Easing into Fitness.

When I started my first job out of law school, I suddenly realized I had so much time on my hands. Yes, I worked 9 to 5, but it was steady work with weekends free. Completely different than law school, where I had an unpredictable schedule of classes, studying, meetings, etc.; plus, I didn’t have to block off huge chunks of my time to commit to studying for finals. Life after law school felt so much more unrestricted-it was great!

However, I quickly realized that if I wasn’t careful, then I would be wasting hours watching t.v. and eating mindlessly. Instead, I decided that I finally was going to commit to a healthier lifestyle.

It wasn’t easy because I didn’t feel confident exercising outside the home; didn’t have any gyms near me anyway; and had no clue where to start. So I gradually started doing some exercises available on Netflix, and then stumbled upon the idea of affixing a trainer to a bike to create a super affordable stationary bike. Biking, along with much healthier eating, led to a thirty pound weight loss.

But more than weight loss, I was really happy to have placed myself on a healthier path because I knew I was actively avoiding diabetes and heart disease. And instead of just feeling more confident in how I looked, I actually felt better-I went from an inactive lifestyle to running my first 5k, something I didn’t even think I could do when I first started exercising.

Once we start working steady hours, it’s easy to feel like we’re always busy (especially if we do have to work late hours or on weekends to finish a case), but I challenge all of us to embrace the gift of routine that steady work tends to give us, and incorporate fitness into our schedule.

For those that haven’t always made fitness a priority–how can we ease it into our life?

One. Start slow with a singular focus. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking I’m going to workout seven days a week and only eat clean/paleo/vegan/diet de jour. However, adding a lot of new challenges to your plate is almost a guarantee that you’ll fail. It will just overwhelm you. Instead, it’s much more realistic to start slow at one thing. Don’t half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing. For me, I committed to biking 4 days a week for 30 minutes, without worrying about everything else. Once I got into the rhythm of biking, I looked for new challenges and added cleaner eating/strength training to the mix. But I’m sure I would not have been as successful if I had tried to do all things at once.

Two. Schedule your workout. Plan your week ahead and include exercise in your schedule. Figure out if there will be any events that may require that you tweak your schedule so that you don’t suddenly make exercise a non-priority. When I first started out, I was consistent in biking each night at 9:30pm, but on days I knew I couldn’t make it, I would try to schedule a workout in the morning or during the weekend. Writing it down in my schedule made it a real event that I felt I had to do rather than just keeping a mental note of, “maybe I should workout today.”

Three. Do it for your heart health. Sometimes (often) I convince myself to skip a workout because I’m not focusing on weight loss, but that is the wrong way to look at fitness. Instead, even if you’re not trying to lose weight, you should still ensure you’re exercising regularly in order to build up your heart health. The easiest way to do this is to increase your cardio-whether you start jogging, walking, or jumping rope (all great cardio options)-getting into the habit of getting your cardio in will make a huge impact on your health. Bonus: focusing first on cardio, will also build up your endurance so that you can move on to other harder activities. So even on days when you just don’t feel like it-remember the big picture of your long-term health to help you get back into the habit.