13/02/2023
7️⃣ things to help if you don’t like exercise
Whether you’ve never loved exercise or just lost the joy in it, I want to quickly jot down some ideas to get you started:
1️⃣ Not all exercise is like cross-country in high school (that sucked for 90% of us).
2️⃣ Going back to exercise/sports you did when you were 20 usually doesn’t feel so good, stop trying to get back to the old you and focus on building the NEW 50yr old you, which involves finding exercise that makes you feel energised, not old and slow.
3️⃣ Not all exercise is equal - if you hate one, you don’t hate all. You simply haven’t found your thing YET. Approach it with childlike curiosity and without surface-level judgement, you’ll ruin it before you even start.
4️⃣ Do it FOR you, not TO you. Exercise and this health pursuit, in general, should be about building you up to feel your best, not punishing yourself for eating a damn burger.
5️⃣ You ARE the most important part of your day, your calendar just doesn’t show it. We get so caught up in the urgent & important stuff that we continue to push the non-urgent, important stuff to the side until it BECOMES urgent. If you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll be forced to make time for your illness.
6️⃣ Movement is an integral part of being human. Exercise is the most under-utilized anti-depressant out there, our bodies feel 10X better when we exercise. If you don’t “feel like it” this is even more of a reason to look after yourself because this is not natural, this is stress, undernourishment and lack of sleep.
7️⃣ Do it for how it makes you feel in other areas of life. Adding in resistance training will make clothes fit better, will help to get out of the couch or car, will help with keeping up with the young ones. If showing up as a better version of you doesn’t help, I’m not sure what will.
Hopefully, you find a couple of those valuable or a nice reminder. Exercise is not “easy”, and it’s not supposed to be, but telling yourself stories about why you can’t or why don’t like it, makes it much, much harder.