So you have finally become active on a regular basis. Congratulations! As we know, it takes 21 days to develop a new habit and 21 months to develop a new lifestyle. So here you are, well into your lifestyle of living actively. Your days may be filled with parking farther away at the mall, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, getting up 20 minutes earlier to go for a walk and walking 20 minutes at lunch, a boot camp class at the local gym…etc. You have learned a new lifestyle through much hard work and personal introspection. Throughout this process, you have discovered new and exciting things about yourself. What a life to celebrate!
Then the unthinkable happens. You get injured. Ugh. It happens to the best of us. Right when you are beginning to buy smaller skinny jeans, an injury appears out of nowhere. Assuming you have gone to a medical professional to take care of any acute issues, the question most commonly asked is, “how can I work out? How can I maintain my activity level while I heal?” There is an underlying fear that you will spiral down back to where you were before you started your active living journey.
This does not have to be you. There is no law stating that you will end up back at square one. You have worked too hard to allow that to happen. Look at this as an opportunity to be creative with your exercise activities.
Find a different activity. You may not be able to walk, for example, for a period of several weeks. Look at some alternative activities. Can you ride a stationary bike? How about checking into some sort of water exercise? Swimming or water aerobics? How about trying an elliptical trainer? Or yoga? How you chose to view a setback determines how you will overcome it.
From a behavioral standpoint, once you get to the maintenance phase of the change process and the behavior of exercise is ingrained into your lifestyle, invariably there will be situations that come along to throw us off our regular schedule. It’s called life! If you find that you have stopped being as active as you like, for whatever reason, all is not lost. It is normal to encounter challenges and setbacks. Learn to be flexible, creative and inventive. This is the part of exercise behavior that no one tells you about; that is an active life is in a constant state of change and through our thoughtful attitude, we can bend with it and create activities that get us through rough spots.