Food and Fitness for Living Better

Sometimes all you need to do is show up. Today my accomplishment was just showing up. Showing up is casting a vote for yourself to keep the habits you need to achieve your goals. I have many goals that range from meditating on a daily basis to running a 5k in 22:00 to doing 10 wide grip, fully lowered pull-ups in a row. I’m making progress in all of these goals slowly over time, and right now I’m focusing my strength training to accomplish 10 pull-ups, 10 hanging leg raises where I touch the bar with my toes, and 10 pistol squats on each leg. In the past I’ve achieved one goal of squatting my body weight by cutting out cardio and lifting 4 days a week. 

The struggle I have with getting to the gym consistently is lack of motivation after a full day of work and competing priorities. I typically work until 4 or 5 in the evening, and then I like to cook a healthy dinner and either go for a run or walk the dog, or go to yoga if it’s Thursday for my favorite class. All these things leave less time for the gym unless I’m ready to go shortly after getting home… which I never am. I need an hour or so to decompress after a mentally exhausting work day, so maybe I’m ready to do something by 6:00. So maybe I go to the gym for an hour or two, then I’m home by 8. and then it’s time to cook dinner?? Man then I’m not eating until 9! And that’s when I want to be in bed!! Holy cow, that’s not going to work. Better not go to the gym. So we don’t go. And then it’s going to be a loooong time until I hit those strength goals. I suppose I could do a home workout and start making progress on pull-ups since we have a bar across a doorway and some pistol squats by modified chair squats, but I could also get to the gym in the morning before that whole work thing gets in the way. But holy cow, also a struggle for me to wake up in the morning. I am NOT a morning person; I just have to fake it until I make it. 

So yeah, I set a goal for myself on top of those strength goals to become a morning workout person. Objectively, it is better to workout in the morning. Subjectively, I hate morning workouts because I like sleep more. But, I keep trying to become a morning workout person by casting a vote for morning workouts by showing up to the gym in the morning. Sometimes it’s actually early morning workouts at 5:30, sometimes it’s 11:30 on a weekend. But every time it’s before noon, I count it. This New Years, I made it a resolution to get in more morning workouts. I chose Mondays and Fridays to start. And eventually it just stuck. Somehow it was easier to get up in the morning and show up. I was almost surprised by how I could stick so many workouts in the morning. I needed to find more exercises to do at the gym because I was going so consistently. I needed to add in more morning cardio because I was doing so well. 

But then it started getting old. It started getting harder again to wake up. I’d get up and sit on the couch for an hour before actually going. And now we’ve been traveling the last few weeks and I’ve been pretty consistent in getting my strength workouts in. I finally have established a morning workout pattern where I’m at the gym before work on Monday and Friday mornings. My alarm went off at 4:50 this morning, and I snoozed it. It went off again at 5:00, again snoozing it. Finally at the 5:10 alarm I was thinking “come on, just get up. I know it’s easy to roll over and sleep another hour. We’re not here to do the easy thing. Get up… get up… yes there you go… stick the landing… good!” 

The struggle wasn’t over though. I pulled myself out of bed and downstairs onto the couch to let the mind continue waking up. The body was up, but the mind wasn’t there yet. After half an hour of Instagram reels, I considered going back to bed for the next hour instead of going to the gym. I think half the resistance came from knowing I’m due for a tempo run today to keep on track with my Garmin Coach plan to run a 5k for time. I didn’t want to lift AND run, but man isn’t it more efficient to do them together? After committing to myself that I just had to lift, that I could run later after work, then I got up and drove to the gym. I was pretty cold on the way in though, so again struggling to motivate as I’m fighting off the goosebumps. Upon arrival at the gym, I went straight for the sauna. It was off, but I started warming it up and just took a few extra minutes for myself in the quiet, dark, and slowly warming sauna. In there I envisioned my short and simple workout with the exercises that felt right for today: lateral squats, bench press, lat pulldowns, and front rows. I didn’t have my best workout, but I showed up and voted for all the morning workouts to come. 

What can you do to show up for yourself more often? Pick a goal and find a small habit to help make it stick. Want to run more? Put your shoes on more often and go for a walk that includes a few minutes of running. Want to eat healthier? Pick a food to swap out for a healthier version, like swapping out ice cream for a yogurt (like my personal favorite – peanut butter yogurt!). Want to get back into working out after having kids? Get creative with including your kids: do baby weighted squats, challenge your kids to a pushup contest, or build a circuit workout for the whole family. I heard someone say this week that “90% of life is just showing up,” and I must say that I agree.