Interest. It’s an integral part of our lives. Without it we wouldn’t do the things we love, be with the people we are, or have the hobbies we have. My “interests” include my family, my job, helping people, CrossFit, and the outdoors not exclusively in that order minus my family.

Working out hasn’t always been an interest. Truth be told, I didn’t really get into it until I was a fat and out of shape beer guzzling college man. Even back in high school when I was balls deep into baseball, I would rather had been on the field than the weight room. Knowledge was part of the process of getting fitness and health in general to be an interest and a hobby of mine which in turn formed into a passion.

I think this is where the majority of people fall short when they decide they want to get healthy. They kind of know that eating better and doing some form of physical activity is going to be beneficial, but it remains as something they have to do versus something they want to do, i.e. an interest.

So this begs the question “How do you stick with something long term if you’re not interested in it?”. It’s literally the pinnacle being able to stick with something for an extended period of time. Think of why you are with your spouse or BF/GF. What keeps you around? What keeps you interested? Why do you love them? The building block of love is interest and from there they just compound on each other. You get interested in someone, you begin to love them because of that interest, and you start to get more interested them, constantly wanting to find out more and learn more about them.

The more you LOVE something, you more you stay INTERESTED and the longer you stick with it. Makes sense right? Why not treat your health and fitness the same way? I’m not telling you to do CrossFit, but I am telling you to find something in the fitness field that you absolutely love.

I think the reality though is that you first have to love yourself. You have to love yourself enough to not stand for being overweight any more. Love yourself enough to find an interest in the process that it takes to find that new look that you want. Love yourself enough to want to change.

So my plea today with you is this…treat your health as an interest and not something you HAVE to do but that you want to do because you love it so much and enjoy the journey that comes along with it. Look at yourself in the mirror and start to love the person that is looking back. This creates interest and interest creates the change that you want to see.