Started: I needed a hobby in junior high. Signed up for a 10k and then learned to run

Now: esthetics, to correct imbalances and postural problems stemming from the ligamentous laxity of pregnancy, to ensure a healthy future, to allow a less painful return to backcountry skiing, climbing and mountaineering when said children get a bit bigger and the grandparents are willing to babysit them for more than 3 hours at a time.

I think esthetics is when you get your nails done and various patches of body hair pulled. Just to be clear that's NOT why I go to te gym. Aesthetics!

I started exercising so I could drink beer while still maintaining a deficit.

Now I exercise to become as brutal a human being as possible.



It's working.

tl;dr: I started exercising because I wanted to be thin and I exercise now because it makes me feel good (and I still want to be hot ^.^ )

I've always kind of dicked around with exercise ever since high school. As a teenager, I was one of those people who would buy into (philosophically, if not literally) every lose-weight-quick pill, patch, or scheme. I never really had the money to actually buy them, but I did believe they could work. I also accumulated many pieces of crappy equipment. Then I went to college and that phase ended, as did any attempts at or interest in exercise at all.

I started getting serious again in my last couple years in college (it took me like 10 years to eventually graduate) and I began for vanity reasons. I wanted to be thin. I'd tracked food on fitday before a friend introduced me to MFP, and once I joined here it also became sort of a challenge to compete with her.

Now, getting close to 4 years on, I exercise also for vanity (I still want to look good, but my definition of what looks good has changed somewhat). However, that's not my primary focus anymore (though let's be honest, it's still up there - who doesn't want to look hot?) Now I exercise because it makes me feel good about myself. It makes me feel strong, and competent, and successful. Any day in which I've gotten in a workout I can consider a good day, a day in which I achieved something positive. I also like being able to progressively improve my stamina, my speed, my strength. It opens up possibilities that I never thought existed before.

Exercise also helps me maintain a better level of mental health, in addition to physical. I've gone through off times like many people, when my workout routine and eating habits suffer. During those periods I feel noticeably more anxious, I sleep poorly, I wake up consistently at 3am with panic attacks, my self-esteem is terrible and I experience higher levels of depression. Nearly all of those symptoms disappear when I exercise consistently.

I started to lower my blood pressure and prevent type 2 diabetes. Amazingly enough, my back and joint pain has gotten a lot better.

Now I want to be leaner and stronger and prove that fierceness doesn't have an age limit.

Start: During pre-teen and early teen years I did exercise but more due to being in sports and that was just part of it. Though I was never completely in shape, often the roundest and slowest one, I did the exercises we had to because I enjoy things like volleyball and basketball and most of the other sports I tried (except flag football). In my 20's it was more about trying to lose weight with different start points and limited amounts of success.

Now: I started back again at the end of August with turning 30, signing up for a 5k walk and letting things snowball from there. Sure, I'm trying to lose weight and get below the obese range for my height but I've put that as a secondary goal instead of as the primary one. I have many things I want to do that require levels of fitness I haven't achieved yet and being lighter will help with them as well. Putting the different fitness goals up front and with a goal of also just being active for a whole year has really helped. Plus, I enjoy it and it gives me something to do that is out of the house and not just work.

Started: it's hard to remember back that far but I'm sure it was both a combination of getting out of the house with a little kid (I could put him in the nursery and go exercise and talk to other adults) and vanity-wanting to be thinner. I've got loads of obese family members and I did (do!) not want to end up like them. It was all cardio with some Barbie weights and weight machines thrown in. I still gained weight though because you can't out exercise a bad diet.

Now: that little boy is now in college but I still workout for a lot of the same reasons. I want to be and look fit and healthy (not necessarily thin); I love the interaction with my gym friends; I still don't want to be obese or have the health problems like my family; I LOVE food so love the calories working out gives me; I love the mental feeling I get after a great spin class or good lifting session and I love being strong and able to do whatever I want.

I've found two types of cardio that are great workouts and really enjoyable-spinning and Zumba classes. I've learned the joys of lifting with heavier weights and seeing the changes in my body is exciting. It's great to walk in my closet and know whatever I pull out will fit and look good. I've got so much self confidence when I go places now. And I admit it's pretty cool too to look at pictures of high school friends on Facebook and know I look way better than even the hot girls

Why I exercise right now is almost primarily about the drive for the most functional, optimal body within my grasp. In fact it's more a goal to always strive towards and improve upon. The things I prize include strong injury-proof joints, balance, co-ordination, strength, power, endurance, general fitness and simply the ability to be the master of my body.

The list changes and evolves, both to include activities that offer benefits I'd like to reap, like yoga for flexibilty and other benefits for example, or martial arts for self-defence and also other benefits. In addition, I give a bit of thought to the things I feel I should be able to do as a physically able human being, things like being able to run a certain distance, swim a certain distance, pull up my own bodyweight, etc.

