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A lot of people, it seems, ask themselves that question, and that’s precisely what I found myself asking this time last year. I knew I wasn’t happy with either my physique or my general health and fitness levels, and I was pretty sure I was going to need a trainer to help motivate me and provide structure before I joined a gym last January. Answering the question really wasn’t that hard for me, especially since I had done some strength and conditioning work in high school, and I knew there were benefits to exercise. Here are some reflections on my fitness journey last year, and I’ll note up front too that, as I transition from DC to Nashville, I’m already shopping for a new local gym because my experience was so great in 2013.

“Is It Worth It?”

This was a question I wrestled with, and the one I hear/see people asking the most. I suppose the most fair answer to this is “maybe.” What are you willing to pay to achieve your goals? Take a step back from that secondary question, and try to define what your goals are. For me, I wanted to be slimmer and not lose my breath walking up flights of stairs. I wanted to eat better and have more consistent energy levels throughout the day. I wanted less emotional stress and more self-esteem. I was willing to both (a) pay money and (b) sacrifice leisure time to acquire all those things. But every individual should think hard about their goals, the value proposition they will receive from various fitness outlets and offerings, and what their priorities are for their limited resources. Bear in mind that most gym memberships are price-competitive, but trainers’ hourly rates are (a) more volatile across geographic areas, (b) depend on whether they’re gym employees (like mine was), (c) their relative levels of expertise, etc. Once you figure out what your goals are, shop around and see what combination of gym + trainer + whatever else gets you to those goals (nutritionist? spiritual adviser? other?) in a budget (money + time) friendly way. The money and time I spent in 2013 were totally “worth it” to me, so much so that I’m building a program for 2014.

The Hardest Part Is Consistency/Accountability

I didn’t get out of shape by accident, and I’m not still sort of out of shape by accident, either. Years of bad habits led me to the physical, mental, and emotional breaking points of deciding to join a gym and hire a personal trainer, so the development of good habits have been paramount to my success. That means I don’t get to eat more dessert just because I had a salad for lunch or a diet soft drink with meal meal. It means I have to consistently try to eat healthy foods. In fact, in times when I have missed workouts this year for extended periods, my diet has been pretty consistent, and it has paid dividends in my continued physical development. So don’t shrug off the importance of daily small changes! It also means that I don’t get to eat more crap just because I went 20 minutes longer in the gym on a given day than I did on other days. One way to think about this is to use the ridiculous juice cleanse fad as a backdrop: sure, there might be some health benefits to doing this, but most people only do cleanses once every year or 6 months. Would you go to the gym once a year or 6 months and call yourself healthy or fit? Of course you wouldn’t. You’ll need to devote consistent energy and effort to doing a little bit of work every day before you see any meaningful, lasting, appreciable benefit to what you do to get in shape.

Diet and nutrition advice abound online and in fitness circles, so find a plan that works for you and stick with it. Calorie counting mobile apps helped me be accountable to a diet regimen more than once, but ultimately I found that, as long as I was eating 2g of protein for every kg of bodyweight per day, I didn’t have a lot of room left over for unnecessary sugars and fats because I was simply too full to eat anymore. In other words, at 200-210 lbs. (91-95 kg) bodyweight, eating 182-190g of protein a day was my target in 2013. I had no frame of reference for what ~200g of protein looked like before trying this — but to give you an idea, two 5 oz. chicken breasts, a cup of steamed broccoli, and a Pillsbury biscuit (a typical 2013 dinner for me) contains about 65g of protein. So I would’ve had to eat that 3x per day to get into my ideal protein range. That’s a lot of chicken!

Different accountability mechanisms work differently for different people. I set up a Tumblr blog last year that, in retrospect, kept me talking about my fitness with people in my social networks. It gave me a platform to keep things light with my training and an outlet to talk about the mental and emotional challenges that come with sticking with a program. Ultimately, it wasn’t the writing and publishing that kept me accountable so much as it was talking publicly and privately with people in my life about my fitness efforts. Other people pay money to political organizations they hate when they miss a training day. Sticks work well for some, but carrots work better for me, which is a nice segue into my next point.

Diet and Exercise Should Never Be Viewed as Punishment

Yeah, you’ve got to be a little tough on yourself to get started. But if you’re unhappy with your health, fitness, and physique already, why would you try to make yourself more unhappy? Becoming fit and healthy is a way to take care of yourself. It’s a way to celebrate you and the organic matter you call your body. Working out and eating right are about treating yourself well, not about doing penance for sins committed long ago. As such, it’s important to occasionally reward yourself with rest, or consumption indulgences. I rest at least one day per week from the gym, and I take about a week off every three months. I also try to have a “cheat meal” once a week or every other week. Sometimes I go completely nuts and have a 24 oz. milkshake, and other times, I try to eat a really big steak with some vegetables, as opposed to a smaller steak.

But aside from feel-good vibes I think everyone should have when undertaking a fitness journey, there are serious physical health risks associated with being too hard on oneself. Being mentally and emotionally hypercritical can propel someone to lift harder or longer than is safe, or to attempt to undertake activities that pose some risk. I beat up on myself a bit back in October for missing a week or two at the gym, in part because I really believe in the value of being consistent. As a result, I went into the gym one day and tried to deadlift close to my PR without focusing on proper form, or adding appropriate amounts of weight at appropriate intervals. Later in the workout, I couldn’t complete a single set of squats because I had injured my right knee. Be serious about your working out, but cut yourself a little slack. If you miss a few days a row in the gym, just kiss them goodbye (because they’re not coming back, trust me), and get back in and do it. Just don’t overdo it.

The Second Hardest Part Is Simply Starting

If you’re going to join a gym, don’t wait to do it. Go sign up. Stop reading this, and do it now. Nobody is going to do it for you. Join the gym, make your first payment, book your first personal training session, and show up. You’re not going to do it right the first time. That’s okay. It’s more important that you start as soon as you can, if you’re going to do it, than anything else, because just starting is how the development of good habits…uh…begins. If you make a new year’s resolution to join a gym, but allow procrastination to take over, you’re going to experience constant disappointment, which will contribute to a downward spiral of probably already bad feelings about where you might be with your health and fitness. So just go! The Nike people knew what they were up to when they came up with their “Just do it” slogan, no matter how critical Macklemore & Ryan Lewis might be…

Get Ready for a Flood of Unsolicited Advice

WordPress tells me this blog post has crested 1,800 words, and that’s a picture-perfect data point to explain what I mean. People who have worked out and dieted, and who have seen the results of doing both, are really excited about their results, and they can’t wait to tell someone else about it. I used to hate blog posts, Facebook statuses, and tweets that talked about personal records being broken until I set some goals and beat them handily. I did stuff in 2013 I never thought I’d do. Squat more than my bodyweight? Deadlift half of what Hugh Jackman can deadlift? Pshaw, yeah right… until they both happened. The feeling I got out of those events, and a general desire to be helpful to other people, is why people like me write effusive blog posts like this, and why all the people I talked to about my fitness in 2013 offered up volumes of diet and exercise advice to me. Nearly all of it was helpful, but I tried to limit myself to two main points of influence: my trainer, and someone who trained me when I was in high school.

The rest I tried to take in lumps as it came, because it got overwhelming, not least because the more dedicated souls in fitness are Type As with supreme confidence in their own methods and approaches (including, admittedly, yours truly). So take this, and everything in this blog post, with a grain of salt: if you’re comfortable with the results you get, just keep doing what you’re doing. If you’re not, try something different. If you seek the counsel of others, which I would advise if you are new to working out or dieting, don’t be shy about listening to just one or two people. This is your body, and you shouldn’t trust it to just anyone. This is about making you happy, not validating the experience of everyone who came before you. Most fitness equipment will recommend that you visit with your primary care physician before undertaking an exercise program. I admittedly did not do this in 2013, and I have been lucky in seeing only improvements to my health and well being.

Rack Your Weights

There’s a lot of gym etiquette you’re going to pick up as you go, but nothing will earn you the scorn of other gym-goers and trainers more quickly than being a slob. Be respectful of the equipment other people have to share with you and the space in which you share it. Don’t leave the gym like you’d leave your house, and if you’d leave your house a mess, I suggest starting to clean and straighten that up regularly, too. Keeping a clean and organized home has done wonders for my mental balance (I don’t know how that works, only that it does), and keeping the gym organized is good practice for the rest of my life.

Good luck, if you dare, and if you want to share your travels along the fitness path with me, I’m happy to hear about what works and doesn’t work for you.

Image via Wikimedia Commons