Working Out Sucks! (And Why It Doesn't Have To)

Why would I say something that might hurt my business? Because I'm tired of seeing marketing images of lean, glistening, uber-muscled "exertrons" flashing their bleachy white smiles as they work their asses into chiseled granite. You and I know the truth: For the average bear, working out is a chore whose popularity ranks somewhere behind window washing, gutter cleaning and dog poop scooping.

Actually, when it comes to health and wellness, we live in a unique, best-of-times/worst-of-times era. If you're a committed fitness enthusiast, you're well served by over thirty thousand commercial fitness centers in the United States—including YMCAs; women-only clubs; amenity-rich multipurpose centers; niche operations that focus on Pilates, yoga, or personal training; cheap clubs; expensive clubs; single-gender clubs; and 24/7 clubs. If you include the offerings in hotels, apartment buildings, high schools, and colleges, as well as employer-based facilities, home gyms, children's fitness franchises, stroller fitness for stay-at-home moms, businesses that focus on weight loss and nutrition, smartphone apps, infomercial products, and the tens of thousands of certified personal trainers—there's definitely an affordable fitness option to suit everyone.

But for most people who want to be healthy, these are the worst of times. Health-club options abound, but a tater tot is still way more accessible than a treadmill. A simple stop at the gas station is a full-court sensory assault of fresh bakery smells wafting amid aisles of candy bars and chips. Within minutes of work or home, dozens of fast-food brands offer cheap meals loaded with hundreds (if not thousands) of calories wrapped in overdoses of sodium and sugar. Restaurants compete in a portion-size nuclear arms race. And thanks to smartphone technology, you can now order a movie, get a large pizza with cheese-jammed crust, download a newspaper, walk your avatar dog, and talk to your friends and family without exercising anything more than your thumbs. Plus, we're just busier now. Texts, instant messaging, and social media have crept into every waking hour. And when you add the pressures of raising kids in a sports-obsessed, parents-need-to-be-involved-in-everything culture, we have little time or energy left for exercise.

That's the genesis of this book: to help the busy ones who hate working out. This is for the people who join a club and go only during the New Year's resolution crunch. The people who get an elliptical machine for Christmas and use it to hang their clothes. The people who get winded walking up a flight of stairs. Anyone who's scared, intimidated, uneducated, unmotivated, or just plain lazy. Or who lacks the genetic blessings to be lean, fit, or coordinated. (I'll be the first to sympathize with those of you born with the "fat gene." I don't care what those meathead trainers say; many people are born with almost no chance to be a hard body with single-digit body fat and six-pack abs.)

But this book isn't about fitting into a teeny bikini or having a tree-trunk neck. It's about living an outrageously fun and fully engaged life—to be in a position where your physical condition makes your life better, instead of limiting it. In short, it's about being as good as your body was born to be.

What makes me an expert? Am I an experienced fitness trainer? Do I hold a doctorate degree in nutrition? No. But I've been a personal witness to human discipline, motivation, and procrastination in the fitness industry in every region of the country. At the age of twenty, I started my career as a part-time membership salesperson at a fitness club while I attended the local college. Within a few months, I was having a blast working in the club and making a better income than most guys my age. When I was twenty-one, two friends and I started a marketing company that traveled the country and helped club owners generate new memberships. For the next six years, I spent nine to ten months working in different fitness centers around the United States and generating thousands of new memberships. This type of travel—and constantly opening a "new business" (a new membership campaign) every two months in a different city—was perfect training to become an entrepreneur. I had to be resourceful, creative, driven, flexible, and responsive while getting along with people of all ages, shapes, genders, races, religions, and incomes.

Over the last twenty-three years, I've witnessed many new offerings that encourage people to commit to a healthier lifestyle. From StairMaster equipment to water aerobics to thirty-minute circuit training to pole dancing—the barrage of new equipment and cleverly branded workout programs by bulging-biceped gurus will never stop. But motivation doesn't start in the health club; it starts in the mind. And that's where I come in.

In my career, I've probably heard more lazy excuses and flat-out lies than anyone else on the planet. But it's funny, even as the fitness industry has changed, the excuses haven't. Twenty years ago, the three most common reasons for not joining a club were these:

But this book isn't here to convince you to join a club. Really, it's not. Obviously, if you do decide to go that route, I hope you choose Anytime Fitness. But I just want you to be active. To be healthier. To make your world and our world a better place.

