Kat & Tshepi

Hello there, welcome to K&T blog. We hope you had a good week and that you are getting ready to give your best in the coming week.

This week we found ourselves thinking about the habit of exercising, we wondered what does it take to form a habit of exercising, we asked what did it take for us to nail this habit. Exercising is desirable for many if not all but it comes across as a dreadful experience, just thinking about it can sometimes alter your mood negatively. Fortunately for us it has not been too bad as we managed to find joy out of it, at this moment we exercise 6 days per week , with 2 sessions of workouts in some of these days. This regiment is now a norm but it was certainly not so for a long time, we used to cycle on and off for days, weeks and sometimes a month at a time. It is now clear to us that we managed to successfully make working-out a habit, it has become a part of our identity. But how did it become a habit?

We had to fail first, like many people we relied heavily on our willpower, this was a mistake 🙂 . Each time we started and re-started we told ourselves that we will religiously exercise on particular days, at a particular time and we felt strongly that we could do it. But it turned out that we over-appraised our willpower and overestimated our abilities, we always started strong for few days or maybe a week or 2 then we fell off-course, and repeated the willpower driven commitments over and over again with the same results. Relying on willpower is good to take you off the couch and spring into a workout or a decisive course of action like a fitness journey, but heavily relying on it every time is not sustainable. Willpower is a rare commodity , it is better to use it sparingly and when necessary , use it to kickstart your journey, and use it when you are very low on motivation. What is far more reliable in forming the habit of exercising is having a system, a clear form of activities and routines that you can do effortlessly without thinking too much, these are activities that will easily lead you to exercising.

Practically, an example of a system you can rely on if you desire to workout first thing in the morning would include things like:

1.Preparing your workout clothes the night before and making them visible for when you wakeup (it is easier to put the clothes on if you see them than to look for them first).

2.Preparing your pre-workout meal the night before, e.g overnight oats or fruits(All you have to do the next day is fuel for the workout, it is something enjoyable).

3.Prepare your workouts in advance, or have an idea of what you going to do (think of and choose exercises that you enjoy, remember you are in charge and don’t have to kill yourself with tough workouts, be creative).

4.Set the alarm an hour or 30min before working out (make it repeatable for workout days and customize the alarm message to be encouraging e.g “Time to build my best version ever” or “Lets do this”)

5.Don’t negotiate with yourself when its time to workout, spring into action when the alarm sounds (It seems like the opposite of working out always wins if you think too much).

This is a simple system that we leverage when we have to workout in the morning, it reduces the reliance on willpower by making activities that leads towards exercising simpler, all the things(or most ) that we need to do before our workouts are taken care of, we have reduced a lot of resistance and all we have to do is show up. The most difficult part of the system is “Thinking”, which is hard not to do especially in the morning, but really sometimes we can do better without this great ability, thinking is a major detractor of progress when it comes to making a habit of exercising . For us to overcome the resistance brought about by “Thinking” we strive to think positively, focus on the benefits and we try to find meaning in what we do. Here are some of the things that have helped us overcome the resistance of thinking and creating a habit of exercising.

1. Having a strong , clear and attractive goal.

2.Identifying our contribution and value to other people’s lives (put ourselves aside and think how is this benefiting others e.g family).

3.Remembering the benefits that is awaiting our day , honestly exercising leads to a better day mentally, emotionally and physically. We have found it to be an answer to a lot of our daily challenges.

4.Proving to ourselves that we can overcome weaknesses , making it a mental challenge.

5.Remembering the benefits of aesthetics , this is maybe superficial but when you look good you feel good. The thought of lean muscle or lower dress size might get you out of bed 🙂 .

6. Remembering that when we skip exercise for a few days, it feels like we are starting from scratch when we resume.

one important thing about Habit is that it is formed through repetition, so to make a habit of exercising we need to create a system of activities that will offer a path of least resistance, and repeat them daily…..repeated enough it becomes a part of who you are, your identity. What system can you put in place to make it easy for you to exercise as much as you want?

That’s it for this week, Until the next blog, stay blessed.

Kat & Tshepi

PS: We are delighted that this week we launched our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@KatandTshepi) , we will be publishing one home workout video per week, it is our desire that the workouts will be helpful to some people and promote the habit of exercising. We personally hope that the channel will grow and get better with time and that it will contribute positively to the health of our followers ,even if it is on a small scale.