ExerciseFail
Mar 10th, 2010 by heidi
I still hate exercise.
For the last couple of weeks, the escalator in my downtown metro station has been broken. The first day, I climbed the stairs. Not a good idea. Since my schedule got so hectic and I started sleeping in a bit longer in the morning to compensate for later nights, my husband and I stopped walking up our hell hill to the bus stop and have been catching a ride with my dad in the morning instead. I can certainly tell that my fitness levels have dropped substantially – walking up those stairs (and there are three fairly long flights) left me feeling like I wanted to keel over.
So, I’ve been taking the elevator instead, because I really don’t need to start my day off feeling like I’m going to pass out. Exercise is one thing. Self-torture is quite another.
I had been doing a fairly good job of getting out for walks on my lunch hour but have given those up recently too – it gets boring to do the same thing every day and I just don’t love walking on busy sidewalks as an alternative to the park that I was walking around. Yesterday I compelled myself to walk home from the grocery store, which is a decent 20-minute walk and will do the same again today. The real kicker is that this cuts that time off my evening, which on a night like tonight, when I get home and have to make dinner, take care of the sproglet, and still find time for homework, is a struggle. It’s so much easier and more convenient to just get a ride home.
Eco-friendliness aside, I just don’t like exercise. I don’t have anyone who lives close enough to be a gym buddy (even if I had extra money for the gym, which I don’t). My husband won’t try folk dance classes (if so many of them didn’t fall on weekday evenings anyway) and walking just gets boring. I don’t love it enough to WANT to do it every day.
I want to be more fit. I just hate exercising. Truly I do. I know that it makes me feel better (I can tell that I’m out of shape and it irks me) but that just isn’t incentive enough to get out and do something so bloody tedious. And, of course, being sweaty and out of breath feels disgusting to me, not empowering. It reminds me that I’m fat and triggers every bad body thought I have.
Maybe that latter sentence is key here. Nothing about exercising makes me feel happy. Nothing about intentional movement makes me feel good, except for a smug “ha, I WAS A GOOD GIRL AND EXERCISED!” It instantly becomes self-loathing if, once I’ve walked one time this week, I don’t walk today, or tomorrow, or the next day. If I climb one flight of stairs one day but don’t climb it the next day, I’ve failed and I agonize over it. Why should I get up from my desk and make the decision to move around when that movement is tied in with every bad thing that I feel about my body?
How do the rest of you DO it? How do you find a point where it’s about fun and not just rules? I would love to enjoy movement. I have dreams where I run, and jump, and dance…and love those things but in real life I just don’t. I get out of breath, I get sweaty, and I feel huge, fat, ugly, and disgusting.
Other people think so too. Let’s not forget the Comcast Cable man that mooed at me from his truck one day as I was walking home, or the snide “Do you love Krispy Kreme?” whisper that another man hissed at me when I took up too much space in the crosswalk with my son’s stroller on a mad dash for the bus.
Why can’t I get this one thing right?!
***
It’s ironic, isn’t it, that I typed in “exercise” into my tags and the one that popped up was “hating exercise.” Wouldn’t it be nice to have a “loving movement!” tag that would pop up instead, because I really did?!
How do I do it? I just make myself do it. Putting on my running shoes is half the battle, then I convince myself I’ll just do a mile or I’ll take it easy, then I carry on and I push myself because I can’t NOT.
It’s mostly not FUN, though. It’s really hard work and I often end up with horrific stomach cramps afterwards because I push myself further than I should. (I am good at the self-torture!) I do get a massive sense of achievement afterwards though, and it’s the one of the few things I do where it doesn’t matter if I’m crap at it (and I am) because I never thought I’d do even half of what I can do now and I’m still getting better.
I suppose I am lucky in that I feel so much better about myself (and much healthier) if I’m running regularly. Does exercise never make you feel good?
I have to say I still fucking HATE stairs and tend to avoid them, although I try and make an effort to use them more. Can you walk up one flight of stairs and then get the lift?
