Ep. #416: I Don’t Even Know Where to Start!

Welcome to the Not Your Average Runner podcast. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running coach, and your running BFF here to help you start running. Feel confident and love the journey no matter your size. Now, if you’ve ever felt like you just weren’t meant to be a runner, think again. I believe that running is for all bodies, even yours.

This podcast is your warmup buddy, giving you tips, motivation, and the support you need to lace up and get moving. I’ve helped thousands of women become runners, and now I wanna help you. Let’s go.

Hi friends, and welcome back to the Not Your Average Runner show. Now if you have been thinking, listen, I know I need to start exercising again, but I don’t even know where to start, and honestly, I don’t even have the time. Well, my friend, this episode is for you because that is such a common place to be.

You wanna move your body, you know, it would help your energy, your stress, your sleep, but between work and family and hormones and a schedule that never quits, the idea of getting fit just feels impossible. Then the spiral starts, right? It’s what kind of exercise should I do? How often, what if I can’t keep up?

What if I start and then I quit again, and it’s too much? So what do you do? You do nothing. And it’s not because you’re lazy, it’s. Because you are overwhelmed, and I get it right. You’re not looking to run a marathon, you’re not looking to spend hours in the gym. You just wanna feel strong, steady, and capable as you move into your fifties or your sixties and your seventies and beyond.

So today we’re gonna take the pressure off. We’re gonna talk about the bare minimum that you actually need to get started moving. And this is a real life version that fits into your day, not the fantasy version that requires you to have a life with no other responsibilities or complications. So let’s get into it.

Now, why does starting feel so hard? The truth is that most women don’t struggle with motivation. The women I know are hella motivated, right? Like you are getting so much done in a day. What you struggle with, and you might not realize this is expectations. Okay, so it’s not motivation, it’s that your expectations are not aligned with what’s realistic and what’s even necessary.

So we’ve been taught that exercise counts only if it’s a full workout, right? It has to be at least 30 minutes to count, and you have to be sweating. You have to have your heart rate in the fat burning zone, and then when life gets busy, exercise becomes all or nothing. But the science and my own experience coaching hundreds of women says otherwise, movement adds up every little bit.

Okay? A five minute walk between meetings, stretching before bed, a few squats while you’re coffee bruise. It all matters, okay? You don’t need to get it right, you just need to get it started. So we’re gonna start small with the bare minimum. Okay. And I, in the bare minimum is a great way to, to put it. Um, but I also have a clever little name for it in the Midlife Movement makeover program that I created, and I call it the least.

And what that means is the smallest, easiest version of movement that feels doable on your worst day. Okay. Not your best day. Not your perfect day. It’s your holy shit. That day just went off the rails situation. The day that went so far sideways. Your head is still spinning. What can you get done on that day?

Is it a minute of calf raises while you sip a glass of wine to recover? Um, is it five minute walk with the dog? Maybe it is one song of dancing in your kitchen while you heat up leftovers for dinner. Okay? And I know you’re thinking, uh, Jill, what is the point even of doing so little? Because it’s not going to fix my problem.

And that is where you’re wrong. Because you think your problem is that you don’t have time, or you think your problem is that you’re not fit enough and you have to, you know, make all these big sudden moves to fix that. Your real problem is thinking that your effort only matters if it’s big, if it’s intense, or if it’s life changing right away, okay?

And that is not how real progress works. The truth is consistency always beats intensity. Five minutes done regularly. Actually rewires your brain. It rebuilds your confidence and it reminds your body what it feels like to move again. Okay? The little stuff is the point because that is what creates the foundation for everything that comes next.

All right, so the goal of doing the least is to rebuild trust with yourself. It is to prove. To yourself that you can move consistently even when it’s not convenient. Okay? That’s how you start to build momentum. That is how you start to build confidence. And if you’re thinking right now, girl, I’ve gotten so outta shape.

What’s even the point of trying? Let’s talk about that. Your body doesn’t care when you start, okay? What happened in the past happened? We only have right now, and your body only cares that you start now. So you could have been sitting on your couch for 30 years and your body will still respond to movement.

It will still get stronger. It will still thank you for showing up, and frankly, if you’ve been sedentary for a while, doing the least is actually a good thing because it means you’re gonna introduce new movement slowly and carefully rather than trying to do too much and getting injured. Now if you are stuck on, I don’t even know what kind of exercise to do.

All right, here’s your permission slip. It doesn’t matter. The best kind of movement is the one you’ll actually do so you can figure out the details later. First, I want you to focus on showing up in any way that feels doable Now. I have another truth bomb for you, and I think you’re gonna like this.

