A few days ago, I decided it was time for me to get my “summer body” back. Seeing as I have no knowledge or experience in the world of health and fitness, I figured that I’d need to do at least five hours of exercise a week to achieve this. I don’t quite remember my rationale which led me to decide that I needed five hours; it may have been because I had about around five plates of food, so five hours a week seemed logical to me.

But the thought of going to the gym after school every day doesn’t some appealing at all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for running in place surrounded by bodybuilders as I watch the latest pop music video, but only on the weekend. So I tried it out.

I made it a full two days before I lost interest completely. But instead of paying money to go to a gym and surround myself by buff guys who make you feel bad about yourself, I decided to go biking around the neighborhood. I forgot that my neighborhood is full of hills, which assisted in my loss of motivation exponentially.

After my short lived three-mile bike adventure, I moved on to the next method, swimming. But there is only so much you can do in a pool of water five feet deep.  After going back in forth a couple times and doing a cannonball every few minutes, I got bored. So clearly fifteen minutes in a pool is not a feasible exercise regime, especially if my goal is to accumulate five hours per week. I even contemplated running, but running isn’t really something I enjoy.

After my efforts, I’ve learned that being “healthy” doesn’t just happen, it comes after persistence and hard work. But it’s not just fitness that comes after hard work, almost anything worth having comes through hard work. Very rarely does something fantastic just appear out of nowhere. But I’m still not motivated enough to work out.