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Quote of the Day

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Make Fitness Unconscious

Let me know if you can relate to this (and I'm betting you can):

With every attempt to lose weight, fitness always felt like an unnatural addition to my life. It felt like a hobby or chore I was forcing myself to do daily.

I understood why I was doing it and the benefits of it…but I didn't want to do it.

It was like when your mom gives you new chores or your manager piles on extra tasks. It becomes something constantly nagging at the back of your mind, requiring intentional time and effort.

I'd be lying there, mindlessly doomscrolling through whatever social media app I was addicted to at the time, with that nagging voice in the back of my head - "You have to get to the gym today." It was always there, this looming obligation that I had to consciously make time and effort for.

This is an issue.

When you treat something as separate from your life, you inherently devote more mental and physical effort towards it because it doesn't fit naturally. With fitness, that's normal at first. But for me, the more weight I lost, the more that "workout burden" weighed me down. The urge to skip the gym grew stronger as it took up more mental space as “just another chore.”

However, when you start viewing physical activity through a different lens - not as dedicated "workouts" you have to squeeze in, but just living an all-around more active life integrated into your existing habits and routines? That's when it becomes more achievable and sustainable.

Your calendar needs to go from this:

To this:

My perspective shifted when I started viewing fitness as something that needs to be a natural, unconscious part of life - not a compartmentalized task. It should integrate smoothly into your daily habits, becoming a non-negotiable like:

• Taking a shower

• Drinking water

• Checking your phone

• Washing your hands

• Brushing your teeth

These are unconscious daily routines that take up virtually no mental effort (and if that's not the case for you...please reach out for help 😰). You do these things automatically, no matter what.

Fitness should be viewed the same way.

Okay, so this perspective shift is all great in theory, but how do you actually make it happen? Well, here are a couple of things I did and still do that have worked for me.

1. Stop talking about it.

Stop telling people about your fitness journey. Stop announcing when you're going to the gym. Stop verbalizing when you "have" to work out.

Stop. Talking. About. It. As much as humanly possible.

Why? I'm very much of the opinion that, especially when you're tackling a difficult lifestyle change, the more words and thoughts you give to something, the more it becomes this big, engrained thing in your mind. You end up adding fuel to the fire and overcomplicate it.

I'm not saying become a total hermit who never discusses their life. But when I made an effort to just shut up about losing weight and actually put in the work without the constant verbal affirmations, I realized it started to lose mental real estate. It felt more natural and unconscious rather than this huge ordeal I had psyched myself up for.

Do you go around telling people when you brush your teeth or take a shower? (I seriously hope not 🤞) Probably not, because those are just ingrained habits you do automatically without needing the verbal reinforcement. Do the same for fitness.

2. Make it stupid simple.

Don't overcomplicate this whole "seamlessly integrating fitness" thing. The key is to start incredibly small and simple with your new habits.

For example, maybe it's just committing to taking a 5 minute walk around the block every morning after you wake up. Or doing 10 bodyweight squats every time you go to the bathroom.

The actual activity doesn't matter that much at first. What matters is developing the cadence and ritual of naturally including more movement into your existing daily flow.

By starting with habits so laughably small and simple that you can't possibly talk yourself out of them, you're creating unconscious patterns. There's no looming dread over a 5 minute walk - you just...do it without thinking.

From there, you can gradually layer in more involved activities. But the first phase is all about developing the mindset shift through stupid easy habits that become hard-wired into your normal routine.

Thank you for joining me on today's newsletter.

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