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.
Just walking around or going for a short hike is a good start. But, spoken from my own experience: the best first step is to stop getting high. Usually helps with depression and anxiety as well. It did so for me. It’s not easy, but it should be the first thing.
Seconding walking. I had gained 40lbs and eased back into fitness slowly over 2 years. My issue with hiking is the prep time and driving and felt like extra steps. Stepping out the door with a good podcast on was the most accessible for me (recognize that I’m lucky to live in a place with sidewalks and some paths). If the nature part of hiking makes it more interesting to you though and more likely to follow through, go for that!
Swimming may not be an option depending on where you live, but it has a very low risk of injuries and exercises the whole body
It’s also such a damn efficient workout.
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.
Walking. If youre overweight, don’t need the vest. You live with it. Work up to a fast shuffle/jog, and/or longer walks over a period of weeks.
At the opposite end of the intensity spectrum, Burpees are also great fun. They build upper body and core strength, as well as being cardio. Do the full chest and thighs to ground version, step back, step forward and experiment with jumping back as you get better. Try something like on the minute for 5 min. Set a timer for 5:00, then burpee until it says 4:20 - at a moderate pace. That number is your target for the next 4 min. When it says 4:00, do that number of burpees again, and at 3:00, 2:00, and 1:00. Work up in number of burpees and number of minutes, over a period of weeks. If it’s getting too easy, make it burpee box jump overs (be conservative because missing a box hurts).
You don’t need equipment for either of these things.
With both these things, as you lose weight, it’s going to get a lot faster.
I’m not here to tell you how to live, but if you’re getting high every night, it’s almost certainly making your anxiety, depression, and motivation issues worse.
Depending on where you live, a bike can do wonders. I hate the gym too, but being able to ride my bike and see different places and things at my own pace is really motivating for me.
This is big for me. I used to go to the gym daily for 8 years. Now i cant stand gyms, but my bike is the best thing for me. Just hop on and ride for and hour and take every street possible just to see it all.
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, and add a weighted vest or backpack. Start light, like 5lb/2.5kg for a week or two, then increase by that much a week until you get to 40% of your body weight in a few months.
I find that 30lb/15kg is a great place to stop though, much more feels pretty rough.
Then just walk around. You can listen to music, podcasts, nature, bird sounds.
Do that 45 a day and you’ll be significantly healthier in a few months.
Thx I’ll look into it. Currently no money to get a weighted vest or backpack tho
Fill up milk jugs with water
It even works for winning gold in the Olympics https://barbend.com/olympic-weightlifter-hidilyn-diaz-quarantine-training/
Start eating high fiber foods.
It’ll save you money and make you lose weight because it takes forever to digest. That makes the walking easier, and won’t hurt your joints as much.
Like, if you’re gassed after walking 20 minutes, you don’t need a weighted vest for a while.
When you can walk 20 minutes and have the same level of energy as you started, then start thinking about stuff like carrying a heavy book, or anything that’s roughly 5-10lbs.
Don’t overthink it. You’re just making it slightly harder everytime what you’re doing gets too easy.
You can get creative. Put water bottles or something heavy in a backpack.
Bottles of water in a backpack is weighted for what it’s worth, It’s called rucking.
If you’re just starting regular walking up to 20,000 steps a day is a great first goal.
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 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.
- 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,
_ /\ _
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.
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.
I have a weird suggestion: work out high. Nothing intense - a walk or some floor exercises would be good. Go very easy for a couple of weeks at least.
When i was super depressed it was so hard to get started that working out high was just easier. Eventually, the exercise became more important and i even started to play some sports. Pretty quickly i was exercising more than getting high. These days, i refrain from smoking weed so that i can do better in the leagues i eventually joined.
Bonus: through the leagues i met some nice people.
