Simplify, Don’t Over-Complicate!

Photo by MarathonFoto

Welcome back! You’ve survived the first blog and now you’re back for another. If you’re here for the first time, check out the first entry “Welcome!” as it’ll help explain a lot. 

Step one in the journey, get uncomplicated! Let me explain.

For me, balance and success in many aspects of life is fairly straight forward, it doesn’t need to be complicated and complicated will help push you to quit. You’ll hear me talk lots about simplifying and not over-complicating things. Generally, that’s where we fail ourselves and each other, we over-complicate everything to the point of thinking and believing “what’s the point, I can’t do that”. We quit easily because we set ourselves up for failure by being unrealistic with our expectations. 

Fully cutting out food you enjoy, changing your lifestyle, or trying to compare your progress to that individual on instagram whose career is CEO of Exercising, these are all ways to lose your interest in going any further. I’ve tried, tested, tried again while managing to fail each and every time along the way. This goes with most things in life, but I’ll focus on healthy living here and you can cross reference the message to other aspects of your world.

Here is one example of over-complicating things, there are many examples which I will dive deeper into in the weeks to come.

When’s the best time to exercise? Anytime between the hours of 12:00am and 11:59pm. That’s right, ANYTIME. 
You might read a study that says the morning, your friend might say the evening, a personal trainer might say midday. Don’t over-complicate things or over think it, find out what works for your life or schedule and do it then. If you’re not a morning person I’d say don’t try working out in the morning, you’ll hate it and it’ll be easy for you to quit. If your dog needs to be let out after work at the exact same time, don’t go to the gym after work. If you do your best work or reading in the evening, don’t exercise then. Making such a drastic change is too much and too far away from your norm and reality, don’t over-complicate it. I’ve gone full circle with this, failing all along the way but was adaptable and made whatever change work for me, my family, and all my adult duties.

In another blog I’ll tell you about the goal I set in 2017 and failed at, it’s a wonderful story of failure but I learned a lot from it. What I’ll tell you now is around the time of day I exercise and one of the nightmares of over-complicating workouts. 

My daughter was 3 years old at the time, just began sleeping normally through the night and waking up pretty consistently around 6:30am. I decided I would set my alarm and start going down to the basement to get some exercise in before she wakes and real life kicks in for the day. Well, cause that’s the time most tell you to do it “Go to bed early, get 8 hours of sleep, and wake up early to start your day with a good workout” Guess again ‘dad’! Barely a week into it, like most children, she changes her routine. Now she’s awake earlier, disrupting the time I’d set for this, and actually woke mid-workout a couple times crying. Never doing that again! Try to control an out-of-control toddler while you’re huffing and puffing and drenched in sweat....good times.

With this curveball it would have been easy to quit entirely and go back to the easier route. Wanting to balance off being focused on my family in the morning and early evenings, my career during the day, and being exhausted by 8:30 at night, I decided after bedtime during that ‘exhausted’ time was my only real option. When you’re tired, feet are up, end of the day, flipping on Netflix or a game seems easier, grabbing a beer seems so desirable, and your child is finally asleep after the 10th time going into the room. It was tough at first, may not have been the best decision based on experts and for getting to sleep early, but it worked for me so I didn’t worry about what I might read in regards to the topic. Don’t over-complicate, find the time and get it done. It might be evening one day and morning a few days later, midday on Saturday or Sunday, really doesn’t matter. 

Another example of over-complicating.

What foods should I cut out? None. Cut down on some but entirely cutting out on some is complicating the whole thing. Think of where you were before, laying on the couch eating chips and drinking a beer, now you’re moving your body and burning stuff off so you’ve earned the indulgence. What you’ll begin to see is once you start exercising more you’ll crave and desire those things less, but don’t entirely cut them out as that train will be back around and it’ll hit you hard when it returns. You’ll begin to naturally want to moderate, if not that’s ok cause you’re moving around and that’s better than before. I eat and drink what I want, often have a beer after work while making dinner but will exercise later that evening. 

If it seems like too big of a swing of the pendulum from where you were before, don’t do it as it’s too complicated. 
Make fitness and healthy living part of our life, don't make your life part of fitness and healthy living.
Simplify life by not over-complicating things, your body and mind can only handle so much change at once. 

I didn’t wake up and decide to run a marathon that day, I gave myself 11 weeks and started with targeting 10kms, next time out was 11kms, then 12kms, then 15kms. It should be as simple as one small change at a time, many of the changes come naturally over time but you need to start somewhere.