I’ve been thinking of just walking around tracks or trails but the weather over here has been cool with the wind and all. I don’t like gyms too much as there can be a lot of people there. I’ve gotten so lazy and uninterested in exercising since Covid. I eat healthy mostly except for ice cream most of the week. Haven’t worked in like a year so stay home a lot and bored af. Idk I just haven’t been myself since getting overweight and not exercising in some capacity. I have anxiety and depression as well so that factors in too. I only get motivated to make some changes when I get high at night and say I’m going to start doing things tomorrow. Once I’m sober I lack the motivation to do anything
There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. Get yourself a decent hiking jacket, trousers and shoes.
I would strongly recommend trying Couch to 5k. There are a bunch of free apps for it. It’s a program that can get basically anyone from doing zero exercise, to being able to run 5km. I literally never ran until my 30s and now I do 5km 3 times a week, and even did a 10km race.
It’s very gentle and achievable but all of a sudden you’ll realise you’ve finished the program and you’re a runner haha.
Daily walks. From there I’d recommend getting a bicycle.
Pick a time of day and just step outside and do a lap around the block or two
Walking is a very good start, yes. And start slow.
When you get high at night, go for a walk. Night walk is lovely.
Also whenever you think about it, stand on one foot, sounds odd but it’s good for your body. Little exercise breaks, go up the stairs and back down a couple of times.
Mostly I want to say - building a habit takes six weeks. Force yourself every day for six weeks. After that it gets easier because you will feel better on a day you exercise, than a day you don’t, and because you will have found the time of day that works. Habit works a lot better than willpower, but you have to power your way through those first few weeks. Commit to six weeks of daily something. Push ups, walking, whatever.
I’d agree with all of these. But most importantly: LISTEN TO YOUR BODY
This can sound confusing, but the more you do it, the more it feels right. It’s the whole idea behind “sports” like yoga and the key to athletic performance, even if only done for fitness.
It’s gonna be difficult at first, but your body will tell you. If you’re done, you’re done. There’s no point in doing more. Get rest, even if it is a week, which can happen in the beginning. Especially during skeletal adaptation, which I’ve actually had happen recently after I changed from normal running shoes to minimal. If you feel any soreness that lasts too long, stop, rest. If you feel winded, stop, rest. Anything sus? Act on it. If you don’t have an unhealthy level of paranoia then you need to listen to your body’s pain signals. Sometimes pain signals even tell you to go into the pain. Be careful, but do that. If you’re freaking out because you don’t know what you should do about a feeling that’s new, take some time and see how it develops. It may just go away and not come back without effort that feels appropriate. It may come back the moment you go into activity. Just take your time, and I mean reeeaally taje your time, and try to listen.
And whatever you do, do not trust what your head feels about you bodily fitness. Trust what your body feels.
When we grow up sports get more of a focus about how to not injure yourself, which will make sure you maximize your potentential or minimize time spent, which is in contrast to it being mainly play for younglings. The play part never disappear of course. :)
A tip on the overweight/depression part: You become healthy once you act like a healthy person. Doesn’t mean you are, just means you become. Also doesn’t mean you should crash diet down to a perfect bmi. A healthy person cares about themselves deeply. They want to eat the right things, which is different for everybody, they want to have a healthy gut, be able to run around in joy, even though they may be 45. If you don’t then you have other issues to fix too. In parallel. Mind and body are often described as separate, but the truth is, that the are inseparable. It’s totally fine to be depressed, just as it is fine to have a high body fat percentage. But I do not wish it on anyone for an extended period of time.
This is based on a life full of exercise and biomechanical optimisation. I have recovered from a partial meniscus tear (weird mix of bucket handle and flap), a partial patellar tendon tear and smaller ouchies. The big ones are not gone, of course, but hardly noticeable. I have also come to know that physical wellness is nothing without mental wellness and vice-versa.
If you want further details, hit me up. I don’t cost, I’m not a coach. I also don’t have the technical knowledge of one, so I guess that’s the reason I don’t cost.
I have tried minimal running shoes and that kill me. I am using Hoka now and they are working for me.
Well, I’m still young, so it’s easier for me, but even I has to adapt by going normal shoes -> Altra shoes for walking -> Altra shoes for running -> barefoot shoes for walking, now I wanna make the switch to barefoot shoes for some, but not all, running.
