Does anyone relate to that?
Have you ever had all intentions of starting an actual, legitimate workout routine…and then stopped as soon as you started because it made you miserable?
I know I have, probably dozens of times between my teenage years and now. I was the kid in gym class that the coaches encouraged to keep score (and that’s not a joke). I walked the mile run. I could do four push-ups on a good day, and no crunches. The fitness test is a torture device for teenagers and no one will convince me otherwise.
I hated exercise. There were sporty kids who all seemed so cool and confident–and then there was me. I didn’t feel like I was good enough. I thought we all got a handful of qualities and skills, and those people got good looks, athleticism, and charisma, and I could like…kind of put a cosplay together and draw pretty well. Those things balance out, right?
As an adult, nothing much changed. When I started trying to get serious about my fitness, I did the first thing most people did–I started running.
It turns out that I hate running. Absolutely loathe it. Even now, I dread cardio and I’d rather trudge along on the stairmaster for an hour than run for five minutes. So my fitness journey would start and stop immediately.
My mom would suggest yoga (which I have now come to appreciate for rest days). At the time I hated yoga. Being alone and quiet with my thoughts for that long? No thanks! My body wasn’t strong enough for the poses that looked fun, and my yet undiagnosed ADHD didn’t respond well to the long periods of stillness. So again, I quit.
Then, I found Kayla Itsines‘ program, the Bikini Body guide.
“I would like a bikini body…” I thought to myself at the ripe old age of 19, lunging wildly around my mother’s living room.
This also didn’t work for me. But I was seeing a strong woman who was doing functional movements, and it was a step in the right direction.
Later I moved towards more online resources. I’ll make a post soon about the ones that I personally found most useful. Eventually I found myself gravitating towards weightlifting in the time just before the “strong not skinny” movement really got started. My roommate at the time had a set of dumbells and I had a spare room that was perfect for quietly embarrassing myself. This is when a routine started to develop.
It turned out that I loved weights. I loved finding myself getting stronger and stronger as time passed. I felt like I was leveling up a videogame character, and that was really exciting to me. I was getting fitter, but I was also getting stronger. If you look back to my last post, this also meant that I could eat more.
I was eating more food, gaining more muscle, and feeling like I was advancing as a person. It was fun! Exercise was fun and sometimes I even looked forward to it. But eventually I was leveling off. The weights I could keep in my spare room weren’t challenging anymore. I was again getting anxious about calories and cardio. I’d done all of the videos from the resource I had found, and I was ready to move onto something new. But what?
Heavy weights were finally my saving grace, at least for now. Lifting twice my weight is fun, and challenging, and I felt so much better after every workout.
So how do you stop hating exercise?
You have to find something that works for you. For me? That thing is weights. Sometimes I have to switch it up sometimes so I don’t get bored, so I throw in barre or pilates or aerial yoga if I’m feeling frisky (I’m taking my first “real” class in a few weeks, yikes!). If you want to keep up a routine, you can’t hate it.
People who go to the gym aren’t miserable while they’re there–at least most of them. I love my time at the gym. I might be upset when I’m on floor forty out of fifty on the stairclimber, wishing for death and sweating through my leggings, but I’m doing it because I genuinely want to. We need to find things that make our bodies feel good, even if that means the intensity is lower. We won’t maintain a routine if we’re not happy with the work that we’re doing.
So what’s your thing? Is it weightlifting? Have you tried? What about pilates, or gymnastics? Dance? If you need help finding something, Classpass is a cool app that you pay a flat fee for and you get access to classes from gyms all around your area in return. It’s a bit spendy, but if you just need to find your niche, it can be a great way to avoid memberships until you know you’re ready to lock in. I’m #notsponsored (ha) but I think it’s neat.
Anyone else get caught in the “if you don’t like running you might as well give up” trap?
Lazy Girl Fitness 