The Real Reason We Don’t Exercise
Are you sick of hearing the same old lectures about the need to exercise? Tired of reading list after list of reasons why you really should work out? So over sifting through tip upon tip suggesting how to motivate yourself?
The nation’s collective “Move Thy Buns!” shout has been getting consistently noisier for a few decades now, and yet, despite all our best efforts, desire, and intentions, most people just don’t exercise enough. If at all. End of story.
Strange, because we know exercise is not only great, but actually necessary. I don’t believe there’s a single person alive right now who doesn’t know that exercise will help them lose weight, or live longer, or reduce stress, or just feel better. Whether you’re a gym rat, or are simply maintaining a decent standard of fitness, or are a regulation couch potato, I’d like to offer a thought as to why exercise, for the most part, just won’t stick.
The reason is because the baby boomer generation is the first generation to learn about the need for exercise. Our parents didn’t exercise. Sure, there were the Saturday rounds on the links for Dad and Mom played tennis with the ladies at the country club from time to time. Or there was the occasional evening constitutional or family camping trip. But exercise as a way of life? A daily habit? A necessity? It just wasn’t in people’s consciousness. Take a look at old male and female movie stars whose bodies were adored in their time – John Wayne didn’t have a six-pack. Miss Monroe had plenty of curvaceous heft. The silhouette was enough – nobody was sculpting, toning and defining back then. Sports were for fun, walks were for digestion, and activity was for stress relief, but the thought of daily exercise? Unheard of.
It makes sense to me. Our parents’ generation was really the first to be fully “modern” – ladies keeping house in middle-class suburbia and office-going gentlemen in the ubiquitous gray flannel suits. These are huge generalities, of course, but I think they’re largely true. It wasn’t uncommon at all for our parents to have been raised on a farm – until the 1930s, most families were still connected to agriculture or heavy labor in some way. But our parents weren’t farmers, and even a blue collar union job at GM was fairly mechanized. We simply weren’t raised to be active.
So, the Boomers are the product of at least one generation that didn’t work out. It’s taken us a few generations to realize that the hard labor Gramps put in on the family farm was probably really good for him. We don’t live that way anymore, so yes, we do need the gyms and fitness videos and exercise gear. And change is hard. Really hard.
I’m obviously a huge proponent of exercise. I work out 5 or 6 times a week and many of you know that I’m a retired athlete. I think everyone ought to work out at least a few times a week to the extent that they are able. That said, I also think total change takes more than a single generation. While I don’t go in for the “blame game” (it’s our parents’ fault), I also think it would be unrealistic to think society would change completely in the span of one generation. I’d love for everyone to get plenty of exercise – and I hope you have made it a part of your life. But if you look at the issue from a longer-term perspective, the fact that fitness videos and gyms are so popular is a pretty encouraging sign. If you’ve changed even a little, that’s a big deal.
Now, if you’re a couch potato or a once-a-weeker, move thy buns! (You’re not gettin’ off that easy!)
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, Apples. How were you raised to view fitness? How do you work exercise into your life? Are you changing with the times?
Technorati Tags: exercise, generation, gym rat, baby boomer, fitness videos, exercise gear
Posted By: Mark Sisson
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For me, growing up had NO emphasis on exercise. I was involved in a once weekly youth bowling league (a social exercise for my parents) and in high school I took an interest in downhill skiing (another social exercise, this time for me). Fitness and exercise weren’t talked about in the home. I was exposed to it at school, dreaded gym class, and ballooned to over 300 lbs (never measured BMI then, buit ‘balloon’ is an appropriate word) before graduation through poor diet and sedentary lifestyle.
now, 10 years later, I’m finally getting on track. I spent all that time on up’s and down’s like most people. Exercise didn’t exist until my friends got interested in Dance Dance Revolution about 2 years ago. I give credit to the game for getting me up and really moving for the first time ever (I was tricked, mind you).
Finally, this year when the doctor said I should consider blood pressure medication at 28 years old, I said enough was enough. I changed my diet pretty drastically to the low fat, high veggie, med grains, avoid processed foods, and drinking only water. I tricked myself into exercising again by enrolling in a fitness center class at the community college. The trick is that my attendance and participation equal a grade that affects my GPA, and that is some good motivation! I’m making an effort to take at least one PE class per term, and walking in the park next to our house twice a week until I’m capable of doing more.
To directly answer your question: I worked in exercise by taking a class and choosing to stop wasting time in front of the tv and using the facilities available to me.
As for changing, I’ve lost about 40 pounds since January ‘09, my %fat went from over 25 (I measured it for the first time in march and it was 25) down to a current 17.5%, have lost several inches from my waist and dropped a shirt size. I have also switched to primal eating since stumbling upon your website about a month ago, and now eat 5-6 smaller meals a day rather than the 1-2 HUGE ones and almost constant snacking from my previous life. I don’t miss grains at all, though I do find them hard to avoid unless I cook for myself (telling people you have a wheat allergy is a great help… and it’s true, we get inflamed from them, right?). I had the withdrawal’s that I see people talking about from the sugar and I powered through it by trying to figure out why I really wanted it. Often I would find it was a stress reaction and not a true desire and could eat a vegetable or fruit to calm my need to eat something, then spend some time working on getting rid of the stress… much more effective than eating a pint of ice cream until my body was too distracted to feel stress.
Good luck to everyone, and thank you Mark for this amazing resource!