The Lazy Genius Podcast - #61: The Lazy Genius Exercise Routine

Episode Date: April 30, 2018

We need some reframing when it comes to exercise. If you love working out, you might not find this topic necessary. If you think working out is the worst, you're probably girding your loins against the incoming guilt. In The Lazy Genius Exercise Routine, you'll get zero guilt. In fact, I think you'll feel free to approach exercise in a way that makes sense without feeling like you have to look like an Olympian. Stuff Mentioned In the Episode: The Lazy Genius Loses Weight The Lazy Genius Cleans the House Download the transcript This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road, that's the Volkswagen Tiguan. Its sleek exterior makes a first impression you can't ignore. Step inside to find available full leather seats and wood accents. Under the hood, the available 201 turbocharged horsepower engine gives it a fun to drive edge. The refined Tiguan, you deserve more style. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SuvW, German engineered for all. Hey everybody. I'm Kendra and this is the lazy genius podcast. I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. This month we are focusing on routine. Those things we do most every day that help us get stuff done, feel like a person and not lose our minds. You're listening to the fourth and final episode in that series, The Lazy Genius Exercise Routine. I'm honestly a little bit nervous about this episode. Exercise can be a little bit loaded, I think, but

I hope we all end it feeling more empowered and free to live life the way we need to. So we're going to break down how we arrive at an exercise routine. As is often the case, we typically start with the wrong thing. What the exercise actually is. Today, that is the last thing. So let's walk through how to find a routine by looking at why you want to exercise, how it's best done in your life, when you're more likely to make it happen, and then we'll talk about what you can do.

Hopefully, by the end of this episode, you'll have a more grounded mindset in this area and treat yourself like you would a friend. So let's jump in. A lot of people define exercise as movement instead of exercise. You know, like it's movement. It's not exercise as a way to kind of make it more palatable. I'm not exercising. I'm just moving my body. I think that's a good shift actually. But without a good purpose behind why you're doing it, a change in language isn't enough. The first thing I want us to think about is exactly what this episode title says. Why do we want an exercise routine? That implies it's something regular, that it's something done on more days than not. I know that for me, exercise isn't something

I make room for on like a random day, much less every day, right? Like, that's how most of my life has been. So can we camp here on the idea of an exercise routine for a minute? If you're listening to this, if you chose this topic on Instagram when I was offering up routine, ideas, you know intuitively that moving your body every day or at least more days than not is important. And yet we often approach it like, I think it was Liz Lemon on 30 Rock who did literally 10 crunches and was mad that her stomach wasn't flat, you know? Or when Jim Gaffigan, he does that bit about exercise where he sees fit people in the gym and he gets mad at them and he thinks like, why are you here? You're already done. We see.

exercise as leading us to a destination, an end game of something. And that something probably is tied to our weight or body shape or how good we look in a swimsuit. Doing 10 crunches once isn't going to get us there. We know this. We know that we need to have an exercise routine. But we also don't put a lot of value on those ideas of like walking around the block every night after dinner or doing 10 push-ups during a TV commercial or whatever exercise hacks like pop into your mind. We know the small steps matter, but we don't value them when we do them. It's very strange. But I think I know why.

This is not revelatory. What I'm about to say, we know this, but I'm going to remind you again, we are exercising for the wrong reasons. I already said that we start with the wrong thing with the actual exercise. but we often don't dig down into the first thing, the why. Why is an exercise routine important? I think we've landed on the idea that exercise without routine is just a quick adrenaline high or a reason to get angry because we sweat for an hour for no real reason.

It's like kind of annoying. The whole thing, it feels a little bit twisty. And then we see women who do exercise regularly. They go to yoga three times a week or they do CrossFit or they do. run every morning at 6 a.m. Do you ever resent those women? Does it ever feel like they're rubbing their muscles in our faces? I am not too proud to admit that I've thought that before. We talked about this in the episode, The Lacey Genius Loses Weight, where I shared how frustrated I can get at skinny women and feel like they think they're better than me. Go listen to that episode, by the way,

if you're having it. It's the most popular episode on this podcast, buy a mile. So I will put the link in the show notes. My point, though, is that we have so much junk tied up with how we look. And don't we often see exercise as a way of getting to that place as a way of becoming that person that looks a certain way, right? It's the vehicle to that. I mean, why else will we exercise? And that's the question. Why do you want to exercise?

