Good morning and happy Mariah Carey season to all who celebrate!

To those who say it’s too soon to start celebrating Christmas and retort, “bUt WhAt AbOuT tHaNkSgIvInG?!” I say: The rest of the world has no Thanksgiving. They are all moving into the Christmas season. I will give Thanksgiving its proper time and honor when it comes at the end of the month, but for now, I say we pack as much merriment into these next two months as possible. 🎄 

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Exerciser’s Block

Sometimes writers sit down to write and have zero motivation or inspiration. (couldn’t be me this week 👀 ).

Sometimes exercisers get up and have zero motivation or inspiration to exercise.

I took last week off of writing to travel and celebrate a friend’s wedding. I broke my weekly habit, got out of my groove, and here I am this week with an idea list staring at me like worms on a hook, but I’m not hungry enough to bite any of them. 

I have several great topics in the tank yet to explore, but I want to give them adequate time and research and brain power when I write about them, so I keep putting them off. The world has felt pretty heavy lately, anyway. If it’s not going to be my best, why do it at all?

Do you see the parallels with exercise? 

If I take significant time off exercising, whether lifting or running, I know I might not be as strong or fast as I was before. And that sucks. It sucks to come back to anything and perform at a level below what you were once capable of.

The simple act of breaking the habit is often one of the biggest obstacles to jumping back in. Plan a big weekend, and you’re off for two, three, four days before you know it. And you just know you’re going to be extra sore the day after you start back now. While the habit of exercise gets easier to maintain with time, I find that it’s always so easy to slip right back out of it if I’m not careful. 

My advice for those struggle bus days? Tell yourself you’ll go for just X minutes. Maybe that’s 2 or 5 or 10, but something miniscule. If you get to the gym or on the road or in the pool and put in 5 minutes and are still “not feeling it,” you have permission to walk back out and leave. Fair enough. But 9 times out of 10, once you are physically in another space with your body moving, you’ll realize it’s not so bad. You can do another 5 minutes, then another 30, then a full workout.

This might sound like a cheesy little strategy for a cute little productivity hack. But because exercise is the single most important thing you can do for long-term health and vitality, it’s no joke. This is a serious investment in your future. An investment in future years with your loved ones. Especially if you’re over 30 and not exercising, you are leaving so much health on the table, you’re doing yourself a disservice. You are worth the effort.

You are worth the effort. 

I exercise for a plethora of reasons. Even if my body may not change much after a week off, my mental health sure does. It’s typically one of the first things I notice go haywire when I’m not active. Worries and anxiety can make me frustrated and restless. Sluggishness and depression can feel heavier and heavier with each passing sedentary day.

• Sometimes all you need to get over a mental-emotional roadblock is a good self-induced a** whipping in the gym: 

• If that’s in the form of low intensity steady state cardio, you will have all the headspace and none of the distractions, so you can think through thoughts that need processing. 

• If it’s intense weight training or cardio, you simply don’t have the headspace to worry about other concerns, as you can only focus on safely and intensely taking the next step or cranking out the next rep. The rest melts away. Big problems start to seem smaller.

Writer’s block isn’t an easy hurdle, but at the end of the day, writers return to writing because it’s good for them. “I’m just going to write one paragraph,” can be enough to turn into an entire newsletter.

There are myriad motivations we all have, but it boils down to a disciplined choice, investing in long-term gain and growth, even if it means some short-term work and pain. 

Still seeing the parallels to exercise? 

When I take time off exercising, sure, I might be a little extra sore the first few days back. Sure, I might have to drop intensity or volume a bit initially. But inevitably, in no time, I’m back to where I was and making progress beyond that point. If I was struggling emotionally or mentally, I almost always emerge with a renewed sense of clarity and perspective. 

Nike and Dory knew what they were talking about with their signature quotes. Sometimes—especially when you get out of habit for a bit—you gotta just do it; just keep swimming. Remember why you started, remember what the work brings you, and invest in your future. 

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Put out your workout clothes and shoes the night before. If they’re staring at you when you wake up, they will taunt you all day if you don’t put them to use.

Level 2: Make a promise to yourself that even on days when you don’t feel like it (aside from scheduled rest days), you will exercise for at least five minutes. Odds are, you’ll do more.

Level 3: Set an amount of time which you will never go without some form of exercise. I suggest four days or fewer. Three or two max if you mean business.

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Listen: 30 Health & Fitness Skills for your 30s: A Roadmap to Longevity. Marcus Filly truly covers all the bases with this one. If you can do even 75% of these, you’ll probably be in the top 10% of your peers in terms of health!

• Listen: The 50g Challenge: Big Breakfast, Big Results. The Look Good Move Well podcast dropped another banger. So many of us view dietary discipline as restriction in the morning. What if we instead turned that discipline into maximizing our protein intake and nourishment in the morning? Loved this one!

• Read: A 95-year-old former cardiologist’s 8 nonnegotiables for a long, happy life. Spoiler alert: it includes a 30-60 minute morning walk, a strength & balance workout, and two naps a day!

• Quote: “Annihilating is easy. Razing things to the ground is easy. Trying to fix what’s broken is hard. Hope is hard.”

  • -Loki, god of mischief. Yes, Loki, the “villain,” said that. Man, y’all gotta watch Loki season 2. 

It’s good to be back, even if I did have a bit of writer’s block this week. I hope you’re still loving this newsletter. Please share it with someone you love and reply to this email with any feedback you have!

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).