I am down from yesterday - THANK GOD! - but I am still up - 224.8 today. Sigh. I am reaching dispair again. My period really IS going to start any minute - but as I said yesterday, lately I get the weight gain - but not the subsequent loss. I don't know.
I don't care what you all say - there ARE some people who like exercise - I am just not one of them. If they didn't like exercise they wouldn't join the company softball team. Or play sports for fun in high school - or join crew! I personally think people who do sports for fun are absolutely crazy. OK, Ok, I can imagine dancing for fun... or even boxing. That is fun. Maybe hiking too... That can be very fun. But team sports? Racing? Training for team sports and racing? NO WAY IS THAT FUN! Skiing, ice skating, winter sports - that looks fun... Softball, soccer, again RACING - is not fun.
When I say that exercise is not fun, I mean I can't imagine ANYTHING more miserable! I would rather go to the dentist and the gynocologist IN THE SAME DAY rather than exercise. In fact - I would be perfectly OK with going those two things on a regular basis if it kept me in shape - rather than exercise. How come it is that I can do the dentist just twice a year and the gyno once and be considered perfectly healthy? But I need to exercise EVERYDAY? That just isn't right. Additionally, if it took five minutes or less to exercise (like brushing your teeth) I would TOTALLY be up to doing that every day. BUT - exercise requires a change of clothing AND SHOES, a shower, and AT LEAST 45 minutes of exertion - where you are bored and in pain five minutes into the activity! It just isn't right!
Also - while I am on my rant... why is it that when I am pondering food things like chocolate and popcorn leap into my head as something to be consumed, and as soon as they have lodged themselves in my brain I am helpless to resist. OR - if there was a candy bar plunked on my desk in front of me it would eat it in fairly short order, but if someone plopped an apple or spinach in front of me I could easily ignore it? Why is that? If I am not hungry I will go out of my way to find high calorie low nutrion food to consume. WHY? I am not hungry!! I have other things to do! What drives me to eat? And to eat bad foods!?? I see me do this on a regular basis - and now that I am not smoking I can honestly say, the inability to resist the thought of bad foods (i.e. sugar in its many forms) while at the same time ignoring the thought of good foods (i.e. vegetables and even protein) is right on par with my (former) addition to cigarettes. However, the difference is that I can give up cigarettes and thus break the addiction - but giving up food is impossible. I think even eating JUST approved foods (while I have proven to be possible) doesn't actually break the addiction. I crave sugar as much after a month on Atkins as I did in the beginning. OK - maybe not as much - but enough so that it only takes one ice cream bon bon to throw me completely off the wagon. And why are artifical sweeteners so gross? Why can't I be content to eat fake sweetened yogurt and cookies, and stuff? WHY?
WHY CAN'T I LOSE WEIGHT!?
4 comments:
See, there's the difference--you DO like to exercise, but only within a few limited areas (hiking, dancing, boxing, etc.), and like most people not kinesthetically inclined, you'd prefer to stay still. Almost everyone else is the same (except for those people who ARE kinesthetically inclined). The people you accuse of liking exercise just happen to like a type of exercise that you don't. I can't for the life of me understand people who LIKE to run. I was in an online discussion with one such person last week. She's out of shape and overweight and decided to do something about it, so she took up running, which she used to like. On her first day out, she ran over 4 miles. On my best day I couldn't do that. She loves the feel of her feet pounding rhythmically on the sidewalk. I think she's sick.
The types of exercise I like, however, are hard to come by--I love rowing, hiking, kayaking and biking. All of them don't feel like exercise to me, even though they DO feel challenging and they hurt and my lungs burn. But the overall effect is freedom and fun, so I don't pay attention to the painful bits. I don't do these exercises, though, because I can't do them in 35 minutes during my lunch break.
So I run, and I hate every second of it, but it helps me lose weight and keeps my heart beating and my lung capacity good. I have to talk myself into it every time I do it.
No one is making you join a team or participate competitively. When I was rowing, I never liked the competitions--the practices were way more fun, but you can't do one without the other (at least not in college).
But you're in an ideal situation to actually be able to indulge yourself in the activities you like. You have three days off each week--why not spend one of them at Patapsco State Park or some other park nearby and hike? Get yourself a GPS and start geocaching if you're so inclined. If you do that one day a week of FUN exercise (and make it a fairly long hike for good measure. You can take a picnic and everything.) then all you need to do is a two or three shorter sessions on the treadmill between hikes and a couple of days of resistance exercise--all miserable and un-fun, but necessary to make the actual hiking more fun. In November or December when the weather gets too yucky for hiking (although people do geocaching in all kinds of weather), start going to one of the open ice skating sessions each week at the Northwest Ice Rink.
I DO take issue with you on the idea that exercise requires a change of clothing and shoes and a shower and at least 45 minutes of exertion. I only do 35 minutes on the treadmill, and I just wipe myself down with babywipes and powder afterwards because I don't have time for a shower. People can put up with stinky me for a little while a couple of days a week. When I do pilates I don't even change my clothes unless I'm wearing a skirt, and then I only change the skirt. Generally I do pilates right before bed and will be in jeans or pajamas or just about anything.
It's like I'm always telling Claire--no one is asking you to LIKE something, just to put up with it because you have to (we say this about church, homework, eating green beans, etc.).
I agree with Sarah on pretty much everything. And I *do* like racing in almost any form -- not because I expect to win but because any racing at the adult level is a community thing, where you're out there with dozens or hundreds of people who are only sort of in shape like you just to prove to yourself that you can still manage it. I don't like running as such, but I love 5k races, and I'd love to do a bike race one day.
And regarding the clothing/shower thing -- one reason I do Walk Away the Pounds is that I can do it in whatever I'm wearing, within reason (though I always have sneakers on anyway because my feet are so bad), and it isn't such a big sweat that I'm gross afterwards. When I really get to hating the videos I put on my iPod and listen to my book or to music I actually like and I just use the video to keep myself moving at a good pace (which gets tricky with the wrong music, but I manage anyway). It doesn't *have* to be such a production.
First of all - I wear a skirt and panty hose everyday. Every day. Except my days off and then I wear exercise clothes almost all day. So - I CAN'T see me working out in what I am wearing. And for the two of you to get onto my post and say "But I don't hate exercise" just PROVES MY POINT that MOST PEOPLE DON'T hate exercise the way I do. Again, I would rather go to the dentist and the gyno in the same day! See - that is my POINT - I HATE exercise! Althouh, I did like the boxing - but one hour once a week isn't going to do it and I don't see boxing being all that much fun if I am doing it all by myself in an empty room.
Amy, did you read my comment? Sounds like you didn't. I said I DO hate running (which is my primary form of exercise). I loathe every second of it and like you would much rather be at the gyno or dentist (except for those marathon dental visits where you spend 2 hours getting a root canal. I'd rather run than do that, as long as the running is just 30 minutes. But I do the running anyway and put up with it and hate it but it's good for me. I'd rather do other things but can't because I don't have the time.
And I wear panty hose and skirts pretty much every day too. Didn't you read the bit about how if I'm in a skirt I leave on my top but change my skirt to do pilates? It doesn't have to be a big production. You can even walk on a treadmill or outside without changing the skirt--just put on socks and shoes (and the panty hose are good in that case--they elimiate the possibility of blisters).
You don't hate exercise any more than most people. You like just as many types of exercise as I do. I'm just more willing to put up with something I hate for the greater good of my overall health.
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