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If you are an exercise enthusiast, and you're getting all geared up based on the title of this thread to share the joy and wonder of your favorite forms of exercise, or to offer helpful advice like "You've got to find something you love to do!"... please, try to contain your high-energy adrenaline-charged self.
I try not to hold it against gung-ho exercise enthusiasts for apparently LOVING their workouts so much. For these guys it's win/win -- they're doing something good for their health and they have fun doing it too. All the more power to 'em.
What really annoys me, however, is there seem to be a fair number of these people who simply cannot grasp the concept that other people might not love exercise like they do. They seem to think that if you're not loving it, well, then it's just that you haven't really tried yet, that it's merely a matter of picking the the right form of exercise for yourself, improving your technique, finding the right program or trainer or inspirational video, or even that somehow the right disciplined regular schedule is going to make you LOVE IT!!!
Either that, or the enthusiasts simply look down on the non-enthusiasts as somehow morally lacking for not loving exercise like they "should".
Before falling off the exercise wagon, I diligently stuck to an exercise routine, and a low fat diet, for seven years straight. Not at all coincidentally that span of time corresponded mostly to the time when I had a great job where I worked mostly from home and set my own hours. For me, one of the best times to exercise was when work was getting stressful and exercise became, at least temporarily, the lesser of two evils.
Nevertheless, it was still seven years of forcing myself to do something I didn't really enjoy doing. I liked the end results of being fit and trim, I felt some sense of accomplishment and pride, but that still didn't make the process of exercise itself at all enjoyable to me. I certainly never got any sort of adrenaline high out of exercise like some people seem to. I never felt anything like withdrawal when I couldn't get around to exercising. All I felt was guilt -- it was either work out, or feel guilty about not working out.
As soon as I started a job where I was spending an hour and a half to two hours a day commuting, and couldn't get away from work to exercise, my discipline started breaking down. I suspect that if I really loved the exercise, my efforts might have better survived the change in schedule.
Well, after many years of neglect, and more pounds gained back than I care to mention, I'm finally back at doing regular exercise. For the past ten weeks I've been doing three aerobic workouts per week on an elliptical rider at home, and this past week I've finally returned to the gym to add some weight training.
For me the only trick that seems to work is make exercise as easy to get around to, as hard to avoid, and as mindless as possible. Anything that is going to require a lot of concentration is out -- I want to zone out as much as possible while exercising. With the elliptical rider I can at least watch TV at the same time -- typically Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow -- and simply be doing double duty with time I'd probably have spent been watching TV anyway, but as a coach potato.
The weight training is going to be a bit harder to stick with since I've got to leave home to do it, and can't watch TV while I do it. I sweat way too much (mostly from my head and neck) to feel comfortable wearing headphones or ear buds to listen to music. By using Nautilus equipment it only takes a minimal effort, however, to keep my mind on maintaining the right timing and form. I can zone out better than I probably could with free weights.
Speaking of sweat... due to an overactive sympathetic nervous system, not only do I sweat a lot when I exercise, I tend to keep sweating 30 minutes or more after exercising. A shower doesn't stop it. A long cool down time is something I always have to include time for when squeezing exercise into my plans for the day.
I'm going to keep trying hard to do the healthy and responsible thing and stick with my new workout routine as best as I can. I won't be losing any sympathy, however, for all of the people out there who have tried and failed to stick with it. I know how you feel. I've never lost touch with the reasons why most people aren't fitness freaks. I occasionally get little glimmers of feeling invigorated while exercising, but mostly I just feel miserably hot, sweaty, tired, and eager for it to all be over with.
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