What reason would actually compel you to make movement part of your routine, of your daily, regular life? Is it to get skinny? I don't think that's going to work. Unless you are a supermodel who's like very livelihood depends on being 100 pounds. Slash until we can like divorce a person's weight from their value, that reason is a really slippery slope. Is it to feel more energy? That's an elusive reason, isn't it?

Like more energy compared to what? I once gave up sugar for I don't remember how long, but it was long enough to make me angry and depressed about it. Part of my frustration was that I was that I was. I was promised all this extra energy, and I honestly never felt it. That's not to say it wasn't there. Maybe I did have more energy than usual, but it doesn't feel quantifiable. It's hard to compare intangible bodily sensations weeks apart, at least for me.

So while more energy is a perfectly fine reason, if that's been your reason before and you're still not in an exercise routine, that could be why. It's just too elusive. There are lots of other reasons. maybe you like the emotional payoff of accomplishing something, a feeling strong. I have a friend who does CrossFit and she loves the feeling of doing something she never thought she could do before. Plus she gets a lot of relational affirmation from doing it in a community. There's a lot of emotional payoff there.

I get why a lot of people love CrossFit and exercise like it. But if you're doing CrossFit, you're probably not listening to this episode. Your routine's already there. What can be the reason for the rest of us? What can be our reason? Your reason might have already pops into your head, and if it moves you, move with a girl. I'm so glad. For the average person who knows that exercise is important, but just can't get the motivation

to make it happen. Here's a reason I want to present. It is a exercise, is a liturgical tending of the body that you've been given. Remember how in the episode, The Lazy Genius Cleans the House, we reframed cleaning the house to keeping the home, if we change our perspective from, oh, I've got to clean my house, to this is my home and I'm tending it and keeping it and making it ready for the next bit of life that's happening. Our motivation to sweep and wipe off counters is significantly different than before. The same is true of our bodies. I'm guessing that most folks listening to this believe that we

have this one body, but usually tending to it is last on the list for lots of research. reasons. But what if we change our mindset to one of tending? We're caretakers. Exercise is only bad when taken to an obsessive, harmful level, and I don't think that's a danger for someone trying to figure out a routine. So for right now, what if you decided to tend to your body? What if you stretched it? You allow its organs and muscles to move and strengthen. You gave it opportunities to get rid of stress and toxins and emotions that need a healthy place to land. Like, I kind of want to go exercise right now when I think about it that way. When we choose to see ourselves and our bodies as beautiful and important and worthy of tending,

things change. We're not exercising to get thin or get biceps or get a 26.2 sticker on our minivans. If you happen to thin it out and you get muscles and you find motivation, to finish a marathon, then all the high fives and all the land to you. Those are lovely consequences if they make you feel good. So, but so are the consequences of confidence and peace, calm, reverence, satisfaction after doing 10 more push-ups than you've ever done before in your life and recognizing that your body can offer gifts you've never let yourself receive before. So as we jump into the actual practical ways to fashion yourself an exercise routine. Remember this. Your body is worth

tending. It's tended like a garden. It's kept like a home. It's patiently filled and refilled with food day after day like your table. Give it that kind of worth. And the rest of what we talk about will feel really different. Okay, so practically, how do you create a routine? We'll start with how. How do you feel most satisfied with movement. Would you rather spend 20 minutes on something that makes you sweat? You know, like work super, super hard for a short amount of time. Do you need the community that comes from a class? Are you content with little bits of movement throughout the day? Like calf raises while you wash the dishes and squats while you brush your teeth, stuff like that? Those little movements, they feel useless if your goal is to look like Jennifer Garner. But if you're

thinking about those little movements in the context of like what parts of your body need tending, then they could be worth reconsidering. Like, does your back hurt? Do a few minutes of yoga. Are you feeling like your day has hit, like, peak frustration? Maybe a run after dinner needs to happen. Are you in a time of intense therapy where you're sifting and struggling through really difficult issues of abuse?

Maybe you enroll in kickboxing for three months to find your power and allow your body to physically process this new strength you found on the other side of your pain. Aw isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dacker Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Ultimately, how you do your exercise, it doesn't matter so much. As long as you remember two things. One, you need to move in a way that feels good.

