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.
I too hope the best for this guy’s wife… and him.
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.
What are you doing in lieu of these detestable activities?
Hey me too. 15 years working out and I still hate it except for competitive sports.
I like to think of it as a reverse hangover. Instead of a few hours of fun and a day of pain, i do a hangover on purpose for a few hours and get a whole day buzz.
It helps cuz i too like most people (?) hate exercise
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.
I think that’s the most common experience. For years I hated exercising almost as much as I hated not having exercised
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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!
This guy stop being a rude asshole on the internet challenge (impossible)
Some people don’t enjoy any exercise, ever think about that, musclebrain?
There’s a whole lot of stuff that people consider to be activities that are a perfect replacement for what the same people consider to be exercise, they’ll love the former and hate the latter without realizing that if they just did the former often enough they wouldn’t feel the need to do the latter at all.
I used to run a ton, got a smallish dog and now I go on walks and hikes instead, most people only consider that running is exercising of those three things but all of them are a form of exercising.
I’ve always hated team sports but I love climbing, kayaking, canoeing, snowshoeing… should I force myself to do team sports because that’s what people think about when they think about sports or should I be doing the stuff I actually find enjoyable?
The goal is just for people to move.
I’m the guy that originally responded saying that I dislike running even though I’ve been doing it religiously for a long time.
All your suggestions are wonderful here. I will get right on kayaking, hiking, and the like as soon as my wife miraculously is cured and I have free time to do all this stuff that someone with a good life can do. Otherwise, I will continue to do what I can (running at 5:30am before my wife wakes up) because my wife needs me all the time when she is awake because she is in hellish pain.
Please stop being a jackass to people. There is another person in this thread that did this the right way. Gently suggesting an alternative and not assuming they knew best. It would behoove you to understand that your particular situation isn’t universal and other people have different wants, needs, and responsibilities than you.
Sorry for not being able to read your mind
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.
And then you get to the weird addiction space where I feel guilty if I haven’t gone for a run in 2 days. Humans are weird.
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!
Numbers fuck people up. You make a goal to lose 100, finally see the scale tick down by 2, “Damn! 1/50th of the way?!”
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.
Yeah you just keep setting goals and pushing until you’re at your physical limit, then just maintain, forever.
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
Eating well is even lower effort, but inversively fun.
Can confirm. Health nuts dont seem so nutty anymore.
And then after some time, you come to expect your body to feel sore, and when your body doesn’t feel sore that feels weird. So you do exercise for no other reason than to feel sore again…
And then if you don’t go for a week or l for whatever reason you get a new kind of achey muscle thing. That’s weird
If you hate exercising, there are other ways to get it “for free” that don’t involve tediously lifting and dropping weights over and over, etc. For example, play ball games with friends. Take up climbing (indoor or outdoor!). Rekindle your love of cycling around town on a bike. Paintball with friends. Take up a martial art. Pretty much anything that has movement as a side effect, rather than it being the ‘main event’.
Running on a treadmill is fucking awful to me, I hate it so much. But running as a consequence of playing a sport or moving around a boxing ring or whatever, that’s different. I don’t hate running per se, but on its own? I’d rather take the L and die years earlier than I should. Seriously. Gyms and gym equipment make me want to fling myself under a passing bus.
I don’t really like cycling, but I’ve found I dislike driving more, so replacing car trips w/ bike trips has worked really well. I get exercise, save money, I get better parking spots, and I’m not stuck in a stupid car. Oh, and I’m quite competitive, so I like to see how quickly I can get from A to B, so my heartrate stays high.
I also have gymnastic rings in my garage for my upper body. I’m not a fan of that either, but it at least feels cooler than lifting weights. So I’ll alternate between doing errands on my bike and using the gymnastic rings.
I’m the opposite. Never much liked sports, and when I am not held to a pace like a treadmill does, I’ll not maintain enough heart rate elevation.
So, for me, if I don’t get to the gym a couple of times a week, I fall well short of the NIH guidelines.
The full report is quite clear that heart rate elevation is the most significant population-wide contributor.to general health. 150 “points” per week, which you can in theory knock out with one long (~75 minutes) high-intensity work out.
Resistance training across all major muscle groups is secondary, and really only needs one set, on two separate days each week. Your don’t need to build bulk or anything, just keep then fully active. Add some weight if you could do an extra set before exhaustion.
