Little by little, then all at once.

Has this ever happened to you?

You have a small window to exercise and it keeps shrinking. Do you go? Even for a short workout? Or skip it?

That was my choice. I had to be out the door for my run by 10:00 and it was 10:20, realistically I wouldn’t be ready for another 20 minutes. My window of opportunity was shrinking. Should I go or should I tick off a few more items on my to-do do list?

The excuses were piling up.

I had so many things that I should do first. So many things I could finish. A list of things that have to get done, now.

But, I did not exercise yesterday. I didn’t want to have two days off in a row. It is a slippery slope. Plus, the weather was cooperating. It wasn’t cold. It had not started to snow. Conditions were ideal.

So I did what I needed to do.

I wrangled my lazy dog, got dressed and went for an easy, short, 35 minute run in the woods. It would have been so easy to skip it. To think I didn’t have time. 35 minutes feels like a warm-up. It’s too easy for a real workout. It doesn’t count. However, this type of thinking is a problem, especially in January.

 

The “all or nothing” problem.

We think we have to work out intensely, every day or it doesn’t count.

We avoid exercise for months because we don’t have time, we are too tired, it’s too hard, I’m too out of shape, it’s too late, it’s too early, we are too busy. Then suddenly we do. I see this, and if you exercise throughout the year, you probably have seen this recently too. People punishing themselves with exercise, trying to make up for lost workouts all at once.

We want it all now. Then when we don’t see immediate results, we stop.

The real problem is that when we stop exercising, or when we start again, nothing much changes. Until it does.

Let me explain.

You might be in a groove, exercising regularly, feeling pretty good and then the holidays arrive, you go on a vacation, you get sick, you get injured, you have a big deadline. Whatever it is it disrupts the flow. It gets you out of the habit.

Soon instead of exercising regularly, you are fitting it in, cutting it short, making excuses and skipping your workouts.

At first nothing much changes.

Okay, you might feel a little more stressed, seem a bit more irritable, start snacking on junk food, but you still feel (and look) pretty much the same.

Depending on how long this lasts there could be no serious damage done. A week on holidays, or over Christmas, the deadline passes, you get over that cold and things go back to normal.

Unless they don’t. Until one day you have changed.

All at once.

Not really, but that is how it seems. Little by little and then all at once.

You don’t notice the little by little, you notice the all at once. The unflattering photo. The pants that suddenly won’t do up. The person who looks back in the mirror and you think “that’s not me”. The feeling of being out of breath going upstairs. 

The little by little.

That is what gets you fit, keeps you healthy, makes you stronger.

It is never the all at once. It is never the endless stream of promises to get 6 pack abs in 6 weeks or lose the belly fat in 12 easy steps or the latest punishing workout that promises to make you better than ever. Those all have a certain appeal. They appeal to the all at once, but they don’t change the little by little and that is what matters.

That is why I went for my run. Because it all adds up. Daily. There is no cramming for fitness. You can’t beg, borrow or buy it.

I promised that this month I was going to post about how to stick to your goals/resolutions/habits. And if there is one thing that I know absolutely for sure about fitness is that little by little it all adds up. So get out the door and do something, not everything, just something, today and tomorrow and the next day. Repeat, rest and start again.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla