Exercise ‘for life’ a worthy New Year’s resolution

Those Buddhists monks, man, they know how to keep it real.

One of the best known, Thich Nhat Hanh, explains in his lectures that as part of their early-morning meditative routine they chant, “I am of the nature to grow old and die. Everything that I hold near and dear to me will be taken.” While you may prefer to start your day with hot coffee instead of harsh reality, on certain mornings I combine the two.

Those mornings when I want to give all I got — and a little bit more — to a morning workout.

I believe I’m being honest when I write that I’m just as motivated to exercise hard at the age of 58 as I was at 38. I know it would be a lie, however, to write that the source of my motivation is the same.

At 38, I was in excellent all-around shape yet determined to transform myself into the sort of bicyclist who — if the course suited me and my legs were right — could win races against the best cyclists in my age group, which included a few former pros.

An example that I did so can be found in the Pain Mountain Time Trial, a course that could only be conquered with power, guile, hill-climbing ability, and a high tolerance of (you guessed it) pain. The race was run eight times and was often part of an important three-event stage race that drew many of the best cyclists in the mid-Atlantic region to Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

I managed to finish second, third, and fourth — the three times I didn’t win the race.

Today, I still race on occasion and still can win a hilly or lengthy “old-guys” race, but winning’s no longer my main motivation. My main motivation is one you should share — even if you’re 28, 48, 68, or even 78.

You should be motivated to exercise — and sometimes relatively hard — because of your love of something besides your love of exercise: your love for the many other enjoyable activities in your life.

That’s why the title today instructs you to exercise “for life.”

When you first read it, you may have thought the title meant to start exercising in youth and to continue to do so until you no longer can. But now that you also read about that harsh reality chanted every morning by the Buddhists, you should recognize the real intent of the title.

Little by little, regardless of age, time is taking away what is precious to you. Although that is inevitable, there is one way to fight back.

Delay the inevitable.

Exercise “for life,” meaning exercise to maintain the life or lifestyle you’ve come to love.

It’s taken me longer than I’d like to admit that my legs no longer possess the power for me to find favorable roads and cover 24 or 25 miles in one hour, but now that I have it’s provided a new source of motivation — especially in the weight room. Because I like riding fast, I like climbing hills, and I like riding long, I’ve come to like lifting so heavily with my legs on some days that I hold on to the banister and shakily ascend stairs from my basement afterwards.

I like it because I love something else: the lifestyle I’ve created.

And yes, one day I won’t be able to lead it, but that’s not the point. The point is that I can have what I’ve come to love for longer — much longer, really — if I eat like a nutritionist, experiment like a scientist, and lift like a masochist.

Years ago when he ended concerts, Billy Joel would say, “Know what you love and do what you love. If you don’t do what you love, you’re just wasting your time.”

He’s right, you know. Life’s too short to waste any time.

While Billy Joel’s thought might serve you well as a New Year’s resolution, we all know that 95 percent of such resolutions are forgotten by February.

But you’ll never forget that feeling you get when you are doing something you love.

It might be a walk in the woods. Baking cookies, Wrestling with your grandson. That’s what you need to focus on any time you don’t feel like working out.

Focus on that and something else comes into clear focus.

You’re not only running on the treadmill to burn calories. Or lifting at the gym to improve your cholesterol levels. Or walking after supper to combat high blood pressure.

You’re doing these things to delay the inevitable. You’re doing what you can do to keep doing all those other things so important to you.

Make that link and you can take those feelings of lethargy and turn them into a type of super-charged fuel also known as motivation.