Stretching is good, in particular if you don’t reach a range of motion, you are likely to lose it as you age, but no specific recommendations are given
Gym allows me to safely play sports, run around after the dog, swim without feeling like drowning is inevitable etc
I’m not a gym nut by any stretch of the imagination but as I approach middle age I can’t be as spontaneous with breaking into a run or lifting heavy things. Too many injuries and anatomical idiosyncracies have built up over the years.
The gym maintains all my muscles so I can use them when I want without injury. It’s made a big difference going about 2-3 times a week for 45 min. Then I can do all the stuff I enjoy (mostly all outdoors) without worrying about a tweak or a joint blow out.
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.
It won’t make me feel any endorphins though, because my brain don’t work right
Yep, I get no positive feelings from exercise. I do it to keep my blood pressure down and I fucking hate it. People say after a while it begins to feel good and you look forward to it and I want to punch all those people in the face. I started about 4 months ago and I’ve hated every day I’ve gone.
Exercise fucking sucks. I get hot and sweaty and feel like shit afterwards. The only positive emotion is a vague sense of relief that it’s over when I’m finished.
“Jogging is the worst. I mean, I know it keeps you healthy; but God, at what cost?” -Ann Perkins
Well, there are a lot of exercise options, surely you haven’t tried them all…
For example, I like riding my bike to do errands. Not only do I get exercise, but I also save some money, cross off items from my list, and feel hardcore. I don’t actually like cycling, but I hate driving more, so being able to get my exercise and avoid driving while doing errands feels like cheating.
This is my take on your comment but going to the gym and doing exercises does the same for me. I did it, I knew why I did it but I fucking hated every second of it and didn’t get any high.
On the other hand, even middle level exercises in rugby or cycling gets me that high, fucking love it. It doesn’t even matter if I’m good at it or not.
Sometimes, it’s more about the sport than the exercise.
I get hot and sweaty and feel like shit afterwards.
Have you tried swimming? Hot and sweaty definitely won’t be a problem there.
For the record though I also hate cardio. It’s fine at levels which I can sustain for hours on end, that is, not jogging pace, definitely not interval training, but hiking pace. If you want interval training without grinding your brain field sports might be an option, it’s different when you have teammates and a ball.
I had the same problem. Then, I was prescribed a medication used to increase dopamine, and adrenaline, production, and now it does.
Not saying this is some trick to make exercise suddenly release a bunch of endorphins, but it very much did that for me, and when I told my doctor about it, she said that was something that commonly reported. It has even been looked into as a performance enhancing drug, by a number of sports regulation organizations.
I felt good once when I found out I could leg press the full stack of plates, but that was like a year into exercising regularly.
Only thing that actually changed is that I don’t absolutely hate it anymore I just dislike it now.
I like lifting, I genuinely hate core Day. Something about it convinces my body I’m dying and all I want to do is vomit.
The core is connected up quite intimately to the whole digestive system and when nerves reorganise there it can get funky indeed.
That said, try hanging. Not necessarily pull-ups… though while you’re at it might as well do some negatives at least: jump up, let yourself down as slowly as possible until you get that rotation in the shoulder and then you are hanging properly. Then stay there, move your legs, explore the load shifts, such stuff. That’s going to tickle nerves that you might never have tickled before, but which need occasional tickling or your whole back gets confused because we happen to be monkeys and hanging from stuff is in our biomechanics, the nervous system expects those kinds of loads. Generally works miracles when it comes to back issues, and core issues are often just reflections of that.
I never got a runners high before 10k or so. But even then it’s not a “high” it’s a strong feeling of well being and the sense that I could keep going indefinitely.
Now that I don’t jog so much the mood improvement I get from regular exercise is even more subtle, but I still feel it’s significant.
I used to be like this, then I found a competetive sport I really like and now get that feeling after a game. It’s also way more social than just running around aimlessly by yourself. So
It’s the shmell.
My wife is doing a genetics study and said there is some evidence that CoQ10 can help people who hate exercise. 🤷♂️ Ymmv
“I don’t believe in running unless something awful is chasing me.” – Buck Henry
The thing to adapt to with this information is goal maintainence, and improvement tracking.
I HATE exercise, PLUS the humilation aspect that got pushed into me growing up as a fat kid.
The thing that gives one good feelings for me, isn’t the exercise, it’s the improvement that gives/gave me pride.
Instead of group exercise, I started doing bouldering. Going up the difficulty levels, being able to literally get over obstacles made me feel proud of my achievements.
Try tracking progress. it could help give you pride and self esteem.
