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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Exercise evangelists...

29 replies

imonlydancing · 16/03/2014 22:09

I've got several friends who train. Some of them have lost loads of weight, some of them have always trained and love it.

I am happy for them. I think its great that they've changed their lives and found something they love. I get that they are on a high by doing what they enjoy and want others to join in.

But what is seriously starting to hack me off is their assumption that anyone who doesn't train or want to lose weight or eat clean or so whatever the latest cleansing detox is, must be inherently unhappy. When I say I don't really enjoy the gym, I am met with "You haven't found the right exercise" or "I was full of excuses too, and look at me now". I walk many miles a day btw, I am not unfit and I'm perfectly happy with my weight. I, and other friends get this all the time particularly from the new found exercise fanatics.

It's not a bloody excuse! What you enjoy doing, is not what I enjoy doing! I am happy to let you be, so just let ME be! Surely that is not unreasonable???

OP posts:

YouTheCat · 16/03/2014 22:18

YANBU - nothing wrong with enjoying something but telling other people they can't be happy unless they do too makes them sound boring as hell.

Needavacation · 16/03/2014 22:18

YANBU. I can't think of anything more boring that hearing about how many squats people can do.

Original poster

imonlydancing · 16/03/2014 22:27

I feel really sad that I have to distance myself from these friends, because their routine overtakes any friend activities now. If I ask about shopping at the weekend, it must fit around the gym and that of course leads to the question of me joining them at the gym.

Perhaps dinner? Oh no, that would mean a lecture on the nutritional content of everyone's menu choices.

Every time I have tried to broached this I am always met with "I used to eat like you, but now I know better about sugar/transfats/carbs."

I LIKE CARBS!

OP posts:

foslady · 16/03/2014 22:27

YANBU - my dsis is like this. I currently want to loose weight but she's evangelical at the moment about a certain diet program and I can't cope with the idea and her 'of course this will work, look at me' attitude (she also has a v supportive partner and a job where she can get up and move about - I am plugged into a phone for 8 hours a day and on my own). Before this it was juicing everything in sight. Before Christmas it was certain exercise DVD's. I - fool that I am - bought one of the ones she recommended. It took 6 weeks for the chest ligaments to ease and my right arm socket still isn't right and suspect a trip to the chiropractors is on the cards...
Does my head in...

ViviPru · 16/03/2014 22:28

YANBU. I do a class at the gym every day but if anything I tend to keep it to myself lest I alienate people who couldn't give less of a shit.

rhetorician · 16/03/2014 22:30

I run, but don't expect anyone who doesn't to take the remotest interest. It's very boring!

WorraLiberty · 16/03/2014 22:37

YANBU

But then again I can't stand any evangelists

They need to stick a sock in it and realise there are other things to preach talk about.

notreallyok · 16/03/2014 22:42

YANBU it is so dull. Especially the really evangelical paleo types. It makes me want to say 'You're still going to die, you know'.

Some people also think they are actually morally superior just because they do a lot of exercise, and slag off overweight people for being a burden on the NHS despite the fact that a lot of dedicated exercisers damage themselves doing exercise or end up needing hip or knee replacements.

I don't give a shit what clothes size my friends are or how many miles they can run as long as they are fun and nice.

MedusaIsHavingaBadHairday · 16/03/2014 22:48

Married to a cycle bore here. He does my head in
Yes I'm glad he is fit, that he loves cycling, but regailing his every mile, and the million and one properties of lycra gel shorts.... nooooooo

I hate exercise.. do a little ( a very enjoyable Taekwondo class ..) to stop myself falling apart but I do not talk about it.

As for the low carb/no carb/WW/paleo and the bloody 5:2 fasters at work... just eat..don't eat.. let me eat my lunch in peace!

Original poster

imonlydancing · 16/03/2014 22:49

I feel like such a bitch thinking it, because it's so important to them.

But it's important to them not me! Time to meet some new people I think.

OP posts:

Original poster

imonlydancing · 16/03/2014 22:50

Morally superior is totally right, thats spot on notreallyok!

