Putting your workout in its place

I love a good sweat sesh. It feels great both mentally and physically. And of course there are many health benefits of working out, but I have to admit that there have been times in my life when my trips to the gym had nothing to do with any of them. I recall sincerely believing that I needed to earn my badge as a trainer by achieving a certain aesthetic. Ironically enough, when I was working out the most, was when I was the most unhealthy. I celebrate every day, that those days are long gone. 

This is not a preach against working out and I'm absolutely not giving any reason to pass up on the benefits of balanced exercise. I'd be out of a job if it was. I love and embrace a variety of activities. I love that self empowerment that comes from pushing through mental limitations. I love facing my edge and moving past it in search of my unknown potential. I love the escape of a 180 bpm heart rate and the breathless recovery after an intense interval. Working out, if kept inside the healthy lines, can elevate your life experience and performance to greater heights. It can be so good! But however much you may or may not workout, does not define you as a human being. 

There is a fine line drawn between a healthy workout program and an unhealthy one, and many of us don't know the difference. Too easily we can cross that line into obsessive and compulsive behavior. Even worse, we often compliment and praise others for being such loyal gym goers without knowing their reasons why. I sometimes wonder, are we encouraging one another to obsess about exercise? Of course it's possible to workout often and keep things balanced, but my concern lies with the over-emphasis on gym time and the under-appreciation for the rest of the picture. What is even more alarming is the psychology that still lives in the gym arena. It has become too much of the norm to "work off our weekend" or to show up to a group fitness class under-slept, over-stressed and miss-fed and think we are doing our body justice by pushing through it. The daunting idea that we have to keep up with this workout prescription forever at whatever the cost, is enough to overwhelm anyone. Even as a trainer, I would think 'This can't be the only way'. 

I have to say, through my own learnings, I'm passionate about maintaining a balanced perspective on what it means to be fit and healthy, and to encourage others to do the same. It's possible that we have created such a distorted image of fitness that it seems un-attainable to most of us. Some of us won't even try and many of us often feel like a failure because we we can't keep up with so-and-so. This is too big a shame to ignore. 

The gym is not the center of the universe, and neither are your workouts. 

When I was first learning yoga 10 years ago, it was just another trendy way of working out for me. Using my chameleon-like skills, I waltzed into class just like the yogis, ready to play the role for an hour. After class, I rolled up my mat and assumed business as usual- unchanged and unaware of what I was missing. I just knew that yoga was supposed to be good for you, so I wanted to check it off the list. But I kept going back and I slowly began to realize I hadn't even scratched the surface of this practice. Because of yoga, I finally stepped off the crazy train. (This took years by the way) I have learned through many visits on my yoga mat, the importance of taking a scan on my body and evaluating my connection to it. I allow discomfort, frustration, exhaustion or whatever else to rise up to my awareness. With higher self-awareness I can take better care of me. I believe that this is what strength and fitness is made of. It’s a quiet strength that is only for you to know. It’s not the kind we put on display but the kind that gets us up in the morning with a grateful heart. The kind that guides us to love ourselves and forgive our shortcomings. The kind that says it's okay to skip the gym when our bodies need rest. Isn't this strength much more worthy of each others praise and admiration?

My clients often ask me "so how many times per week do you workout?" and I tell them that whatever my answer is should be meaningless to them. Further, what is a workout anyways? What quantifies a workout? I pondered on this a few weeks ago as I was filling out a health questionnaire at the doctor's office. 

    Circle how many days per week you workout?  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  

This question is so interpretive making the answer utterly irrelevant. Is walking the dog a workout? Is only crossfit a workout? Is working in the yard a workout? Is the doctor going to make an assumption about me based on my answer? I'm sitting there thinking about the difference of an active and sedentary lifestyle. I have a very active lifestyle and I'm not going to quantify my health by how many days per week I "workout".  I don't go to the gym everyday- and I would explain to the doc that I was a lot healthier because of it. Back in the day, I was running because I was scared of getting fat. I was lifting weights because I was scared of feeling weak. I was working out in search of acceptance and approval of others. I was going to the gym in a chronic state of fear. If I were a doctor, that's the kind of information I would want to know, not how many donkey kicks or bicep curls I did. 

While on my private little internal soap box, I didn't circle anything, in rebellion of such an imposing question. It's time we understand that health is so much more than logging in another workout. We must begin to see that every choice we face has an impact on our health. We must stop undoing our health by neglecting our mental, emotional and physical needs and expect to make up for it with an hour at the gym. Don't be disillusioned- a cardio circuit will indeed make you feel great but it won't undo a broken heart or an exhausted liver. 

My clients are usually disappointed in my answer. I know what they are wanting. They want a quantified box that they can check. Unfortunately, there is no magic box that covers it all. It's time we honor our own intelligence. To do that, we have to move past the denial that being healthy is that simple. You may not like this, but being healthy is a big job. It's every sleep, every meal, every walk, every book, every conversation and every choice that you make- every day. No amount of workouts can defeat the kind of damage we can do between visits to the gym. The gym alone is not the end all - save all.

If you are terrified that if you stop your workouts you will lose yourself, I challenge you to stop your workouts. I invite you to observe the miracle that is your body and to rediscover the other ways of taking care of yourself. Reinvent what strong means to you- without the gym. Perhaps there are some wounds that need healing that we don't know about. I want for you the freedom of knowing that you are whole, and beautiful and powerful regardless of your gym attendance. 

When we make this shift, working out feels less like a life sentence, and more like a privilege. A celebration! An expression of our internal greatness! Your body does not define you, you express yourself through your body. 

I'm big on securing that quiet strength that I've learned on the yoga mat. I've needed it because my body can't always perform anything close to a workout. My back goes out occasionally. I'll tell you more on that later, but the point is, some weeks I'm not going anywhere near a kettle bell. Does that make me less of something? Less of a trainer? Less of an athlete? Less of a yogi? I'll answer that, No! I am still me. Whole, strong and capable of being a bad ass even when my back isn't working. I define my own strong. No one else can tell me if I meet some made up standard or not. 

I don't apologize for missing a workout and I never feel guilty about it. If I'm honest I probably didn't even miss it- because I gave myself permission to do something else. There's never a deficit of workouts. Working out is a gain, not a ball and chain! 

I will always be healthy. I know that. Whether the scale or my max push up test goes up or down, I will always be healthy and strong. I made this commitment to myself a long time ago. At different phases in my life, my healthy and strong will look different. I often think about aging and being awesome in my 90's. I will be strong then and dammit I will be fit. But not because I will still be running hill sprints or mastering my chataranga. My fitness will be grace, and a quiet steady ease. My victory wont be in acquiring a tight ass, but in just having an ass to sit on and drink some scotch. And if a doctor asks me how often I workout, I will politely rephrase their question and in response I'll say "I'm the strongest I've ever been". 

This is me recently learning ballet for the first time!