Please imagine for a second that you are in a typical fitness gym. Let’s say you are on a treadmill counting the seconds until your 30 or 60 minutes are over. You are doing the “work” you need to do to get that body in shape. While you are huffing and puffing in anguish, let’s do some numbers. To burn one pound of fat you will need to burn 3500 calories. You would need to spend approximately 6 hours on the treadmill to burn just one pound of fat and that’s without eating anything afterward. Just to burn the calories from 2 small cookies you would have to run for an hour on one of these things. I don’t know about you, but when I used to eat crappy processed foods I could easily eat a dozen cookies in a few short minutes.
Have you ever heard the term “fitness routine”? Well it’s very descriptive because the average gym workout is just that; comprised of meaningless and repetitive movements. The average modern gym provides “routine” activities in “routine” rooms echoing with the same relentless “routine” messages of discipline, denial, and “no pain – no gain”. From a motivational standpoint, most of us don’t stand a chance right from the start. What is there about “elliptical” machines or “spinning” to which you can truly aspire? Is “treadmill running” an enviable skill? Is there freestyle “spinning” championship? Does anyone really take these activities seriously? Well, to be fair the trainers at most gyms tend to take them quite seriously. I don’t want to over-disparage these forms of exercise. But if you look at them relative to every other possible sport or activity available you can’t help but come to the same conclusion. Given the infinite alternatives, they are truly bizarre and trivial choices for moving your body.
What most of us have come to know about exercise is right up there with “drink your milk” or “don’t eat meat, it’s bad for your heart” in terms of misinformation. The terms “I must go to the gym”, or “I can’t believe I missed another workout” are commonly heard these days. Of course you missed another workout. Those workouts suck! Typical gym workouts are long, hard and boring. Who wouldn’t want to miss one? Worse, for most of us these workouts are not producing any visible results. That is precisely why you didn’t make it to the gym, yet again.
What if exercise was not work? What if it was not looked upon as painful or difficult? Imagine if exercise did not require any sacrifice or discipline. What if it was something you actually looked forward to and enjoyed? Ironically, thinking this way will provide the most dramatic results for those of us who truly believe they “hate exercise”. Please consider for a moment the true potential of this different perspective.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you join a gym and start spinning and aerobics classes. Over a 3 year period you muster enough will-power to continue going to the same classes, over and over again, the music and instructors change but not much else. They do get faster, though. After 3 years you have become one of the fastest “spinners” in the class. You also know all of the aerobics moves and have even led a class or two at your gym. You are a permanent member of the “advanced” aerobics group.
Contrast the above example with the same 3 years of progress if instead you had taken up figure skating, ballroom dancing, tae-kwon-do or bicycle racing. You could have true expertise in an Olympic sport. You could be an amazing dancer with exceptional skill. You could have achieved a black belt and the ability to defend yourself. You could be competing in state and national racing events with a team of people in beautiful natural settings. Please don’t waste your efforts and energy doing repetitive, boring movements that accomplish nothing but the burning of calories. Instead, use that energy for activities that bring you so much more. Please consider the additional benefits of the many non-gym, alternative activities and sports: useful and valuable skills, confidence, self-esteem, acclaim, friends, passion, respect, awards, and travel.
There are other great examples outside of sports. You could take on a manual labor project around your home and save thousands of dollars. You would also have the satisfaction and empowerment of accomplishing it yourself. Volunteering to help others through physical labor can be as physically demanding as a gym workout. This wonderfully karmic gift provides immense benefit for you and those you are helping. Compare all of this productive and beneficial activity to the aimless and relatively meaningless repetitive exercise you literally pay money to endure in some big gym. It just doesn’t make any sense, especially knowing that you will be burning the same body fat, regardless of the activity.
Life is far too short. What you are doing should have some meaning; it should have some use. Your physically activity of choice must have some real legitimacy for you to continue without the need of constant will-power. As you improve, your enjoyment, skill and fitness levels will also improve. So will your fat loss, since you will actually be doing more of these activities on a consistent basis. This is the synergy provided by this idea. You get so much more from joyfully moving your body. If you remove the joy part, you remove the all the other benefits. Therein lays the simple wisdom of this philosophy.
If you’re looking for a scientific based diet and exercise plan based on how our ancestors survived for centuries, please take a moment to check out the eco-diet and see if it’s right for you at http://www.eco-diet.com