The fact is, I don't think of this as a book. It's a deprogramming effort. Along with fat, salt, and sugar, we're all filled with tons of misinformation—and we've treated this issue with kid gloves for too long. I want Working Out Sucks to shock you into recognition, hit you on an emotional level, and dispel the biggest health myths you've been fed over the years. I'm not going to fill this book with gloom-and-doom statistics, clinical explanations, and arcane scientific studies. Instead, you'll find a practical 21-day program for getting on the path to change, you'll read success stories from people who've done what you want to do, and you'll be challenged to make this the last health and fitness book you'll ever buy.

If this effort succeeds, you'll go from wanting to be healthy to wanting to get healthy—and you'll get off your bulbous rump to do something about it. After I slap you upside your head with a supersized dose of motivation (my specialty), Rebecca DeRossett, MSW, LICSW, a marriage, family and behavior-change therapist in Stillwater, Minnesota, will address the unique emotional issues associated with health and wellness. (Health is so often associated with the body, but the real key to success is using the brain to unlock motivation and overcome fear.) Then, Brian Zehetner, MS, RD, CSSD, CSCS, a registered dietitian and a conditioning specialist in Woodbury, Minnesota, will provide a commonsense approach that takes the mystery and intimidation out of fitness and nutrition. I've collaborated with experts because, like you, I also seek outside help to reach my personal fitness and nutrition goals.

So this is it. The journey starts here. If you don't mind a get-real approach to health, then turn the page and begin to treat your life—your full emotional, spiritual, soulful and physical life—seriously. If that doesn't sound good, or you're too sensitive or easily offended, then put this book down, take out your smartphone, and click on the "order a pizza" app.

It's your choice.

Those were the words heard by my parents in January 1982. My older brother, Steve, was facing heart transplant surgery at the age of seventeen. It's sad to think of any teenager in this situation, but in my brother's case, he could be considered lucky. He was born with a tiny hole in his heart, a condition that prevented the heart from keeping up with his body's circulatory demands—especially during strenuous activities. Shortly after he was born, the doctors didn't think he would live past the age of five.

But Steve had irrepressible resolve, some inexplicable good fortune, and the care of brilliant personnel along the way. Although he was three-and-a-half years older than I was, he was physically weaker. He wasn't strong, and his endurance would be taxed fairly quickly in any athletic event. His condition prevented him from participating in organized sports, but it didn't stop him from playing neighborhood games with his sister, brothers, and friends.

My brother was compassionate toward other kids and patients with physical limitations, and he shunned pity. If he took his shirt off, you could see two massive scars on his chest. One long scar ran down the center of his chest. The other ran horizontally from the front of his ribs and around the side of his body. The scars looked like two sets of railroad tracks on a very skinny body—evidence of two previous open-heart surgeries. After a while, Steve learned to take his shirt off and enjoy life without being self-conscious—despite the constant questions, teasing, and staring.

Steve enjoyed swimming, being outdoors, hiking, and playing football with his younger brother in the park near our home. He would get annoyed at himself for running out of breath and slowing down the games. But after he caught his wind, he'd go right back to them. Steve was robbed of the ability to play without limitations. He had to think twice about every physical action, and it must have been difficult to always be the last kid picked in most games. (Although when I was captain, I always picked him first.)

As Steve got older, his heart began to wear out. The defective organ could not circulate blood effectively, his extremities often grew cold, and his breathing during any strenuous activity—even for a short time—became almost immediately labored. As his situation deteriorated, the medical experts determined that my brother's heart was bound to give out. A heart transplant was the only way to keep him alive.

That brings us back to the fifty-fifty conversation. Can you imagine a coin flip determining your life—or a one-in-two chance of ever seeing your son, daughter, brother, or sister again? That morning in the hospital, just hours before surgery, our family spent our last moments with my brother. What do you say in this situation? Steve had spent countless nights in the hospital and had become accustomed to the heightened emotions. While we cried and hugged each other, he artfully injected humor into conversations, defused the gloom, and refused to succumb to self-pity. We all did our best to be optimistic, to fool ourselves into knowing for certain that we would see him alive later that day. We hoped and prayed, but we didn't know which side of the coin Steve would get.