You’re probably already getting in more activity than you think. You’re just not noticing. Okay? So let’s take inventory of what you are already doing and give yourself some fucking credit for that. Okay? Do you walk the dog? Do you carry laundry up the stairs? Do you stretch for a minute or two when you get outta bed in the morning?

Do you park a little farther away at the store whether you like it or not. Maybe you, maybe you are like me, and you always seem to go to the store at the busiest time possible, and you always end up parking at the far edge of the parking lot. Awesome. That’s movement. It counts. So before you decide that you are starting from zero, I want you to take inventory, write down all the ways you already move your body during the day, no matter how small.

And then ask yourself, how could I build on this by 1%? Right. Maybe your five minute dog walk becomes a six minute dog walk or a 10 minute dog walk. I guess that’s more like 50% than 1%, but you get the picture. Maybe you walk to the farthest bathroom at work instead of the one that’s right outside your office.

Maybe you know, once a day you turn on your favorite song and you dance hard for three minutes while dinner is in the oven. Okay? You don’t need to add hours of movement. Just a few more minutes of intention. This is where we start. So let’s kind of circle back to that concept of the bare minimum or the least, and figure out your baseline for that.

So here’s a quick way to do it. I want you to ask yourself, what is the smallest amount of movement I can commit to this week that I would actually do? And what happens when I ask people this question is they’re like, I’ll commit to 30 minutes a day. And I’m like, listen, if you really could commit to 30 minutes a day, you’d already be doing that.

Can you commit to three minutes a day? Can you commit to five minutes a day? If your brain says that’s not enough to count, you’re probably in the right zone for the bare minimum for the least. Okay, so what is the smallest amount? Make it small, my friend. Try it for a week and if it feels good, do it again for another week.

Right? And so let’s say you pick five minutes a day. Awesome. Set a timer. Move however feels good. Walk, stretch. Lift a dumbbell dance to Bon Jovi. It doesn’t matter. By the way, I’m gonna see Bon Jovi next summer at Madison Square Garden. My friend Kim got us tickets. I’m so excited. So excited. I, yeah. Okay.

Anyway, I’m digressing here. Set a timer. Move however feels good. And if five minutes feels like too much for you right now, that’s fine. Start with two. Start with one. I’m not kidding. I really want you to break this down into something that feels so ridiculously easy. That you almost feel silly not doing it.

Okay. And two minutes a day beats. Zero minutes a day every single time. Okay? Small wins add up. They build consistency, which builds results. A five minute walk a few times a week is not gonna change your body overnight. It just won’t, right? But it will change your brain. You will start to see yourself as someone who moves.

You will no longer be seeing yourself as someone who’s starting over again because you already started. And once you build that habit, it is so much easier to just add 1% more. Okay? The real goal here is not for you to be the fittest person in your friend group. It is to stay strong and mobile and independent for decades to come.

That’s what we want. So movement is your longevity plan. It is your insurance policy for the life you want, whether that is traveling or hiking, or carrying your groceries or playing with your grandkids, whatever it is, you don’t need to do it perfectly. You just need to start and build up some consistency.

So if you have been waiting for the perfect time, if you’ve been waiting for a sign, the right plan, more energy, whatever it is, stop waiting, start small, stay consistent, let it build. Then one day you’re gonna realize that those two minutes turned into five minutes, turned into 10 minutes, and now you’re someone who exercises pretty much every day because it feels good, because it’s a habit.

All right. Now if this episode hit home for you and you are ready to make movement, feel easy again, I want you to check out the Midlife Movement Makeover. It is a 30 day reset that is gonna help you do exactly what we talked about in this podcast. Help you find your baseline, build consistency without diets, without guilt, without unrealistic workouts.

You can grab it now at not your average runner.com/midlife. That’s not your average runner.com/midlife, or you can go to the link in the show notes and just click that one and it’s a pretty awesome program and it’s gonna help you. Okay? So my friend, that is it for this week, and I know last week I promised you that the 3, 2, 1 workout was gonna be coming out soon.

It is coming, I promise. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, check out not your average runner.com/midlife and get that makeover program. Okay? I will talk to you next week. In the meantime, here is a million kisses. Bye.

Real quick before you go, I’ve got a fun challenge for you. Take my exerciser personality quiz to find out exactly what kind of exerciser you are and how to make running feel easier and more enjoyable.

Just head over to not your average runner.com/quiz to take it and get your results. That’s not your average runner.com/quiz.