Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
December 2006
Like most normal folks you probably get bored with exercise now and then. It's one of the reasons why so many people quit, especially on those cold winter mornings in Pennsylvania when you have to get up long before the sun does in order to get your walk or workout in. There are three things that will help you to beat boredom: have a meaningful fitness target, see signs of progress and have something that keeps your brain engaged.
Roughly eighty percent of persons who begin an exercise program do so to lose weight; most of the rest are motivated by the desire to avoid heart disease. A few are frightened into it when a routine medical exam turns up high blood pressure, a touch of diabetes or high cholesterol.
Some of those reasons are serious but none of them is especially motivating. Aiming to lose weight is not very specific. Getting your cholesterol down takes more than exercise and learning that your blood sugar has drifted back into the normal range at your next medical check-up is satisfying but hardly exhilarating.
If your goal is weight loss you might have a very successful exercise program but you'll be disappointed if you keep your eye on the scale. When you burn away fat and add some muscle to your frame at the same time, your weight might not change at all but you'll find that you can fit into last year's slacks. So a good goal that will keep you walking, running, biking or whatever else you've started is to drop your waist size by about an inch a month. Men should aim for a waist circumference of less than 40 inches; women's should be less than 35 inches.
Waist size matters because it's more closely linked to heart health than weight alone, or even the BMI (Body Mass Index).
Are you geography-minded? If you walk 3 or 4 miles a day, 4 or 5 days a week — this is a subtle hint of what we should all be doing — how long will it take you to walk from Reading to Philadelphia, to Chicago or to Aunt Maude's place in Altoona? How about Paris to Vienna? (634 miles) Keeping track will keep you motivated and it will give you bragging rights at your next class reunion.
Except for some variation due to weather and the seasons, your neighborhood walking route will eventually get boring. Fitness centers are worse. The treadmill usually faces the TV so that you're likely to have to watch game shows or soaps (without sound), a mirror or a blank wall. Have you ever thought about books on tape (or CD)? Your library probably has hundreds and the usual three-week loan is plenty long enough to get through Oliver Twist, The Snows of Kilimanjaro or any other book that has been stagnating on your reading list for years.
You can probably think of lots of ways to make your physical activity more focused, more interesting and less boring. Let me know what you come up with.
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D. is the author of Health Secrets of the Stone Age, Better Life Publishers 2005. Contact him at drphil@stoneagedoc.com.