I really dislike it when someone tells a person they only have excuses for not eating healthy or exercising. I think saying that to other people is dismissive and degrading. It’s ignoring the nuances of a person’s life or their way of thinking. It seems to scream out “I don’t know all that much about you and I don’t want to and I’ll judge you anyway!” If someone with three kids, a full-time job and a house to maintain eats a lot of take-out pizza, it doesn’t mean they have a flimsy excuse for not making perfect dinners every night, it means they have a life with a lot on their plate. It’s not an excuse.
I think by perpetuating this judgmental society by shaming others for not working out, we make it much harder for people to want to start or to feel ok about starting even if that ends up as a fail. Few people begin a new health regime and from the start are flawless in their schedules and discipline. We all have good intentions when it comes to our workouts and eating habits, but we’re all also human beings and that means we will fail. When we do, we just need to keep going. I know I’ve promised myself in the past that I would work out three times a week and I’d end up going on Monday then fail to do anything else the rest of the week. Then the next week I’d make myself the same promise and do the same thing all over again. I felt like a failure for not meeting my promise to myself, yet in retrospect I had actually gone from no exercise to exercising every Monday. It was a step in the right direction at least.
We all have obstacles that get in the way of our perfect healthy lifestyle. For me, the gym I joined was near my work so I could stop off on my way home. Now that I’m no longer working there, the gym is 18 miles out of my way. I dislike driving extra just to go to the gym because I believe it’s a bit unnecessary and wastes gas while putting more emissions into the air. I value reducing my driving and gas usage over a trip to the gym. But when I find I have to make a trip that direction for something else like an appointment, I’ve been doing a pretty good job of factoring in an extra hour to stop at the gym and I’ve been doing really well at that. Some may say the distance is an excuse, but it’s not if my stronger value is to save gas. I’ve also got a small set-up at home with a stand for my regular bike which turns it into a stationary bike and I’ve been using it quite a bit lately. So I have an alternative to the gym.
We also end up with those unseen obstacles. Those end up being things like injuries or nasty head colds or family obligations. I find myself in new territory at the moment. I screwed up my back 6 days ago. I’ve been to two different chiropractors and an urgent care to try to stop the pain. They’ve all helped but I’m still not back to 100%. I thought between the adjustments and the prescribed pills that the muscles would’ve relaxed by now, but they haven’t. It’s making me angry today because I have time to do a bunch of things and I can’t do a lot of them thanks to the pain.
This brings to light though the fact that my core strength, or lack thereof, is more than a small issue, it’s clearly affecting my overall quality of life. I am going to have to focus on correcting that and make it a priority. However, I will need to start very slowly and small so that I don’t injure my back during the process.
I have enough resources and past experiences to be able to work on building my back strength up slowly even if I accomplish that with simple exercises at home. I know that I will need to make that a focus but I also know that I will be forced to make choices as I move forward. Sometimes I have to choose to clean the house and make dinner over working out, and sometimes it will have to be the other way around.
We have lives, all of us, and we have our own individual priorities which might be a little different day-to-day. I will attempt to be better at not judging others (silently or out loud) for their less-than-healthy-lifestyle-choices by remembering they have a life just like me.
