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

I think all the posts about people reaching 100 sort of miss the point. It’s not about longevity at any cost, it’s about quality of life. I would rather not live to 100 if my mobility and general frailty meant that I was completely dependent on others for care and couldn’t get out and about and enjoy life. I don’t necessarily think longevity past a certain point is the benchmark we should be using for a successful old age population. People might be living longer but not necessarily better.

I'm sure picking her up and carrying her will be doing wonders for your strength.

This stands out for me. You don’t say your age but Im guessing mid 40s?

From what you’ve shared here you don’t sounds fit at all if walking up an incline makes you out of breath and burns your thighs. You say you walk for an hour a day on the flat and that’s it? Which is absolutely fine if you aren’t getting any symptoms but you are seeing your Dr so clearly ARE getting symptoms. The Dr has told you what will help and you don’t want to do it. That’s also fine but you then have to accept it.

it boils down to - if you want change then do it or put up and shut up.

She may benefit more from balance exercises, rather than weight training.
There are lots of Japanese exercises to aid balance.

This is how I feel about exercise. All the “just find something you love so it isn’t a chore” was never going to work for me.

But then I realised I did “chores” all the time, and it’s fine. I don’t wait for motivation to hit to clean the bathroom/do the hoovering/sort the laundry, and I don’t expect to love it. But it needs doing, so I do it. I listen to a podcast or audiobook, and just crack on. I do the same with exercise. Once I ditched the feeling that I just had to find the right thing and I’d suddenly turn into a person who loved exercise, I found it a lot easier.

Do you have any hills or steps you can add into your walk?

Absolutely this! If you can find something you actually enjoy, then that would be the best outcome. If you don’t like sweating Op, maybe you could go swimming - you don’t notice it if you sweat as you’re in the water and then you have a shower straight after.

If I were you, I would maybe try joining some groups like dancing or badminton or something and see what you enjoy (plus it’s social!).

Have you considered yin yoga or tai chi? Not very physically demanding, and the sense of well being from stretching can be quite addictive. It may be a gateway to slightly more strenuous yoga which would have the body resistance version of strength training. The main benefit of these would be to protect against falls such as your mother has had.

Possibly dyspraxic and/or demand avoidant? Are you hypermobile, it makes exercise much harder work? Is it common for you not to want to do something you've been told you have to do?

Please make sure you get a DEXA scan at some point, given your mum's history. It costs under £200 if your GP won't pay for it.

@beewaspfly all sounds fine if you walk alot ,,, however you need to add strength training . Put three workouts a week involving weights into your life that’s should do you fine . Being a size 10 sounds healthy but you need to build muscle to protect your joints .

She's nearly 5 and very independent so we don't really carry her much anymore. She is the heaviest thing I lift, mind you, but somehow I can carry her but not other things of similar size/weight. Mum thing?

Walking/dancing/badminton isn't the same type of exercise, yes it's good for your heart and lungs but strength training is about making your body stronger and protecting your bones. You're much less likely to get frail as early if you have strong muscles which can only be achieved through strength/resistance training.

70 seems fairly young to me for your parents to be concerned about getting frail.

I also think this feeling of hating exercise passes when you start doing it regularly and it starts to feel less like a chore eventually. I used to feel like you do OP and now I am disappointed if I don't have time to get a work out in.

What’s your screen time on your phone? Don’t guess, actually look at it. Dedicated half of that to an at home work out. I’m assuming from your post you’re a single parent?

Im a 45 year old single parent to a 6 year old and work FT. I manage to fit in 3 works outs and 3 runs a week by being creative with when I do them. I also am very disciplined with my screen time. The latter was surprisingly hard but had the biggest impact on my free time. I now have 45 mins in the morning dedicated to social media and 30 mins browsing in the evening and that’s it. I use an app to cut my phone off after the limit is reached. Game changing.

I thought this, then found a gym that has a “biogym” that sets up my strength routine over a 30 minute course, automatically sets the weights and pace of the reps. I actually quite enjoy it now.

But if you can’t find that / still don’t enjoy it, then maybe try a weighted vest while your walking and wrist/ankle weights as at least you’re strengthening muscles with your normal routine

My friend is the Same. She barely bends her knees . I’ve never met anyone like it . She bends from her back also and yes she complains about aches and pains .
She does in some levels have lazy nature .
I think you don’t get the hit from exercise most get as your not working hard enough to experience it.

