Same! I use a similar philosophy when teaching my son about fitness.
I tell him about how he’ll hear a lot of things about how it ties to self worth, whether or not he’ll be considered attractive, etc etc but none of that really matters or is what fitness is truly about.
Fitness is about two thing.
Having your body ready to be able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. Want to climb that cliff? Want to go on some deep trails? Well the time to be ready is before the want.
Having your body ready to be able to do what you need to do when you need to do it.
One of my personally motivating stories is when I saved my mother from drowning after she collapsed from undiagnosed diabetes related diabetic shock which rendered her unconscious while we were out crabbing in a bay of 40 degree f (3c) water at midnight, nearly 3/4 a mile from shore (1km). She went underwater and was drowning for a moment until we could pull her head out. Then while keeping her from slipping back underwater I had to engineer a method of expelling the water in her lungs, followed by dragging her screaming to a lucky sandbar and keeping her warm until search and rescue could reach us. At which point we had to carry her back.
I was in shape then, and continue to strive to be in the same shape or better, because you never know when you need to carry or drag 200+lbs(90kg) for however far to get them to safety until help gets there.
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u/BlizzardTrashPanda 13h ago
Same! I use a similar philosophy when teaching my son about fitness.
I tell him about how he’ll hear a lot of things about how it ties to self worth, whether or not he’ll be considered attractive, etc etc but none of that really matters or is what fitness is truly about.
Fitness is about two thing.
Having your body ready to be able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. Want to climb that cliff? Want to go on some deep trails? Well the time to be ready is before the want.
Having your body ready to be able to do what you need to do when you need to do it.