It makes you happy. Not just when it's done, but maybe in the middle, too. Workouts that you only enjoy when you're done are, I feel like, are usually done by movie stars who need to look like an assassin in their next movie. And so they have to work hard, and then they're glad it's over. For regular folks like us, if you don't enjoy the movement, you'll do it a few times maybe, but it will likely never find its way into a routine. So one, move in a way that feels good that tends to what your body and soul need.

And then two, realize that how you move, it will change often. In times of intense stress, you might need a different exercise routine than you do in times of calm. You'll move in different ways when your kids are tiny and when they're teenagers. you'll move in different ways when you're 20, 30, 35, 42, your body and the life circumstances that affect your body will constantly change. So how you move will too. Hopefully that gives you some freedom and not being tied down to like a certain kind of movement for the rest of your life. I think we feel that struggle with commitment sometimes. So after you decide how your body best needs to move during this certain time of life and you choose a few options that would tend to it

well. It's time to think about when. When are you going to exercise? When are you going to move? There are the obvious questions of calendars and schedules. But first, think about the time of day that would care for your body best. Imagine if you started the day with a yoga practice or if you decided to walk the dog in the morning instead of your husband and you let him get the kids up. Do you think the rest of your day would benefit from that? Or maybe you need to detox at the end of the day. Your body needs to stretch or punch or get pushed to a limit to remind you of your own limits. It's all in what you need. I can't tell you exactly when to exercise or even how to do it regularly. What I will say is that starting and even staying small is worth it. And anything beyond a few

stretches before bed, like a Zumba class or a run three days a week, it's not going to be easy to fit in. If it was, you'd probably be doing it already. So don't expect that this exercise routine is going to come easily and magically find its way into your day. Like anything, you have to be intentional and purposeful. You have to decide that it's worthy enough to take up time. I believe that our bodies are, but it's still a new belief for me. I really understand the resistance of actually making this happen. In the episode, The Lazy Genius Morning Routine, and then in the blog post, the universal guide to life-giving routine. I shared how I committed to doing one downward dog pose a day, just the one pose. I knew I couldn't commit to a regular exercise routine like I thought I needed

because I had tried before and I failed many times. I have all the DVDs to prove it. But that one pose, it has grown and grown. That small step has blossomed into an active yoga practice. I practice yoga every day because I see how tending to my body by stretching it and inverting it and simply giving it space to be the priority is a huge benefit for the other areas in my life. Have I lost any weight? Nope. I have gone up a pants size in the last six months, just so you know. Do I have a better understanding of how my body feels in certain situations? Yep, I do. I can pinpoint tiny episodes of pain and breathe into them until they go away. I can sit on the floor with my sweet little Annie and read books and not feel like my hips are going to collapse,

was usually the case. It's making a difference in my daily life, but not in all in the way that we often attribute to exercise. I'm not skinnier. I'm not much stronger, I don't think. I'm still tired during the day, and I don't really necessarily have a ton more energy, but I feel better because I'm giving my body the liturgical routine care that I'd give to a tomato plant or a batch of bread dough. So if you feel overwhelmed by when you're actually going to do this exercise routine thing, start so small you can't not do it. Do a single squat. A single one. Before you sit down to watch TV at night, do a squat. Or do one squat and one pushup and one jumping jack. And that's it. It feels stupid. But if you're struggling to get over the hump of when to move to care for your body,

start so small that you cannot fail and build momentum. Maybe you won't, end up with a TV exercise routine of like 20 of each, you know, 20 squats, 20 bishops and 20 jimmy jams. But maybe you'll start to feel the benefit that tending to your body does for you, physically and emotionally. Then you'll feel more clear-headed and motivated about where to regularly put movement that you do love. Maybe you don't love squats, but maybe doing that one squat that grows into five, that grows

into 10 before bed, and you're like, you know what? I can do this. I can start small in an area that I actually do like. Run while your kids ride their bikes alongside you. Stretch while you listen to an audiobook. Go to a Zumba class once a week with a friend that you can never find time to hang out with. Tend to yourself. Tend to what matters to you.

Tend to how you physically move through the world. If you need to be alone, if you need to be with people, if it's better in the morning, it's better at night, like whatever it is. Okay, so I told you that we'd end with the what. The internet has a million workout plans for you. but I think those are for a result we don't need. Think about types of movement you actually enjoy. Walking, running, typical like cardio strength moves, like pushups and squats and stuff.

