HEALTH Time to invest in yourself

COUCH NATION?Over half of Irish adults do not get enough exercise.

Time to invest in yourself


Personal Trainer
Paul O'Brien

Knowing what’s good for you is very different to doing what’s good for you. We all know that exercise is beneficial in so many ways, yet still less than one in two people in Ireland exercise regularly.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity – or a combination of both – throughout the week for adults between 18-64 years. This would yield positive health effects, including a lower risk of coronary heart disease and diabetes. To yield greater health results and for performance improvements, you would need to at least double those recommended figures.
So why, when we know how active we need to be, do over 50 percent of Irish adults not do enough exercise to realise basic health benefits? In my experience, there are a number of barriers we tend to put forward as excuses to not engage in physical activity. I’ll deal with some of the more common ones later, but first let me lift the rug and look underneath what’s really going on.

Buy now, pay later
Behind all the excuses for not exercising lurks a callous enemy: procrastination. I call is the ‘Buy now, pay later’ mentality. We buy all the things that we want in life and that will give us a sense of pleasure now, immediately. Some of the things we focus on are food, drink, TV, gambling. Most of these things are good and can contribute to a healthy, happy life if used conscientiously.
The problem is we overindulge – the wrong foods, too much alcohol, too many sedentary hours. We indulge in these for two reasons, instant gratification and – key to why we don’t get enough exercise – because it doesn’t seem to matter.
Eating the wrong foods or drinking too much alcohol does not have an immediate negative affect on our health, besides of course a sick stomach or pounding hangover. There is no immediate danger to our long-term health. It’s unlikely we will become suddenly obese from one night of indulgence, or suffer immediate liver cirrhosis after one heavy night of booze. So we develop a mindset of ‘buy now, pay later’.
Except we don’t really think about the long-term effects of our behaviour. How do I know? Well, if you truly knew and believed that the cumulative effect of all those hard nights out, or all those fatty and sugary snacks, was ill health in later life, then would you want to continue with those behaviours?
Now flip this over to exercise. If you truly knew that every extra bit of physical activity you partook in daily was having a positive cumulative effect on your long-term health, I bet you’d be less inclined to sit on the couch all night. However, like those bad habits we develop, the long-term benefits of exercise don’t take hold immediately. This allows us to develop a mindset of ‘it doesn’t really matter’ in relation to exercise. This, in turn, plays into the hands of all the other reasons (excuses) we have not to exercise – ‘I’m too busy/tired/lazy/bored/broke/impatient’.
The truth is we are making bad investments in our long-term health. Over half the adults in Ireland are buying unwisely now and will pay in the long run in both health and financial terms. We need a mindset change. You can start by asking the following question – do you want to live a long healthy life, or a shorter one beset by illness in your later years? That’s the choice. Do something good for yourself in 2015: Invest wisely!

Paul O’Brien is a personal trainer and life coach based in Westport.