I have talked about and its significant benefits in preventing serious illnesses such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes as well as benefitting our mental health. However, at some point in time we will all have been guilty of making an excuse not to exercise – but what could possibly be as important as putting our health first?
Excuses Not to Exercise
This is probably the most common excuse – I’m too busy. I have work all day, I’m busy with the children taking them to school, picking them up from school, and taking them to sporting events, cooking dinner, helping with homework, there is little time for exercise, but we are as busy as we choose to be.
We will have to find time to attend to 'our medical issues'
There is no doubt we will have to find time in our busy lives to attend to medical issues. It’s not difficult to adjust our schedule and our lives to accommodate exercise. It is important we adjust our schedule to accommodate the prevention of illness. Being blunt about it, the truth is that if we don’t make time for exercise, we will have to make time for illness.
I don’t like to exercise
If we tell ourselves we hate or don’t like exercise – as a result, we will always find an excuse not to exercise, but inviting illness in is worse. We talk ourselves into not wanting to exercise, we make excuses; we have no energy, or we’re tired, I’ll start tomorrow, or I have no money, or I’ll join a gym when I get paid.
Unfortunately, ignoring exercise, we will run the risk of us having to make time, the more we continue to let our lifestyle decline by not exercising.
I don’t have any energy to exercise
It stands to reason the more unfit we are, the less energy we have. When we don’t have a lot of energy, the last thing we want to do is exercising. But as we begin to exercise, we will start to see a difference in our energy levels quickly.
Make the decision to stop the Excuses
Making the decision to stop hiding behind our excuses is something we can all do. By doing so, we are leading by example and setting ourselves up for a better and healthier lifestyle. It’s not easy changing habits, but with even regular moderate exercise we can benefit from having more energy, feeling strong and healthier, and feeling motivated. (Source: https://nifsorg)
Great blog, thanks. We should all be encouraged to exercise, rather than us find an excuse. I started going for long walks (7/8km) early morning, two or three times a week and love it.
You soon feel the benefit from starting to exercise, and I am determined to continue even through the autumn and winter.
Thanks. I don't mind the exercise, once you get into a routine, exercise is quite easy to follow. If we are encouraged in childhood to exercise as adults we will continue to exercise.
I am pleased you feel the benefit from your walks. I do walk, but find long walks difficult to maintain with my disability. The more we exercise, the more mentally alert the happier we will be.
As with all things we need to work within moderation, rather than take exercise to the extreme, because that's bad for us.
There are always plenty of excuses we can come up with not wanting to exercise, which I have done for so many years.
When I was young, I didn't like to get my hands dirty or get sweaty. Then I went through basic training for the Army and that was more than enough exercise for a lifetime, as far as I was concerned.
Once I was back in the real world I had to get a job to provide for my family so I didn't have much of a choice, I did what needed to be done.
I spent far too many years after that watching tv and hiding away from the world, so I didn't do a lot of exercise, which was why I weighed 260+ pounds.
Now over this past summer I have found that I enjoy working with wood outdoors, and that has kept me busy and also tends to be an extreme workout at the same time.
Thanks to the pandemic, we can't exactly go to the gym or anywhere like that, so I've had to improvise. It may be physically exhausting at times, but I do have to say that I feel better than I have in a very long time, so in the end it's proving to be worth it.
Thanks Randy. Yes, it is so important to find something we're good at or have an interest in. We must be flexible.
Being flexible trains the mind to go beyond, to look further than we would have anticipated. The more flexible we are of course, the more we'll give things a go, including exercise.
From what you say in your response, it's easy to get into a habit whereby other things take precedent, we ignore the very things we know we need to continue with to keep us well.
We either love exercise or we don't and if we don't, we will always find an excuse.