Week 3: Mixing with the gym bro's
The challenge I didn't want but knew I needed
In Slightly Better this week:
How it’s going with my first week of going to the gym
My Atomic Habits support system
Introducing SAM, the antidote to seasonal depression
The day before I created this little random 7 week project, I was listening to Zach Braff’s interview on Pete Holmes’ podcast You Made It Weird (recommend!). In the interview Zach Braff talks about how his therapist once said that if everybody exercised regularly, he could close his therapy practice. I’d heard Zach share this statement before, and this time, I decided to take it to heart. And that’s how this habit ended up on the list.
I have a long history of going to the gym for two or three months at the time, only to ultimately stop going again. When my rhythm gets broken for whatever reason, this immediately leads to a months long hiatus. I’ve accepted that I’m like this and trust that ultimately, I always get that itch again and find my way back to the gym. Except this time, it had been quite a while since my last gym phase, and I was still completely itch-free. Time for a new approach.
Just do it
Long story short, the new approach is to just do it. The hope here is that I will find my motivation once I’m there. If that’s delusional, please don’t tell me. The hope is pulling me through. The good news: I met my goal this week, I felt clear benefits, and I feel fully committed to the goal. When I set this goal, I was stuck in a major rut, with a very low fitness level and a very low motivation level. Going to the gym regularly was not something I wanted to do. To help ease the pressure, I remembered ground rule #1, and kept the bar low. Both times, all I’ve done is go in for 15-20 minutes of cardio. And that counts! Of course I have a voice in my head that says that such a short gym session doesn’t count, and that I’m being lazy. But the goal was going to the gym twice a week, and that’s what I did. Basta.
More importantly, the reward I hoped to get out of going to the gym was higher energy and better moods. And even with only 15-20 mins of input, I have been reaping those rewards, much more so than I used to with longer strength training sessions. After each workout, my mood is decidedly better than before. It’s magic, and it definitely motivates me to keep coming back.
Support system
Truth is, if I wasn’t writing this newsletter, I’m not sure I’d have gone. Complete honesty? The second time I went, I didn’t get myself into the gym until twenty minutes before they closed on Sunday afternoon. A classic case of “sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to come”. So to ensure I keep going in the weeks and months to come, I decided I need to build myself a support system. Time to bust out some expert advice and apply it.
The advice: Make it obvious
Don’t laugh at me, but I definitely drew a shoddy calendar on a piece of paper to keep track of my trips to the gym. There’s a ton of apps you could download for the same effect, but DIY-ing it was quicker than finding the right app, and hanging it on my kitchen cabinet is as in your face as it gets. Easy peasy. I also put reminders in my phone for set times every Tuesday and Friday and blocked off time in my schedule.
The advice: Make it attractive
I know an excuse to go shopping when I see one. I ordered two new gym outfits that I know will make me excited to get into the gym. I’ll be keeping this outfit in a visible place to lure me into wearing them. Next, I found a new podcast that I’m saving for my gym sessions, so I have something to look forward to. Ideally, I would have asked a friend to join me, but my friends either live too far away or are altogether uninterested in exercise, so a podcast will have to do.
The advice: Make it easy
The goal is to make a habit of going to the gym, so in these early stages I’m putting emphasis on going. That means collecting my things, leaving my house, and finding my way to the gym. At this point that’s the most important part. I’ve browsed gym apps and drawn up training schedules, but I’m ditching those in exhange for the advice of making it easy. This means that I am sticking with my 15 to 20 minutes of cardio and some stretching afterwards. If I manage three months of that, I’ll be in better shape than I am now already. Building the habit comes first, optimising the habit comes later. The strength training did once for will happen again. Just not yet. And the stretching I’m doing now will set me up for working out in great form.
The advice: Make it satisfying
That DIY weekly schedule on my kitchen cabinet I mentioned earlier? That’s doing double duty! Besides being an in-your-face reminder of my intentions every time I go to find a snack, it also brings me great satisfaction to check off those empty boxes when I’ve done my job. It’s silly, but it works. Even sillier, I play Eye of the Tiger in the shower when I’m back to celebrate my tiny accomplishment. I also text my boyfriend to let him know I’ve gone to the gym, and every time without fail, he acts like I’ve just climbed mount everest. It’s dumb, and I love it.
And that’s it! Thanks again, James Clear, for the great advice. The support system is ready. Wish me luck! Along with keeping up with this goal, I’m adding another this week for habit number four: daily stretching. More on that next week.
Extra Extra
And as if that weren’t enough, I started a little extra project last week. As we’re settling into fall, Seasonal Affective Disorder (aka seasonal depression) is approaching for many of us, including myself. As an antidote, I've decided to start Seasonal Appreciation Moment, where I write a about something I love about this time of the year every Friday.
This will obviously not cure SAD, but I'm hoping it will create some balance between the good and the bad. I've had SAD for years, and I've started noticing I get a version of the sunday scaries, where I already get sad at the end of summer because I know depression season is coming. It's like I brace myself for what's to come, and that makes it worse. So that's what I'm trying to combat with a Seasonal Appreciation Moment.
The idea is finding something each week that I like about this time a year and in that way, build up a list of things to look forward to in future fall/winter seasons. My SAM this week goes to the pumpkins I harvested in my vegetable patch. It was my first year growing vegetables, and I’m incredibly proud. Tell me yours in the comments!
See you next week,
Hadewych
I also like the idea of leaving gym clothes by your bed so you can easily access them when you need to go