In defense of phoning it in

Or, the value of absolutely not giving it your all at a time like this

Photo by Mike Meyers on Unsplash

Hey friends: You’re getting this on Tuesday, but I’m writing it on Monday. I had to rush my daughter to urgent care last night, where (after a lot of vomiting and crying and a semi-traumatic chest x-ray) she was diagnosed with pneumonia*. Of course the pharmacy was closed by the time we finished up, so I had to wait until this morning to go pick up her antibiotics. I also had to pop into the grocery store for some cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream to help the medicine go down (and for context, I live in Brooklyn, where I walk almost everywhere and do not have a car). The temperature was “only” 89 degrees while I was out and about, almost 10 degrees below where we’re supposed to be later today, and I was sipping ice water and staying in the shade, but still: By the time I got home, I was overheated and completely exhausted.

I also passed my gym while I was running errands, and saw a lot of regulars filing in and out. And I’m happy for them, I really am. But between the sick kid and the dangerously high temperatures (to which I’m pretty sensitive), I know this is not a week when I’m likely to head in there at all — and if I do, I’ll be doing the absolute bare minimum.

This is the exact kind of week when I tap into a concept I call “checking the box.” (Or phoning it in!) There are certain times of life when expecting ourselves to exercise at our usual intensity and volume — whatever it may be — is simply not reasonable. Even if exercise is important to us, we need to lower our expectations significantly, whether to protect our sanity or our health. I’m talking about situations like:

• Caring for sick loved ones

• Deadline overload at work

• Recovering from an illness (think the handful of weeks — or more — after a Covid infection or other serious illness)

• Adjusting to a new schedule or routine (more on that ahead)

• Dealing with depression, grief, and the like

• Extreme weather (like a heat wave!) that makes challenging exercise physically dangerous

I’m not talking about when you are actively ill or it’s otherwise completely impossible or unwise to move (take a break, please!). I’m talking about when it’s possible but really hard, and you just don’t have much in the tank, whether for a week or a year. In these situations, I’d like to encourage you to think of it like this: You aren’t in fitness mode, you’re in habit maintenance mode. In other words, you can exercise, but you aren’t exercising to get stronger or healthier. You’re moving simply to stay moving and avoid getting too far out of the habit. Maybe you score a little energy or mood boost; maybe you even do enough to help manage your back or knee pain and help make this moment a little more bearable. But maybe you’re just checking the box, phoning it in. Or, as Mikala Jamison put it in this piece from 2022, “be OK with half-assing some things.”

We have to be OK with half-assing 'wellness' sometimes

This could look like:

• Taking a 10–minute walk. (Or if it’s hot as hell outside, strolling around your house for 10 minutes while you listen to a podcast or talk on the phone or whatever.)

• Stretching before bed.

• Finding a really short exercise video and squeezing it in when you have time.

• Doing a How to Move workout but skipping some of it to make it fit the time and energy you have.

When I went back to work after having my first baby, I knew my whole routine was going to have to change drastically. Pre-kids, I’d been an after-work exerciser, but now, after work was one of the two hours of the day I could spend with my baby during the work week, and once he went to bed there was no way I could muster the energy for a workout. But I also am not an early riser (and especially not when a tiny being requires my body for sustenance one to three times in the middle of the night). So what I’d do was this: Drop him off at daycare (down the block), run across the street to the gym, work out for literally fifteen minutes, then go home, get dressed, and hop on the subway to work.

Was I at my strongest? No. Was I getting the recommended 150 minutes, or whatever, per week? No. But I was staying in the game, maintaining the habit. When life changed again and I had time for longer workouts, I already had a routine and a baseline level of strength and conditioning, so I wasn’t starting from scratch in terms of fitness or habit formation. I checked the box and phoned it in until I was capable of more, and when I was, it was really easy to just go ahead and do it.

I’m not alone in being a fan of tiny, bite-sized installments to start or maintain a habit. BJ Fogg, the founder and director of the Stanford Behavior Design lab, wrote a whole book about it (Tiny Habits!) and shared in this interview that he got into the habit of flossing by making himself floss just one tooth a day (lol) until it was automatic.

Anyway: I wanted to share this in case you’re having to be out and about in this extreme heat and just feel totally wrung out and unable to do a “real” workout — or you’re just dealing with other stuff that makes your normal exercise routine really hard and maybe even unhelpful. Check the box! Floss one tooth! Do a stretch! You’ll get back to bigger workouts when you can, and it’ll be a lot easier than if you’d totally stopped moving.

Is exercise (or health, for that matter) a moral obligation? Absolutely not. And if you simply do not want to exercise or cannot exercise, that’s your right and I respect it. But if you do want to exercise, or keep exercising, think small and check a box. And hopefully before too long you’ll be ready for more.

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Some related reading and a potentially helpful workout:

One more thing before we go, and speaking of checking a box: If you live in NYC, today is primary day! If you didn’t vote early, please hie thee to your polling place and DON’T RANK CUOMO. I personally ranked Zohran #1 and Brad #2, and am holding out hope that we’ll have a mayor soon who actually lives in New York and cares about New Yorkers and doesn’t kill senior citizens or sexually harass women or use taxpayer money to promote his stupid book. The bar is very, very low, and yet we actually have viable candidates to be excited about, so please don’t miss this chance to bring positive change to our city.

Thanks for reading. Stay cool!

xo
Anna

*PS she seems totally fine today, thank goodness! But it was pretty scary at first.