I Know I Should, So Why Don’t I?
My friend is a successful businessman who travels a great deal for work. In 2016 he was away from home for 100+ nights. That’s almost ⅓ of a year!
So when he told me that he finds it incredibly difficult to eat healthy and exercise while he’s on the road, I could see why.
Restaurant/Airport food, busy meeting schedules, and crappy hotel gyms are just a few deterrents to staying fit and healthy. Feeling alone, feeling disconnected from your family who is carrying on without you and feeling like you’re just a paycheck are even deeper reasons why he may avoid expending energy seeking out healthy restaurants and waking early to head down to a dark and dated hotel gym.
As we chatted about it he said to me, “I know I should do it, so why don’t I?”
Well, let’s see if we can unpack this a bit.
Knowing The Benefits
He’s educated about the benefits of a healthy diet and exercise. He has had food related health issues over the years and recognizes that healthy, whole foods make him feel like a different human. He has also experienced the benefit of exercise when he does commit to it. He feels healthier, stronger, more alive, and alert. Still, regardless of knowing what benefits behoove him, he rarely exercises while he’s away and while he tries to make wise food choices, more often than not he is grabbing a pastry from the buffet breakfast as he rushes to catch his next flight.
“For what I want to do I do not do….”
He’s Healthy Today
The thing about evading exercise and healthy food is that it seldom shows its full fury in the moment. You can justify not exercising because you feel ok, you feel good in fact. If you were in a hospital bed recovering from a broken leg, as soon as you were able, you would likely spend enormous energy trying to rehabilitate, trying to walk again because your leg is broken and you know it’s broken. It’s preventing you from moving and living your life like you want to.
When my son was hit by a truck and suffered a compound fracture to his tib/fib, as soon as he was allowed to rebuild the strength in his leg, in spite of the pain and obstacles, he went full throttle toward it. We signed him up for physio, and he practiced walking on that leg everyday, as much as he could bear the pain that came with it.
Health and wellness are different. When it is not a focus in our lives, we may not see the negative repercussions immediately. It is often a slow degeneration toward ill-health until the day that we wake up feeling ill.
He Doesn’t Know What He’s Missing
My husband Quentin also travels for work. In 2016 he was away 60+ nights. As someone who has worked out regularly for 25 years, I thought I would ask his advice on what makes it difficult to exercise when he’s away, but also how he manages to add it in when and where he can.
It’s actually embedded in his body as a theme his body knows by heart.
He said the biggest factor is that there is a noticeable difference when he doesn’t do it. Due to the fact that he has solidified a habit of working out when he is home, he misses it desperately when he’s away. When he doesn’t do it, he feels different, he feels awful. His body craves it. It’s actually embedded IN his body as a theme his body knows by heart. His regular habit is to wake up, make eggs, go to the gym, go to work. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
If he cuts it out of his routine for a few days, his body knows it. He states that it is almost as imperative to his body as water. If he cut out water….well, we all know he certainly wouldn’t last long.
My friend hasn’t had fitness as a habit long enough to notice the difference. To notice the loss. It’s not a habit so he doesn’t feel what he’s missing.
Quentin also told me that when he’s away for work, his schedule is nuts. He’s hopping from meeting to meeting, teaching courses, having lunches and dinners with many, many humans. He’s people’d out! He has exhausted every ounce of energy already and the thought of going to work out after a day of work is more than he can do. Due to the fact that he’s not in his own bed, he usually struggles with getting a good night sleep and so the thought of setting an alarm to get a workout in early is out of the question.
The ONLY thing that saves him, is the habit he has formulated.
And there’s the answer. Create the habit.
If only it were that easy! Relying on a system to create a habit is a good place to begin. For more on implementing a system that works, click here.
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