Is Fitness A Priority To You?
Want to lose weight?
Or maybe you want to get bigger?
Maybe you want to get stronger and lift a certain amount of weight or perform a certain number of reps for a particular exercise?
Whatever your fitness goal is, it requires proper nutrition or a certain amount of exercise to reach it, if not both.
But let me guess…
You’re so pressed for time that you go for the most convenient option by way of a takeout menu or food delivery app instead of preparing your meals in advance so you always have food available that supports your goal.
Was that the right guess?
I’m omniscient so of course it was but since you want to be difficult and pretend it wasn’t, then maybe you’re so beaten down by the end of the day that you just want to go home and catch up on the surveillance of your ex’s whereabouts for the day instead of going to the gym to work out.
Oh, you still want to be difficult and pretend that wasn’t the right guess either?
Well, whatever the reason is that you want to lie about not doing what you’re supposed to do, I have something to tell you.
*ahem*
What you should know is that you won’t find the time and energy to have the type of body or level of fitness that you want unless it’s a priority. When that’s the case, you’ll do whatever you have to do to reach your goal because it’s important to you.
How do I know this?
Well, unlike all most of the shit that I pull out of my ass when I tell you about this fitness stuff, I speak from experience on this subject.
What sort of experience?, you ask.
Ha, it’s story time!
When Monster was younger many millennia ago now, I worked 5-6 days per week at an oil lube shop by JFK Airport in Queens, NY. I was on my feet around 10 hours a day and it was pretty busy with no breaks during the workday.
…
Okay, okay!!!
So I lied, there were indeed breaks!
Those breaks, however, don’t count for much considering they were when there was a lull between cars. So if I was hungry, I could eat but I had to stop eating to service cars when they came in. That means that I might take a bite of my lunch then take my next bite 30-40 minutes later, depending on how busy the day was.
After standing on my feet all day, I’d hop on the bus and take the 40-minute ride to Jamaica Avenue to go meet my training partner at the gym, where we’d then work out for 2 hours.1A 2-hour workout?!?! Yup, and sometimes we’d even push it to 3 hours. Hey, what can I say except that we were young and dumb!
NOTE: When using your time efficiently, a resistance training workout should only take 45-60 minutes. For cardio, the length can vary from as little as 10 minutes all the way to as much as 60 minutes, if not more. All of that depends on the intensity of the cardio and what the objective is. For instance, someone who’s training to run a marathon would have a much longer and easier paced treadmill workout than someone who does HIIT because they’re looking to burn fat. Once the workout was over, I’d take the bus or walk the mile and change home then spend what little time I had before bed making dinner and preparing the next day’s breakfast and lunch. That was my life for around 3 years. And despite that schedule, I still got all my meals in during the day and worked out 5-6 days without fail.
When I got fired from that oil change job for some shit that was totally my fault and is none of your nosey business, I began working construction. Five to six days a week, I would wake up early in the morning and take the bus to the subway station to make the trip to Brooklyn or Manhattan when the jobsite wasn’t up the street from me at York College. Following the hour and a half commute to work, I’d then proceed to stand on my feet for 10-12 hours moving heavy shit and swinging my hammer. After standing in the elements all day, from the cold of winter to the sun beating down on me in the summer, I’d make the trip back to Queens and go directly to the gym.
Unlike my job at the car care center, there were scheduled breaks with the construction shit. There was a 15-minute coffee break in the morning and an hour lunch at noon. Those breaks, however, were subject to shortening or skipping if deadlines weren’t going to get met otherwise. Regardless, I worked construction for maybe 5 years doing commercial and then residential HVAC installation and during that time I still got all my meals in without fail, as well as worked out every day I was supposed to.
Now, why was I able to eat in accordance with my goals and make it to the gym but you can’t while working from the comfort of a desk in a climate-controlled office or as a stay-at-home parent?
The answer is simple, really.
I was able to do what you aren’t because fitness was number one on my agenda and it isn’t on yours.
That’s really what it comes down to, that the extenuating circumstances for why you can’t do XYZ are only extenuating because you make them so. In the grand scheme of things, your goal just isn’t that important to you. As such, what you’re really saying when you say that you can’t eat right or work out for such-and-such reason is that taking care of yourself isn’t that much of a priority.
Giving a shit about your health and appearance isn’t for everybody, and there’s no shame in that.
Just be honest about it though, if not with yourself then at least with others like me so we’re saved from hearing the crock of shit you come up with for not being able to do what we find ample time for during the same 24 hours that you have, boo-boo!
Fitness is a state of health and wellbeing that’s achieved through proper nutrition and exercise. Individually, exercise boosts the immune system, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, helps manage depression and anxiety, improves sleep, increases brain function and memory, and reduces the risk of developing several chronic diseases, like dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. Most importantly, exercise can impact your physical appearance so you look good as fuck naked. Proper nutrition has many of the same effects as exercise but it also supports it by providing the body with the energy it needs to be active, in addition to the fuel that’s necessary for growth and repair. Further, proper nutrition is what’s essential for controlling weight. Together, proper nutrition and exercise have an assortment of benefits to your physical and mental wellbeing but to enjoy them, you have to eat right and work out regularly. That’s why fitness should be a priority.
Working out and eating right consistently, however, can be difficult with personal and professional commitments taking up your time and energy.2e.g. work, school, quality time with family, hanging out with friends, unexpectedly showing up where your former intimate partner is and then denying you’re stalking them with any of a number of apps and services that are marketed to track and locate children or lost phones but are just as easily used to monitor people without their consent, etc. When we’re busy, tired, or any other excuse pops up, following through with one or the other goes right out the window.
As important as working out and eating right are, they’re usually treated as options, things that you’ll get around to doing when the chance presents itself. Fitness and its components, however, are too crucial to be relegated to “optional”. On account of the many benefits they afford, working out and eating right are not bottom of the list items but should be at the very top among the non-negotiables. That requires the taking of action to make fitness a priority that takes precedence over other things in your life so it doesn’t get sacrificed in favor of activities that provide an immediate payoff but aren’t as beneficial to you in the weeks, months, or years afterward.
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