A Life-Changing Day

The last fitness article I wrote

You may know the story, but not this part of the story, because I didn’t know it until yesterday.

I was trying to find this interview I did with the Los Angeles Times and Google wasn’t helping, but for some reason I found this blog post I wrote and posted to my old website, BodyForWife.com (which has finally been laid to rest after many millions of visitors, redirecting to JamesFell.com). I wouldn’t have thought much of it except for the date: April 17, 2020.

The article was titled “How Can I Be Expected to Exercise at a Time Like This?” It lamented the fucktacular shitnado of ass we were facing with Covid. I interviewed a psychiatrist to ask why I couldn’t motivate myself, and he talked about how I was getting anxiety over my anxiety.

What isn’t in the article is the anxiety over how my career was fucking dead. My book The Holy Sh!t Moment, published the previous year, had not sold well, and publishers didn’t want me because you’re only as good as the sales of your last book. I’d gambled on a switch to motivational writing and the fitness freelancing had dried up. My ad revenue from blogging wasn’t doing that great. I’d planned to pursue a speaking career to compensate and had booked several gigs, only to see them cancelled due to a fucking plague rampaging o’er the land. Also not in the article was how I was shitting liberal bricks over the near certainty that Danger Yam was going to win re-election.

But still, I needed to write, and so I wrote this piece about struggling to exercise during the early days of Covid. And then I posted it the morning of April 17, 2020.

And then, I now recall, after having published the piece, I dug deep and made myself go for a bike ride because of the article I’d just posted. Like, to prove some kind of point to myself.

This is from the Author’s Note of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down:

“The idea for this sweary history project arrived on bike ride on April 17, 2020, and launched on Facebook the following day.”

Yes, it was THAT fucking bike ride.

In many ways, writing this article changed my life, because it pushed me out the door. Then I got the sweary history idea while struggling up a hill, and when I got home I wrote a piece for April 18 about Martin Luther doubling down on Protestantism and telling the Holy Roman Emperor to inhale a big bag of dog farts.

That post had a mediocre response, but my career was toast and I had nothing else going on so I wrote another. The April 19 story about Mae West going to jail for “corrupting the morals of youth” blew up and had people in the comments saying, “You should do a full year of these and turn them into a book” and I had one of those holy shit type moments and proclaimed, “You’re goddamn right I should!”

And here we are.

Fitness was out, sweary history was in. I have written some personal fitness stories since then, mostly regarding my struggle to get back into shape, but this piece was the end of me giving advice on that subject.

I present to you now, the last fitness article I ever wrote:

How Can I Be Expected to Exercise at a Time Like This?

I’ve written several dozen articles, and two books, examining the science of finding the motivation to exercise. So what happened to my passion for physical activity? It evaporated into thin, potentially contagious air.

I don’t even have to go anywhere. I have an awesome home gym. In additional to all the weights and the fancy treadmill, it contains a righteous stereo with a pair of T-Rex-sized speakers that could launch my neighbor’s incessantly barking beagle into the next county.

But instead of using it to get leaner and stronger, I’m making chocolate chip banana bread and eating it on the couch, a glass of Lagavulin single malt in hand, and alternating between re-watching The Expanse and bingeing the utter insanity of Tiger King.

I’m far too besieged by “What if?”s to work out.

My wife is a family physician and our daughter works with her. What if they catch it? What if the disease mutates? What if they can’t find a vaccine? What if I run out of toilet paper?

I want another drink, but what I need is to exercise.

Dr. Rob Tarzwell, a professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, explained why I’m not feeling the love for lifting or running these days.

“You are much more anxious than usual,” Dr. Tarzwell said. Anxiety consumes a lot of psychological energy.” And that means there is less gumption left over to hit the home gym, go for a run, or ride your bike.

He explained that when people are under stress for a sustained period of time, we “regress,” which means we “temporarily reorganize our personalities as they were during previous developmental stages.” We do this because it’s an easier state to maintain. “In plain speak, we get a bit less mature.”

It’s hard to be productive when you’ve regressed, whether it be for exercise, or earning a living.

What’s the solution?

Dr. Tarzwell explained that you must give yourself permission to be anxious. If you fight it, you give yourself anxiety about your anxiety, which makes me think about that Inception movie. Hmmm . . . I think that is on Netflix . . . No! I’m going to finish this article!

Acknowledgement of the regression is another important step. Tell yourself it’s okay to sleep in, eat a little more, play video games, and watch TV. This is normal in the face of a frightening and unknowable situation. You are allowed to be in this lower energy state. When you give yourself this permission, you’ll find more energy available for when you actually need it, like when you’re ready to exercise.

But since gyms and fitness classes are non-essential, and just not a good idea right now anyway, you may need to use some of that energy toward creative thinking of how to get your sweat on, or even how to find motivation. One thing that might help is knowing that there is new research out of the University of Virginia showing that exercise is a powerful antioxidant that reduces the risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is a primary cause of death from COVID-19.

For me, I invited my two-time national karate champion daughter to join me in the home gym. She was going squirrely with the lack of karate classes, and she’s been kicking my ass lately, which is why everything hurts.

If you go outside, do follow the six-feet physical distancing rules. Stay away from anywhere people congregate. When I’m out for a run and veer away from oncoming pedestrians, most participate in the avoidance by going the opposite direction, and others give me side-eye. I silently judge the latter.

If there is no room to swerve in your neighborhood, do your best to stay inside. If you don’t have a home gym, there is no end of free exercise instruction available on YouTube that requires no equipment at all. And if you do the videos enough times, you can memorize the moves and instead of working out while following the instructor, you can do it as you re-watch The Expanse, or binge Tiger King.

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And Christmas is almost here get a bunch of shopping done right now buy my fucking book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.