To think you can't enjoy exercise if you just ... don't?

[catscurledupbythefire]

I would be interested if anybody ever has because I. Hate. It.

I hate - classes (am a bit thick slow to pick things up, so can take keep up. Plus can see myself in the mirror) the gym generally as I just get bored and it hurts and I can't focus on anything like music or a film because all I can think is 'ow this hurts, ow, ow, ow' walks (get bored on my own) running (no chance) cycling (hurts my backside) swimming (I just can't be doing with all the faff.)

So - any ideas? Or should I just write off exercise and moderate my food intake RIGHT down?

I thkn the thread is an interesting one.It's about how do you force yourself to do something you don't want to do. I find it hard. I am reading the newspapers before starting work. I could of course have gone for a half an hour walk (it's even sunny out there). Instead all I've done is done some domestic stuff and put a hose on in the garden.

It is always excuses and I am perfectly happy to admit that (a class woudl not be for me as I have people wanting to talk to me all day long so any exercise would have to be away from other people or I'd hate it even more - but then that's excuses again). One of my sons goes out for a run every day at the moment (school holidays) so I utterly surrounded by fit people and those of us who don't move much and then complain about it on here but be very irritating for the rest of you all. However it's a vital issue for our age - how can the state or we all make sure the many many many millions of people in the UK who are basically sedentery move more?

In the 1800s my ancestors who lived long active lives were on farms. My father has photos of some graves with the ages on - long healthy lives. Then his great grandparents moved to towns. Some were still active in the early 1900s because they didn't have modern machines and had to grow food in small gardens and my great grandfather mined coal but they died a lot sooner than the generation before because the town and mining life was worse from them than the farms.

Then we get to my parents' generation - they were no in manual labour and vaccuum cleaners came out. When I started primary school my mother pushed my toddler sister and walked me over a mile to school and back she came and amazingly she went back at lunch time until I was 10 (we came home for lunch as did my father all his working life!) and then she took me back and then did the whole thing after 3pm - so she had there and back 3 times a day. Mind you not surprisingly she learned to drive within a year and my parents stretched to a second car (just). She was always fairly active - if you are a teacher which she had been for 10 years you are often on your feet and later she had an allotment so was active there but certainly my father's work was not active and he probably sat too much.

For those much earlier generations work and life was very active and hard and when you'd don it all day at 6 after work you just wanted to sit down and recover from 8 hours of hewing coal. The idea you'd rush out again when you were really tired just wasn't part of the culture.

Anyway it's certainly interesting. I don't even think we need to do vast amounts of exercvise to be fit - just get out of breath, sweat, do some regular walks too and also lift a few things that are heavy and even so with all my knowledge what will I do today apart from work in my home office and a few domestic things - probably nothing on the exercise front. Well those of us who don't will pay the price later in life. We will reap what we are now sowing and I don't even have very small children to run around after any more.

I hate exercise but I force myself on the cross trainer every morning (boyfriend bought me it so feel obliged) and I'm very reluctantly going to a Burlesque chair dance class tonight

Just do it already ffs

There's a lot of self righteous bollocks on this thread about exercising and living long and healthily into old age. I know very few people of the older generations of my family that have ever done any sport or exercise. (The only two I can think of, one died young of cancer and the other died relatively young due to other lifestyle issues but that's not my point!)

Of the older people in my family, none of whom ever did sport or exercise, the ones that lived longer and healthier were the ones that lived active lives - walking to the shops or work, gardening, housework, physical jobs etc and who didn't smoke and ate and drank in moderation. So not sitting on your arse all day, is probably just as useful in health terms as driving to the gym a few times a week and doing bugger all else.

Or what Janet said!

I must not get the endorphin 'thing' either, as I never really feel better after exercise, just tired and glad it's over. Plus, I get very bored, very quickly, without any mental stimulation. Listening to podcasts helps somewhat (Radiolab got me through many slogs at the gym) but I feel ultra guilty if I listen to anything whilst walking with DD2 in her pushchair. Plus, I don't really like social situations so group stuff and talking and stuff are out. For me, it's mostly just walking and praying I don't come across anyone I know.

Actually going is a faff as well :)

Of the older people in my family, none of whom ever did sport or exercise, the ones that lived longer and healthier were the ones that lived active lives

This is illogical, you are saying that these people took no exercise, and then you say that they were physically active, ie that they did exercise.

I think there is some confusion or inconsistency around what is meant by 'exercise'.
So to clear that one up exercise is synonymous with physical activity but not with sport

I hate doing the laundry. I really hate it, it's horrible and humiliating. But I do it because the alternative is being smelly and filthy and having people (how very dare they!) judge me and dirt-shame me.

Why is doing the laundry humiliating?

I hate it too. I try to walk a bit rather than use the car. I don't mind swimming or cycling. If I exercise with a friend, I do less and end up chatting Instead. Luckily I have a physical job but I eat shit.

