If you workout every day, will you lose a bunch of weight? What will happen to your body? I exercised 45 minutes a day every day for 60 days straight. Here's how it went. Starting out I hadn’t exercised in 3 years other than the odd workout I randomly mustered up the motivation to do. I worked an at-home desk job, so there wasn’t much movement in my day-to-day life. My initial goal was to move every day for 30 days, which turned into 60. Wild, I know.
How I started
The first two weeks were the toughest, but I allowed myself the freedom to choose what sort of exercise I wanted to do based on how I felt. I felt great. It didn’t need to be intense, but it had to be movement and it had to be for 45 minutes. At the same time I set up a goal on my Apple watch to record my workout streak, which played a large part in helping me stay motivated. I didn’t want to break the streak and, although it seems small and meaningless, it played a major psychological role in helping me reach my goal.
How it went
The third week was when I really started to notice how much better I felt and I grew accustomed to getting a sweat in before my day started. I didn’t have a scale at the time and I couldn't visibly see a difference, but I felt my body getting stronger. It was satisfying. It felt productive. It felt healthy. My body hurt less and I had less negative emotions because I didn’t feel like a bag of potatoes sitting on my butt cheeks all day. I wasn’t tired all the time and felt more energized than ever.
Interestingly, exercising made me want to eat healthier because I felt healthy. I realized that I was more prone to consume fatty foods if I spent my day doing nothing. Not only that, but feeling productive helped me to become more productive in general. Getting a sweat in made me want to do more in the day. It made me want to get dressed, study that language I had been putting off, and spend my nights doing something other than watching TV.
After 30 days, I felt so good, I couldn’t stop. I still didn’t have a scale and still couldn't physically see major changes, although I could feel them. I could feel myself becoming more muscular. I had never committed to or done that long of an exercise streak before and I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to give up what I had gained. I didn’t want to go back to feeling tired all the time or feeling bad about myself. So I tacked on another 30 days.
It was during this period that I started really getting confidence with my workouts. I was able to up the intensity and finish workouts that I hadn’t been able to before. Exercise had become part of my routine; it had become part of me. I began seeing myself as someone who worked out, someone who was health conscious.
The Results after 60 Days
I kept up my streak, kept building on my fitness and strength, kept getting more things done, and kept feeling better each day. The 60-day mark came and I had realized that neither my measurements or my weight had changed. Tears were shed and I asked myself why I wasn’t allowed to lose weight, why I was forbidden from looking the way I wanted to look. I thought if it wasn’t doing anything, then why had I spent all of this time working out every day and was ready to throw in the towel. Thankfully, a moment of clarity. The angel on my shoulder asked me if how much better I felt wasn’t enough. Wasn’t feeling better worth the effort even if I didn’t lose weight?
The Results That Followed
What happened during those 60 days was nothing compared to what followed. That little voice of clarity helped me to continue working out 5 days per week for another year and lose 40 pounds. This new habit had become part of me. I was fit. I worked out. I was athletic. My relationships got better because my insecurity was no longer pervading every encounter. My productivity went through the roof and that allowed me to pick up other habits, achieve things that I never would have achieved otherwise. It was a butterfly effect. Exercise got me out of the rut of misery and loathing I had been stuck in. I was no longer in a grog and its as if those 45 minutes completely broke me out of a mental block, cleared the air, and let me see the light of day again.
Conclusion
I am not sure if this change was entirely due to the exercise itself, the dopamine, the feeling of accomplishment every day for reaching my goals, the change in perception of myself, or the butterfly effect on other areas of my life. Perhaps it was a combination of everything. With that in mind, it needn’t be exercise that gets you out of a rut. It may well be the act of engaging in behaviors consistently that help you to get closer to the kind of person you want to be.
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