In preparing for tonight's coaching
lesson (reviewing the material I read last weekend), I've gotten
inspired to write down a few things I didn't think of when I wrote my
previous post Fri. night. We're covering motivational interviewing
(which I described briefly in another post but which we didn't cover
at the time, it was a little premature). I think my nutshell
description of it would be 'What is the reason for a particular
behavior change?' 'Why do you want to do it/ why is it important?'
It's about change talk, determining how ready people are to change,
and perhaps increasing their readiness. This afternoon I was thinking
about how I've brought myself to make certain changes in my life and
what motivated me to make them. Sometimes it's a matter of
dissatisfaction with the current state of things. I wasn't satisfied
with what I did for a living, so I went back to school for something
else. When it comes to physical habits (which constitute so much of
what people seek counseling or coaching for), sometimes it's
dissatisfaction with how you look or feel. Sometimes physical
symptoms/ailments or actual health problems serve as the trigger to
change (which I think are stronger/ more urgent motivators). I had
physical symptoms which may have resulted from my body control
issues, and they prompted me to go to doctors and attempt to make
changes. Sometimes necessity makes you change a habit unconsciously
or involuntarily. For example, my job demands didn't allow time for
certain rituals I used to do and it may have been for the better.
(Which leads to a side note about how being busy / challenged can
help certain problems in life that result from NOT being busy or
challenged).
I happened to listen to another
recorded coaching session as part of my lesson preparation. There
wasn't anything particularly extraordinary or different about it, but
after contemplating again and again how common the issue being
discussed was, I just had to blurt out my feelings on it. The issue
was feeling like one should exercise more. A lot of people feel they
should. There are guidelines for how much exercise people should get
(which you learn on like day one of majoring in exercise science).
Now here's my take. If you play a sport, you don't really need to
worry about it. The nice thing is that sports have a higher goal / aim besides the exercise
itself. (That is skill, excelling at it, etc). Exercise is just a
by-product. You happen to get it because it's built in. I used to
participate in a sport. Sadly, though, sports fall by the wayside for
many when they grow up because careers that are not professional
sport careers tend to take up a lot of time. What's the alternative?
There are people who don't play sports or even exercise for the sake
of exercise but who still manage to stay thin because of NEAT:
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. I learned about this in school.
It's basically expending energy by being busy with daily tasks (tasks
that don't involve continuous sitting). Even if you have a mostly
sedentary job but still take breaks throughout the day to run around
the parking lot / get your heart rate up a little, wouldn't you say
that it would allow you to stay at a healthy weight? (In addition to
coordinating your food intake to match what you're expending). That's
my idea of staying healthy. This so-called third option of setting
aside time to 'work out' that people talk about? They might think
they need to do that. Maybe some people do. Maybe for some people
it's hard to manage their daily energy balance without specifically
setting aside time to 'exercise.' But I'm just saying there are other
possibilities. Like eating right and having the bits of activity like
I was mentioning above. Has there been any conversation about this
anywhere? Because it's one I'd really like to participate in if I
could. (Or start, lol).
And then I could combine that
conversation with one about how being busy and challenged in life
with anything (whether it involves exercise or not) can make it
easier for you to stay healthy, period. Because if your mind is
engaged, your body is probably engaged in some way too. It's not
being passive the way it would be if you were bored. And if you
happen to be sitting but are still engaged with your mind, it's
probably gonna prompt you to want to take a break at some point to
increase your blood flow because that's what you'll naturally crave.
If you're being mindful, that is. Mindful of how you feel. That's
important.
