A few years ago I decided I needed to lose weight because over the years I'd gained quite a few pounds. You know how it goes...I was an average high school athlete and I loved sports. I played volleyball, basketball, ran track and cross country, played softball in the summer and I was the only girl who took physical education classes all four years I was in high school. I wasn't afraid to play with the boys, as a matter of fact, I relished it. Anyway, back to my story. After high school I went to college. I took a couple of P.E. classes just for fun and after college I occasionally played racquetball with some friends, but by the time I got married and had kids I let my busy life take over and I rarely did any form of physical activity.
Fast forward to October 2004 when I made the decision to lose weight. I purchased a few dumbbells and found a weight training program I could do that used only dumbbells. I also picked up an exercise bike for $50. Almost every day I used my dumbbells and rode my exercise bike and I eventually shed 40 pounds. The thing is I was enjoying the physical activity which is one reason I kept doing it. Now it is 9 years later and I still enjoy the physical exercise and it is a very real part of my life. Over the last few years besides doing weight lifting with the dumbbells and riding the exercise bike I've ventured into the life of running, both outdoors and on a treadmill, I've ridden hundreds of miles on my two outdoor bikes, I've taken kickboxing classes, I've done a bit of rollerblading, I've learned how to swim laps, I've trained for a sprint triathlon, I've done yoga workouts and I've recently gotten into doing bodyweight workouts. The thing about ALL of these activities is that they have been fun for me. I guess I must explain the word fun as it relates to some of this stuff. At times, in the middle of a workout it might not be exactly fun. I mean I might be sucking air, feeling like I'm going to throw up and my muscles will be trembling so I wouldn't say at that particular moment it is FUN. Quite the contrary, at that point I might be asking myself, "Why the heck am I doing this?" But the thing is, after workout I feel such a sense of accomplishment and before the next workout, I actually WANT to do another workout.
I have said often, if you don't like the workouts you are doing then you need to find a workout that you DO like doing. No one wants to do something on a consistent basis that they don't enjoy, which is why if you are doing workouts you don't enjoy you will eventually stop doing them. I'm no one special, I'm not a personal trainer and I have no educational background in health or fitness, but I have been learning and doing for the last nine years so I have figured out some significant things, one of them being to pick exercise that you enjoy doing. If you don't know what you enjoy then try some different things. You may be surprised at what you will like doing. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd enjoy yoga, but I do.
I've never really loved running until recently. Actually, the only reason I ran long distance in high school is because I can't sprint very fast, I can't jump and I didn't want to do the shot put or discus so that left running long distance. I never really liked it, but I tolerated it. As an adult, I began running because it was challenging and it is something you can do with no equipment except for a pair of running shoes. I still didn't really like it much, but I did feel good about myself when I got done so I guess that's why I kept running. Then I heard about the run/walk method promoted by Jeff Galloway. I started doing that, running 3 or 4 minutes and walking 1 minute and I actually started to like running. After doing the run/walk method for several months I tried something else based on some information I got from a running friend of mine. I started running within a certain heart rate zone (my fat burning zone) and that is when I fell in love with running. I went from running 11-12 minute miles to running 13-15 minute miles, but something amazing happened. I could run three times as far, four times as long and I could run every day instead of 3 times a week. I did all this and my body didn't hurt like it did when I was running the 11-12 minute miles. My longest run to date has been nine miles and that, my dear friends, astounds me. It was only possible because I found a method of running that works for me and allows me to enjoy it.
The title of my post is Fitness Should/Needs To/Has To Be Fun because that is what I whole-heartedly believe. For the last year running has been a lot of fun for me and I've done things I never thought possible. However, right now, running is no longer fun. Oh sure, if I go out for a run I enjoy it, but the thought of working running into my fitness routine right now just makes me go, "Eh, not really in to it right now." And you know what, I'm okay with that. For right now I'm really working on building strength with some weightlifting/bodyweight workouts and that seems to be where I want to focus my fitness goals. Biking has started to appeal to me again too. I wasn't biking as much when I started running more, but now that I'm backing off on the running, biking is something I want to start doing again. Since the weather is cold right now I'll settle for logging a bunch of miles on my exercise bike. I love spinning on my exercycle because I read while spinning so I get to do two things I enjoy. To sum things up, sometimes I run, sometimes I bike, sometimes I focus on weightlifting. Whatever makes me happy is what I focus on doing because when I roll out of bed at 4:30am I want to have a smile on my face and look forward to what I'm doing.
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