Oops, sorry, thought the stairs were at work, not at the metro so my suggestion was completely unhelpful!
Time is an issue for you… or else I would recommend a team sport.
Maybe when you are done with school?
Now… I love roller derby. I love to play. I love the exercise.
But seriously? There are some nights that I JUST DON’T WANT TO GO!
But – it’s a team sport. If I don’t go, I am hurting the team, not just myself. So that gets me motivated to get up out of my cozy nest of blankets and get my behind to practice.
Once I am there, I remember the part where I love playing derby, and I love the exercise. And I love being sweaty and smelly and disgusting – in derby, the stench is a badge of honor! (and a powerful weapon against opponents!)
I was suffering from tremendous, constant anxiety over the summer, due to many things, but triggered by working on my dissertation. I was floating on my back in Walden Pond, and I’d never felt so good, and all the anxiety went away. I started swimming regularly, and quit my gym membership. The music, the other people, and the equipment all added to my anxiety.
I haven’t been mooed at since junior high, but I feel the self-loathing, even during workouts I love, every time I exercise. It’s a serious self-argument. “Stop that. stop that. stop that.” when ever the bad thoughts come to me.
Exercise for health and feeling good, I’m pretty sure, doesn’t have to leave you gasping and sweating and red, and you sure don’t have to do it in public. I think you could learn some good stretches, maybe memorize some yoga moves, and do that while watching something you like on tv for a half hour every other night or so. (I don’t manage to do this myself…but it is an idea to toss into your repertoire.) When I’m really motivated, I do crunches, kneeling pushups, plank poses with down-dogs, and then stretch. In my house. And I have a smallish apartment.
And you might like pilates. I find that working out at home helps me to forget about what others might see when they look at me, and with the breathing (which I carry over from yoga) it helps me to forget what my body looks like. Eventually, you’ll come to like your body more and more…I love my body, at intervals. (full disclosure, I’m 5’2 and somewhere between 220 and 240, I’m not sure these days. Size 18-20 pants, 22 sometimes.)
Breathing and using your muscles should be all about feeling great. Be willing to try some different things. You can’t hate everything! (and if you do…well, just dance!)
I completely agree with you 100%. I want to be a “good fatty” and exercise and include “loving movement” in my life.. but panting, sweating (ugh the sweating), and struggling to do boring and difficult workouts just do not appeal to me. I also feel like crap if I don’t continue working out. The only thing I really enjoy doing as far as physical activity is swimming, and that’s pretty seasonal unless you have like you said a gym membership or whatever. I’d swim all the time if I could. Exercise doesn’t make me feel invigorated or anything. The only thing I like about it is a little bit of soreness the next day, I don’t know why but it feels good
You know what? *Everybody* gets hot, sweaty, and out of breath on the stairs *unless they train on stairs all the time.* I promise you. Even when I was at my thinnest or at my most fit (two different time periods!) stairs were rough and I hated them. That’s just how it goes unless you take the stairs as a matter of course several times a day.
Find something you love doing that doesn’t feel like exercise. For me, that’s never going to be walking, running, or taking the stairs. Swimming (and diving, to a lesser extent) on the other hand … in the water, I feel graceful, safe, and powerful. I love the feeling of pushing off from the wall, with tile under my feet, and gliding with my body held streamlined before starting my strokes.
If there are rude comments, I don’t hear them. I do hear compliments from other swimmers — it’s a matter of pride that I keep my strokes clean and my kicks productive. (Splashing is wasted energy that didn’t go into propulsion.) When I’m done and I pull myself out of the water, most often I’m pleasantly exhausted. I go to bed still feeling the water rocking me, with different ways to improve my stroke or different tricks to master playing out in my head, not thinking about exercise at all. And if I don’t have a chance to get back to it, it’s *being in the water* I miss, for its own sake. I’ve wondered about tai chi and ballet classes as things that might give me something of the same feeling of grace and mastery on dry land, but haven’t had a chance to try them yet.
