, you will be subject to significant mobility issues that could pose risks to your independence the older you get. So five half-hours each week is a reasonable minimum.

Yeah, I know it’s more than that, what with getting ready to go, maybe driving someplace different for some variety, and putting away whatever gear you needed to start the walk (a coat, headphones, an umbrella, the dog) will add a few minutes. That will only increase once you start doing sweaty workouts that require complete wardrobe changes, cool-down time, immediate showers, and even a trip back and forth to your health club, tennis courts, or bike trail. Ultimately, it will probably be much closer to an hour five times a week. But, if you can commit to that half hour to start and keep at it until it becomes a something you just do, that hour won’t be at all difficult to reach; trust me.

So get moving for twenty-five extra minutes this week, and begin your positive addiction. You can jog, ride a bike, or get on an exercise machine if you would prefer. Walking is just the most basic, simplest, and lowest impact activity for anybody. Believe it or not, this will be the hardest part of the whole exercise experience. That’s why it’s so important for you to make it as easy as you possibly can. Five minutes a day is the lowest I’m willing to go—hey, you have probably spent about that much time reading since you started this essay. And once you’ve made it to that half an hour a day, you’ll be ready for the next phase: selecting more vigorous activities you enjoy and can substitute for walking. See you in five.