Started walking 10k steps a day after seeing myself in pictures and hating how I looked. I’d been fairly active in the past, but some injuries sidelined me. I found getting out and walking was much better for my mental health and creativity than staring at a screen. Embraced the zen of walking when it was cold or rainy out - I’m lucky to often see animals around me that I know most people near me are never seeing. Now instead of dreading exercise, I have the opposite problem of getting restless and pissy if I don’t get my walking or biking in.
Imho, anything you can do to increase overall bloodflow is beneficial to your entire system. One of the reasons caffeine makes us feel good is the increased bloodflow. If that can be increased without drugs, youre one up on the masses. Enjoy it dont hate it
If the effects were truly the same, I’d rather drink a few coffees a day than go for a walk. It’s faster and tastes better.
I feel like they are both bitter tastes people only like through aquirement. Have you tried sweetening your exercise with sugar?
I tried it, but my doctor was unhappy with me for eating a peanut butter cup every block that I walked.
That’s a funny take. No, I haven’t :D
… lol.
Audiobooks.
Listen to an audiobook and just walk, it does depend where you live though. I’m lucky there are a lot of trails and paths around my town.
I walk about 5km every day, done so for more than 2 years now and listening to audiobooks helps the time pass quite quickly.
What also helps a lot is doing some pushups at home as well, for a few months I did 100 pushups throughout the day and it really makes a difference.
This is the advice (audiobook) I heard way back and it worked for me. Specifically, I listen to podcasts, but only when I’m working out or comminuting to the workout.
Eventually you get invested in whatever you’re listening to and want to just listen to it, but the workout limitation means you have to make time for exercise before you get your fix.
I try not to listen to audiobooks unless I am walking/shopping just so they last longer.
It’s a bit difficult for me to find something I want to listen to, I like a very specific type of writing and I seem to stick to it and look for similar.
I mostly listen to Terry Pratchett’s books and at this stage I have listened to most of them a few times.
Pratchett is evergreen. I’ve looped the Discworld series a couple times now. Nothing wrong with just listening to them on repeat.
I’d recommend YA fantasy for similar vibes, though they’ll never be anything exactly like Pratchett’s writing. I just recently got into A Wizard of Earthsea by Le Guin, and it left me feeling really good.
“i bless the rains down in castamere” is a top notch display name
She’s also just top notch in general. Her and her ridiculously charming pet pig Rufus (pictured below) are two of main things I miss from Twitter…
There is only one Rufus and that’s not it.
For hundreds of thousands of years, we spent 2 or 3 hours a day hunting and gathering, then chilled out and had fun the rest of the time. That’s what our bodies are designed for.
I was hoping you would say “unnaturally contorted in a desk chair for 8-10 hours per day”
Straight to shrimpin
Those numbers are off, and there’s some studies showing that what people simplify to “chilling out” was also work, just done in groups back at the settlement. For example, preparing the animal you caught for eating, using the tools of the era, takes time. Unfortunately there are a lot of people understanding only the bare bones cliffnotes of historic life, then using it as fuel for their (justified but somewhat misinformed) campaign against the workload expected of us in modern life.
That said, the general take away is correct: humans used to be far more active in the completion of their daily duties.
Back when we lived to the ripe old age of 38.
(Im kidding, I know that was mostly due to infection and whatnot)
The ‘age of 38’ thing isn’t even due to infection ir disease, or even a thing at all. 38 was the average between the high number of infant deaths and the normal lifespan of someone who didn’t.
Ok, women giving birth skewed it a bit too. Men didn’t die in battle as much as people think, since most battles were decided when a small portion of the losing side died and the rest fled.
Do we have numbers for the hunter-gatherer time that can even be skewed by infant deaths?
Edit: as it turns out, yes, absolutely. Wikipedia says the lifespan is around 21-37 years but 57% died before 15 and 64% of those that don’t would also reach 45.
Yeah, mid twenties to mid thirties tends to be the peak of human health and physcial fitness which would be true no matter what conditions are, so it would make sense that disease, accidents, and other trauma would be far less fatal during those ages.
Don’t you just hate it when health fanatics are right?
I’ve tried eating salad. I like salad. I eat about three or four kilos of salad a day. Five, maybe. Six, if I’m hungry. Rarely more than eight. Hardly ever ten. Still not losing weight. Diets are such bullshit.
10kg of salad…are you a young hippopotamus?
Young? Sadly no.
Well what ELSE do you eat? Adding salad and not removing other stuff will not do much. And what do you drink?
