Now if you’re like me, the approaching spring season really puts a fire under me and motivates me to want to improve my physical health. I want to have the energy to keep up with my kids. I don’t want to have to shop for larger clothes either. I want to save money and be able to fit into some of last year’s stuff. I want to clear my head from the cobwebs of winter and exercise can do all of those things.
But if you are also like me, you may have a bunch of “what if’s” lurking around. Like, what if I don’t have time? What if I can’t do push-ups? What if I can’t do 2 miles? What if I’m too heavy? What if people laugh at me? What if, what if what if? When starting something new or something you haven’t done in awhile, it can be scary, and we can make up a ton of excuses and doubts to hold us back from reaching our goals.
So here are a couple of my “what if’s” that I recently dealt with:
1) As you know I recently started P90X. So I will use that as my example. My first concern was time. I have 4 kids, plus I teach fitness classes, I have a husband, I like to cook, I like to blog, give fitness advice, you get the picture. What if I couldn’t fit a 45-50 minute workout in per day?
Well, I thought about it, and while I was thinking about it I just started out slow. If I could only do 15 minutes one day, hey, that was better than nothing. If I could do 30 min in the morning and another 30 at night, well even better. I decided that I wasn’t going to beat myself up over my “what-if.” I was just going to do what I could each day and just be thankful I got it done. This goes for any exercise too. Start off with small, reachable goals. 5 minutes is still better than no minutes.
2) My next “what if” was, what if I couldn’t do all the exercises perfectly? Well this one was a little easier for me, but hey, I still get nervous about starting a new routine. I get people all the time who think just because I teach people how to get in shape, then I must be in the greatest shape. I don’t think I’m in bad shape, but yes, there are things I can’t do. For instance I’m really good at push-ups, but I can’t do pull-ups. I can run fast, but I have problems running long distance. See what I’m getting at?
So when I started my P90X program, I was nervous and my “what if” was what if I can’t keep up? The beauty of exercise is that you can work at your own pace and you can always improve. You don’t have to be perfect. Maybe you can only do one push up or no push ups. It wasn’t that long ago when I couldn’t do a single push-up unless I had my knees down. But I tried a little harder each time and now I can do a whole bunch:)
3) This is not my “what if” but one that I get asked a lot. What if I’m too heavy to exercise or take a class? My answer to this one is check with your doctor first to make sure you are healthy enough to exercise. Once you get approval, then start out with baby-steps. Exercising (combined with proper nutrition) is one of the best ways to take off excess pounds. And there are so many other health benefits – too many to list.
Do yourself a favor, don’t let your “what if’s” trap you. You can go years and years caged by them when you could have just taken some baby steps right over the cage and into good health.
If you need any help in getting started, please let me know. You can also take a baby step now by signing up for absolutely free (no strings attached at all) coaching from me. Just visit my website at http://teambeachbody.com/fitwithjessica and sign up. That’s taking a baby step that might change your life forever:)
To read more of my posts, go to http://fitnesswithjessica.blogspot.com.