I used to hate exercise.
After I quit smoking over 4 years ago (after having smoked for 14 years), I gained a lot of weight/girth (don’t know how much–don’t weigh myself, as it triggers old ED behaviors, but I was bigger than I had ever been in my life, and it happened over only a few months), didn’t have good lung capacity, etc. etc.
But I felt SO bad and I was SO INFLEXIBLE, that I felt like I had to do something.
So first, I got a good yoga book with pictures and started doing stretches, slowly, at my own pace, with lots of props. And, it started feeling really good!
At some point, I felt like doing more, so I started taking short walks. Then I started taking longer ones.
Also, got a mini trampoline and started bouncing on it while watching TV, which was actually kinda fun. Then used some hand weights sometimes (2.5 lbs or 5 lbs.) also.
Now I live 3.5 miles from where I work and I jog it, or run parts, or sometimes walk, depending on how I feel. I do it consistently, 5 days a week, and I really love it. It helps a lot that 3 miles of it is on a bike trail with no cars.
Anyway, my suggestions are to:
1) Start REALLY small, but be consistent.
2) Find something you can do at home or privately (since you mentioned being self-conscious–I am, too).
3) Give a certain exercise a chance, but after a few weeks, if you don’t like it, try something else.
4) Try to develop a routine.
5) Make sure you give yourself a couple days off.
6) Hot baths in Epsom Salts are great for sore muscles.
Hope this helps!
Heidi,
Well, I joined a gym last spring and I don’t go as much as I would like because like you, I have major time constraints. I do like it but I wouldn’t say I love it. I’ve never been athletic and I really prefer to be doing other things then excercising. I like walking though enough to do it semi-regularly – if I have some good music then I can pass the time fairly well.
I do like exercise enough to do it because, I believe it has been a stress reliever for me. Not during the exercise but immediately after, my body feels better somehow. I sleep better at night, I have slightly more energy and I feel good physically. It’s not a mental “feel good” it’s a strictly physical thing. I have sedentary job at work and sometimes I sit for hours on end and this really bothers my muscles. I feel a physical need to move because my body needs the stretching. It feels good to move but just regular good not like “oh my god this is great!” Sweatiness isn’t pleasant really lol
Hmmm I think this “good fatty” stuff has to go and the “bad fatty” stuff to. Guilt and shame are so destructive especially if we use something like exercise as one more tool to beat ourselves up with. I know, I do it too with any number of things in my life! I have a big guilt/shame thing going on myself.
I’m not sure how “anyone” does it but I think for me: I think that I try not to give excercise much emtional stock. The less value I give it as some measure of my worth, the better it is for me. When I make it a part of my life and see it as just “standard body maintenance” it’s much more easier to do. For instance if I see it in the same realm with drinking water, eating some food, sleeping, brushing my teeth etc. and other things like that in terms of body care, it makes it easier to do. The less special it is the better.
It’s like you scooped the thoughts out of my brain and just changed details like where stairs and grocery stores are! Exercise is boring and not fun and even the fun things become a complete chore if you force yourself to do them as a regimen.
Personally, I go swimming because I love to swim. I’ve loved to run, but that was when I was 50lbs lighter and less of my body jiggled. “Jiggled” mind you, is a euphemism. Jiggling doesn’t hurt, doesn’t feel heavy. I’ve jiggled before and it’s much nicer than what it feels like when my fat heaves up and down when I try to run. But even though I love it, even though I have pretty much nothing else to do with my time, even though I know I’m going to feel better/more worthy if I go swimming, if I didn’t go swimming yesterday it takes an effort of will to go swimming today. And if I haven’t been swimming in a couple of days or a week, well, let’s just say it gets easier and easier to “not get around to it.” And that’s the exercise I _like_. So I get the whole not wanting to exercise thing. I also get the worrying about what you look like thing: my mother once told me that I look like a pregnant rat when I run. Seriously. WTF. I’ve gotten the impression that my mother and your mother subscribe to the same “I’m doing/telling you this for your own good” school of emotional devastation.
