Imagine for a moment that while heading out to work for another day of toil and labor, you stop at your favorite place to grab a coffee, breakfast, or whatever you do to start your day. Then while on your way to your confinement for the next eight to ten hours, you pull into a drive-thru; only this drive-thru is not a bank or another fast food joint. It is a body shop. Here you drop your body off and head off to work while your body is flexed, stretched, and exercised while you sit at work. When it’s time to punch out, you are not only eager to pick up your body fit, firm, and relaxed, but happy about the prospect of not having to exercise and eating anything you want while you veg out yet again in front of the TV. Sounds good, doesn’t it? (This is the part where your body suddenly shutters awake and you realize this was only a dream.)

Would be nice though, wouldn’t it? And if this sounds ridiculous, well, it is. But no more ridiculous than the thought that a single pill can burn body fat or replace the effects of real exercise which people buy into everyday. In today’s society, it seems the only thing that cannot be received from a drive-thru is exercise. (You can even do a drive-thru wedding in Vegas!) Come to think of it, the drive-thru represents the complete antipathy of achieving optimal health and fitness. Sit in your car (burn zero calories; shorten muscles); pick up nutritionally devoid food (add empty calories); go to the bank (deposit or withdraw your hard earned money that was probably achieved the same way it was received – sitting); stop by the drug store for your prescription (to “remedy” the effects of your lack of activity); pick up a six pack and a movie (add more calories and create more inactivity). What is it about the drive-thru that makes it so appealing to the masses? They’re convenient. They’re quick (mostly). They allow us to stay in our car, and it should come as no surprise that some people take better care of their car than themselves. Is fitness something that can be offered on the drive- thru menu? After all, if we can find a way to make fitness available in a drive-thru, wouldn’t people be more apt to do it? One would hope.

So let’s take a look at the first two benefits of a drive-thru: convenience and time efficiency.  Obtaining health and fitness requires two things: a body and a mind. Can’t get much more convenient than that! Everyone has a body and the ability to think on their own. The body was built to move, so move it! It was not designed to sit or remain still. The good news is that even the most able body needs rest, but far too many people think stillness works best for them. Most of us have heard an old ad slogan that said the mind is a terrible thing to waste. This is especially true when the mind believes it can’t or won’t do something good for itself. Fitness is a mindset, and if you don’t have it, it can be an incredibly daunting road.

The second alluring quality of the drive-thru is time efficiency. The number one reason why people say they don’t exercise is that they simply don’t have the time. Yet if they already had the correct mindset, time would not be an issue. It’s this exact mindset that allows you to reverse that thinking. It’s not that there isn’t enough time to exercise – it becomes there simply isn’t any time to not exercise. Finding the time to exercise is like the difference between ordering the triple-decker burger or the chicken sandwich. You might think that ordering the chicken sandwich is the healthier alternative, but in the long run is no better a choice than ordering anything for your nutrition through a window!  There is simply no justification.

Fitness is and always will be something that is worked for and earned.  It can be convenient and it doesn’t require a tremendous amount of time; just a proper mindset. And the next time you go to the drive thru, think about how cool it would be to order a slimmer waistline, a lower blood pressure reading, a decreased stress level, and a super-sized set of muscles that function to keep your body moving and feeling good. Congratulations! You’ve just invented the first fitness drive-thru. All it took was the mindset to think that it could all happen for you.