Ninety Days of Exercise
It was just 13 weeks ago last Sunday that I started in on my exercise program after joining the local fitness center. I have been a regular three-day-a-week exerciser throughout these three months. I am in the minority of that large number of people who join those places at the New Year, go great guns for a while, and then disappear into the wilderness. I ran into an acquaintance back at the beginning and he had encouraged me by saying,"Stick with it. It won't be as crowded here by April."

I was motivated though. I have been frustrated by what kind of shape I am in. I sit longer in the car to commute, I do less around the house due to my back problem, my assessment came back when I first joined that my body age was significantly older than my chronological age. So Sunday I went back for an update of my condition.

I would like to report that in these three months I have lost weight, improved by "lean" body mass, and lowered my body age. But I can't. They all stayed the same. I had a slight improvement in my cardio ability, but that was about it. On top of it, my lower back problems have not gotten any better.

But I am not discouraged. In fact, I am even more motivated. Because I feel better. I have more energy. And I am actually enjoying it. I have never been a particularly athletic person. I was a runner at one point in my life, but that eventually pooped out. This time people have told me that I look better. The exercises have slightly changed the contours of my body (i.e. the stomach doesn't stick out as far.) With the help of physical therapy I have a sense that my back issues are moving in the right direction- away from surgery.

I am learning that the discipline to keep at something like exercise is not natural, but depends on motivation. Not a particularly deep or profound insight, I know. It is truly on how much you perceive the value of what you are doing, whether you think you are getting something out of it, and how much "pain" you are able to put up with.

All disciplines do involve pain, even if it is only the pain of boredom- doing the same things over and over. Or the pain of not getting the results you want as fast as you want them. I was actually surprised when my body assessment came back with no changes because I feel the changes. I know they are happening. The numbers may tell the truth, but I know it is not the whole truth.

In so many things in our lives we quit because we get bored or frustrated or go after it too quickly or intensely. I have had to hold myself back in these three months. In the past I would have jumped in and started pushing harder and harder expecting that doing it that way would provide quicker results. I seem to remember a story about a tortoise and hare that seems to be about that.

Perhaps it is age that has slowed me down or fear of doing serious damage to my body at an age when the repairs are much more difficult to achieve. But it has worked.

Maybe I'll try this in the rest of my life. It might even work.