To not want to exercise

[beewaspfly]

help me out here. Wrong side of 40, in the thick of perimenopause. All of my friends, and I mean all, have started exercising like crazy in the past few years- even the ones I’d least expect. My GP keeps telling me I HAVE to start strength training or I’ll have an unbearable later life.

but…I don’t want to. It’s just so tedious. I hate the gym, hate PT even more, hate classes (have tried several), hate home work outs, even the short ones. I don’t get any endorphin rush from it or whatever. The prospect of doing it ruins my day - it’s better if I do it first thing but even then I hate every minute.

id rather just be walking somewhere nice, meeting friends, working, napping, catching up on tv and eating amazing food with my family, reading and enjoying my life without the sense of impending dread.

im size 10, love to walk for HOURS every day, slim but not really toned (ok, a bit flabby in some areas), feel pretty healthy on the whole. Can’t I just keep doing what I’m doing? Please??

my mum is in her 70s and fine doing what I do, although she has had some falls lately. Dad says he wish he’d worked out as he’s such a weedy skinny old man now (his words). But they’re fine. My grandmother is in her 90s and going strong.

why do I have to do this? Why is everyone else doing this? Someone tell me one good reason and I’ll stop moaning

While there’s people like you around I doubt it!

I don't feel as strongly as you, but I DO feel like a fraud when I'm in the gym lifting weights. I definitely empathise with feeling like you're doing it wrong. Everyone else seems so competent. It doesn't make me want to cry, and I don't think anyone is judging me, they're all either lovely or just in their own bubble of lifting - but I do feel inadequate and like a fish out of water.

This is felt most acutely in a class I've just signed up for. It's HIIT strength. 40 minutes of humiliating hell. I hate it. I don't get endorphins after doing it - or if I do, their signal is getting lost in all of the 'fuck me that was NOT fun'. But I do want to have functional fitness, very much.

I was very overweight for the last 6 years, and now I'm not, and I want to be able to use my body in all the ways I haven't been able to. Going from not being able to lift my own leg to put my socks on, to standing on one leg with my foot held high to do it... it's a revelation to me. I guess I've been 'lucky' enough to experience what it feels like to have a body you can't do anything useful in - like a fast forward to old age. I couldn't get up without using my arms, I actively avoided walking, my world got smaller... I am loving being able to run up the stairs like it's nothing. I can power up a hill and enjoy the feeling in my glutes, rather than feel like I'm dying. It's all a revelation. I don't want to slow down. I want to speed up - hence HIIT.

I'm trying to reframe it all as healthy to push myself out of my comfort zone. I don't like to look or feel like I don't know what I'm doing - no one does, I suppose - but it's the only way to learn. I tried doing it quietly to myself at home and you just can't do the progressive overload.

No one trying to improve themselves should feel intense shame. You're showing up for yourself. Maybe try reframing it too?

I have the power to ruin your business and prevent you from behaving any better than you currently do?

Fabulous! Tomorrow, the world!

People like you are why fitness professionals have a business lmao. If everyone took the time to learn about this for themselves we’d be out of a job.

You’re doing amazing. This thread shows you how many people are doing nothing. You’re showing up for yourself, pushing yourself to do things even when you don’t enjoy them just because you see the benefit - incredible. Amazing that you’re feeling the impact as well.

There's definitely a gap in the market for the sort of personal trainer who isn't a sporty, perky pony-tailed scrunch-bum-legginged 30yo, but a jaded 50-something woman who doesn't really enjoy it either, but has seen the benefits. Rather than platitudes like 'smash your goals' or 'you got this', they would say 'I know it's shit but think of your flat arse' or 'one more set and we can go and have a cup of tea'. Ten sessions and you get a bonus voucher for a cake.

But before you said that as long as people like me were around, you doubted your business would ever do well enough to stop trying to prove something to a load of randoms online. Now you're saying we actually keep you in a job? And your job isn't even necessary?

You couldn't just be making up rubbish and flinging it wildly without thinking too much, could you?

I mean, you know hip issues often have a huge genetic component, right?

Funnily enough, that's actually what the female PTs at my gym are like (bar the not enjoying it themselves; they do, but on their advert posters they've got something along the lines of "I'll try to make it fun but if I can't you'll still get this health benefit/you'll look better". They could do with a copywriter helping them to make it punchier, but that's the gist.

