Is This a Blip on Your Radar Screen?

A few weeks back I posted an intriguing question to Facebook, mostly to spark some thinking. It worked. The question was:

“Is eating well and exercising for two years only to stop and return to a sedentary life better than not doing it at all?“

As you can imagine, the question sparked quite an interesting debate. Some viewed it strictly but he numbers and argued that something is, of course, better than nothing. Others assumed it was a trick question and opted for an answer that said something like, “Training and knowing how good it can feel would make it more make life more troublesome than never exercising at all would.” I didn’t really have either approach in mind when I asked the question.

The purpose of my question was simply to get people thinking. Part of this thinking process I hoped would include a mind shift around what two years of painstaking, attention-to-fitness-detail means in the grand scheme of things. In the context of an entire life (say 70 to 90 years), for example, two years is nothing.

Selfishly I’d wish more students took something like two years into context. Unless you’re training for a big specific event, I’m completely uninterested in you “cleaning it up” and training like a mad man for 18 or 24 months. What’s the point?

If you aren’t actively pursuing habits and practices that are lifestyle centric, repeatable, and livable, I think you might be missing the point. Most of us don’t have a game Friday night, so what are we preparing for?

Think about that. If you go pedal to the metal and “kill it” for two whole years (which seems like a lifetime right now) only to stop living that way, it’s but a blip on the radar screen. In that way, I encourage you to slow down. Enjoy the PRs and fun along the way, but this is the epitome of a marathon. Check yourself!

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach