How Richard Simmons Can Help You Manage Your ADHD
Richard Simmons spent decades helping people get in shape and lose weight. His flamboyant style and compassion brought him great fame. Although he has not made a public appearance since 2014, his legacy endures, and it is applicable to ADHDers.
Exercise
Richard Simmons has been a huge advocate for living a healthy lifestyle that was focused on exercise. Prior to retirement, his goal was to get as many people to exercise regularly as possible. Exercise is key to living a healthy lifestyle when one has ADHD. Simmons can be an inspiration to those of us with ADHD to get up and get some exercise.
Creative Exercise
Simmons rose to fame because of his unique brand of exercise. His Sweatin’ to the Oldies videos grossed approximately $200 million. He promoted dancing and having fun as a way to get exercise. This proves that exercise does not have to be boring. The ADHD brain needs exercise and hates boredom. This is why I have embraced Richard Simmons philosophy on exercise. I dance until my Apple Watch tells me I have moved enough to hit all of my fitness goals. The key is to move a lot and not care about how ridiculous you look (see above gif). You have to make it entertaining. In fact, I use this as an opportunity to entertain my friends on Snapchat:
Compassion
The final aspect of Richard Simmons’ philosophy of which ADHDers should take note is compassion. Simmons never belittle or yelled at those for whom he served as fitness coach. He practiced love and compassion. A huge part of his work was listening to the stories of people who have struggled with their weight and have struggled emotionally because of that struggle. This is something we ADHDers should practice with ourselves. Instead of berating ourselves for not exercising enough, we should be kind to ourselves.