I don't understand the exercise to unwind thing. I much prefer to sit down and read or something

We've dealt with this "older people didn't exercise" canard. The whole point is if you do lead a genuinely active life in the style of people a couple of generations ago, not much or no car use, fewer labour-saving devices, culture of being outdoors more, more likely to do a physical job, not spending 8 hours a day at a computer, then no you probably don't need to deliberately set aside time to "do exercise".

But if you don't live like it's 1955 you probably do need to. Ok?

Why is doing the laundry humiliating?
the post to which you refer was allegorical

YANBU...

For those people who say 'you just haven't found the right exercise yet'. You are wrong.

I have tried jogging/running, weight training, strongwoman training, circuits, kickboxing, karate, taikwondo, tennis, badminton, Zumba, swimming, step aerobics, personal training at the gym, boot camps at the park, Pilates, yoga, hip hop dance classes, belly dancing, trampolining. Plus all the crap they make you do at school so hockey, netball, etc. Probably many others that I have blocked from my memory.

I hate them all.

I hate putting on exercise clothing, I hate seeing myself in the mirror, I hate not being able to follow steps, I hate feeling like my lungs are going to collapse in on themselves.

I get zero endorphins. It's just grim, painful, time consuming, makes me feel stupid and uncoordinated and horrible.

These are the interesting points - what makes us do things (and by the way if you lead an active life, walk children to school or whatever that is exercise too - some of us try to avoid both kinds formal and informal exercise). I have no trouble getting up to go into the kitchen to get food or doing things I need to for work or putting on the washing machine (mind you that just takes a few minutes).

There is something about physical effort for many people that is harder to motivate yourself to do it than lots of other things like looking at MN on your computer or phone.

I hated exercise, I got bigger and bigger because I literally hardly moved.

Then I found a class where the people are really nice so it's more of 'go and see these lovely people, and you have to do exercise in order to see them' (well not exactly like that but you know what I mean)

I now go 3 times per week, I've lost over a stone and I LOVE it, I really truly hated exercise but I promise that if you find the right thing it really can be done!

Apparently housework burns as many calories as a trip to the gym. You could do some hoovering OP and get all the miserableness over in one go!

I can confirm when I cleaned the bathroom on Saturday I had a right sweat on!

If I had to do the laundry in front of a large group of people and red faced and sweaty and couldn't work the washing machine properly it might work as a metaphor!

If you are unfit then strenuous physical activity tends to feel very unpleasant and stressful
As fitness improves what was hard feels less and less so

If you don't use your body it will wither and malfunction, muscles will atrophy fat accumulates in the midsection and you increasingly resemble a beachball with stick arms and legs

Isn't that enough to motivate?

Oh I am doing it, well trying to ... it's just hard when you don't naturally enjoy it, that was really the only point of the thread I guess.

I hate running (my 40th birthday present to myself was to never again try to take it up again) but I like walking in the countryside and working on my allotment which are both forms of exercise I can do regularly. I also love snorkelling in warm seas but don't get to do that very often.

What about joining a walking group if you don't like walking alone?

The other thing I don't think anyone has said, it was a revelation to me when I realised I shouldn't be exercising so hard I feel sick and in a world of pain all the time. A bit out of breath with hurty calves is one thing, but (just IMHO, I have no training in this) if exercise is making you feel dreadful I think you're working too hard for your fitness level and should ease yourself in more. At a decent fat-burning cardio pace you should still be able to hold a conversation, and to do heart/lung capacity expanding work you should only be going full pelt for short bursts, as much as you can manage.

I calmed it right down when I realised this and stopped dreading exercise and so steadily got fitter (until failures of last 6 months ).

You see it especially in older men at the gym thinking that if they aren't constantly on the edge of nauseous collapse they aren't exercising and it looks awful, the strain they are putting on themselves.

Yep ease yourself in, no need to kill yourself, just work at a level which is slightly challenging, breathing a little harder but not gasping for breath

Use a heart rate monitor, walk at 3.5 or 4 mph rather than stroll at 3

Cats, I've had a look at both your food and exercise threads and there's one point that's standing out a mile - you have no patience (bear with me, I'm not being mean). Impatience is just another way of wanting the world to be different to how it actually is. Could you shove the food and exercise to one side and address the issue that's causing them to be a problem?

You can't start on a diet or exercise plan because it doesn't solve the problem right now, which means anything that takes longer than a day is kind of doomed to fail, which just proves, to you, that nothing works and nothing ever will.

Step off this track for a while and stop thinking about the gap between where you are now and where you want to be - it's too big and one day of exercise isn't going to cut it, nor is one day of healthy eating.

Don't make any sudden moves, just have a look at some mindfulness apps out of the corner of your eye. It might just help to look at what you're feeling from a different angle.

There's definitely some truth in that. It's not that I think nothing works and nothing ever will, though. It's more that I kind of have a picture in my head of how I want to be, where I'm motivated and enjoying exercise. And I kind of do, or did. I just don't at this size. I mean, I have always found it a faff but in the days where I followed DH everywhere and I went to the gym with him I did enjoy it a bit.

But you're right about a lot. Maybe I should forget exercising until I'm smaller generally?