Devlin Brown at the water cooler: Consistent exercise is central to overall wellness

I am beside myself. I am a certified adult, a parent and a trustworthy and reliable worker. I seldom let anyone down, yet here we are again. January is barely a memory and I am struggling to build any exercise momentum. Please help. What tricks do you use to stay firmly on the wagon?

If falling off the wagon wasn’t more common than sticking to an exercise regimen, the world’s commercial gyms would have no business model. Google’s clever AI says “industry data” shows 67% of gym members don’t use their contracts regularly, or at all. Don’t expect this data to be published routinely.

I live in a leafy suburb. Not many Johannesburg suburbs aren’t leafy, except for the former semi-agricultural land that has been turned into high-density, three-storey complexes called Deja View. And within this leafy suburb’s closed roads and boom gates one sees the same faces on their morning or evening walks or runs.

A few new ones have shown up since the turn of the year. It’s fantastic, and a wave and smile encourages them to keep going. I try not to hold their attention for too long as I’d hate for them to fall into a pothole and never return. It’s easy to spot the people who are doing it only out of spousal pressure. It’s like watching a three-year-old be told to sit up and stop kicking the pew in front of them during a church service.

What tricks do I have up my sleeve? I have a few, but despite much deliberate effort, I appear to be as human as the next person. This wagon — the one that is good for you, protects your cardiovascular system, promotes mental wellness and, if done properly, builds functional strength and fitness — is more like a mechanical bull at a honky-tonk. “Yee-haw, cowboy, ya’ll better hold tight cos this bad boy right here is going to buck you off into the misery of mediocrity.”

Stress. We all know that stress is a killer. Beyond its negative effects on the cardiovascular and immune systems, it is linked to pretty much everything we fear. Chronic stress makes one feel like not training. The irony is that any exercise is good for managing stress.

I have mitigated — not completely eradicated — this risk by training as early as I can in the day. I once tried to block out midday to 1pm in my diary. It was a flop because by the time lunchtime arrived, the day’s stress and people drama had reached such a fever pitch that I just couldn’t focus on exercise. That and that no-one really respects your diary anyway.

This ties into the next trick: don’t exercise with your cellphone. Stay away from WhatsApp, emails and phone calls. There have often been instances when a message, call or email (before 7am) has made me throw in the towel and walk out of the gym. You are protecting your own wellness; don’t let selfish people undo your wellness journey.

Enjoyment. Some people hate exercise. I tend to enjoy it. Psychologically, I think it stems from an understanding of what it is doing molecularly and physiologically. Find something you enjoy doing and if you can’t, do something enough until you start enjoying it. Few people enjoy their first sip of beer — you see my point.

This leads us to alcohol and diet. I don’t care how or when you drink, or how much you “hydrate”, if you are training in the morning expect your workout to be subpar at best or all but nonexistent if you went to bed under the influence of alcohol. Dehydration is not your friend. Want to perform? Ditch the salty, saturated-fat processed junk the night before a session.

Do a little of something even when you don’t feel like it. Two hundred “little somethings” over a year beats a month or two (or even three) of all-out fanaticism, which mostly makes you a prime candidate to be bucked from the mechanical bull and flung into the corner of regret.

Even if it is a short walk, do it. When you don’t want to, do it anyway. Exercise (of any intensity) will go far towards building your resilience to deal with life. It’s like strengthening your grip on life’s mechanical bull. Yee-haw!