Q: With all the talk of monkeypox, one can’t help but wonder whether we’re entering an era in which global disease disruptions are designed to spoil my exercise momentum. Should I build a home gym, buy a virtual reality headset, or just read the universe’s signs and quit?
A: We suggest you hold your breath and refrain from touching anyone you’d like to touch. Wear closed shoes and avoid cooking utensils.
Wear a mask when walking towards a restaurant table but not at the table or between the table and the bathroom, don’t touch anything in the bathroom you don’t absolutely need to, but be sure to spray pathogens everywhere while using the high-pressure dryer.
If you follow these steps you’re guaranteed to have made absolutely no difference as to whether you will or won’t contract Covid-19 or monkeypox, or any other disease, but you may feel safe enough to exercise.
If you feel as though you are being thrown one curveball after another, spare a thought for Tyson, a Great Dane who lives a few houses down. During the peak of the pandemic he was a happy chap, whereas nowadays he barks for hours on end, incapable of understanding why his parents no longer walk him daily.
You see, when his middle-class, beer and burger-loving parents were told the world was ending and they were under lockdown they felt compelled to express their right to exercise. “It’s our right. Let them try to stop me from walking my dog!” Once the pubs reopened, their need to walk their oversized dog daily faded into a corona memory.
The bad news is that the pandemic has had nothing to do with whether you or Tyson’s parents exercise or not. Standby for my most outrageous generalisation.
Most people spend their lives looking for reasons not to exercise. They live in a confirmation bias bubble where anything can become a reason to justify quitting. If they don’t see themselves as quitters they’ll call it falling off the wagon or being a victim of life getting in the way.
Of course there are times when it’s not possible to train, and times when stress and trauma will all but take away one’s will to wake up, never mind do 50 burpees. But those who want to exercise will always find their way back before too much time passes, and before months and years’ worth of work is undone.
How do they do it? All of us start with good intentions and many of us spend years trying to find an activity we really do enjoy. I’d suggest we’re looking for answers in the wrong places. We’re all obsessed with the “what”: home gym, bicycle, gadgets, wearable tech.
Make no mistake, things such as interactive apps and virtual reality are fun. Gamification of fitness is novel and it’s cool. But just like the treadmill folded up against the study window, once the novelty wears off, it too will be abandoned unless one, important box is ticked.
This box is the secret to fitness and exercise longevity. Without it, you can forget about ever seeing anything through, and instead expect to be looking for reasons to quit the monotonous pain. Tyson’s parents walked to spite Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, not to tick this one box and improve their health. Had they done it, they’d still be walking and Tyson would have stopped yapping.
It’s called results. Unless you see real results you won’t have the drive to continue. Whether it’s weight loss, muscle gain or improved running times, if you don’t see and feel success it becomes far harder to wake up in the cold and dark to exercise, or to make a plan if the government closes gyms.
So, how do you get results? It starts with your eating. Try as hard as you may, you will never outrun a jam doughnut. Once your diet is on point, have a simple but effective workout plan designed by a professional that becomes progressively more challenging. Learn how to do it properly and with the right intensity. It doesn’t matter what it is.
If you’re honest about your eating, once you overcome the inertia of little or no results, you are likely to flip into another confirmation bias bubble: one where results start to influence choices and not the other way around.
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