3431: The Simplest Guide to Fitness You Will Ever Read by Mike Donghia with Becoming Minimalist on Fitness Fundamentals

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[00:00:30] This is Optimal Health Daily, the Simplest Guide to Fitness You Will Ever Read by Mike Donghia with BecomingMinimalist.com and I'm Dr. Neal Malik. Hey there, happy Sunday and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily where I simply read to you from the best health and fitness blogs for free. This is kind of like an audio book but with articles instead and articles from a bunch of different authors and always with permission from the sites. Now on Fridays, that's when I answer your questions.

[00:00:58] Remember, you can send in a question by going to oldpodcast.com slash ask or email your question directly to health at oldpodcast.com. Alright and with that, let's hear today's article and continue optimizing your life. The Simplest Guide to Fitness You Will Ever Read by Mike Donghia with BecomingMinimalist.com

[00:01:27] I used to be a gym rat back in my early college days. In the spring semester of my sophomore year, I worked hard in the weight room and put on nearly 20 pounds of muscle. It was fun while it lasted during that particular season of my life. These days, however, I'm more interested in staying fit and having fun and creating lifelong habits that keep me active. I don't really care about getting big or breaking personal records for the bench press.

[00:01:54] I don't keep a logbook of my workouts or measure progress from one week to the next. It's not that these things are bad. I've just found that I don't need them anymore. I found a way that works better for me. A simpler, more enjoyable approach to staying fit. The Problem with Exercise For many people, the word exercise carries bad connotations. Words like boredom, drudgery, painful and exhausting come to mind.

[00:02:22] And because exercise feels like such a chore, we stop doing it. And bad habits are formed that lead to years and years of sedentary living. And it's a darn shame that we feel this way. Because staying fit can actually be a ton of fun. So what's the problem? The problem is that we don't play anymore. Instead of having fun with our bodies, we're doing the same old exercises day in and day out.

[00:02:48] Push-ups, sit-ups, bench press, squats, and so on. But if you'd watch kids playing in a backyard for any length of time, you'll realize that we don't need to do all of these things to stay healthy and strong. What we really need is a playful spirit. A fun solution. Now, I'm not convinced that everything in life should be a breeze or that we should always run away from hard work. But when you're trying to create a lifelong habit that literally means the difference between life and death,

[00:03:18] the first priority should be making a habit that sticks. I read about too many people dying of heart disease and weight-related diseases to believe that willpower alone is enough to get people moving. At its core, exercise has to be something fun and creative. Something that's enjoyable and doesn't feel like a chore. It has to be more like play and less like a continuation of our jobs. Here are just a few ways I like to stay active these days.

[00:03:48] Digging massive holes at the beach. Walking to the library to get books. Playing touch football and ultimate frisbee with friends. Trail running with my wife. Climbing just about anything that looks fun to climb. Biking to explore new places. And pull-up and push-up competitions against friends. Of course, almost any of these activities can feel like real exercise if you let them. Running can become a chore and so can biking.

[00:04:17] The thing is, I rarely set goals or expectations when I do these things. My mindset is more about being playful and quenching my curiosity for life. It's a mindset I've cultivated over time by slowly letting go of my need to control every single thing. I fully realize that your list will look different than mine. What's fun for me may not be fun for you. But that's exactly the point. We are all unique individuals with different definitions of fun.

[00:04:46] And one-size-fits-all exercise routines that miss that point often fail. How to make the fitness habit stick. Instead of worrying about my body weight or appearance, I focus on being childlike and staying active. And that means not setting time limits or distance quotas to meet. That takes the fun out of it. I just run when I want to run. Climb when I want to climb. And play when I feel like playing. It's the simplest approach to fitness I've ever tried.

[00:05:16] But it works. It works because it makes being active and having fun an end in itself. Instead of doing exercise as a means to lose weight or build muscle, I'm doing it because I love it. And that's a habit that's hard to break. You just listened to the post titled, The Simplest Guide to Fitness You Will Ever Read, by Mike Donghia, with becomingminimalist.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary.

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[00:07:10] Fresh cuisine that feels rooted in the land. Come experience the kind of stillness that stays with you long after you leave. Plan your Scottish escape today at Expedia dot com slash Visit Scotland. Dr. Neal Malik here with my commentary. There are actually studies that have looked at how our views of physical activity change from childhood to adulthood. Now, I am the type that likes to set goals, I like the gym environment,

[00:07:39] I like tracking my progress, and all of those things. For me, that's fun. But if that's not fun for you, then you might need to revert back to how you felt when you were a child about play and being active. When we look at some of these studies, we do see that by the time we're 18 or 19 years of age, physical activity becomes something that serves very specific functions. As we get older, we tend to see exercise and physical activity

[00:08:08] as something that should be limited to short periods of time. Not only that, but we tend to see exercise as an activity that's done alone, and, again, with the main goals of attaining optimal health and an ideal body shape. So given this, it's recommended we do exactly as today's author Mike talked about, change the way we think about physical activity as adults. We might need to go back to thinking of exercise not just as a functional activity,

[00:08:36] but something that's fun too. And to make it feel fun, we need to find activities we enjoy. And people to enjoy those activities with. And luckily, those can be relatively easy to find. We just might need to do a quick search on the web and find others with similar interests. So again, if the gym environment isn't for you and tracking your progress and setting those kinds of goals isn't your thing, that's okay. Instead, focus on finding activities

[00:09:05] that you think are fun and find others that also feel the same way. All right, that'll do it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here every day and sharing this show with someone. I hope you have a great rest of your weekend. And I'll be back here tomorrow as usual where your optimal life awaits. I'll be right back here and I'll start. I'll be right back here. Thank you.