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Being healthy by working out at the gym?
February 12, 2004

For what seems like most of my adult life, I’ve tried to stay in good physical shape. Like most, I’ve struggled with the on again – off again attempts at working out in the gym. I’d feel a little pudgy, so I’d go work out. The new year would come around, and I’d go work out. The summer would be approaching, so I’d go work out. I’d get sick, so I’d go work out. I’d see a magazine article about being healthy, or a friend would decide HE’D want to be healthier, or any number of things I’d see or run across that would get me scurrying back to the gym to go work out. You get the picture!

And I’d hate every minute of it.

You see, I was a star baseball player and a pretty good basketball player from about age eight through high school. By the time I was in college, school and work (and occasionally girls) starting taking up most of my time, so athletics – of which I’d grown weary of anyway – took a back seat. I was still young, strong, and healthy, so it was easy to put it on the ‘back burner’.

Of course, that lasted for a while, probably 10 years or so. I then joined the crowd of folks – just like you and me – that struggle with trying to do what’s best for us, chasing youthfulness, health, and vitality, by trying to eat healthfully, exercise, and tend to our emotional and spiritual well-being, not over-eating, over-drinking, or over-anything.

I gave myself a ‘C’ for effort, and a ‘C+’ for results, although I still appeared fit and trim, and felt I was/am in good shape.

Oh, by the way, I’m not about to give you the answer to your workout dilemma, if you have one. I just have a few very important questions to ask you about being healthy.

Our cultural standard is that if we’re going to be healthy, we have to pound our bodies with weight training, running, jogging, or any other number of body-beating programs to whip ourselves into shape. I found that when I did those activities, it took me out of whatever I was doing – dentistry, writing, coaching, being with my family, fishing, anything – and put me in a different “space”. I kept thinking to myself, “Well, I’m getting healthier, so if I hate it, that’s OK.” As the younger generation now says: NOT.

Are your efforts at staying physically healthy an escape for you from your current life situation? Is going to the gym a way to feel good about who you are, when you can’t at other times? Do you feel you must go to the gym to be healthy? Is there a way to be physically healthy without body-pounding exercise?

Do your efforts at staying healthy putting you in a “space” you don’t want to be in?

For many, exercising is an escape from our current life situation, and because our society says exercise is a good thing, then all the better: we win all around. Or do we? Do you?

I like my days so much doing what do as a father, dentist, coach, or any number of other things, that I don’t like to do anything that disrupts it, or puts me in another "space" that doesn't fit with my lifestyle. I decided that going to the gym just wasn’t working for me; it was taking me out of one space in my life and putting me in another one, one that I didn’t like to be in. I felt like I didn’t belong in the gym, yet I felt I wanted to be doing something physical for my well-being.

What about you?

What can you do to be in the best shape physically that will honor who you are as a person? Going to the gym may still be your answer, or maybe this question will light the way for you to choose something else that may be more consistent with your age, lifestyle, or your personal development.

If going to the gym has not been working for you, what can you do that will compliment your lifestyle in a healthy and meaningful way, that will continue to grow and nurture who you are as a person?

Here's to your health! Namaste!

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