When someone asks me if I exercise, I say that I’m shit at CrossFit. I do go to classes twice or three times a week and I have been going for a few years.
I’m still a bit chubby. I injure myself every few months and exercise still hasn’t become a habit.
I was cleaning up my garage the other day and whilst I was going through the boxes stashed in a corner I started to find some odd exercise equipment that I had had for more than 10 years. Basically since I moved to the UK.
And it wasn’t even the first exercise equipment I bought. I got my first kettlebell 14 years ago.
Now, for a bit of context. I didn’t grow up with exercise being a thing in my life. I stopped kicking a ball around when my local friends spread across different high schools and it was harder to just hang out after school. Much less time to spend, and online games became a bit more entertaining.
I wasn’t a person who enjoyed sports too much and the gym wasn’t really a common thing back then. My parents weren’t keen on sports or exercise either. The memory of the Spartakiad was probably too fresh.
Through my life I’ve played a bit of football, tennis, and field hockey. I did a year of Krav Maga and some boxing. I used a bike and a scooter to get around quite a bit. And I walked; I always did a lot of walking. I would rather walk for 20 minutes than take an overcrowded tram for 5-10 minutes.
I’ve done plenty of home exercise sessions with YouTube, including Insanity (or something like that). It was a combination of bodyweight exercises and jumping around that you can do in front of your TV. I know there was a lot of jumping since our downstairs neighbour came complaining, because it sounded like we were throwing some heavy stuff on the ground repeatedly. He was right.
I have always carried extra weight. The relationship with weight and food is not an easy one for me. Keto, low-carb, intermittent fasting, small portions, big portions like a tiger. I’ve tried it all. Now I’m on Wegovy trying to make my life a bit easier, as my brain’s first coping mechanism is food. If I overeat, my mind slows down as my body processes all that food and there is some peace in that.
I remember the first time I went for a run. Like a run where you explicitly go for the run, not just a jog to catch a bus. I got shin splints after 100 meters and then somehow struggled to make it around the block back home. That was when I was 26. I could sink 8 pints easily, but couldn’t make it around the block running without struggling. Now I can make it through a 5k run. On a good day.
When I was buying that first kettlebell, I imagined it was something I would do all the time and that it would stick. That’s who I would be: a person who exercises regularly. I don’t think many people have had a different experience, and the proof is in the number of stationary bikes and treadmills that just gather dust.
And it hasn’t stuck. It has fluctuated massively through time. Exercise is still not an easy habit for me to have. I feel like I’m just one skipped class away from not doing anything. And looking back, in my head that’s how it has felt for the last 14 years. Why can’t I be the person who just does exercise and enjoys it?!
But similar to stock investing, my enjoyment and capability go up and down, but in the long term they have slowly been going up. Maybe there is a parallel with the S&P index that has historically doubled in value every 7-10 years. It takes time.
I have learned things and changed my mind quite a bit. I do love hiking. Not the dangerous kind. The 5-8 hour walk up the mountain and then back to have some decent food and sleep in a bed. I also do like to push myself and I’m pretty good at punishing myself in the gym. Once I’m there, I’m happy in the discomfort of huffing n’ puffing and struggling through.
I can now talk about it. Somehow, 35 years of this odd relationship with fitness, and health in general, is why I have this perspective. Why I can write this post. Why I understand a bit more how my brain works and why it might be difficult for others.
Now, as I’m writing this, it’s time to go to another CrossFit class before my brain creates too many excuses for why today is not a good day. The traffic, not feeling 100%, maybe I will injure myself again, I will look like an idiot because I have to scale the exercises down… we all have our own excuses.
The reason for this post is that at every point in my life I felt like I was failing myself, because I struggled to do something that seemed, in my head, like something easy. Now I’m not failing, I’m just bad at it, and the trend is that I’m a bit less bad every year!
Just above average 