As a teenager, I never ‘exercised’ but I was the fittest I have ever been in my life. The key to that fitness though I never thought about it was my level of activity. Back then I used to swim, play water polo, dance, play tennis, never once thinking that I was exercising. I was just doing things that I enjoyed, that just happened to be great exercise.
I recently came to the realization that this is where my life needs to go back to. I cannot exercise for the sake of exercising. It is difficult for me to exercise even for the sake of getting fit, or improving my health. Somewhere in my warped mind, those goals are not worthy. My slightly hedonistic tendencies need me to do things for fun, because I enjoy them, to derive pleasure.
So the solution is simply that – to return to my youthful life approach and identify activities that I enjoy. This time there will be some conscious effort to make sure that I do select activities that make me work.
My regular latin dancing arose from this because I admitted that I enjoyed it enough to go regularly and recognized that it was definitely a heart-pumping activity that could help get me moving. I have been successfully going dancing once a week initially and now twice a week ever since August. At first I would be panting after each song and need some rest but now I can keep going for an hour or so without much complaint.
Next I added the swimming I used to love. Again I can’t just go and swim laps to no end so I contacted my coach from days of yore and enquired about Masters swimming. So I am now going to see if I can keep up the training, eventually increasing the amount and eventually compete again.
So far I am enjoying my approach to exercise and fitness and wholly recommend it to anyone looking to jumpstart their fitness and healthy living.
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