I'm with you, OP. I don't see why anyone 'has to' do anything. People are far too boringly prescriptive about these things.

You can do what you like, you are free to do so.

The science is that the human body's capabilities deteriorate over time unless you do work in the opposite direction. Same as a house gets messier and dirtier over time if no one ever dies work to clean and tidy. The range of activities that a person can do without effort or discomfort is always a bit less (I forget the ratio, something like 80%) of the range of activities that the person regularly does with some effort or discomfort. Therefore if you always keep within the envelope of activities that you can manage without effort or discomfort, that envelope will shrink and the walks that you currently find enjoyable will become more and more difficult and painful precisely because they are the most difficult thing you regularly ask your body to do.

You are entirely at liberty to choose not to do any exercise and to allow your body to deteriorate.

I also dislike most forms of exercise but I choose things that don't require much brain and I listen to podcasts and audiobooks while letting 10% of my brain control the muscles to do the work.

Walking for an hour each day is plenty. You dont need a fancy gym. Just find a way to add a couple of strengthening activities into the walk eg use a heavy drink bottle as a dumbell. The key is to do exercises that tick multiple boxes at once

So? Why do you care about her 'lazy nature'? Mind your own business!

If your mum has had some falls, she is not fine. She probably fell over because she is weak and has poor balance. My DM is mid 80s and digs her veg plot and climbs the ladder into the loft. She has never had a falls.

Listen to your GP. Can you start very small - say 10
minutes once a week? Then build up to 10 minutes twice a week. It’s not a lot but it is much better than nothing. Ask a PT to assess you and write you a programme to do at home so you don’t have to faff around with going to the gym. Then ideally go back after 6 months and get reassessed.

I’m in my 50s and like most people my age, I have osteoarthritis in many joints. They have stopped hurting since I strengthened the muscles around the joints. Painkillers are nowhere near as effective because they wear off. Also painkillers have annoying side effects.

Are you me?!

Add in an aggressively masculine female games teacher who gave me my one and only detention for running away from a speeding hockey ball…

My DS has been diagnosed with dyspraxia and is spared the school PE horror, and I’m pretty sure I have it too. But I can walk pretty much forever without noticing and love being outdoors, so I don’t sweat the lack of Pilates.

People in older generations tended to live much more physical lives than we do now. So although your parents and grandparents didn’t ’exercise’, their day to day lives and jobs were likely a lot more active than many people have now. So now people do use gyms because they know they spend the rest of their time sitting down.

All of the women in my dad’s immediate family (8 of them) had/have osteoporosis. All of those women were very active throughout their lives- lots of walking and gardening and active jobs. But none of them lifted weights. I lift weights in the hope that it’ll help me avoid the worst of the osteoporosis that might be heading my way. It might or might not work but at least it looks great in the meantime- I just really like the aesthetic of muscle tone. I’d much rather be a strong and muscular woman than a skinny one.

Personally I don’t do cardio because I hate it. I love strength and flexibility work and would happily do it all day but can’t bring myself to do pure cardio. I know I should but I don’t want to. I have made my peace with that and will have to accept any risks that come with my refusal to do it!

I feel exactly the same as you. Like fuck am I going to start lifting weights. I think it's a fad in a decade everyone will be complaining their joints are fucked from the 2020s weightlifting protein craze.

If you're walking loads you're probably fine. As a person who does 10k steps every day and carries shopping, I am so bored of people who drive to a gym and lift weights lecturing me!! Just a reasonable level of exercise integrated into daily life is fine, I'm sure. I also love yoga but no way am I lifting weights it just looks painful boring and repetitive.

Lower body fat is one determinant of health but it is not an indicator of sufficient muscle mass or strong bones.

It does seem to be the latest fad. I’ve had plenty of female relatives stay fit and active into their late 80s without lifting weights. I feel same as you OP. I just don’t get my relaxation, fun, joy in life out of exercise. I glaze over when people talk about it as it’s just so fucking boring. I wish I did, but I don’t. That said I’ve been doing classes at the gym, just body pump and cardio, 4/5 times a week and I do like them. So I’ll stick with that on the basis it’s better than nothing.