Couple of pizzas, a kilo or two of mac and cheese (I’ve heard carb loading is a thing athletes do), thirty or forty chicken wings (white meat protein, right?), half a dozen burgers (red meat for the iron content), and a millionaire shortbread traybake (helps with success visualization). To drink, I keep it purely healthy and have a half gallon of Sunny D.
But that’s just lunch, I have my main meal in the evening.
Lmao
To the people who dont feel better after excercise, maybe you just haven’t found a sport or excercise that you like?
For me it is biking but yours could be different.
People who try to start an exercise activity very commonly do too much their first time(s) at it, and end up injuring themselves or hurting too much which makes it hard to continue and even harder to start doing it again after they inevitably quit. The best thing to do is to start with something absurdly small - like biking a half-mile, walking (or running) 200 feet, or driving to the gym and then driving home without even going inside - and then very gradually ramp things up. The most important thing is to establish exercising as a regular habit, and then worry about turning it into actual physically effective exercise later on.
I dislike exercising, I often have to “parent” myself into starting, I have to fight the urge to stop several times during a session, and I almost always feel worse immediately after. Sore, tired, sweaty, or various other uncomfortableness, and I haven’t found a recovery activity that erases that temporary badness.
But, my life when I’m not exercising has gotten better, and it’s at least partially due to the exercise.
Well, maybe try something else. For example:
- swimming - can’t be sweaty of you’re surrounded by water
- cycling - do errands on your bike; you’ll still be tired and sweaty, but at least you also got groceries
- hiking - see nature and get the exercise for free
I have tried swimming and hiking, and while I can enjoy doing those activities, I fail to maintain an elevated heart rate if I’m enjoying them.
I live in a rural area, the Grocery store I use is 15+ miles up a US Hwy.with narrow/shoulders in places. I can’t do errands on a bike. I haven’t actually been on a normal bike in years, but on the stationary bikes at the gym, it’s another scenario where I won’t maintain my heart rate.
What about a local library? Fruit vendor?
I’m in a suburban/semi-rural area (some farms, and lots of single family homes), so I’m spoiled for choice, but anything that’s within about 5 miles is perfect for running errands on a bicycle.
As for elevated heart rate, I guess that comes down to personality. I’m very competitive, so I like to see how fast I can do things, and very much dislike doing anything slowly. When I hike, I pass other hikers; when I cycle, I set time goals; when I swim, I try to increase the number of laps; when I lift weights, I try to increase weight or reps (I target 5-10 reps with “one in the tank”). If you’re not competitive, I can see how motivating yourself could be difficult though.
There are places I could get to on a bike, but none that are currently in my routine errands. I suppose I could hit the post office on the bike.
I set time goals for my 5k treadmill sessions, but I only meet then by converting over to a pace and setting the treadmill there. I continue to increase my weights, too, though I generally don’t go up until I can do an “extra” set.
I get close to the NIH recommendations and I keep pushing myself to be better, and I still dislike exercising. It’s just non-optional maintenance for this shell until I can shed it.
Exercise for its own sake sucks, which is why I like replacing other things I need to do anyway with something that includes exercise. When I lift weights, I listen to podcasts or audiobooks between sets, and when I was in school, I would do pushups or situps as a study break. My first job was about 10 miles from home, so I would ride my bike 2-3x/week (we had a shower), which would take 35-45min, which was about twice what driving would take, but I’d get home and have already gotten my exercise for the day.
I honestly can’t just do exercise for its own sake, it needs to be accompanied by some other activity I enjoy or need to do.
Podcasts or music are not essential to my gym experience, but they are important. My pace on the treadmill certainly suffers if I forgot my headphones.
A few weeks ago some “commedian” decided he needed to get my attention (pause playback, turn off noice cancelling, “yes?”) twice for idiotidic jokes like “When are you going to be done with that machine, because there aren’t any others: gestures to empty gym with only He and I”.
He did pay me an appreciated comment during one of those interruptions, but overall his behavior was grating and made the session worse than average.
I haven’t yet found a combination activity where I still feel like I’m getting sufficient exercise. I think combination activities work better for many people and you gotta find a way that exercise works for you, or you really won’t get enough.
I’m not sure why but I find pretty much all excercise mind numbingly boring. I found that walking my dog in the park is a lot more stimulating mentally because you gotta look out for your little critter and she always does interesting things. The only thing is she gets cold easily so I can only walk her properly in the summer…
Dog tax: https://imgur.com/a/rEII2ih
Unfortunately it’s not that simple. :(
