The worst part is, after a short while, you actually cross this sort of threshold where you enjoy it and begin to look forward to it, and then you start to notice it is helping your mental as well as your physical health.
Just atrocious. It’s almost like we were evolved for this.
This has never happened to me. I still hate it and I run at least 18 miles a week for going on twenty years. I feel like shit if I don’t run, but I still hate the actual activity.
Have you tried an activity you actually enjoy? I know that sounds a bit curt, but I gave up jogging for mountain biking and hiking, and now it is substantially easier to convince myself to get out and get started because I actually enjoy what I’m doing!
That shouldn’t have been as revelatory for me as it was, but the current paradigm is that jogging, gym time, or other monotonous activities are what we should be doing, and that really just sucks the joy out of physical activity.
I have extremely limited amounts of time to do anything. My wife is ill and I’m her full time care giver. So I really only have running as an option. I wake up early when she is still sleeping and go. I prefer running to biking.
the current paradigm is that jogging, gym time, or other monotonous activities are what we should be doing
I’d just like to contrast that with how getting enough exercise could work if our cities were designed properly.
Hey me too. 15 years working out and I still hate it except for competitive sports.
it’s crazy to me that there are people out there that are able to do things they don’t enjoy doing by their own willpower just because it’s good for them and I can’t even get myself to do the things I enjoy doing.
I’m about to go on my 6 mile mile run and it is five thirty in the morning here.
I think the key for me is to just make the connection that the pain of not running (for me, the discomfort of my breathing being slightly worse when I’m really out of shape and just general feeling of shittiness) is worse than the activity itself. I also add treats to my run when I’m getting back into the habit. Fun size candy bars and the like. I also reserve my favorite podcasts for my run. I’m about to listen to behind the bastards which is always a good time.
Just do something you actually enjoy instead? Fucking hell people are ridiculous, there’s so many options to exercise, find the ones you actually enjoy!
Some people don’t enjoy any exercise, ever think about that, musclebrain?
Even when I was young and healthy, I never looked forward to exercise and it never improved my mental health, even when people insisted that I do it all the time. I would always feel in a mental fog for the rest of the day after exercise. Any day without exercise and I was (and still am) very sharp mentally.
I love walking, my family has a farm and I grew up there playing walking and doing just the usual villager kid stuff. 20 years later and I love walking. I almost always walk on the way to home from work after taking the train (about 2.5 km) my friends call me crazy but it just feels good to walk and get lost in music and thoughts for half an hour or so everyday.
A few years ago I went from 265 lbs to 195. I was amazed at how much better I felt overall.
Unfortunately, I have a relationship with sweets that is very similar to Charlie Sheen’s relationship with cocaine. I haven’t gained all that weight back but I have gained back some of it.
Getting the motivation and self control to eat right is incredibly hard work.
Damn I’m feeling you. I’m in the fall process (solidly down 15kg/33lb, approaching 20kg/44lb) with about 10-15kg to go. When my belly stops flapping I’m good I think. But I fear the rebound… Currently lots of my evening snacking have disappeared because of evening gym classes, so late home and even later dinner. So I don’t have time anymore to get snacky. Or if I do it’s almost bedtime anyway so I’ll just go to bed instead.
But once I’ve hit my goal and don’t need to hit gym that hard anymore… That frightens me. A little bit at least. Made some good connections there and got a routine going so i can probably keep it up.
I personally disregard weight goals because I find it can be discouraging to feel objectively better, but then the number on the scale says you’re no different. So I just walk by the scale now.
Anyway, but that’s me. For snacking, I find drinking a lot of water after meals, and having healthy snacks that I like (chopped carrots, mixed nuts, chia seed pudding, really dark chocolate, etc) helps.
Also I personally don’t believe in “cheat days” but I like allowing myself to enjoy some junk socially. Like we have a local doughnut+coffee shop nearby, and my buddy and I will usually meet there on our dates. It’s fun, it’s local. I don’t feel bad about it.
