Being out of shape (from a fitness standpoint, not an aesthetic standpoint) is selfish, inexcusable, indefensible, and does or will cause problems in your life.
Being “out of shape” is not the same as “not being in great shape”. Examples of “out of shape”: you need your arms to get out of a chair; you take the elevator or escalator not out of convenience, but out of necessity; you take more than two trips to carry your groceries inside the house from the car; you can’t do one at least pretty good pushup; you can’t do a lunge where your rear knee touches the floor. These are things people should be able to do. These are things that people of many shapes and sizes can do. There are other “out of shape standards” that I could come up with, but mostly it’s a “know it when you see it” type thing. I and you don’t need definitive standards to say “woah, I’m really out of shape”.
Out of shape is not referring the the actual physical shape of you body. I don’t care, and others shouldn’t really care. However, your “fitness shape” is very important. It doesn’t need to be even approaching competitor levels of good. It just has to not be bad – basically you just need to be a functioning human. That’s a totally reasonable and not at all hard to attain standard!
Here is a scale to help.
Unpacking my first sentence:
It’s selfish because it puts a burden on the people who love you as they are currently or will eventually have to spend more time than they should to help and take care of you and the things you need to do – because you are out of shape. It’s selfish because you are going to cost people you love money, and even further out, you cost everyone more money to pay for your healthcare ( I think).
It’s inexcusable and indefensible because to achieve the extremely attainable “don’t be actively out of shape” level that I typed above you don’t even need to do very much. When you FIRST start out, yes, it’ll take effort. But if you don’t put forth that effort now, you’ll be putting forth effort every time you get on and off the toilet, every time you get out of your car, every time you go grocery shopping, every time you get out of bed, every time you have to walk, every time you think about how you need to get in shape….
There has never been cheaper gym memberships. There has never been more studio style fitness options available. There has never been more available information out there to attain the “shape of fitness” that is just above “not terrible”.
It doesn’t really even matter what you do for fitness to obtain that low level: just do something consistently. Eventually you will likely need to add a little bit (for example, just walking can be a great way to start. But by and large people who tell me they “walk” for exercise in fact do not pass many of the “not out of shape” metrics). Find something you at least don’t hate, even better, find something you at least sorta enjoy and do it consistently.
BTW – while there IS FACTUALLY some effort that you will need to put forth to get above the “out of shape” zone, it is the most you will need to put in. Fitness shape is like pushing a car: it is really hard to get going, but once it is going it is really easy to keep it up. Going from “out of shape” to “I’m at least not actively embarrassed of my out of shapeness” is where you have to decide to do it, and risk putting forth effort. Good news: it WILL WORK. Just do it (whatever it is) consistently and you’ll move out of the the “out of shape” zone. And once you are out of that zone, maintaining that baseline of fitness is super simple: just do some fitness thing most days of the week.
Here’s a thing I read on facebook and shared and it was shared a bunch:
being in shape is hard. being out of shape is hard. choose your hard.
Seriously, it really is that easy.
It’s your choice. Don’t blame time, don’t blame your family, don’t blame your job. Except for legit disabilities you have no excuse. No excuse to at least be above “out of shape”.
Seriously, you need to do some sort of exercise most days of the week and you need 30 minutes, and it doesn’t even have to be 30 minutes continuous. Got five minutes? Try the following:
-do some pushups with your hands on something that is high enough so you can do some pushups.
-walk briskly for however long you have available to walk briskly.
-sit down and stand up in a chair for a while
-do some lunges around wherever you are and wanna do some lunges.
-pick something up, bend over and row it towards your ribs a bunch of times.
All you have to do is find 6 times in the day where you have 5 minutes. Do that for a month and I’d put up a lot of money that you have moved into the “not out of shape” zone.
Watch TV? Instead of a drinking game, make an exercise game. Every time the character does the thing they do you do some sort of exercise.
People have a hard time with comprehension these days. Let me try and make some comparisons….
-there is a lot of room between “out of shape” and “crossfit competitor / triathlete / bodybuilder / some sort of pinnacle of exercise person”
-there is a lot of grey between white and black
-there is a lot of fun between no adult beverages and blacking out
-there is a lot of food between no added sugar and eat all the cake
All I’m saying is you should not be in the “out of shape” zone.
Ok, seriously, you cannot allow yourself to continue to be extra work for your family and for society.
BA training. 