Comment on What's the best way to ease getting back in shape after years of little to no exercise?
NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com 17 hours ago
It was hard for me to start too and still is, to be truthful.
But what I do is set a small goal and stick with it.
I reallllyyyyyy don’t want to go to the gym after work, but I force myself to go for just 30 minutes. When I first started, I would just ride the exercise bike at the gym for 30 minutes. That quickly turned into a competition, of sorts for me. Sure, I just hit 30 minutes, but I’m at 9.7 miles, why not stick around to hit 10 miles?! Oh I just hit 10 miles, but I’m at 34 minutes…might as well stay on for one more minute….etc.
I have a small bit of OCD (for lack of a better term) so I use that against me for my benefit in this way.
But even if you don’t have that OCD-like mentality, you can still go for 30 minutes and do something and then you might get into the zone and branch out to other exercises. Even if it’s not a gym, it can happen with other things. Go for a hike somewhere may have you thinking you should start biking and come back here for the trail that is perfect for biking. You go to the local park to walk and start seeing people doing other exercises that intrigue you. Etc.
I have moved from exercise bike to stairs now. I do 10 minutes and I am sweating and then go do some weights. I have the momentum at that point to actually lift and hit real goals, stretching beyond what I am comfortable with because now drenched in sweat and okay with pushing myself further to really extend that burn. Whereas before I would try lifting and I wouldn’t actually do much because I didn’t feel comfortable pushing myself too far. Something to do with sweating for me, I guess.
But as I said, I still have days where I don’t want to. And I will sometimes just go for 30 minutes. And that’s fine! Staying active and moving should be the goal to keeping out of being in the slumps.
Just get out there and do something and set a small goal for yourself to start.
felixwhynot@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
+1 exercise bike is a good one!