In fact all of the above tends to be why I am more of an outdoors person, and also not much of a gym person these days.

Why I started exercising has always revolved around weight loss and thus improving personal appearance. I genuinely enjoy physical activity of most sorts, even if I may have fallen out of the habit in the past, so while weight loss may be the push to get started again, it's never solely about weight loss/ aesthetics.

Started: I wanted to lose weight, I didn't exercise to lose weight, I exercised so I could EAT!!
Now: I want to be fit and strong.and I want to EAT!!

As a teenager, for sport performance. As I neared 40 year's old and after not doing much for over 5 years, lose weight and build/maintain muscle while getting older.

Started: I started exercising in high school to look "good." Same reason over many years. I also just really enjoyed walking.

Now: I am going to turn 40. I still want to look good. Now, though, I want to be healthy too. I want my blood work at my 40-year GME to be great. I want the energy to work on my garden forever. I want to be healthy for my kids. My 18 y/o gets worried about me when he sees grey hair on my head, but I can cover that up. Can't really cover up being unhealthy, not really. Also, I realize now how much better my mood is and how much more energy l have when I exercise. I still really enjoy walking and hiking.

Started: Because one day I looked up from my recliner chair and realized that I was moving less and less, gaining more and more, feeling worse and worse - and I was scared beyond reason that I might not escape what I viewed as a sedentary death spiral.

Now: Because I CAN. Because I do love food. But more, because I love to be badass.

That's about it.

First exercise I ever enjoyed I was 17, found hatha yoga. All I did through college and following years. Fast forward to the day John Lennon was shot. I did not deal well with that. After a few months, I was fat and depressed, unable to even do basic yoga moves. I started doing aerobic dancing in my house to Beatles music, eventually signed up at a fitness studio for women and continued doing aerobics for several years, got over my depressed state and lost the weight. Fast forward again, just returned to the USA after living in Australia for 4.5 years, got depressed again and put on over 50 lbs., had pain in hips and knees and hands. Switched to 40/30/30 eating and again with the aerobics, along with mountain hiking and walking. That got me through menopause without killing anyone or myself as I got happy and healthy and fit. 10 yrs on, I am back at it. Looking for alternatives to aerobics only for weight loss, so started picking up hand weights along with the dance moves, just recently found Body Flex classes and am progressing to weighted barbells. I want to have a healthy retirement, move well, and enjoy my time on this earth.

I have changed and my goals have changed. I actually enjoy exercising now, I had not enjoyed anything but the yoga before, but I did it anyway.

Nice thread SS.

I started exercising because I participated in sports/activities in high school.
In my 20's I exercised for physical appearance.
Now in my 30's, I exercise for stress management in managing a career and family, for the immediate feeling of accomplishment with each workout, general health, and physical appearance.

And of course...for MOAR food.

tl;dr: I started because I felt like *kitten* and exercise let me eat more. I keep going for the rush. I'm hugely competitive with myself, the more I lift, the more I want to

Book version
I played all the sports in school for the first few years. When I hit Grade 7 exercising was only for 'jocks' and since I was already chubby by that time I wasn't athletic enough to fit in with them or pretty (skinny) enough to be with the cheerleaders so I stopped.

Through my 20's I never dieted and managed to keep my weight mostly in check because I had a series of really demanding jobs (waiting tables, bar tending, order picking) I went back to school in 99' to do a degree in computer science and came out gaining 10 lbs per semester for 9 semesters. Went in a size 6/8 came out a 22, got married and kept packing it on.

I divorced and went the next 6 years feeling horrible, sore, tired, joints aching etc. Eventually I decided that I really needed to do something about my weight so I joined a gym and spent 6 months with a trainer. I lost 12 lbs - which was ideal but at the time I still didn't know what a healthy rate was - and about 2400$ I gave up because I wasn't seeing the results that I thought I should see.

When I met my current boyfriend neither one of us had much money so we did a lot of 'free' dates which included walking and hiking. I got active again but I was finding it pretty tough to keep up with my boyfriend at my high weight. When we went to Europe for the first time in 2011 I was about 220lbs and I felt like a beached whale around all the much more slender European ladies. When I came home I was determined to do something about it. I joined MFP and started losing. I upped my activity and by the time I had lost 60 lbs I decided I should join a gym. I started with the typical cardio, areobics, fuzzy pink barbells they give the girls. It was ok but I didn't find I enjoyed it very much.

Thanks to MFP and the people around here I decided to try weight lifting and now I'm hooked. I love the feeling of being one of the only girls in the free weight section and having the guys boggle when I start doing the same exercises as them with 'their' weights (admittedly I am not NEARLY as bad *kitten* as that, but most of the the guys at my gym don't seem to use big weights ) For some reason now I see them as competition so it's my goal to beat them all Bwahahaha!