Exercising for the Fun of It: Games Slim and Fit People Play

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with exercise for a long time. For years, I sweated my butt off just to lose weight. From my early teen years to my late 20’s, I thought of exercise as a necessary evil that I had to endure in order to tame my thighs. During my 30’s and early 40’s, I even fooled myself into thinking that I loved exercise because I was spending two hours in the gym every day. Maybe I did love doing that. Who knows? But I do know that more is not actually better. Now looking back in retrospect, I realize that kind of thinking cost me a lot of injuries which only created tons of negative associations around exercise for me.

Since I began Intuitive Eating about 18 months ago, I decided to toss out exercise along with diets. I was tired of pounding my body into the ground and living to exercise. Over the past few months, I realize that it’s time to welcome back activity again and in order for it to stay and become a preference rather than a chore, I needed to start thinking differently about exercise and see it from a more useful perspective. In NLP, this is known as “reframing.”

Recently one of the women in my forum asked me to help her get motivated to be more active. After reading her note, I had to admit to myself that I was faced with the same frustrations and was still on the path to finding the answer for both of us.

In the book, Games Slim and Fit People Play: Winning the Slim and Fit Game by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D, Hall, a second generation co developer of NLP, discusses what is meant by a frame and explains how the way that we think or ‘play the game’ influences our unconscious habits and choices.

See if you can recognize some of your thoughts in these frame game statements.

"Why does exercise have to be so hard?" Game
"I’m getting too old for this" Game
"I don’t think exercise is really all that important" Game
"I just don’t have time for it" Game
"Ain’t it awful how out of shape I’m in?" Game

Now read these statements and notice how you feel. These frames may help to move you to think about exercise in a way that may make you want to get moving again.

"Exercise is just thinking time" Game
"Exercise is my real health insurance" Game
"Exercise is what allows me to shape my body" Game
"Exercise is my de-stressing time" Game
"Exercising is my time to write on the run" Game
"Exercise gives me vitality to stay alive" Game
"Time to get high" Game
"Time to have fun" Game
"Time to do something special and wonderful" Game

I don’t know about you, but it’s already working for me. I’m heading out for a walk after dinner to enjoy some quiet time with my thoughts.

If you’re feeling stuck, looking for some great food for thought to change your thoughts to reshape your body, then you’ve got to chow down on this book.