Life is full of obstacles on the path to being physically active. As author Ryan Holiday highlights in his book, The Obstacle is the Way, often the problem presents a novel and valuable opportunity to succeed. This partly requires an attitude shift and partly the willingness to look at the problem from a different perspective.
Often most people’s first hurdle is our willingness to seek and accept even the most trivial justifications to avoid “doing the hard thing.” Have you ever felt a sense of relief when a delay or interruption conveniently arose to conflict with your planned workout or meal preparation? Like the nervous salesperson at the first sign of objection, the pressure to show up and do what’s hard is relieved, only to gradually surge until the next customer or next time we’re supposed to hit the gym. But for that fleeting moment, we’re absolved of responsibility for getting uncomfortable and you now have permission to hit the couch and eat fast food.
The majority of North Americans are, sadly, metabolically unhealthy. This is in part due to being both inactive and overweight. These issues share a strong underlying relationship. We begin to make a dent in this problem by attacking the common reasons why people quit, struggle to stay consistent, or simply never get started in the first place.