Two Weeks
I’m not ashamed to admit it.
I put on close to 10 pounds this summer.
Summer started off strong. I was exercising a few times a week and feeling good.
Maybe too good. Because I ended up tearing a muscle in my leg in mid-May. How? Trying to impress my kids with how fast I could sprint.
It turns out this wasn’t such a wise idea. Not my greatest moment.
The injury still causes me pain and discomfort more than three months later.
That was all the excuse I needed to totally slack off on my exercise routine.
Things got worse when we took our trip to Ireland, as I compounded little exercise with fish and chips and beer. Hence the 10 pounds came on pretty quick.
Now that I’m back from our trip, I’m determined to get back on track. I’m sick of my clothes not fitting anymore.
In the past week I went to the gym twice and took a spin class. I’m in misery with how sore my whole body is. Everything aches. It hurts to sit down, stand up, walk.
I’m trying really hard not to move as I type this.
I was telling a friend yesterday about my sad state of soreness, sharing my frustration about how hard it is to get back into shape.
He laughed and said, “Two weeks.”
He said that every time he has slacked off physically, he knows it will take him two weeks of pain and discomfort to bounce back into a steady routine.
Looking back at all the times I’ve tried to get back into a routine for exercise, diet, or work habits, it did take a couple of weeks of pain until I started getting used to it.
It’s similar to waking up an hour earlier so I can can get more work done. The first few days of it is like some kind of awful torture. But after a couple of weeks of it I rarely need my alarm clock.
My friend was spot on. If you can get through the pain of the first couple of weeks, you hit a rhythm.
That’s not to say it becomes easy. Easier, maybe. But not easy.
You’ve heard the quote, “Nothing worth doing is ever easy.”
Which is why, injuries, illness, family drama, work drama, and all kinds of other setbacks can so quickly derail us from our routines and pursuits.
So I’m determined not to get derailed by this ridiculous soreness and this cold I’m fighting off right now.
I’m one week in to this exercise routine. Which means if I can fight through another week, things should get easier.
Last week I also committed to 90 days of writing every day.
Being one week in, I’m starting to feel the pain. The initial enjoyment of starting something new has worn off. My mind keeps messing with me, telling me that I should sleep more, because it will make for a more productive day, that I have more important things to work on this morning, that I should do it later when I’m not feeling so tired. It goes on and on.
But here I am. I’ve managed to push past the voices in my head. Now I can check the writing box for the day, and that feels really good.
Progress. Getting a personal win. It’s the best motivator.
If I skipped today, it would be twice as hard to get myself to do it tomorrow. Instead, I now have a streak, which is awesome. It also means I better hobble over to the gym today.
I don’t want to go through the initial two-week torture all over again.
Best to get on a streak there, too.
Mike Turner
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