Hate walking

Tawshan · January 2013

Hey everyone,

I'm having troubles about my exercises. Unfortunately, I hate walking. You can shut me in a gym for 3 hours but please dont ask me to walk for 15 mins. I always hated walking. It!s not something that came with extra weight. I used to be a professional swimmer. Even then I could do anything to skip walking and running parts of warm-up sessions.

Now I am trying to workout at home but I didnt realize I got so out of shape. Well I did of course, but I couldnt even keep up with a simple excercise video. My muscles were burning so bad and was having cramps all over my body. Even some muscles I didnt even know they existed. That was supposed to motivate me to workout harder right? Uh-huh... Well, I stopped it completely. After many naughty meals since Christmas and new year, I am eager to start all over again. I do want to do exercise but physically its so hard. And I feel like I'm cheating cos I cant do the moves properly.

nostripewhite · January 2013

Why do you hate walking? Is it just that you find it boring?

My suggestion would be to attempt intervals. Walk for 30 seconds, jog for 30 seconds. Rinse, repeat. You'll get a good heart rate boost if you really push yourself during the jog/run portion. The catch being that you need to REALLY push yourself.

That along with a sensible diet (I won't say what I advocate, but whatever works for you without doing damage to your body) should be a good starting point.

fionadasein · January 2013

Firstly, walking without purpose feels understandably lame. Kind of like watching paint dry. What helps me is to walk to a place, have a set distance and real world goal of getting somewhere...and critically, to have awesome tunes while I take in the varied scenery. Ditto for biking - so much better outdoors than just a spin class (though cheers to all who do that!). So get your mp3 going and pick out some routes. Start smaller than you think you need to build confidence and go from there. And get back into the pool damnit! If you were a swimmer, you ARE a swimmer, and balls to what anyone else thinks!

melaniecheeks · January 2013

Find a friend with a dog and offer to take it walking!

Or get some books downloaded onto an iPod and lsiten to thsoe as you walk.

Donners185 · January 2013

To be honest. I absolutley love walking. I walk to and from work every day which is about 4 miles altogether. Sometimes the thought of it is crap when it's too cold or warm but when i get outside and stick my earphones in I just drift off, next thing I know I'm standing outside work! Really helps me clear my mind. I make all major decisions on the way to work. Lol. If you don't like it though just find something you do like and stick to it. Good luck.

Graceious1 · January 2013

As others have said find purpose. I ride every day to work and power walk to my martial arts classes to get my heart rate up. I have a sports tracker that tells me how far I've walked or run. If I walk with my son (he's 7) we have fun because he loves maps and at the end of our walk we have a discussion about how far we've walked and how long it's taken us.

At the end of the day only you can make it happen so as other posters have said, "If you were a swimmer, you STILL are a swimmer" and "Find a friend with a dog and offer to take it for a walk". If you don't like dogs just find a friend. If you have an iPod/MP3 player put some pumping tunes on and get going.

All the best with your quest.

pyrowill · January 2013

Wow, erm....is there a journey you make every day or few times a week that you could walk instead of drive/cycle?

LisabethG · January 2013

The best exercise advice I ever received... pick an exercise you can do for the rest of your life.
What is your favorite thing to do? Swim? Do it. Ride a bike? Do it. Move that body and enjoy it.
Chances are you will continue with something you enjoy for many years to come. Don't hate the
exercise, do what you love. Good luck and don't give up!

demorelli · January 2013

If you prefer the workout videos or the gym, ease into them. Don't get frusterated that you can't keep up, just go at your own pace. Of if swimming is still something you enjoy, try swimming some laps a couple times a week and work up from there. If you find an exercise you enjoy, you're more likely to stick to it. Also you might consider looking into yoga. It's a lot less stressful to start up because most instructors will encourage you to not push yourself beyond what you can do and will often offer modifications on more difficult poses.

Mslibb · January 2013

Hiya

If you hate walking, then I'm not sure if trying to find ways to enjoy it will help - if it were me it would just be a constant battle to force myself to do it, one I would probably lose more often than not. Try to find something you do enjoy - maybe return to swimming? You must have loved that at some stage to become a professional swimmer :-)

Also, you may not have made it through the exercise video, but sounds like you were working hard for your fitness level - and that's not cheating! If you enjoyed the video otherwise, maybe you could hit pause every so often, catch your breath, rest your muscles and then carry on? I have an elliptical trainer at home and that's sort of how I started off initially. And what motivates me now is seeing the improvements - being able to go longer or faster or at a higher resistance.

Good luck in finding something that floats your boat! :-)

mrseelmerfudd · January 2013

im the same. its all psychological. set me in a sports situation and ill run and run and run, but put me in a gym or walking or running- most boring thing and i can't do it. if you don't enjoy it- don't do it, find something you enjoy that you will keep at

coburngirl · January 2013

I agree with everyone else. Find what you love to do for exercise and what you look forward to doing on a regular basis. Exercise tv on youtube has great free exercise videos from walking to dance to everything in between. In August of 2012 I had my thyroid out due to cancer and prior to surgery I was walking 4.0 mph on the treadmill for an hour. After surgery due to all the lovely things that come with being hypothyroid I could barely walk 2.0 mph for 20 mins due to heavy breathing, heart palpitations, extreme muscle fatigue and dizziness. Now I'm back up to 3.5 for 40 mins but getting stronger every day. Your body WILL remember what it is supposed to do but not if your brain isn't into it. Good luck and I hope you find what makes you happy and keeps you going!

Tawshan · January 2013

Thanks to everyone for your lovely support and ideas. Yes, walking without a purpose is boring but even when I have a purpose as soon as I start walking with a tiny bit faster I get unbearable muscle pains especially my ankles and calves. so either I have to slow down or completely stop. Where I live is not really the best place to walk as there are hills everywhere kinda very similar to San Francisco I guess

) As I come back from work around 8 pm there are no swimming pools at that hour that I can go anywhere around. I walk to the main road every morning. Almost running as I'm late almost every morning to catch the shuttle bus for work. I am planning to use the youtube videos for my home workouts. I will listen to you and start walking to the shopping mall which is about 1 mile to walk there and back. I don't know if walking inside the shopping mall will count though

) Hopefully in time by poor calves and ankles will get used to it and will be able to walk longer distances. My aim is doing the 30 days shred but I guess I have a little bit time to get there. I will set my lovely tunes on my ipod tonight

thanks to you guys.

Hate walking

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