Never Chew On A Tree

“Do what you love, love what you do?”

Even as I write this, it sounds like a cartload of kum bay ya ya sisterhood of the traveling meaningless aphorisms. It just needs Sarah McLaughlin warbling in the background to tie-dyed retro hippies dancing in some field.

That said, and as much as it elicits my mental gag reflex, as far as exercise goes it actually makes sense.

We are coached to think of exercise as a way to crank out the calories you need to balance that forklift sized Portion of Texas fajitas that could feed Rwanda. Calories in, out. It doesn’t matter if you like it or not. Think of it like the bitter pill you have to take for those 2 margaritas you tacked on to your “working” lunch.

So exercise is presented almost like an atonement you deserve, and definitely not something you should love necessarily. But except for hard core athletes, most people really don’t like this kind of perfunctory, no pain no gain mentality.

In fact, one very Southern woman once looked at me and said, [when you read this, it’s totally better if you do it with a drawl] “Dr. Clower I would rather chew on a TREE than git on that treadmill and bounce my big blobby body here and there for 30 minutes in the gym in front of God and everybody!”

Agreed.

We have to get over that way of thinking, because doing something you don’t like or love is the exact wrong strategy. When you are exercising and hate it, you can create cortisol stress hormones that work against the very beneficial effect of the exercise that you’re trying to achieve. In other words, you’ll get less out of it if you hate it, not to mention the fact that you’ll only do it until your full-sleeve-thin-mint guilt wears off.

But if you find what you love to do and do that, whatever that activity is will happen longer, you won’t create the stress response that works against you, and you’ll more efficiently burn calories. Think about how fun it is to ride a bike, play on a sports team, hike a trail with your family, walk with your friends. WHICH activity matters far less than how you feel about it.

Bottom line? For your activity, find what you love. Do that.