(no subject)

[the_rck]

I'm considering changing my exercise routine. Right now, I do two PBS exercise programs back to back. Body Electric comes first and has a lot of things I can't quite do but that I'm hoping to be able to do eventually. After that is Sit and Be Fit. I can do almost everything on Sit and Be Fit, and the stuff that I can't do all has to do with my arms being shorter than most people's relative to the length of my torso.

What I'm considering doing is substituting in some time on the treadmill for Sit and Be Fit. I need some aerobic exercise, and the treadmill is my best bet. I'm just afraid that I'll stop doing Sit and Be Fit and not carry through to do the treadmill. The treadmill requires a bit of extra commitment because it's down in the basement. I can do Body Electric and Sit and Be Fit in the living room, so there's very little effort involved but pushing my table to one side and turning on WCMU. (Well, there's the challenge of wresting the TV away from Cordelia and her friends. That one's a work in progress.)

Sit and Be Fit is comfortable. I've been doing it for two or three years now. I'm just not sure how much good it's doing me. It's an exercise program designed for the elderly and for people with limited mobility. The whole thing can be done seated if one needs to. None of the movements are repeated often enough to cause discomfort (but they're also not repeated enough to challenge my muscles).

Ideally, I'd keep doing Sit and Be Fit and add the treadmill in at some other time of day, but I know myself. I will end up putting it off longer and longer if I don't anchor the treadmill to a specific time with specific cues. Right after Body Electric stands the best chance of working. I don't think I'd be able to get myself to do it after Sit and Be Fit. At that point, I've spent an hour on exercise and want my time back. I don't enjoy exercise no matter what I do (I think those people who talk about exercise making them feel good must be crazy. I've never experienced anything even vaguely like that. I'd be a lot more likely to exercise if I did).

Comments

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

I hate exercise, but I do it regularly anyway.

I have no idea if this is useful, but some things that work for me are:
* When I've stopped, the first session when I start up again is always the hardest. If I can push through that, the next one is much easier.
* If I take at least a short walk during the day, I'm more likely to have enough energy to exercise later.
* I tried motivating myself by chanting "I hate exercise" over and over again to myself, but found that I was more likely to stop early.
* I tried motivating myself by chanting "Lean green exercise machine" to myself, over and over again in my head. I'm none of those things, but the chant seems to help me keep going.
* I exercise by jogging while watching our family's nightly TV series episode. The family's expectation that we will all get together and watch the TV show keeps me going. If I wasn't meeting other people who would be disappointed, I'd skip it often.
* I don't do this often, but: I've found that a little caffeine and/or sugar before exercising gets me more motivated to do more.
* A good night's sleep the night before helps me to exercise harder and better.
* When my thyroid medication is adjusted too low, it's much harder to exercise. Conversely, when it's adjusted too high, I can really exercise!!
* I've read that "interval training" is thought to be a much more healthy and life-prolonging way of working out and of getting much more out of a workout. There's some good research to back this up. Interval training is where you do a minute or two of hard exercise, to get your heart really going, and then drop back to low-to-medium-intensity exercise until the next interval. The idea is to do five or six of these high-intensity intervals during a workout. I don't know if you are up for that kind of workout, though, so I don't know if this is useful to you.
* I've read that every minute of exercise adds on average seven minutes to your life. Sometimes I try to mentally dwell on that when I need some more motivation to exercise.
* The people with the most longevity in the societies where people live the longest usually go trotting up and down mountainsides as part of their daily life routine. So just working in extra steps when you can, and finding ways to keep moving -- like parking at the far side of the parking lot, or viewing putting away dishes as a tiny bit of weight lifting, is at least a little helpful.

Anyway, I don't know if *any* of that is useful to you. I am no expert, just an exercise-hating schmoe trying to muddle through.