Martin Breault

I feel good…

Ambiguous title is ambiguous…

If you’ve been following my older blogs, you know I have a problem with breaking up my sedentary lifestyle. It is a hard thing to do. Even if you were once an athlete that, because of work, developed a more sedentary lifestyle, it is still a hard thing to do. Even harder if, like me, you never really developed any exercising habits. It’s hard to make time for exercise when it was never in your daily/weekly routine to begin with.

For years I would start exercising with the best intentions for my health only to give up weeks later. Two years ago, I was really proud of myself. I went out for daily walks (most days, anyway) and kept this for months until I hiked up a mountain. I stopped exercising that year right after. This got me thinking: Why did I keep it up for so long that year, while last year I only did it for a week or two?

I could only figure out of one thing. One element that felt just a bit absurd… that year, I brought my GPSr with me every time I went out on a walk or hike. I constantly had data like distance and average speed. Is it possible that I need to see this information for me to realize how important it is?

A week ago, I decided to test this theory. Now that I have a smartphone, I decided to get a sport-tracking app (Endomondo) and went out the door on a walk. It wasn’t a long walk, but enough to start. Throughout the week, every time I felt like going out to take a walk, I started Endomondo and went out… this is where it started feeling weird: I was motivated to go out to take a walk. When I knew the next morning was going to be sunny, I’d go to bed thinking “I can’t wait to go walking tomorrow morning.”… I never had these thoughts before!

It is amazing. I look forward to my next walks or hikes. I set myself some goals, some distant as challenges and some on a much shorter-term where I plan out more challenging routes every once in a while. I can see my average pace for each workout, the distance, the time. I sometimes see myself pushing to have a better pacing than the day before. I never felt like this before.

The first week is positive so far. I’m optimist that I will keep this up. I’ve already done a lot more than I thought I would by the end of the first week. 

The “positive” goes beyond having a surprising amount of motivation. I’m already feeling the benefits on my mid-back, I feel a lot more solid on my feet, I feel more awake throughout the day, and so on. 

Here’s hoping that I really stick to it this time!