I always say, get a dog. Youll walk every day, you play in the park or backyard. Plus dogs are just awesome companions and help with positive attitudes.
Its a commitment, but i couldnt imagine not having a dog with me. Humans and dogs belong together.
I would say that’s a good idea, but I’ve seen too many horrible situations with dogs to believe that adopting a dog means those things will happen.
That’s a horrible idea, I’ve seen too many cases where this dog just ends up overweight bored and badly behaved. While this can work for some, a lot of people who have trouble getting into any kind of routine (be it fitness, eating habits or whatever) are not going to suddenly change. They maybe start out really motivated, but then they fall into old habits just this time an animal suffers the consequences with them.
- pull-paradigm, &
- combined-arms.
One. pull-paradigm: don’t do what you hate: you’ll stop returning to it!!
Find exercise you LOVE doing, & then MAKE it have regular-place in your life, see?
Two. combined-arms: combine the same pull-paradigm in your diet, your fitness-practices, your friendships, you HEALING, see, and make there be sooo-many dimensions in your pulling-your-life-into-healing, that you can’t help but be healing/becoming more!
( :
For the depression, get outside-in-daylight for at-least 30-mins every day, if you can ( or use a SAD light, when it’s gloomy ).
I had to live “in a lightbox”, with 500-watts of fluorescent daylight lighting, in my room, to keep me functioning at all, after I ditched the anti-depressants…
but it worked.
Make your waking-up alarms be lights, which are silent, instead of noisemakers:
warm-white, 1st, then a 2nd timer, 5+mins later, with daylight: it alters your melatonin balance ( the researchers who discovered that yes, in fact, light does alter melatonin, in spite of them not having accepted that as true…
shone lights in behind people’s knees, & even without “light receptors” in the skin there, the effect kept being measured.
Light is THE wakeup-input that people SHOULD be using, not noise! )
The details that you put on those 2 principles, are your details, but getting those-2-principles right massively improves your odds of holding-to-it for the entire-season it takes to gain usable-momentum.
Wishing you well,
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Have you ever heard of frisbee golf, or disc golf? It’s popular in places. Perhaps there could be a course somewhere near you? Then just talk a friend into coming and soon you won’t even notice the exercise you’re getting on accident because you’re looking for a throw that kinda went wrong and now you’re having to find the damn disc because youre definitely not going to give up on finding your best one.
But also when you succeed, it’s fun.
Start with walking or other gentle cardio.
Add in a body weight exercise routine, start light - https://www.hybridcalisthenics.com/programs
If you want to lose weight eat less, if you’re not bothered enjoy ice cream.
My life was changed when I stopped going to the gym for a long hard work out and switched to what I call “strength snacks”. I do two circuits of three exercises twice a day.
I think that walking can be a great start. But also doing some sort of resistance exercise is also important and useful. You can start with a body weight routine and move up to weights once you are solidly into the routine.
https://www.nshealth.ca/sites/default/files/documents/pamphlets/1563.pdf
I think you should actually go to the gym. I understand you dont like it, but when I started doing gym for strength exercise, it was completely different than i though it would be.
I went with a friend who showed me what exercises to do, and we worked out together first times. Then I just started going myself. I can tell you, after 2 months, you will see your body looking visibly better, which means you get motivated to keep working out.
Also its only hard the first weeks (at least for lifting weights, not cardio which i hate myself also and just dont do).
About motivation, I believe you need to understand the enormous value of doing something you dont want. Being able to mentally break through that feeling of not wanting to, makes you strong. You should try it.
The best way to start is to find little bits of extra activity in your day: park at the back of the lot and walk a few extra hundred feet. Get to the store early, grab a cart you can use to make the walk easier, and do a few laps around the store. If need be, there are workouts on youtube you can do in your bed, if you’ve gotten big enough that walking is difficult.
That sort of thing.
Once you notice these activities getting easier, increase your difficulty and begin training harder.
Swimming, cycling.
I had this during covid and free home workouts videos helped me out a lot. Started with just a yogamat (or towel) doing easy beginner friendly workouts of only 15-30 minutes. No need to go out, noone sees you and there are apartment/small space/downstairs neighbour friendly options. I used the fitnessblender workouts and the sense of accomplishment at the “workout complete” screen is magical.
