If you don't exercise regularly, you've got your reasons… and no doubt they're "good" reasons. Just in case you want a few more, here they are.
Life is meant to be enjoyed.
Statistics show that far more people avoid regular physical activity than those who participate, leading one to conclude that being sedentary must be a critical component of one's enjoyment of life.
To Aid in Your Continuing Enjoyment of a Sedentary Life, here are 10 Rock-Solid Reasons to Avoid Physical Exertion
1. Preserve Your Body
Be kind and gentle to your body and avoid stress.
When people lift weights or go for a walk or run, what happens? Their heart rate goes up, muscles are stressed, and tendons, ligaments, and joints are strained, which invariably promotes inflammation. That's their body's response to tissue damage. Yikes!
Therefore, simple logic would suggest avoiding exercise keeps you safe from these debilitating effects, and what could be safer than sitting on your couch and preserving your body from unnecessary wear and tear?
2. YOU are the Boss of You
You are the master, your body the servant. You don't take orders from a servant.
If you prefer sedentary activities and imbibing in your favourite indulgences, then your body will have to make the necessary adjustments. After all, our lifestyle choices are a fundamental human right!
3. You Have a Healthy, Body-Positivity Mindset
People who exercise regularly can develop body dysmorphic disorder – an unhealthy preoccupation with acquiring the "perfect" body, which can lead to phobia, obsession, and depression.
By avoiding the fitness craze and the mindless pursuit of a sculpted body, you've negated any chance of that happening to you.
Loving your body just as it is – now that's taking responsibility and ownership.
4. Managing Your Most Precious Resource - Time
Every person on this planet shares a 168-hour week. How you divvy it up is your call.
Take this couple, for example. For the last 50 years, they've spent roughly five hours a week marinating themselves in the misery of exercise.
What chumps. Do the math. That's thirteen thousand hours they'll never get back.
Clearly you've got better things to do with your time.
5. Avoid Weight Gain
Your doctor suggests you could lose some weight.
Admittedly, you could stand to lose some fat and fully intend to. This means avoiding exercise because everyone knows that the more you exercise the hungrier you get.
In fact, the latest science has proven that exercise is NOT an effective weight-loss technique.
Since movement isn't going to help you lose weight, it's best to get comfy, stay safe and Google some alternatives.
6. More Quality Time with Your Loved Ones
Family time is quality time. Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about a woman who was raising her kids on her own despite sharing the home with her husband, an endurance athlete who was obsessed with exercise.
Exercise addiction happens because the body produces endorphins, which are chemically similar to morphine. These feelings of euphoria can lead to addiction.
Common sense would suggest it's never a good idea to flirt with addictive substances. Besides lost family time that can never be replaced. Watching television together, conserving energy, and sharing joyful, stress-free activities is memorable, quality time that you and your family will always cherish.
7. Exercise Can Hurt the Heart
It's true! British researchers examined 12 runners and rowers, with an average age of 57, who had completed a total of 43 years of consistent training: 178 marathons, 65 ultramarathons, and 4 Ironman triathlons. Half of them showed signs of fibrosis—scarring of heart tissue.
But there's more!
Chronic exercisers are highly susceptible to a whole host of injuries and joint pain - no secret there. Look at them all wearing those elastic tensor bands; what else do you want to know?
Stress is behind almost all chronic diseases, and exercise is stressful. Who needs more stress in their life? Clearly, avoiding exercise is ultimately best for a heart heart.
8. Exercise Would Take Me Away from Being Productive and Saving for Retirement
Modern medicine can keep us alive despite our health.
Retirement isn't cheap. Living in a long-term care facility costs a shitload of money; it only makes sense to invest your time and energy in building your cash reserves ... just in case.
Who knows how long you can be kept alive!
9. Taking Control of Your Life
Choosing a sedentary lifestyle is perfectly natural. In fact, it's willful exercise that's unnatural!
If you doubt that, consider this: Would our hunter-gatherer ancestors have ever voluntarily gone for a walk or run? Not on your life! Due to eons of built-in survival programming, they were smart enough to know that they had to conserve energy, not burn it.
