The Single Hardest Thing About Getting Fit After 50

What would you say is the hardest thing about getting fit after 50?

Chances are if you’re reading this you’ve got intentions about getting fit after 50.

I just returned from the gym. It was 5:45 pm, on a Monday, in January.

Actually, whatever you just imagined, it wasn’t quite that bad! There were parking spaces and really it was kind of quiet in the weight room and cardio area. Must have been the warm weather today that allowed Coloradans outside.

Yet, this time of night isn’t without some bumping into big young guys in the weight room anywhere in America.

I don’t wear ear buds & ipods at the gym so it’s hard not to overhear. That’s so much kinder than saying I was eavesdropping. Two college-age guys were excitedly chatting about a business plan and an app they’ve got in the works, well at least the idea stage right now.

Had I not wanted to rat on myself, and the fact I was totally listening, I would have injected a comment. I didn’t. I did smile ear to ear though, thinking what a funny comment.

“The hardest thing is deciding,” one said. “It’s committing. I feel like that day is the hardest day. Once you do that everything is easy.”

LMAO on the hip sled as they were bench-pressing mirror muscles, I thought, we’ll see.

See, I believe THAT day is the EASIEST day! It’s every day that follows that is hard.

Whether you’re talking about a business plan, a project, a marriage, or having a baby or … your getting fit the easiest day is deciding, signing up for the program, setting the New Year’s intention (or whatever you fondly call them), declaring I’m in for good out loud to the universe and maybe God and everyone you know… that’s easy.

Honeymoon period.

Then there is the follow through on the commitment …

… when the alarm goes off at 4am (and it’s dark and it’s warm under the covers)

… when your spouse does something that really makes you angry or hurts your feelings

… when the cuddly bundle of joy you had is projectile vomiting across the room for the first time or has colic and you can’t stop it

… when it’s intimidating to walk into a new gym, new weight room

… when you don’t like the way you look and feel in your exercise clothes let alone the way you feel hot and sweaty

… when you have to travel for work and plan ahead how to order at restaurants and bring healthy food in your suitcase

… when you don’t like what your trainer has planned and you throw every possible obstacle out there for why you can’t do it

… when you’re full of excuses and it’s really not about the program, the trainer, but it’s about you doubting you

… when you want to believe that anyone who is getting fit after 50 must have a luxurious life with maids, and trainers, and no laundry to do and more hours in the day than you … but even you know that’s false.

That’s my observation about the hardest day on the journey to getting fit after 50. It’s every one after that first day you jubilantly declare your optimistic future dreams. Those days when you have to roll up your sleeves, not because it’s always about manual labor or hard work… but because it is about changing your habits and your mindset about the way it was going to be.

You are stubborn; a creature of habit. So am I.

Habit gravity is like the devil.

When you’re committed you’ve decided everything is “figuroutable” and even if the GPS you thought you were setting isn’t going to get you there, you do the U-turn and keep going.That is darn frustrating, right? To realize in the hurried state we’re always in that you’ve been driving in the stinking wrong direction?

So it is if you’re “eating healthy” or exercise hard every day and can’t lose a pound of weight. Not necessarily  the right answer and usually the dead end for a woman whose started peri-menopause or is over 50.

Every day that you drop a little of your resistance to the plan that is right and you trust that process instead of giving into that devil-like resistance keeping you from what you want, that’s a good day.

When you recognize that you have resistance before you sabotage yourself with resistance again, that’s a good day.

If you want some support reducing your resistance and getting fit after 50 click here. If you have more than 20 pounds to lose, click here instead – for my course specifically designed for fat burning, for women, over 50 based on science, and over 30 years of primary research working with midlife and older women.