Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Sometimes, when I’m exercising, I look at the time left on the machine and think to myself, “Twenty minutes. Less than an episode of Gilligan’s Island.” I don’t know where that phrase came from, but I find that thought in my head often. Logically, it’s a useless phrase. I no longer watch episodes of Gilligan’s Island. I don’t think I could consciously sit through one without wanting to claw my eyes out. I don’t think kids watch Gilligan’s Island anymore. If it shows anywhere, I’m sure it has been relegated to TV Land.

Why do I find that phrase inspiring? Why do I tell myself, “Less than an episode of Gilligan’s Island?” When I was a kid, I loved the show and it always felt like it ended far too soon. I realized commercials took up a third of its time, so each episode was really only about twenty minutes. It was motivational to me. Twenty minutes is short. It will fly by quickly.

I don’t know why measuring my workouts in Gilligan Time helps speed them along. I don’t even know if thinking that phrase even helps me. I seem to feel better about the time left on the treadmill when I think of it as “less than an episode of Gilligan’s Island,” but I don’t know if I actually perform better when I console myself in that manner.

Only recently have I even become aware of this phrase residing in my head. I wonder where it came from. I must have been very young for it to make any sense to me. I wonder if Richard Simmons said it once on his show and it has become permanently lodged in my memory. It doesn’t matter where it came from. All I know is that it is repeated in my mind every time I look at the treadmill and it reads less than twenty minutes and, strangely, it helps me finish up. It’s very rare that I ever start a workout and end it early.