Anyhoo, one of my friends is doing one of those super-calorie-restrictive diets (which I know is the antithesis of everything you believe in) and part of the program is try and do 45 minutes of exercise a day. You can go to the gym or walk around the park or do jumping jacks in your living room, it doesn’t matter as long as you get your heart rate up. It especially doesn’t matter if you do it in one 45minute block or if you do three 15 minute bouts of exercise. Except her doctor has charts (which she wants to get copies of so she can cite the studies or scan the graphs and put up on her wall as an inspirational poster) showing that people who do 3 bouts of 15minutes/day rack up _hours_ more exercise week by week and month by month. Everyone gets discouraged or busy or life just happens and they miss a workout. But if you do three bouts of 15mins a day, chances are you only missed one or two of those workout sessions and didn’t blow off the whole day and if you do miss a session, it’s easier to make up later. Especially since, if you’re just doing 15 minutes a couple times a day you’re probably not making a special trip somewhere, having to change outfits and all the other things that go with a “big” commitment to exercising.
I would bet money that this holds true if you’re just trying to do 15mins 3x/week, rather than 45minutes once a week. If you want an exercise program that takes 15minutes and gets incrementally more challenging (at your own pace) without taking more time (’cause you get better at the exercises), then I recommend this http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/exercise.html . The page starts off with some talk about how exercise won’t significantly contribute to weight loss (which you can skip), but it _will_ contribute significantly to quality-of-life. And with the incrimentally-more-challenging nature of the workout it’s really easy to see how you’ve progressed and how you’re becoming more fit.
Standard YMMV disclaimer
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I tried to comment to this a few days ago but for some reason WordPress didn’t remember that I was already registered, and I had to re-register, which is super bizarre because I know I’ve commented here before! Ah well.
Anyway I wanted to say that it is too bad we don’t live closer together but I would enjoy being a workout buddy with you to some extent–like maybe as the weather gets nicer we could try to walk around greenlake together once a month or something on weekends?
You know, after graduating in August I took some time in the fall to really do a lot of self-care, and part of that was joining a gym and being more intentional about how often and in what ways I was moving. But before that? I honestly just didn’t have the time, energy, or emotional resources to deal with worrying about it. I think sometimes we have to prioritize, and you are incredibly busy right now. For me a huge part of being able to move more was taking the morality away from it. I stopped beating myself up about being a bad person for having gone so long without exercise (sounds like it was so easy–I just “stopped” … but you know what I mean, I made an effort to cut that self-talk off whenever it started). For me, finding things I actually like to do helped. Having TIME helped. And taking the morality out of it helped. I still catch myself feeling a bit smug when I talk about how many days I went to the gym last week, but most of the time I just think of it as a value-neutral activity that I either enjoy while doing it and/or makes me feel good afterwards.
I don’t know how helpful any of that was, but let me know if you think you might like to try for Greenlake. I’d also be interested in taking some time of dance class with you sometime, because that’s something I’ve always thought might be nice but been too afraid to be the only fat person there.
thanks for the post. i am in a rut with movement. i might even be depressed, but I am not ready to make that declaration yet… anyway I joined the pool for $90 a month and have only been there twice, I enjoy the freedom and feelings when I spent about 40 minutes in the pool both times I went. I just cannot find the motivation to get there. I am trying to not be so hard on myself, but, I do feel declines in my fitness, my lung capacity, my general comfort in my body.
One thought that runs through my head is that maybe if I make it okay to not exercise in the same way I make it okay to eat whatever I want, that I might open myself up to an inspiration to move that I might not have experienced by focusing on all the badness, the fact that I am a bad fattie.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that most of my thoughts around this right now are not self loving.
thanks for the opportunity to participate in the conversation
I feel so angry at the men who would say such horrible things. Shame on them. Those comments would hurt me so deeply. Hugs to you.