But I think this mentality is Leaper’s problem. Sometimes you just gotta do shit because it’s the right thing to do. Not because you’re “feeling” it. If we waited for “feelings” to do what’s right, then we’d all be in bad shape.
He makes it sound like exercise is enjoyable to everyone that does it. This certainly isn’t true for me. It can be enjoyable to walk six miles a day, when the weather is perfect and I can go at a leisurely pace. But sometimes it’s just a “meh” kind of experience. But I do the shit anyway. I can reward myself with something later.
I don’t think it’s true that suffering builds character. But there is something to be said for accepting that life isn’t always going to be happy-happy-joy-joy 24/7. That not every meal is going to be rapturous or every mile walked is going to be fun. Sometimes things aren’t fun, but this doesn’t mean they are horrible things to be avoided.
Leaper, believe it or not I kind of understand where you are coming from. There are so many stressors bombarding us, that it can seem kind of pointless to key in on only a couple of them. Like, I do most of my exercising outdoors, in a major city. Exercise is Good for You, but breathing in exhaust fumes is Bad for You. I also live right next to an expressway. Exercise fights heart disease, but air pollution promotes heart disease. Exercise fights obesity, which is linked to cancer. But I breath in how many carcinogens every day? Not to mention, I still cook off of Teflon. I still eat out of cans lined with BPAs. Every time I microwave plastics, I’m ingesting some trace amount of dioxins. No telling how many PCBs I’m eating when I choose salmon over chicken.
I do all this work to take care of myself, but how much time am I buying myself, really? A few months? Maybe I won’t get diabetes, but I’ll get lung cancer! Wonderful.
So I’m not going to act like I don’t know where you are coming from. All I can say for myself is that I’d rather try to do something instead of tossing up my hands passively. I might not be making a difference in my longevity. I might die at the same age as my morbidly obese cousin. But I do know that I like being in relatively good physical shape right now. I enjoy looking good and not getting sick. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not conscientious for the sake of tomorrow. It’s not like the fear of gangrenous limbs are what I use to motivate me.
I think you’ve hit on something really powerful here. Leaper, you wouldn’t have started this thread if some part of you wasn’t ready for a change. IME, the single best way to make any permanent change is to establish a habit. It only takes self-discipline for a short period of time, and then your brain gets so accustomed to doing it that it feels weird not to. It doesn’t have to be anything earth shattering. Drink a glass of water with dinner. Pick something ridiculously easy. Just one change. And once that becomes normal, you can add more. It doesn’t matter if it takes months or years for those habits to add up, because the alternative would have been to slowly get worse anyhow. By your standards, not getting worse is a victory.
I didn’t exactly embark upon the ‘‘no pain, no gain’’ route intentionally, but my Coach expects me to exercise daily regardless of what’s going on with me. He doesn’t care if I’m puking or have killer cramps or whatever. At first I yelled at him, a lot (I called him a self-righteous SOB and he said I could yell at him all I wanted as long as I did the work) but in hindsight this is all for the best. It has been a weird sort of character-building experience.
Part of it was learning to let go of the stereotypical view of pleasure, or the idea that life is only about pleasure. One particularly difficult workout was 100 burpees in deep sand. It was a chilly and windy day on the Jersey Shore. My body burned and the wind was a pain in the ass. It took for fucking ever. My form was horrible. But I was looking out over the ocean thinking, ''Huh. So this is what it’s like to do 100 burpees in deep sand on a windy day." I just sort of let it be what it was. And of course I felt amazing afterward.
(I have learned that I only really get the feel-good benefit from exercise if I hit it really hard. A stroll through the park ain’t gonna do it for me.)
Not to sound clishe, but there’s something genuinely Zen about it. You learn more about yourself and your environment every time. And that has a deeper kind of satisfaction than in-the-moment pleasure.
Or you’ll do what my stepfather did and sit in your recliner day after day after week after year, doing nothing but drinking whiskey, smoking, doing crossword puzzles and looking at skin mags. When he finally realized that he should do something besides graft his ass to the upholstery, he was unable to do so because his health had deteriorated so drastically. Along came came that ol’ debbil emphysema and (surprise!) diabetes, deteriorated hip joints, etc. A number of visits to the hospital and then came the visit where he didn’t come home again. Now, he still lived to be 77, but his last 20 years were miserable, and the last ten nearly unbearable.
My father, on the other hand, died of his excesses at age 53. From what I understand he had a hemorrhage in his throat. How fun.
These are extremes. You don’t have to quit having fun or stop enjoying life. But you do have to realize that you’re mortal and that a system that is not maintained will fail sooner rather than later.
Haha, this is it right here. Sometimes I have an amazing workout, sometimes I don’t. I had an amazing run a few weeks back - perfect temperature, I was well hydrated, I had eaten well that morning, I felt like I could go forever. A few weeks later I was draaaaaging on my run and I just wanted to stop. Hated it. When I came home and my husband asked me how my run was, I told him it was horrible. He said ‘You have to have bad runs to have good runs’, and he’s right. Sometimes you just have to take the shit for what it is, find whatever happiness in it you can (like being on the beach, overlooking the ocean, while doing stupid f*cking burpies - I feel your pain - or realizing that sometimes working out sucks, but you still got a ton of benefit from it because hey, I got some exercise) and then move on.
Also, when you try different types of exercises, what do you say to yourself in your head? Are you bashing yourself the whole time? Telling yourself how much you suck, or how much exercising sucks? I quit doing that years ago and it made a huge difference. I am my own best cheerleader and I always congratulate myself on whatever I’m doing. Even if I suck that day, I’ll tell myself ‘Yeah, but self, you are out here on this beautiful day, and you did make it up that steep hill, so great job!’. I’m always nice to me.
