To believe in yourself, you must accept yourself. To accept yourself, you must trust in your power to believe. – Shaun T

Let me start the gregorian new year by introducing my new blog. Happy gregorian new year!

Whenever I say that I exercise, I’m often asked “which gym?”, to which I respond “in my own house.” I get inspired to use Shaun-T´s videos as my regular exercise routine. Not only does it help me keep fit and gives me tons of energy, but Shaun’s words also inspire me. The quote above is an example of that.

Welcome to my world. I believe that we should maximize our awake time. In order to fulfill that, you must do things that make you happy and satisfied. Life is too short to dwell on the crummy things that happen to us. Instead of dwelling, why not change things to make them better?

I use exercise as one of the ways out of feeling down. Exercise has been a constant factor in my life since I was in high school. When my science teacher told my class that exercise helps you study for exams, clearing your mind and all, I went full force into exercising everyday. I had a humongous bedroom in our house back then and we lived a thousand miles from civilization. I was determined to put what my teacher said to the test because I wanted to ace my exams. I needed to ace them so that I could get into the university of my choice (McGill University). I ran around my room like a maniac and did numerous sets and reps of different types of exercises I learned from Seventeen Magazine. Not only I did well on my exams and got to go to McGill, but I felt on top of the world whenever I worked out. Every time I feel unmotivated about something, it doesn´t take much to remember the exhilarated feeling I get from exercising.

This is why exercise maintains a significant part of my life. It goes above “sleep” on my list. Sounds whacky, right? Well, it depends on who you talk to, but I’ve been lead to believe that mainstream people prefer sleep over exercise.

To set the record straight, my aim in this post isn’t to promote Shaun-T (but good for him for getting free publicity here). Let this post be a source of motivation for anyone who is one encouragement short in getting out there and starting their first exercise training. Or for those who are trying to get back into it (I’ve been there several times and it was not easy). Exercise also helps me take my mind off of negative thoughts and situations. It turns my sour day or moment into a positive one.

This is me last summer in Halifax, NS, taking a much needed rest after vigorously attempting (successfully I might add) to not fall flat on my face, rollerblading 5 meters from where I rented my skates from to that bench you see there. Last time I rollerbladed was a couple of decades ago.

Signing off –

Shamim Sobhani