by BLAKE PIESCHKE, CSU Public Relations Intern
During the first years of my fitness life, I centralized my life around the gym and fitness and often skipped out on going out with friends. I also worried about skipping the gym, even if I really didn’t want to go. I spent too much time worrying about the negatives and never lived an enjoyable and balanced life.
My biggest mistake I made is that I would choose the gym over doing any activity that caused an inconvenience to the time I would go to the gym or something like eating out that would affect the progress I had made.
Over time, I missed out on possible chances for great memories, building relationships with other people and potential dates with girls. I really had to look back at my life when I saw social media posts and memes that seemed to “attack” me and perfectly described my life.
If you remember when I talked about Eugene Teo, he was one of the main people that influenced me of how I needed to change. He went through the same experiences and decided to choose enjoyment over fitness.
One of my favorites memories on his Instagram was someone asking about how to manage fast food in a dieting lifestyle. His response was ” If you want that f’n burger, go eat that f’n burger” and that has changed my overall philosophy on eating out.
I eat out more than I did in the past, but now I am more knowledgeable about how to counteract the excess calories. I started to treat calories during the week like a paycheck. If I used most of my weekly calories on one day, I would budget accordingly and consume lesser calories during the week without starving myself to accommodate and do more cardio at the gym.
Choosing to stay in and not go out is something I still do often, but have definitely improved on. I always like going to the gym early in the morning, since it is the time I enjoy the most and works the best for me. This often causes me to choose going to bed at 9 p.m. over going out with my roommates or my girlfriend and her friends.
Between having a job that starts at 5 a.m. and being a morning person at the gym, I have definitely become less of a night owl. This is still a working progress for me and still trying to get better at it.
Overall, my biggest misconception was the idea that if I missed a workout, I would be missing out on progress. This mindset led me to go to the gym in a very fatigued state, made lifting unenjoyable and caused me to miss out on other activities.
I would leave halfway through a workout because I just didn’t have it in me. Then I would feel even worse about myself because I left without doing much.
With more experience and knowledge, I learned that it is always a good idea to lessen the amount of time you spend at the gym. Taking a day off or having an easy day makes me come back more passionately.
If, on a given day, you feel like going to the gym is a chore, then you shouldn’t go. You should spend the day relaxing. It’s amazing how excited I get for the gym the next day after a day off.
Lately, I’ve been incorporating one or two days a week to skip the gym. It causes me to appreciate life and enjoy the gym more and more as the months go by. It keeps that burning fire inside me going strong.
Overall, a balanced life between your daily lifestyle and the gym should be the goal in a fitness lifestyle. If you centralize the gym above all things in your life, I strongly encourage you to reflect on your life.
We are here to live life to the fullest potential and the greatest amount of enjoyment possible. So go have that burger and kick back and relax from the gym.
Blake Pieschke is a CSU Public Relations Intern and a senior studying Mass Media at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Blake is from Glencoe, MN and has a passion for sports, fitness, and the outdoors. He plans on pursuing a career in sports journalism when his college career is over.