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treaclesoda · 16/03/2014 23:01

I loathe people commenting on what other people are eating, that would drive me mad, and it does have an air or moralising.

But I have to admit that I have in the past said to people 'oh, maybe you don't enjoy running, but there might be something else you'd enjoy?'. But, only in response to the almost inevitable 'oh, I don't know how you have the discipline to do so much exercise' line, when I'm trying to explain that it's not a hardship for me because I look forward to it. If people don't ask me about it, I don't talk about it.

If it's any consolation, when you've come to training later in life (I was in my 30s) you do tend to find that other people can get a bit defensive about if, I get a lot of 'oh, I'm sure that can't be good for you' comments.

The eating thing though, anyone who nutritionally analyses someone else's food when you're out for dinner needs put in the stocks and pelted with organic sunflower seeds.

dannychampionoftheworld · 16/03/2014 23:04

It's just rude to comment negatively on what another adult is eating. A lot of it is such an overreaction too. You're not going to shrivel up and die if you eat a sticky toffee pudding. It's sugar, not cyanide.

expatinscotland · 16/03/2014 23:10

The diet freaks do my nut - no carbs, no gluten (when they do not have coeliac disease), no dairy. 'I gave up bread for Lent' and tell everyone. No one fucking cares!

YouTheCat · 16/03/2014 23:22

Expat, I gave up listening to diet bores for Lent.

StarlightMcKingsThree · 16/03/2014 23:39

Oh, I know a bunch of these people. I think it is fuelled by insecurity.

I will never find the 'right exercise' because I had outdoors, and pretty much all of them involve going outdoors if only to get to the indoor exercise. I can quite like it when I get there, but going in the first place just ain't for me.

And my living room is the size of a postage stamp, even if I could see the carpet.

As for eating, well, I can't be doing a separate meal for me and a separate from my family, and if we were all going to eat seeds and home-reared oily fish we'd not be able to afford the mortgage.

wowfudge · 16/03/2014 23:40

OP if you are walking many miles a day, that is fantastic cardio exercise and as good as running for fitness without the same joint impact

Original poster

imonlydancing · 16/03/2014 23:46

I do a jog here and there but they don't know that because I'm not straight on facebook to announce it and to post lots of inspirational quotes about fitness!

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WorraLiberty · 16/03/2014 23:47

See I don't think walking many miles a day is fantastic cardio particularly, and it's certainly not as good as running.

But then again, I don't own a car so walking all the time is just like breathing or blinking to me.

I don't see walking as exercise either...I just see it as getting from A to B.

Either way I could feign a polite interest in a conversation with an exercise junky, but it wouldn't take long for me to tell them to change the record

Original poster

imonlydancing · 16/03/2014 23:48

Although a jog here and there is not ENOUGH! You need a fitness plan! Here, let me write it for you, you unfit cretin.

OP posts:

Original poster

imonlydancing · 16/03/2014 23:52

I don't have a car either and I only walk because I begrudge paying for the bus, worra!

Although I now wonder if feigning interest has encouraged them to think I'm actually bothered

OP posts:

WorraLiberty · 17/03/2014 00:03

Perhaps it has

May I suggest you spend all day tomorrow, in front of a mirror, practising your STFU face?

wowfudge · 17/03/2014 00:04

worra you are wrong about walking. It takes longer and you have to go further in terms of distance(than running), but the health benefits are the same. The fact it doesn't seem like exercise is one of the advantages, at least for me.

I've been a regular gym goer and an outdoor exerciser (boot camp stuff) gave up the first because I lost all motivation for it overnight and the second through injury.

But some people think that unless you are sweating in lycra or lifting weights then it ain't good enough.

SoleSource · 17/03/2014 00:07

Lots of preachy types are in a dieting phase. They'll give up soon.

angelos02 · 17/03/2014 07:57

Totally agree OP. Used to work with someone that went to the gym twice a day and it was her only source of conversation. Bore off lady. I did no exercise and still looked better than her

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