Struggle

"Jihad" has two meanings. It can be either a violent struggle against non-believers (planes into buildings, IEDs, that sort of thing) or, more poetically, an inner jihad, which is a fierce internal moral struggle.

Pretty much every time I go to the gym there's a point where I have to struggle with myself, and pit my conscience (and vanity) against my laziness in a death-struggle. Yesterday, for example, I did some stretches and maintenance stuff, then jumped on the treadmill for 30 mins. But about 3 to 4 minutes in, as usual, I had a very powerful thought: you could stop now... you could do this tomorrow... . I won the moral struggle, my own inner jihad. But I don't always.

There's a more potent version of this. The voice that sometimes springs up a few minutues into a workout and says "why bother with any of this at all? is it worth it? why not just become a fat bastard? at last you'll be happy.."