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Do You Punish Yourself with Exercise?

February 4, 2016 by HeatherRobertson

20160204_Exercise-RantSo, this is my exercise rant. I just finished my long walk. I tend to go on long walks on the days I don’t go to the gym. I want to talk to you today about exercise.

One of the community members shared today that she was doing a boot-camp-style class and she was hating looking at herself in the mirror. She was in pain, and she just wants to get this weight off.

I’m going to ask you, please don’t do that. I have a coaching client who asked me after being sedentary for a while, “Should I go back to my boot camp class?” My answer was, “No. Let’s condition you to get you back to where you can do your boot camp class.”

I hate burpees; I’m not doing burpees. I don’t enjoy them. I don’t do them for pleasure. I do weight training and I walk. When I started my weight-loss journey, I was walking. That’s what I was doing at 280 pounds; I was walking.

I quickly realized that when I went to the gym, I wasn’t doing high-intensity stuff because it hurt my back and my knees so badly. You have to ask yourself this question: Is this something I can sustain? Is this something I’m going to be able to put my body through, week in and week out, to get to my goals?

I wrote a blog post called “If you can lift a fork, you can lose weight.” So many people, including me, have always believed that we have to exercise in an intense way to lose weight. Really, if you have your food under control, the exercise is great if you can do it; it has many health benefits. But if you make food your focus, you can get results.

I’m just coming to you as a friend. I don’t want to see you abusing your body. I don’t want to see you going at this from a place of self loathing. I’m a realist. I know that in a couple of months, if you’ve been torturing yourself, you’re not going to want to stick with it. I was at the gym the other day and I saw one of those boot camp classes going on.

I saw a bunch of people I’ve never seen before, many of them at least 50 pounds overweight, doing burpees and crazy things because the trainer was telling them to. I kept thinking, all they have to do is go for a walk. That’s all they have to do — go for a walk. Get outside, put in 20 minutes this week, maybe bump it up to 30 minutes next week. Build.

If you go directly from sitting on the couch to doing these high-intensity workouts, there is no conditioning time for you. I care about you. I want you in this for the long haul. I want you to lose the weight and keep it off. I realize that being injured or in so much pain you don’t want to do this anymore is not the way to do that.

My exercise rant for today is to walk away from things that make you feel bad about yourself. Walk away from the torture exercises. Focus on something that feels as good as it can for you right now. Know that you have your whole life ahead of you to take on boot camp classes and do burpees if you really want to, and be kind to yourself, first and foremost. You didn’t put this weight on overnight; it’s not going to come off overnight. And you’re sure not going to beat it off with burpees. It’s going to take time.

Please, please, please, take care of yourself.

Filed Under: Blog

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