Image by Cpl Russ Nolan RLC via Wikimedia
By Chandler Walter, Editor-in-Chief
So December is coming up, and with it brings all the chocolate, turkey dinners, roasted ham, and seasonal beers of the holidays—basically making it the worst possible month to attempt getting back into shape.
Of course, after that comes January, the go-to month for all the people inspired by feeling shitty about their hungover selves on January 1 to get back into the gym, and yes, this is finally the year they stick to their resolution…. Meaning that gyms are going to be hella full starting in January, which makes it a terrible month to start working out, as well.
Basically, when it comes down to it, I’m forever convincing myself that there’s a reason why it won’t be this month that I finally buy that YMCA membership, why it won’t be today that I go for that run (a literal jog around the block), and why it’s totally okay that I spent all Sunday playing video games and watching YouTube videos because I totaaaaally did a few dozen push-ups throughout the day.
And I know that it’s all complete bullshit as much as the next person.
I used to be in fairly good shape, and I’m still some ways away from being completely incapable of physical exertion, but in the past few months since I landed myself a nine-to-five-sitting-in-an-office-chair job, I can feel—and see—my general fitness deteriorating.
It’s an easy thing to let happen. I work two jobs, I’m a pretty busy guy, so when I do have some free time, I feel I deserve to spend it doing something a bit more relaxing than labouring away on a treadmill.
But one bad choice leads to two, a series of decisions becomes a full-fledged habit, and the next thing you know you’re sitting around the house for an entire Sunday because you “have to get around to writing that Lettitor at some point.”
I’m not saying everyone has to go out and start getting totally swole by stocking up on pre-workout and protein shakes. It’s just that I’ve just noticed something that, up until my schedule became relatively consistent for the first time in my life, I’d never really realized: Your life is just a culmination of scheduled habits, and those habits come down to making the same decisions over and over again.
Whether they’re decisions that will better your physical fitness down the line, or if you instead choose to do something a bit more relaxing that will improve your mental well-being, it’s entirely up to you… and to me.
And I basically wrote this damn Lettitor to myself, didn’t I.
Fuck it, I’m going for a run.
