I have been exercising regularly since 2009. Exercise has become a habit, a necessity. I enjoy exercising in a sense I enjoy my work—not always excited about it, but feels rewarded when I got to finish it. However, I still find keeping up with the commitment to exercise at least 4 times a week a struggle.
Yes, it is easier after I have developed the habit. Now I only need to tread the fine line between justifiable and bullshit excuses. ‘No excuse’ or ‘beast mode’ mentality may sound like winners’ mentality. However, those motivational jargons cannot be applied without context.
Know yourself, understand your interests
Fitness is an investment. As in any investment, there are costs in making it. No matter how much ‘willpower’ I have, my inner forces have limitations to the external forces. I have to constantly manage my resources (especially time and money), making concessions and trade off, for fitness. How I negotiate with the said external forces (i.e. life’s unique circumstances) is a personal choice. I can only invest what I can afford and proportionate to my goal.
A key principle in negotiation is to identify and focus on your ‘interests’. Do not focus on what the other party gets or does. Therefore, the first thing I need to understand is my ‘why I decide to commit to exercise regularly?’ My generic answer is to be healthy. I asked another why, ‘why do I want to be healthy?’ Then I came up with: because I want to enjoy life. I want to travel further, I want to play harder, I want to fuck, I want to eat good food, I want to learn more, I want to read more, I want to be productive and create, I want to be attractive, I want to feel good about myself.
In sum, my fitness goal is to have the confidence that fitness can give at work or at play.
Therefore, while I take fitness as priority, I do not make it the purpose of my life. I take fitness as a foundation to build a better life and to pursue my interests (which are diverse since I am a dilettante of many subjects). How much I want to commit my resources for fitness is influenced by my ‘fitness goal’. There are others who make fitness as their purpose, such as professional trainers, athletes, emergency responders, and warriors. Their fitness regime and diet will naturally be harder and stricter than me.
Knowing my fitness goal is essential to know what are my ‘principles’—the non-negotiable things. That way I can design the rules that support my fitness commitment and know when I can make exceptions.
I am an average urban professional. I still have to work in the office, attend meetings, reply emails etc. It is not feasible to compare my training regime and schedule with the fitness professionals. Their trainings are big part of their job. I simply cannot train as hard as them. Therefore, my training schedule is not as frequent and intense as them.
Helpful nudges
Yes, motivating myself to exercise regularly requires will power. However, I can lessen the burden on my will power by ‘buying’ nudges. I bought nice fitness attires, fancy gym membership, professional trainer sessions, group training classes, healthier food that taste good. Anything that can make fitness less a hassle. I found it easier for me to keep up with fitness commitment now than when I was 21, simply because I have more money now. I said easier, not easy. Money can’t buy everything.
I think the best nudge investment I made was hiring a professional trainer when starting. I needed to know how to do the moves in correct form as to avoid injury. It was expensive, especially with my income at that time, but worth in the long term. I was more motivated to keep my gym schedule since I would lose a lot of money if I slack off (those sessions have expiration date!). However, the return was fitness independence. After understanding the basics from the sessions and consultations, I can train with or without trainer. I can research and apply fitness programmes because I have understood the basic principles. This allows me to be flexible in my training schedule.
We are all bound by space and time. Therefore, location is always a significant factor in developing and maintaining fitness as a habit. I don’t live in the city centre, so I need to weigh in commute time whenever I schedule my exercise (especially with Jakarta’s traffic). I normally go to the gym after work, therefore I tend to come home late after exercising. Fortunately, I don’t have children. That’s a huge burden lifted on my schedule.
Big chain gyms are not my favourite place to exercise. They are expensive and often overcrowded. However, I found them the most convenient and, therefore, justify the cost for me. They have multiple locations and accessible anytime they are open. I need such flexibility. I found it is easier to bring myself to the gym when they are walking distance from the work place or home.
Atmosphere also an important nudge. I have a TRX suspension trainer and built a workout station for bar trainings. I can train at home, but I still prefer to train at gym—just like I prefer to work at the office although I can work from home. When I am already at the gym, I will be less likely to call off the training session simply because I have made the trip there. And seeing other people exercising motivates me to exercise. At home, I can easily find excuses to procrastinate.
I think the best place to exercise is local independent gym with group training sessions. Usually the members inorganically evolve into a community. This kind of gym provides a healthy dose of competitive motivation as well as the sense of belonging which make training sessions pleasant. We are ultrasocial animals after all.