And you're no dummy, either. You march to your own drum. You don't get swept up in all that exercise hullabaloo. Besides, you feel pretty good. The only time you feel light-headed and breathless is when you must climb a set of stairs or exert yourself in some other way, which is clearly your body's way of telling you to take it easy.
10. A Lifetime of Sedentary Bliss. The Pot at the End of the Rainbow
Why take the stairs when there's an elevator? Never walk further than you have to, and drive around the parking lot until you can get to the closest spot. Why exert yourself when you don't have to? That's the beauty of our modern world; we can avoid so much unnecessary stress.
Life is short. It's meant to be enjoyed. Most people consider exercise a form of masochism; it's inconvenient, time-consuming, uncomfortable and boring.
On the other hand, look at the advantages of infirmity:
- You get prime parking and one of those stickers to put on your car's dashboard. Who wouldn't want that?
- You get priority seating at public events.
- When you get into one of those long-term care facilities you'll have people waiting on you hand and foot. Push a button, and people come running.
- Forget about jogging. Play your cards right, and you don't even have to walk. You can graduate to full-time sitting. You get one of those chairs with wheels. Even better, you'll probably get someone to push you where you need to go.
- When you can get into a care facility you'll truly live like royalty. You'll get someone to bath you, change your bed, and hell, if necessary, change you! What's not to like when you can have people wait on you hand and foot?
What’s Success to You?
Our lives are made up of years, months, weeks, and days. A “successful” life is the sum of many "successful years." A successful year is the compilation of a dozen successful months. A successful month results from four successful weeks, which in turn are seven successful days.
Therefore, if you can avoid physical exertion just for today, then a sedentary life will be yours one day at a time, all the days of your life.
Despite All these “Good” Reasons to Be Sedentary, Why Do So Many "Other" People Make Physical Activity a Regular Part of their Lives?
I used to think of physical activity and exercise as a major inconvenience at best and a mild form of torture at worst! But that all changed when I began a simple walking program more than thirty-five years ago. Today, I cannot imagine living without some form of daily physical activity. It’s one of the most enjoyable times of my day.
Being Physically Fit Pays Compound Dividends
I can do physical things today at 65 that I couldn’t do at 63! I’m not saying that to brag but rather to stress the point that we can improve our health at any age. Science has shown that people in their 90s can build muscle in just a few weeks with very basic resistance training.
How We View Physical Activity is All About Perspective
Your beliefs are your reality. People who avoid physical activity have a head-in-the-sand perspective about their health - their most precious possession; they simply refuse to think about it in hopes that things will take care of themselves.
However, deep down, they know that fitness is a critical part of health, and yet they just can’t seem to find the motivation. They adhere to the “sage” advice of Homer Simpson, who so “wisely” framed it; “Never do today what you can put off ‘till tomorrow.”
However, the great fallacy of this perspective is that physical activity is not a joyful experience; a belief that people who exercise regularly hate it as much as everyone else. The only reason they can push through it is that they’ve been endowed with an extra dollop of willpower that the rest of us don't have. That is so NOT true!
Exerise: The Great Misconception
People who exercise regularly do so because they love the feeling of exertion, vitality, and boundless energy. Sure, everyone will have days when they don’t feel like exercising, but prevent a fit person from exercising for a few days, and they’ll feel like a caged animal.
Sedentary people will never know the joy of vitality — having a body that responds to any physical desire; walking, running, lifting things, bending over, climbing a ladder, and tending to physical chores with effortless ease.
Contrary to popular belief, feeling listless, broken and unmotivated is not a natural part of aging. Sedentary people have no idea that they’re missing out on the greatest return of any investment imaginable. An investment in health pays dividends every day … for life, regardless of your age!
Your Health is on You. What You Do Today is ALL That Matters!
To maximally enjoy your life, you want your priorities in the right order.
If you live long enough, you’ll have regrets – but the ones that will haunt you are the ones where you had a choice. People who have lost their health no longer have that choice; don’t let that be you.
Your health is your most precious possession. You are the only person who will ever be held accountable for it. So treasure it, protect it, and guard it with your life… because it is your life.
