Why Quitting the Gym May Be Your Healthiest New Year's Resolution Ever

The all-or-nothing mindset is a deal killer when it comes to your health and wellness goals. And yet so many of us become victim to it - particularly at this time of year, when New Year's Resolutioning abounds.

We're either following a workout program religiously, or doing nothing. On a diet, or on the couch drinking wine and noshing on chips. Abstaining, or binging.

I have to admit that I fell into the trap of all-or-nothing thinking in 2017 when it came to my own fitness regimen. Heck, I fell into this trap when it came to writing my blog.

Since last February, as I have struggled to settle into working mamahood, I have been monumentally challenged by the juggling act that this lifestyle entails, and between daycare drop-offs and pick-ups, notorious DC traffic, jam-packed workdays, shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundering, tending to my 19-month old, trying to maintain 2 households, studying for a pre- and post-natal coaching certification, and too infrequently catching up with friends and family, I let my workouts take a major backseat. Like a seat in the far back row of a large bus.

As someone who spent the past 2 decades working out almost daily, I finally understood the plight of so many others who proclaim that they "don't have time to exercise."

Unable to fit in one of my "normal" (translation: pre-baby) workout sessions, which may have consisted of thrice weekly, hour-long CrossFit classes, 60+ minutes lifting weights and doing high-intensity interval training (HIIT) at the gym, or a 3-hour, Saturday long run followed by a brunch with friends, I resigned more often than not to do nothing. Because if I couldn't do the "perfect" workout, I wasn't going to workout at all.

(Or if I couldn't find the time to write the "perfect" blog post, I wasn't going to write anything. Hence, my extended 2017 blogging sabbatical.)

One of the biggest problems I see with most New Year's Resolutions, and with most popular health, fitness and nutrition programs on the market today, is their ability to encourage what appears to be our natural propensity to have an all-or-nothing mindset when it comes to fitness and food. They prescribe detailed plans that often require significant time, planning, equipment, obscure ingredients and expensive supplements.

Yet, whether you work full-time, parent full-time, do both or something in between, most of us are already overburdened, overstressed, overscheduled and overwhelmed, and we don't have time for long workouts or complicated recipes, which may explain why the vast majority of us (an estimated 92%) fail on our New Year's Resolutions.

As I reflect on 2017, I realize that the all-or-nothing mindset resulted in me having a beyond disappointing year when it came to my overall wellness, causing me to feel a lot of guilt - guilt about not working out, about not being a healthy role model for my daughter or my many followers, about my loss of muscle tone and energy, about not living like the person I aspire to be.

Perhaps some of you can relate.

And probably the source of guilt that magnified this all-or-nothing mindset the most for me was the fact that all year I paid top dollar for a gym membership that I rarely used.

Just about every week I made plans to go to the gym. And just about every week, when my schedule got in the way of me going, I subconsciously told myself that if I could not get in my "perfect," planned gym workout, then I would do nothing. And nothing is what I did more days than not since my maternity leave ended last February and I returned to the working world.

Don't get me wrong. Gym memberships and intense, short-term fitness and nutrition programs certainly play a role in the fitness industry, but not for everyone, not for every day, not for every season of life, and certainly not as a sustainable, lifelong option for most of us.

The subject of my girl crush.

Borrowing a phrase from the great Oprah Winfrey (I love me some Oprah...), "what I know for sure" is that in between the deep, dark black of never working out and the pure snow white of spending hours at the gym every week, exists a beautiful shade of gray in which the vast majority of us will spend the vast majority of our lives.

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​I once read that when Audrey Hepburn was asked how she maintained such a happy disposition after suffering from a childhood in Europe plagued with war and hunger, she responded that she never had high expectations for life, so she was always pleasantly surprised by what happened to her rather than tragically disappointed.

Also girl crush-worthy.

In essence, Ms. Hepburn suggested that the key to happiness is effective expectation management. And perhaps effective expectation management is also the first step in creating a sustainable fitness and nutrition routine as well.

With these insights, I've decided to set a New Year's Resolution to cancel my gym membership in 2018, because realistically, I'm going to spend a lot of money on something I no longer have the time to enjoy. I need to dump the guilt that paralyzed me in 2017, accept the season of life I'm in and its limitations, and manage my expectations of what a workout looks like in this season, which more likely means a 15-minute kettlebell swing session held in the tiny living room of my apartment while my daughter naps than an intense, hour-long barbell session at the gym, which is a 15-minute drive from home.

If you have a gym membership and any of this resonates with you, I encourage you to ditch the all-or-nothing mindset, dump your membership, and start feeling better about yourself and the season of life you're in right now. And if you don't have a gym membership, but your health has suffered from perfectionist thinking, I encourage you to reevaluate your expectations as well. 

You have a much better chance of achieving your health and fitness goals if you create a realistic and doable plan that you can follow consistently, taking advantage of the little golden nuggets of free space that might appear on your calendar on any given day, than if you sporadically try to follow a time-consuming program that does not fit into your daily reality. You can build a home gym for less money than a few months' gym dues, and you can do an effective, full-body workout in less time than it would take to drive to the gym. And I am here to help you figure out how to do this.

Over the next few months, I'll be sharing on social media my tips and tricks for building your home gym and creating an at-home fitness routine that works for even the busiest individuals. I encourage you to click on the links above to subscribe to this blog and Like/Follow bells & peppers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., so that you don't miss out on important postings, updates and Live events. 

In the meantime, post a Comment below or email or direct message me if you have any questions about fitness, nutrition, or saying sayonara to that all-or-nothing thinking once and for all, so that you can start feeling better about yourself and pursuing a healthier and happier lifestyle in 2018.

Until next time, be healthy and happy (and Happy New Year!),
​Kathleen