Hello Fitness Friends! It’s March and let me tell you, I am looking forward to warmer weather. After a freezing cold January and successive winter storms throughout February, I am not sad that time is marching on. And that is my segue into this week’s post. Time moves on whether we want it to or not and what we get out of it is completely up to us.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a phenomenon that can most often be seen in business, but I think it can apply to fitness in many ways. It’s the idea where a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial. In business cases, this most often refers to money. In fitness, time is the sunk cost.

The sunk cost often occurs in one of two ways. The first way happens when we commit to a fitness regimen whole hog. When we go big. I mention often that going big often results in going home. But going big can also result in going bigger. Whether the program is sold as the greatest thing since sliced bread or the fix that will cure all that ails you, some programs get their claws in deep.

And when that program grabs a hold, it can be difficult to recognize when it is no longer serving you or your goals. The mental gymnastics we go through to justify a program that is no longer healthy, physically or emotionally, can be taxing as well. So, we decide that it’s better to stay the course, in other words commit more time, and hope things get better.

The second way we often see the sunk cost fallacy show up in fitness is when we note the passing of time and wish that we would have done something different. But rather than take action, we continue to wait. We wait for the ideal time. We wait for the ideal circumstances. We wait for the ideal program (see above).

But life doesn’t work that way. There is no ideal time, circumstance, or program. We can wait and wish, but that won’t stop time from passing. And unlike money, there is absolutely no recouping time.

We can look back on the first two months of 2025 and feel regret for not starting, feel sorry for dropping out, or feel cynical that the program we started isn’t going as we’d like. And all of those feelings might be completely valid for your circumstances, but we also have the ability to make different choices moving forward. We have the option to steer away from sunk costs.

Until next time, be well friends!