My brother died on the operating table, surrounded by a brilliant medical team that did everything they could to save him. Although I've summarized his story in a few hundred words, my brother's death has left a void that is still felt thirty years later by me, my younger brother, my older sister, and my mom and dad. Although Steve was the one born with a hole in his heart, he left a hole in ours. But here's the question: Was my brother lucky or unlucky? If you ask the doctors, they'll say he was lucky. Remember, they didn't predict that he would live past the age of five. But he was fortunate enough to experience almost eighteen years of life. My brother would have agreed with them.

Still, I hope none of you are holding out for it. Remember Olestra? It was a fat substitute that added no fat, calories, or cholesterol to products, and it had been used in the preparation of traditionally high-fat foods. Everyone was excited at the thought of eating endless potato chips, french fries, and other junk food with no consequences—except for a few side effects, like, um . . . diarrhea. (Not surprisingly, Olestra didn't last long. Consumers wouldn't trade eating a bag of Olestra chips for six trips to the bathroom.)

There's no denying that we live in a pill-obsessed society. And don't get me wrong: I'm not trivializing the necessity of pills or their effectiveness in helping people who have serious conditions. But I've also seen the power of exercise as medicine, and clinical evidence supports the idea that regular exercise lifts mood, increases happiness, decreases stress, and boosts confidence and self-worth.

How we feel about ourselves physically is undeniably important, and this personal appraisal critically influences our conscious choices and subconscious actions every day. Consider this scenario: What if everyone were simply healthier? What if an entire community of individuals experienced a prolonged boost in self-esteem? People with healthy self-esteem get better grades, commit fewer crimes, are less prone to addictions, and have a higher degree of social confidence. ¹ And studies have shown that people with high self-esteem report being happier, healthier, and wealthier—and list more close relationships with friends and family members than do people with low self-esteem.

Look at this from another perspective. Listed below is a rap sheet on some of the challenging societal issues that cause pain, conflict, and societal decay:

What do all of these issues have in common? In many cases, they originate from low self-esteem. Or, if there's a biological or neurological vulnerability (which has been linked to alcoholism and obesity), psychological deficiencies may develop secondarily. Either way, it's safe to presume that when you look at this list, low self-esteem is both a cause and a result—a vicious circle if there ever was one. So, what happens as an entire generation becomes unhealthier? Considering the list of issues above, how does that manifest into poor decisions or overall societal decay?

Am I suggesting that low self-esteem (being emotionally unhealthy) coupled with being physically unhealthy is one of the primary issues affecting our society? Yes. Am I also suggesting that for many people, regular physical exercise may be the magic pill that could make an individual—and a society—a healthier and better place to live in? Ditto.

Sounds crazy, right? In reality, you wouldn't hesitate to give them your money. But when it comes to fitness, why do so many people list money as one of their top reasons for not getting started?

Over the last twenty years, one of the most common I-can't-join-a-gym excuses is "it's too expensive" or "I can't afford it." That's a flimsy lie, and you know it. In today's culture of hyperconsumerism, spending money is our country's most popular sport. The word thrifty only exists in the rental car business and the Boy Scouts' honor code.¹

But you don't have to save or spend money; you simply have to reevaluate what's important to you. Over the years, I've asked thousands of people to rank their most important priorities in life. The top four answers are religion, family, work, and health. This is further supported by a 2010 Barna Group survey that listed Americans' top priorities as (in order of importance)"family, health, wealth, and faith." So most of us rate health as our life's second-highest priority—yet we spend nothing on it. Why?

Let's look at consumer-spending breakdown prepared by the federal government in 2009 (U.S. Department of Labor, "Consumer Expenditures," April 2009):

If you divide $49,639 by 365 days in a year, you find it takes the average American $136 a day to exist. Now, consider that an average health club membership is $39 a month, which is $1.30 a day. That's less than 1 percent of your monthly budget—and remember, you ranked health and fitness as your second-highest life priority. Don't you find it interesting that you (and many others) are not dedicating anything to your second-highest priority, and to take action, all you have to do is invest less than 1 percent of your monthly budget?

Time.