I love to work out. If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you know that I generally squeeze in a workout daily. I lead an intentionally busy, very scheduled life and still take 60 to 90 minutes from my day, every day, to give myself a mental health break and keep my body and heart fit.
Why do I do I work out?
1. I am better able to deal with stress when I work out. Believe it or not, running Bramble Berry is not all puppy dogs and fun batches of soap. There can be times of intense stress. Physically moving my body and forcing myself to take a break improves my ability to handle stress.Want more information on how excercise reduces stress? There’s a comprehensive article about it here.
2. When I keep promises to myself, I am better able to keep promises to others. Each and every time I keep my promises to myself, I increase my willpower muscle. Did you know that willpower is a muscle? It strengthens and weakens with use or disuse. You can increase your self-regulatory muscle by working at it. Wouldn’t you like to be able to resist that chocolate cupcake? You can do it more easily if you’ve worked out your self-discipline muscle by working out consistently. Want more information about willpower? Here are two articles about it – one – two.
3. Exercise will help me live a longer life with better quality. A study showed that frequent exercise allowed you to live 12.7 extra healthy years of life (study here). I will be able to easy chase after grandchildren when I’m 70 if I keep up my exercise routine and God-willing, live disability free until I’m 80ish. While the idea of 80 is far off for me, I always begin everything with the end in mind (a la Covey) and my goal is to design my life *now* to live, disability-free, to 80 and beyond. More information on living to 80 and beyond and the link to exercise here.
4. Exercise increases energy. It’s a proven fact. My days and weeks are hectic feats of herculean balancing acts and frequently last 12 hours or longer for active thinking and work. If I work out daily, I am able to more easily handle the long days and knock it out of the park on shorter days. More information on exercise and how it fights fatigue here.
5. Exercise helps me fit into clothes I like. Eating a healthy diet helps with that too but on average, I can eat an extra 300 to 400 calories per day because I work out. That, my friends, is one cupcake or two glasses of wine. Or, if you’re trying to lose weight, that, my friends, is 1 pound every 10 days if you keep within your calorie guidelines.
Do you work out? Why do you work out? I’d love to hear what you do for fun workouts. I’m planning to do another blog post this week on how to stay motivated for the daily effort it takes to fit workouts in.
