Finding a way to beating the exercise battle and becoming a healthier human

A couple of years ago I graduated from college, landed a job, and excitedly moved to a new city, ready to begin a new life. I was always heavily involved in extracurricular activities in high school and college, and adding homework and studying to those activities was often rather stressful. I was happy to escape the lifestyle I had led for so many years, and leave the constant commotion behind. This so-called happiness lasted for about a week. I watched television, sat around with my roommates, and twiddled my fingers; this was not what I was expecting my new freedom from books and internships and lectures to look like. Soon after, I took some initiative and decided to take a stab at something that I had tried to incorporate into my life on a regular basis: exercise.

As I am with most new challenges, I was very excited to start something that I could focus my energy on when I wasn’t at work. As visions of rock-hard abs and toned legs flashed through my brain, I stopped into the gym on my way home from work before jumping on the subway. Since with my new membership I received three complimentary personal training sessions, I scheduled a session with a trainer for the following week (it was Friday when I joined) and got excited. On the first day of my gym adventure, I met the trainer who led me through some exercises. So far, so good, I thought to myself. He also mentioned that he trained fitness models—another plus. The next day was not so good, and my motivation depleted. I was supposed to go back for another session, but instead I purposely took a different path to the subway to avoid anyone in the gym seeing me. I instantly felt guilty; I was being a wimp. The following day, when I was feeling even worse and resembled an 83-year-old woman who had a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis and a recent hip replacement more than a vigorous 22-year-old young woman, I dragged myself to the gym and somehow made it through another workout.

Something after that day changed. I realized that even though my head was telling me that I probably couldn’t do it, my body did it, and I was okay. I started out with the goal of jogging on a treadmill at 5 mph for a mile, and 7 months later, I was running 4 miles at 8 mph. I even competed in a 5k and finished in respectable time. I now am still slowly working up to increase my speed and distance, and I am competing in a 7.5 mile race in three weeks. The irony in the situation is that my initial drive to begin exercising started as a motive to get toned and physically look better. Instead, that incentive quickly changed to becoming better, faster, and having more endurance. Since my job also involves healthcare, I started to become fascinated with nutrition and the effect that exercise has on the body health-wise. Two years ago I would have never thought that I would now be so enthralled in testing different nutrition bars to see which one gave me the most energy for the long haul.

The lesson I got from all of this? As much as I dreaded running in the beginning, I took the time to discover how to enjoy it, and now it has become one of my favorite activities. If you let yourself think something is negative before actually experiencing it, you could be depriving yourself of something that will in the future define who you are.