Dancing, stretching, climbing, riding a bicycle. When you can name two or three types of movement that you love and don't choose more than that to make this actually work, like then get oddly specific with how it's done with how those two things are done. So let's say you like to walk. Specifically, you want to walk outside in the woods with another person. Because it could be that while you say you like to walk, that's the kind of walk you actually love, which is why being motivated to walk on the treadmill, it just doesn't happen, doesn't feel the same, right? Or maybe you like to dance. Maybe that's your movement. And I'll get specific. Specifically, you like to dance as a family in the living room

after dinner and just act like a bunch of maniacs. Okay? Here's another one. You like Pilates, but your favorite way to experience Pilates is in an actual studio with all the equipment and a best friend by your side. And if you have oddly specific scenarios that cost money, take tiny small steps for now and then ask for like a club membership or a class pass

or a new bike for your birthday or something. You're playing a long game here. We need to tend to our bodies and show. them care until they stop working all together and how that looks it will continually change if you pay for three months of a more expensive class um like while you're finishing up your nursing degree because you really need to feel alive in your body while your brain is an overdrive remember that you're not paying that money for the rest of your life this is a season and it could be a worthwhile investment for a short time we can't um in our family we can't really fit in um kickboxing classes

which I love. We can't really fit them in our budget on a regular basis. Or, like, frankly, kind of the timing of the classes on a regular basis. They are either from 530 to 630, which is like when we eat exactly when we eat dinner, or 730 to 830, which is when I am putting my kids to bed. So, like, I'm missing either family dinner or, like, family bedtime ritual, which both are kind of a bummer. But I go in the summers. It's the summer of kickboxing. My kids are easier around bedtime. D dinners are easy. for my husband to handle when we can just turn on the grill. And it's just kind of a more relaxed time of year. Plus, the lack of structure in the summer isn't as great for my linear

brain. So summer is when I indulge in that type of movement. It's when I spend the money on kickboxing classes. And it's great. And then I stop in the fall. So be fluid. Be kind and hold your routine loosely because it will change before you know it. But it is also worth it to do it for a short time. So I think we can wrap up for today. And I realize that this is not like a, you know, like a beach body. Like here's what you're going to do. You're going to eat this. And you're going to, but that exists. You've seen all those things. You have seen how everyone else has told you to make an exercise routine. And it hasn't worked yet. So go through these steps. Think about why. Think about why. Think about how you want to move and the kind of movement that

makes you feel like you're taking care of yourself. Think about when that actually tends to your soul the best, you know, and then choose movement that you really love. Like you don't have to exercise the way everyone exercises. But if you remember nothing else from this episode, remember your why. Remember that tending to your body is a regular, ordinary practice with extraordinary benefits for your soul. You know the nitty-gritty. You watch Dr. Oz and Oprah like I did, but today, let's approach an exercise routine from a place of tending and take it to a place of worth. You're spending, you're worth spending time on and your pants size has nothing to do with it. It just doesn't. I'm on your team as you move forward, my friend. If you have any questions or

things you want to share, jump on Instagram with me this Thursday, May 3rd, around 1215, Eastern, and we'll talk live about this episode. I always post an actual Instagram photo on Thursday mornings for you to have a place to leave comments or questions if you can't make it to the live. So look for that. And I'm on Instagram, if you don't follow me there already, at the lazy genius. All right, let's do our lazy genius tip of the week. I'm going to make a plug for the dance party, you guys. Whether it's you or your kids, you and a spouse, or you in your living room with the curtains wide open or closed, consider making a dance party a regular part of your spiritual life care. I am not a dancer. I'm not great at it. I don't really ever do it at weddings because

I would really just much rather talk to people. That said, if I get specific about my love for dance, it is family dance parties. When we dance as a family or it's just me and Annie dancing around kitchen every morning after breakfast. Those have been some of the cheapest best things that we've added to our lives. Being a lazy genius, it means being a genius about the things that matter. And when you can check off laughing, movement, music, emotional adrenaline, and connection with the people around you in one activity, that is such a genius move. So have a dance party, man. Have a dance party. Again, we are, I mentioned this in the cleaning episode. We are really partial to can't stop the feeling, not Justin Timor Lake. But anything you love will totally do.

All right. Thanks for listening, guys. I value this community more than you know. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Bye. If you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life, it's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A-plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves.

Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.