I am a regular to Moving Body Culture’s Master Boot Camp sessions. Every Saturday at 0600, we ‘congregate’ in sweat and swear. I like the friendly, mild-mannered and non-intimidating way the trainings are delivered (no ‘Beast Mode On!’ type yelling here). The coaches are helpful and great source of fitness references. Training sessions are often intense but we joke around a lot.
Experiment and adapt
I experimented on how my body will take the fitness regime. I notice that I often fell ill if I exercise in a row for three days. Therefore, I need to have a rest day after two consecutive days of training. I prefer free style trainings, but once a while I take weight training to develop muscles and Yoga to train my flexibility. I need cardio, but I don’t like running, so I take up boxing. I try new training methods and participate in fitness events. These experiments not only allow me to discover which fitness regime that I like in order to develop a sustainable regular exercise schedule (it’s easier to stay committed to what we like, obviously). They are also good to ward off boredom from routine.
In life, something will always come up. Situations such as ‘I need to meet a deadline’, ‘A friend invites me to hang out’, ‘I need to leave home now if I don’t want to get stuck in traffic’ are inevitable dynamics. I have to decide whether to let go my fitness schedule or just adopt a ‘no excuse’ attitude. When treading the fine line between justifiable and bull shit excuses, I need to look into my own values to decide. For example, I ask myself ‘Is it a professional manner not to meet a deadline? No.’ Then I apply adaptability to the situation: ‘Can I negotiate the deadline?’ or, alternatively, ‘Can I reschedule the training to meet my fitness commitments.’
I do not want to choose a job that prohibits me to have time to exercise regularly despite the pay is alluring. I need money—I even spent a good portion of my budget for fitness. Nevertheless, we all know that health is the most important asset. We only have one body for our entire life, at least until there is a breakthrough in life science that allows us to have an indestructible or substitute body. We need to take care of our body. There is no point in wearing and tearing it to the extreme just for generating external wealth.
Performance based fitness and aestheticism
Coach Carlo Tamba[1] of Moving Body Culture introduced me to the term ‘performance based fitness.’ The philosophy is simple: focus on improving fitness performance, not mere aesthetics. This approach does not emphasise on before/after selfies. Improvement is measured in the improvement of how our body perform better in terms of endurance, strength, power, speed, agility, coordination, flexibility, balance, etc. I am a subscriber to this philosophy. I think by focusing on incremental improvements, rather than aesthetic results, makes the process more enjoyable. Of course, improvement on fitness performance directly translate on the improvement of bodily aesthetic. However, I will not be frustrated or intimidated if I don’t have a male model/swimmer body within 3 months as advertised by those fitness magazines.
I do want six pack abs. Nevertheless, not as much as I love good food. I like to drink and party sometimes. I am not one of those guys who are genetically blessed with default athletic body (who can get to six pack abs just by training). On the other hand, I do want to look good. I may be superficial: I link my self-esteem with my outer appearance. While there are more to a person than meets the eyes, I think how I look represents how I want to be viewed and view everyone: beautiful. I read that preservation of self-image is good for emotional well-being.[2] Therefore, I need to strike a balance between enjoying myself and not to look like a pig.
Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to strike a balance between good life and fitness. I found that good food is slow food. Not gorengan, instant noodles or chain restaurants’ fried chicken and cheeseburgers. I like my coffee black, my chocolate dark. I hate soda and love water. I am not a dessert person, I am a main course person. Although I still indulge in wine, whisky and other liquors, I do not drink simply to get drunk like when I was younger.
I was not born this way, I liked junk food and excess sugar in my past life. However, my taste developed as my fitness habit.
By exercising regularly, I need more energy. I can feel it when my food is not producing sufficient energy. I learned the different between satiated and full. Junk food has little or zero nutrients. It can make us full, but not satiated. While good food I enjoy has certain level of nutrients to satiate me (of course, there are still less healthy elements otherwise they would not be fun). Satiation energise.
Therefore, I have to choose food that energise me and let go of the junk food. When we live without something for long enough, we adapt and forget about it. This also applies the junk food we crave. Thus begin the benevolent cycle of well-being.
I found that exercising regularly made me a better person. I do not treat my body as a mere transport vessel for my head anymore. Physical training is also mental training. When my body is strong, I feel strong. Strong feels good. Good feels happy. After all, happiness and pleasures are simply neurochemical reactions. And this is the real reward.
Preserving my self-image.
[1] Carlo also runs a blog. Don’t let his religiosity put you off, he’s a decent guy. Take it from me, an irreligious person.
[2] D Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ (Bantam, 2006).