Your comprehension is as diabolical as your attitude towards your health and fitness tbh.

Please tell me more about my attitude towards my health and fitness.

Im not mad for exercise either. When I was young I was very active. Now, I just walk and stretch. I've got a small treadmill at home and use it most days. I walk, (stroll), with our dog, do some gardening & that's about it. I'm not going to do anymore, because that would stress me out.

Most PTs are neither. I’m not either of those. The instagram ones are in the first category, sure. Most of the PTs working in actual gyms generally aren’t though!

YES!

I ordered some scrunch-bum leggings recently. Halara finally sucked me in. They've been targeting me with videos of saggy wobbly women snapping them on and becoming 'snatched', whatever that means, for about 4 years. I'm a size 14 now. This is a world I can finally enter!

No. No I cannot. I have never, ever, looked or felt more ridiculous. I don't know if they were too big or am I beyond help, but they just lifted my flat saggy bum wholesale up an inch, with a ridge under it to draw attention to how flat and saggy it is. No round peach effect. Absolutely vile.

Halara sells really well on Vinted, usually full price

Oh, I sent them back and got a refund. They were in my house for 30 minutes max - the sooner they were in that Royal Mail Drop Off box, the sooner I could forget I ever thought my butt could scrunch...

Oh that’s good, I’d read that their returns are really bad! I don’t like the scrunch bum at all

You do sound very childish, I'm afraid. Don't do it. There will probably be some consequences down the line in your old age as multiple PP have explained, especially if there's a family history of osteoporosis, but you're an adult with free will and nobody will make you.

Sent them back on Saturday, money hit my account today... I ordered via TikTok shop as it's a surprisingly decent platform when it comes to stuff like this.

Exercise is a funny thing. Five years ago, if you’d told me I’d be doing a half marathon, I would have laughed in your face. I HATED running, I thought it was the most miserable thing in existence, I couldn’t understand why anyone wanted to do it.

I lost some weight and wanted to increase fitness so I did some swimming and increased my walking etc. And then a friend suggested I go for a run with her. I was appalled but she promised we would do it slow and I agreed just so we could do it, I could say I hated it and that be an end to it.

Because I had started building an aerobic base already, I was actually able to complete a 5k (slowly!) and realised that I bloody love it. I run on my own a lot now and I love the time out in nature, listening to my music and podcasts, the feeling I have after a run, seeing myself get stronger and faster, signing up for new challenges, the social aspect of park run or races. It’s really been life-changing. I have so much more energy now too, I used to really struggle to get out of bed and to have energy for the day and now I just feel fit and healthy.

So I don’t know, I was one of those people claiming that I hated all exercise and I really meant it at the time, but turns out I don’t!

And it’s the kind of fitness that transfers over into functional life too. I can keep up with the kids on their scooters, we can go biking together. I was out with some friends recently and we had to rush up a hill to catch our train and they really struggled whereas it was no issue for me. It just makes existing and taking part in life much easier.

I think enjoying exercise takes time. It’s like when you’re losing weight. It takes a few weeks before you really start seeing and feeling improvements, but once you do it gets easier and more motivating.

Most people don’t enjoy things they don’t feel good at. When I started running to try and lose weight during lockdown, I went out at 5am because i was so embarrassed. The gym was the same when I first started, although I did have a PT which made it much easier. It does get better but you have to go through the uncomfortable early weeks/months before it becomes enjoyable/bearable.

This is exactly how I feel. I was diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolemia and told I should do some exercise alongside medication. I figured I would do at home workouts but instead I did Couch to 5k last May. When I finished I realised I wanted to keep getting out of the house for 30-45 minutes, with my music on, just me and the pavement and my thoughts. It's been a game changer for my mental health.

Well I’ve had to start weights at 38.. back injury last year plus C section means I have no choice because I literally was stuck on the floor!!!
if you’re walking hours and hours that’s fine. But you’d need to be walking a lot and sustain it well into your later life x

OP has specified she actually walks AN hour.

Fast walking - at a speed that means you're out of breath, could hold a conversation but not sing - for 25 minutes a day ticks the NHS box for cardio fitness. If she's walking fast, her cardio is nailed.

If she's just wombling, then it's obviously beneficial - standing is better than sitting, moving is better than standing - but not working her heart and lungs to the degree they need to be worked.