Hopefully there’s a helpful tidbit in here and I didn’t come off as preachy!
But once I’ve hit my goal and don’t need to hit gym that hard anymore… That frightens me.
I’m pretty sure the notion of not needing to exercise as much after you’ve hit your goal is a misconception to begin with, if it makes you feel any better.
Man, seeing a ton of people all experiencing great returns on their hard work just makes me feel even worse for never experiencing any of it beyond the weight loss itself. For literal years. No good feelings, no endorphins, even some of my joints felt worse simply because they were being used more.
And now the exact same thing two days in a row!
Its great. I’m fine. This is fine. I’m not jealous or spiteful at all. Have fun working out for me I guess.
I started weight lifting and intermittently doing cardio (intermittently because it’s boring and I hate it). It fixed basically all the random aches and pain shit I was having but I also never got any endorphins out of it. I look good naked though so there’s that.
Damn that sucks. For me it was pretty subtle. Like I would tell myself “well at least my body feels pretty good” even though the rest of me wasn’t. And then I started to notice that I wasn’t feeling as bad as I normally was.
And then I have had some slices of actually feeling good after 30-60 minutes intense cardio + rajma masala on rice, but maybe I just got lucky.
Definitely feeling more sore in my joints though. Stretching and limiting workouts to 2-3 times a week helps some with aches and pains in my experience.
How long have you been at it? It took me a few months before it started to even feel like a habit I could keep up
EDIT: oh you said years. Dannng, have you tried switching it up? Maybe talk to a doctor?
Just find a form of exercise that you actually enjoy, running and going to the gym aren’t the only options…
My dude I appreciate you, but I spent years doing all kinds of exercise from yoga to iron man segments and not one has been enjoyable.
I loathe exercise for it’s own sake. I kayak the creeks and swamps, canoe the rivers, build stuff at my camp, hike around the woods, all that. The things I see and experience and create are the reward.
And by the way, saw a family of 5 teenybopper armadillos foraging last week! They weren’t babies and there wasn’t an adult around, guess they were siblings. It was hot as hell, but there was a cold creek to swim in at the end of the trail. Lifting weights and yoga won’t get you that kind of experience.
Maybe you can find a way to couple activity to something else that you do want to do. Exercise for its own sake is tough for me, but I don’t mind walking 15 minutes to get lunch, and then, obviously, 15 minutes back. The meme’s message is that you don’t need to sweat, get out of breath, or get swole to have meaningful physical activity.
Yeah… this shit’s killing me. If walking improves your “chronic pain” you were just lazy and out of shape 🤣
It didn’t help ME with chronic pain, but it does help my wife with her fibromyalgia.
I’d wager if you are up in weight, and chronic pain is in any of your weight supporting areas (hips, knees, ankles, lower back, etc) then chances are your pain could be weight related.
My parents are 100% weight related issues, and when I was trying to lose weight in 2013-2015 I tried to get them to do light stuff with me. Walk around the trees behind the house a few times. A couple light calisthenics. Ride some shitty cheap bikes around the park.
Since then their knees, hips, and ankles are their biggest complaints.
Yeah I hated the process of becoming one of the exercise people, but it really is the lowest effort to increase in happiness activity I’ve added to my life
One of the many reasons I value living in a walkable city. I don’t have to go out of my way to walk. It’s just a part of daily life.
I biked to work every day as my only regular exercise and was relatively happy with my body and endurance - COVID taking that away by turning my job remote only really showed me how important that daily activity is - first time in my life signed up for a fitness studio after those could open again.
For me it’s the time. It takes me from 7am to 9pm to get my hours done at work, do the school run and get the kid fedded and bedded. I’m doing all the hacks I can: cycling during lunch and in the weekend, as much as possible, but it’s not adding up to enough. You just get a good routine going and then they throw in a school holiday to wreck everything up.
