Don’t Let that Gym Membership Keep You from Being Active

Is your gym membership holding you back? Have you ever considered this question…it could be keeping you from being active on a regular basis.

Don’t get me wrong; having a gym membership is a perfectly reasonable way to gain access to a place that will allow you to exercise. But having the membership does not automatically imply that you will use it. The gap between ownership and usage is pretty large. There's a large group of people who are nodding their heads in agreement with me on this. These are the people who started 2012 with great intentions of getting into better shape and losing weight. Their first move was to jump on that local gym membership special. It seemed like such a good idea at the time, and it worked out well for the first month.

Then there was the change in the schedule for the daughter's dance lessons; or there was the unexpected job assignment that required some later hours; or (you fill in the blank).

Now it’s been 3 weeks, and you pass by the gym on the way home but haven’t graced them with your presence. In the meantime, you opt to do nothing until you can get back on track. After all, you are paying for this membership and you plan to use it…sometime. One of my patients once explained it to me like this—why go out and walk around the neighborhood or do something at home when he had this perfectly good gym membership that he should be using. He would feel guilty for cheating on the gym by exercising elsewhere.

Physical activity and exercise need to be SIMPLE, structured to MEET YOUR LIFESTYLE DEMANDS, and ENJOYABLE enough for you to look forward to the time. Trying to do the latest fitness craze won’t be successful for you if it’s too complicated for you or you loathe the idea of turning on that DVD. Feeling that you have to meet a pre-conceived idea about what physical activity or exercise is can hold you back from doing anything at all. If the gym membership isn’t working for you, don’t be afraid to drop it and find something you can do. Invest that money in a good pair of shoes and start a walking program or a Couch to 5K program.

This week, devise the simplest plan you can think of to get some higher levels of physical activity. It could be a 10 minute walk at work or a quick loop around the block before you head in the house upon your return home. Let's work on this for the week. Continue your daily journal and keep track of your activity levels. We'll come back with more on exercise this week.   

Self-Evaluation- Form Follows Function

In the first week of your program, I asked you to complete a basic but critical exercise as you begin to lose weight—self-monitoring. The primary purpose of self-monitoring is to provide an opportunity for you to examine your current behaviors, increasing your awareness of what you are doing currently in your daily lifestyle.

Now the second week of your program is about evaluating what you've recorded and making plans for how to move forward. In many instances when we ask people to journal their food intake the week prior to coming to the EatRight clinic at UAB, people will start to recognize patterns and areas for improvement in their typical intake. By the time our team of clinicians meet with them, they have diagnosed many of the problems that are making it difficult for them to manage their weight successfully.

What have you noticed about your week of journaling? Common patterns of eating that I see frequently include skipping breakfast, irregular spacing of meals, unplanned snacking, and grazing. Each pattern of eating has an underlying cause—I skipped breakfast because I stayed up eating "unmentionables" until midnight. So of course, I wasn't hungry at 7 am! Or I graze in the afternoons because I worked through lunch and didn't take the time to get a balanced meal.

I'm almost done with this post, and I still haven't said anything about WHAT you ate. And, I won't. This is all about understanding your structure of eating. In the design world, the phrase "Form follows function" describes a principle that the design of an object should be consistent with the intended purpose or use of the object. Your "FORM" of eating has a lot to do with the "FUNCTION" of your weight. You can't eat in a pattern designed to promote inconsistency and high calorie intake and expect to lose weight in the long-term. It just won't happen.

So for week 2, I want you to review your food journal from week 1 and identify any structural changes that you would like to make. Think about timing and spacing of meals and snacks (ideally every 3 hours); think about triggers that make you inconsistent; think about how the previous meal sets up the next meal. Figure out what you need to do to be consistent with your "FORM" of eating on a daily basis in the setting of your lifestyle. Continue journaling daily on your road to success.