💬Discussion post: Your fitness difficulty setting

What mode are you on?

Body Type is a newsletter about bodies — how people move in them, nourish them, think about them, and talk about them, for better or worse. I write essays and cultural criticism about that, plus service journalism-y guides to body stuff, like this one about protein:

🥩Protein: All you need to know to grow

I also send out occasional discussion posts like this one, which encourage you to take to the comments to discuss the topic. This is a space for paid subscribers, which you can become for less than $1/week if you upgrade to an annual subscription now. Thanks so much for the support!

Back when I changed a lot about my life and habits and people could tell — I got help for my binge eating disorder, I started working out, I lost a lot of weight, I got muscular, I was a better hang because I was happier — I’d constantly get the question, “How did you do it?”

It wasn’t until a couple of years after I did it that I really understood how: I was playing the fitness and health game on Easy Mode. By that I mean:

• I had a full-time job with benefits that gave me access to eating disorder therapy

• I lived directly across the street from a gym that cost $10 per month, and an affordable grocery store

• I could easily bike to work, so I did, and walked everywhere in my incredibly walkable city

• I didn’t have kids or anyone dependent on me for anything, and had a flexible work schedule

• I had a partner who had been lifting for years, so he essentially became my free trainer and accountability/motivation coach

• Eventually I moved to another walkable city (one of those “Fittest Cities in America,” actually, in a neighborhood with a 99% Walk Score), into a building with a gym in it

• I became a certified group fitness instructor, so I got paid to exercise at another gym (also across the street)

• I had lots of free time to sit around watching YouTube videos and reading books about exercise, and was genuinely interested in it

• I started doing all this when I was 26 years old

How did I change my entire body and lifestyle, you ask? Pretty easily, actually. I was young, energetic, and supported in every possible way. I had few responsibilities outside of work and enough money and time. Most of all, I had a personality inclined toward these changes — it’s easier to change how you eat and move when you generally find cooking and exercise interesting and fun.

That’s not to say I didn’t have to work hard, or that there weren’t moments of struggle. Of course I did, of course there were. It was much easier for me to do that work, though, and surge through that struggle, because I had numerous privileges and a relatively carefree life. Do you need to have things as easy as I did to get into a fitness routine or change your lifestyle? Absolutely not, but if your life is generally harder you’ll probably have a harder time than I did, just as I probably had a harder time than a celebrity with a private chef and trainer who comes to their home gym. We’re all playing this game on different modes, and our modes can change across our lifetimes.

I’ve been thinking about that lately, as the difficulty setting on my health and fitness game shifted into Hard(er) Mode over the past couple of years. I got older, I got busier, aging family members started to need help, I had health-related issues that threw my routines into disarray. It became harder to work around obligations, even if they were positive ones — I am elated that I have the chance to write a book, but it requires Ass in Chair and Brain Engaged more than ever, so there have been plenty of skipped workout days. I don’t feel bad about that in a moral sense (I’m not a bad person for not working out as I used to) but I started to feel physically bad because that’s how it works; if you don’t take care of your body, it feels bad.

Could I have maintained my prior cadence of workouts and level of focus on healthy routines despite these challenges? Yeah, probably. I could have found the time and motivation somewhere if I really tried. But you know, when you’re hit with the hat trick of a global pandemic plus your father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis plus your own infertility, sleep apnea, and ADHD diagnoses within the space of three years, maybe you deal with those by clinging even harder to your health routines or maybe you deal with them by avoidantly burying yourself in computer-based, sedentary work and the comforts of Neapolitan pizza and stiff Old Fashioneds. Maybe you lose sight of your best self for a while because she’s just too hard to find through the fog of life’s misfortunes and you’re just so, so tired. I wouldn’t blame you one bit.

I can feel the gears of my fitness and health life sliding back toward Eas(ier) Mode because I reduced my full-time job hours to part-time for the next six months while I finish the book (another privilege, that my company allows me to do this and I can take the temporary financial hit because I live in a DINK household). I have mornings free to workout and write without having to get up at 4:30 a.m. But what if you don’t? What if you could only fit it in — workouts, meal prep, habit change, etc. — if you sacrificed sleep, socializing, and sanity? I’d say you’re playing the game on Hard(er) Mode.

You shouldn’t throw in the towel on the whole enterprise, but you should be honest with yourself about what you’re realistically able to do and work to accept the outcomes without beating yourself up too much. If your life circumstances are diametrically opposed to my bulleted list up there, maybe you do a 15-minute YouTube workout twice a week after the kids are in bed and call it a day. Chalk it up to Hard Mode and get on with your life without shame. Easier said than done, but I’m writing this as a means of giving you permission. Sometimes you just need to see someone say it.

I truly believe that almost everyone can get some exercise in, somewhere, some way, somehow, but it will be harder for some people to do that than others. Fitness influencers, especially those in their 20s, love to act like this isn’t the case. I can say, as someone for whom it was very easy: Fuck them. It is the case. They’ll understand one day.

All this to say: your mode affects your abilities and behaviors. Your mode can shift and change over the years or even over the months or weeks. We might not be able to change our modes, but we can at least be aware of them. If you take stock of your mode and are honest with yourself, you can see which obstacles are reasons and which are excuses (I think we all have both). Realizing you’re on Extra Hard Mode can help you give yourself a break about why it’s all so frustrating and illuminate where and how you can do something. Realizing you’re on Easy Mode can be a wake-up call that you don’t face as many obstacles as you thought.

Now, I ask you:

What mode are you playing the fitness and health game on right now? How long have you been on this mode? Were you ever on a different one? What changed? What would have to change now for your mode to get easier, if it’s hard?