FitnessIsKarma Staff Introduction: We all have this aspiration of being fit and just thinking about it will surely not help. To even begin with the comparison we have to ask ourselves 2 basic questions.
- Is your current lifestyle sedentary ?
- Do you have a fitness aspiration ?
And if answer of any of the 2 questions is YES. Then congratulations ! you are at the right place to learn more.
Now to understand our conundrum in more details lets deep dive in both the options –
Is working out a Hobby : There might be multiple level of influences that you are even considering fitness as HOBBY. You might be always good at sports to begin with but never got time to pursue it full time but make sure to keep it in your regime as much as possible, or you might be influenced by a family member or your role model and try to replicate what ever they do for their fitness. What ever might be the reason, good thing is this is something you already love doing make sure to keep it a very important personal time for yourself. Though chances of being regular to your workout regime is not very good but there are high chances that you will meet the weekly minimum WHO recommended hours of about 150 – 200 hours from your workout (type of workout regime doesn’t matter here). Now while you are doing this, chances are subconsciously you also ensure you are unitizing your leisure time as much as possible and this is also helping you being organized on day to day life. If you are doing this you are already above average and fitter then many people your age.
Is working out a Lifestyle: This kind of thing usually occurs if you are close to one of the extremes on the scale of your lifestyle being highly Sedentary to highly Active. I.e. either you have been very laid back despite having enough time or your Job is so demanding that you don’t even get 30-60 mins on daily basis to workout. But now, you have finally faced the fact that you were just giving yourself excuses to not workout and decided and already taking action as a rule; which is definitely commendable. Or you have engraved the DNA of fitness from such a young age that this just feel part of daily life that you just cant skip, similar to brushing your teeth. If you have noticed in both the examples depicts Fitness and workout as a strict thumb rule and any deviation from this daily goal always results in guilt and sleepless nights.
Now to address your conundrum which is better “Fitness as a Hobby or Lifestyle”: Answer to this is always very subjective as discussed in our examples from above, but important thing is “Just being consistent” in either of those. Now, you might not be having a goal of pro athlete of working out hours and hours every day, but being consistent with your workout regime and challenging yourself when you hit a plateau either physically or mentally is the key to continuity.
Its good to have it as Hobby but chances are your intent might get diluted with age due to your social responsibilities. And at the same time it is good to have it as a disciplined lifestyle but chances are it becoming mundane and eventually you loosing interest in doing it. Hence, its really important to strike a balance with both, if you are fed-up with your strength training, try a form of sports or learn basics of some martial arts to keep a steady interest in fitness. And if you are not regular with your fitness regime as you treating it as just an hobby, then challenge yourself for a 8-12 weeks strict diet and workout regime, I am sure you would love the process and result once you done.
Shaping Your Fitness Identity: You can easily decide your next fitness goals by asking yourself 3 basic questions
- Are you happy with your current lifestyle with no aspirations
- Will you be able to invest/are you already investing at least 150-200 mins weekly
- Can you make conscious decisions with your food habits.
Reflections: You don’t need to necessarily be rigid and be part of only one of it. It is important that you can reflect and conclude that what ever it was, you surely enjoyed the process. Sharing your fitness anecdotes will surely inspire another sole to hit this conundrum and probably land them to this page :P. Concept of fitness is ever evolving, right from healthy food to food supplements and all the way to even testosterone replacement procedures; but all that matters at the end is are you still in the GAME !!!
Conclusion: Just like any aspiration in your life, the most important part achieving that aspiration is taking that step and consistently improving on it, it may be a sport you like, the type of workout you like or sometime even being with likeminded group helps, but you need to take that step and make it very integral part of your Karma. Hope you like this post and I would love to see your preference out of two and looking forward to learn from your stories, experiences and tips of how to be in the game.
Also checkout my page on top motivation quotes to change your Karma and be very much present in this game called LIFE 🙂
