Newtonian Physics and Fitness

The writing podcast that I have been thoroughly enjoying has certainly been helping me with my fiction writing – at least I hope. I admit most of it hasn't had much impact on what I write on here, I tend to be fairly stream of consciousness when I write my posts. But now it is time for them to collide.

It only looks like one of Saturn's moons is colliding with it. Not like the actual connection between writing excuses and this blog that is about to happen. There is one of their podcasts  http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/01/24/11-04-newtons-laws-of-writing/ that put the three laws into terms of writing. The first is a body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest. The second one is the formula force = mass times acceleration. The third is for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

So I want to translate those to this journey, this challenge of getting fit – and keeping fit.

Body in motion – to me this one speaks to how much easier it is to keep going than it is to start in the first place. But it also explains to me why it can be so easy to come to a dead stop and give up – because sometimes something that should just feel like a bump (say a day or a couple days of unhealthy food choices or lack of activity) can feel like a dead stop. Requiring all that force to restart the motion.

All I can really say is that if we can really try to keep in mind that those are just speed bumps not stop signs we can probably get through them.

The second one – the formula - I will ignore the obvious part of this that applies to the actual motion of exercises. I liked the writing excuses version which basically is results = motivation times focus. This is all about knowing what you want and driving yourself towards it. But this doesn't sit alone – there are 3 of these babies.

Third – action and reaction. This is the one that I think people get completely hung up on. When they have a specific reaction they are looking for, and that is the only reaction they consider or care about. But in the human body (which is a complex system and where each of us has our own idiosyncrasies of how our body responds) it is so important to remember that not all the reactions will be visible on the surface. This is why I have relegated the scale to once a month. It is why I am hoping to add in other things, other measures that are meaningful to me. I don't want to fall into the trap of needing a particular reaction to keep number one in motion, I don't want the lack of some expected reaction to be a stop sign.

So that is my application of the laws to this journey I am on. Now I am going to use this to note that my word count in my writing goal is currently in motion!