Here’s one thing to consider: are you snack because you’re hungry, or because you’re bored? I’ve caught myself doing the latter sometimes, and it can be a hard habit to break.
And yes, you sound depressed, if NOTHING but food gives you any pleasure. Seriously, at least talk to your doctor. Cuz that’s not normal.
Man, there were a lot of things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t figure out how to say most of it without looking like even more of a fucking pathetic emotional retard than I’ve already done (or “spoiled teenager” — not that I haven’t known that about myself for a long time), so I won’t, just in case.
But it does seem safe to say that food doesn’t give me any particular pleasure — my problem is more the vegetative type (and not, unfortunately, the food kind). Reading and gaming, sure, but those aren’t particularly active, are they? Fortunately, sugar isn’t my main weakness — unfortunately, the pasta, rice, and bread I eat almost every meal is just as bad.
But I guess if it comes down to having to “just do it,” then that’s it, then, isn’t it? Can’t argue with that. There really isn’t much else to say, is there? I certainly didn’t expect this thread to do anything more than sink into obscurity. More fool me, huh? Still, I can’t say I wouldn’t be better off with someone around to just heap physical and verbal abuse on me until I was too broken to resist. Then again, who wouldn’t?
This sounds great, but it just isn’t true for some of us. I’ve incorporated scads of healthy habits over the years, time and time and time again. The only one that has ever become permanent is my aversion to salad dressing. That’s the only preference I have ever been able to change consciously and truly internalize over time. And my guess is that it was more a matter of synchronicity than will, a taste that was changing by itself anyway.
Breaking a bad habit is way easier than establishing good new ones, at least for me. Quit smoking? Done. Quit drinking? Done. Stick with a more active lifestyle and add movement to my life on a regular and ongoing basis, and permanently embrace a diet that will keep the excess weight off? Seems impossible, even if I’ve strung together entire years of such at a time on occasion. I keep having to start again…it just doesn’t ever become habitual. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the “make small changes” mantra. It’s great, if you have a brain that works that way.
You could maybe ask for help? There are many people here and elsewhere who have fought through their own inertia successfully, at least for the time being, and may be able to give you pointers. If you’re open to them.
Maybe a good place to start is to evaluate whether you are a person like ASanders, who does better with subtracting habits, versus someone like me, who does better with adding extra habits. Then come up with a small list of stuff that you can stop or start doing.
I have suggestion. Instead of giving up your beloved carbs, just make yourself eat a bowlful of veggies at the beginning of your meals (you could start with dinner). Nowadays you can get a bag of pre-cut, pre-washed vegetables (brocolli, carrots, celery, romaine, spinach, snap peas, etc.) at the grocery store. You can still eat whatever you want, with the only hitch being that you have to add the vegetable preamble to it.
There was a time when I didn’t eat any vegetables. I’d load up on pasta and bread and meat and cheese, with nary a green thing in sight. Now that I’ve started filling up on vegetables (broccoli is my vegetable of choice), I eat the same foods that I used to eat, but just not quite so much of it. I don’t need to because I fill up faster.
This is a good idea, and something I do (sort of). At every dinner, whether I’m eating at home or not, I have a big serving of veggies, and I always eat all of them first. Then, if I’m going to be full, it’s the less healthy part of the meal that I don’t eat.
That said, at home we don’t have carbs with dinner (protein and veg only), but when going out, which we do regularly, this works well.
I know carbs = sugar. The whole REASON I was conscious enough to post this thread is that I KNOW that eating spaghetti for dinner is the rough equivalent of having an ice cream sundae. What I meant is that at least what I regularly eat isn’t the even more nutritionally empty cakes, cookies, etc.
Believe it or not, I AM conscious of the diabetes consequences. I think about it every time I believe/imagine my toes/feet feel cooler than the rest of my body. Whether the fact that it hasn’t motivated me yet is “proof” that I still do think it’s an abstraction is up for debate, I guess.
The vegetable thing is a good idea. One possible issue is that I usually come to dinner hungry enough that I would go through a LOT of the stuff. What are good forms/serving sizes so I don’t go overboard?
As for physical activity, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something structured, at least not at first. Get together with some friends and maybe go to the museum, or hang out and just walk around town. It will get you used to get up and moving first. No, it’s not enough, but it’s that first step. One thing about walking is finding a place to walk. Is there anywhere near that has a really nice view, or where it’s really cool to hang out?
And instead of swimming at a pool, maybe swim at a lake?
My dad once lost 100 pounds by eating as much salad as he wanted as between meal snacks (with, of course, portion control for his meals).
As long as you don’t get salad dressing that has a lot of calories (better, no dressing at all!), you can’t eat too many veggies.
I had two cups of veggies with my lunch (tomatoes, peppers, celery, cucumber) and it totalled 37 calories. You can’t eat much with 2 cups of veggies already in your stomach.
I know you’re being flip, but this actually works for me. To the dismay of my coworkers, I have no interest in yoga. The kind they’re into burns 185 calories an hour for someone my weight. I’m not wasting an hour to burn 185 calories, not when there are other activities that will burn 600 or more an hour - and yeah, these are ones I can sustain for an hour (occasionally two hours, if I really want to avoid doing it again that week). I’m all about getting exercise over with as quick as I can for the highest “value” of calories possible.
There are many people here and elsewhere who have fought through their own inertia successfully, at least for the time being, and may be able to give you pointers. If you’re open to them.