I will write more about what it means to have exercise at the top of the priority list in another post. For now, let's talk about discernment.
A couple of days ago I posted about a particularly insidious barrier to prioritizing exercise for health: it can seem like a self-indulgence. For that reason, many folks who know the value of self-sacrifice forgo it.
It could be that we can't see that the struggle to prioritize exercise for health can be embraced as a form of sacrifice. It takes humility to ask for help; it takes selflessness, humility, and gratitude to give up or to de-emphasize our family's other commitments. It could also be because we prefer not to appear self-indulgent, prefer to tell ourselves we are being selfless by putting others first, when really we don't want to change. This last case trapped me for a long time.
But a large class of people---in my experience, mostly they are mothers---have a much more difficult struggle, because they are truly generous people with an acute awareness of their responsibilities to other people. They have good, not false, reasons that make it difficult to put their own physical health at a high priority. The needs of a newborn baby come first. The needs of several small children come first. A child with a disability. Or a tough. Getting the kids to piano and Scouts. Getting the homeschooling. A chance to let a hardworking spouse relax. Or aging parents to care for. A peaceful and lovely home. Or getting everyone to daily Mass. Being there for a close friend in trouble. Family meals prepared with care and enjoyed unrushed. Perhaps the pressure to bring in extra income. Or perhaps there is no other parent around, and everything's on you. Something going on right now (isn't there always?) and now isn't a good time. Maybe next month. Maybe next year.
If that's you, it's tough, because in truth, you might be right. Any one of those reasons, and innumerable others, might lead you to prudently decide that exercise can't be your highest priority right now. Maybe your health is actually pretty good overall, you're not at serious risk of any health problems, you get a decent amount of physical activity just trying to take care of all the stuff you need to do. Maybe for you it really would be self-indulgent to get some exercise. Maybe so. It takes real discernment to decide if it's time to give personal exercise its turn at the top of your priority list.
Because if you hope induced exercise will become a habit---and so sustain itself in times when you can't prioritize it as highly---make no mistake, it has to have a good long turn at the top of your priority list. It's just not realistic to expect otherwise.
(Exercise is a habit for me now. I fit it easily into my schedule. It isn't my top priority anymore because it doesn't have to be---if I have to miss a workout, it doesn't mean I'm sliding out of control or giving up. But that never came until our family spent a whole year with "Erin gets two workouts a week" at the top, and I mean the top, of our family's priorities.)
The proper point of view, when it comes to "getting what you need" vs. self-sacrifice, is service of the vocation. I assume most of my readers are married with children. It is right and good to get what you need to enable you to live out the duties of your vocation, for the whole length of your life.
A working man who has to support his family needs to eat enough good food, and take care of himself well enough, to be able to perform his job. Right? And since he has a responsibility to his wife and children, it's a virtue for him to take care of his body with prudence and temperance, that he may live a long life if he can. Right?
The same is true for Mom.
Long-term thinking is appropriate here. If you become disabled through a preventable illness---I am always thinking of Type II diabetes, which runs in my family---it puts that much more pressure on everybody else. (See the "aging parents" up there in the list of responsibilities?) And this is not to get into that culture-of-death "I-don't-want-to-be-a-burden" language. It's just to point out that a family works together to carry the load in a lot of different ways. One of the ways you can help later is by taking care of yourself responsibly now. Be there for your children, so you can support them as they find their own vocation and begin to live it. Be there for your grandchildren. Prudence.
* * *
When is it a good time to give personal exercise its turn at the top of the priority list?
When is it a good time to quit the habit of inactivity and start a new habit of giving yourself what your body needs to thrive?
"Sedentary lifestyle" is a major risk factor for excess deaths in the U.S. In 1986 it ranked third, behind cigarette smoking and obesity (and one would guess that sedentary lifestyle is also a risk factor for obesity!)
If you had the habit of cigarette smoking, rather than the habit of inactivity, when would it be a good time to quit smoking?
Even if quitting smoking made you irritable and hard to live with? Even if going to meetings and reading motivational literature and seeing your doctor took time away from your family? Even if the process of kicking the habit made you a Bad Mother while it was going on?
* * *
I can't tell you whether now is the right time for you to put personal exercise at the top of the priority list. But I would like to give you permission to consider it strongly possible that this is something you ought to do, not just for yourself, but for everyone who relies on you. That it's something you ought to do so that you can live out your vocation to the best of your abilities.
If you do prioritize exercise at the top of your list, even though you have a tremendous amount of real responsibility to other people, how do you embrace exercise as a sacrifice?
Simple.
Your sacrifice becomes pure self-discipline.
You make it really count.
You take the precious time allotted for your exercise, or for planning for exercise or traveling to exercise, and you don't waste it.
You stick to the commitment you've made.
You concentrate on building the habit, so it can become self-sustaining.
You offer it up.
You do it in love.
Your posts on weight loss and exercise are very helpful. I just worked up the nerve or I should say the humility to ask my husband with help in the area of exercise. I asked if he would mind taking care of our five month old daughter while I got up early and walked outside. And after many attempts at diets I am just broken and frustrated. I am going try eating less with an emphasis on healthy foods. No more measuring and obsessing over the food. God bless You for sharing your experience. As a busy mom with many children I sometimes forget that I need to take care of myself if I am to care properly for my family.
Posted by: Kathy | 27 March 2010 at 10:39 PM
It does take humility to ask for help, doesn't it? I found it was very difficult to see it that way, but I did eventually.
Of course, it means that I don't get to take all the credit for the results... but then, we never really do, do we?
Posted by: bearing | 28 March 2010 at 09:44 AM