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.
I am sorry to hear about your wife, and I hope for the best for you both.
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
The idea that I could be doing less activity than walking 3 miles a week and not understanding how bad I’m feeling because of it… Is extremely depressing. I’m so glad I figured this out like 12 years ago!
Just the idea of not doing something that you are doing makes you depressed?
The initial comment resonated so much with me, that I feel the need to answer, even though I wasn’t even asked: YES
A few years ago I was in a really dark place. I lost 3 kg in 2 months and when I wasn’t at work, I was lying in my bed on the verge of crying, half-listening to YouTube just to scare the thoughts away.
But the thing, that finally got me out of the loop, was getting myself a houseplant, after watching a plant YouTuber for a while. And when I got home, rather than cry, I obsessively cleaned every speck of dust off the leaves, measured the soil moisture with a stick and just watched it be. And something just clicked inside me and I realized that I had found something I wanted to do; probably forever, if given the chance.
Still have the same plant; cut, repotted and propagated. And while I’m at a much better place now - physically, mentally, financially - just thinking about giving that (houseplants) up feels like going back.
Counter-example: tried to exercise, ended up doing more harm than good. Walking always made me barely able to move for a couple of days and continued trying, even once every few days, still hurt me, got worse, and I think it’s responsible for how I am now (severe sciatic nerve damage).
Fuck exercise.
