How do people like exercise??

I was "that" kid at school. Tubby, bespectacled and couldn't catch a ball to save my life. Always picked last for every team. Hated all exercise, bar swimming. Started going to the gym regularly about 15 years ago. Fondly imagined that a 20 minute stroll on a treadmill was exercise. Got fatter and fatter - eventually obese.

Lost a fair chunk of weight in 2013 through diet. Gradually put a lot of it back on. Resigned myself to being fat. However, since I was approaching 50 and hearing of the dangers of osteoporosis as women age, in 2016 I took up an offer of three sessions at a reduced rate with a personal trainer at our gym. I wanted to know how to use weights safely. I was dead scared and expected to hate it. I told the trainer that talk of my bodyweight was off-limits. I was there purely for the exercise.

To my shock, I really enjoyed the sessions, though they were tough and made me red and sweaty, and signed up for more. The gym had a refit and installed a heavy bag. I asked my trainer about boxing and we started that, too. I was hooked. I started losing weight because I wanted to be able to exercise more, and move more freely.

At the time the exercises I most enjoyed were ballistic and power-based. Planks or isolation exercises with weights were not things I enjoyed or did much of. Now I enjoy all aspects of exercise and will willingly grind out some of the slow stuff as well as bash out the power stuff. I like finding things I can't do well and working on them. I'm still trying to do a full push up (nearly there) and pull up (not so nearly there).

Sorry for the wall of text, but for me the key really was finding something I liked - or at least could tolerate enough to know I would eventually like it. It helped that I was not exercising to lose weight.

I didn't care for cardio at all as a teen, young adult. Did football, low level basketball and baseball as a kid but never really cardio. I got fairly obese by 40 and blew out a knee. I literally walked as much as I could (started like just 10 or 15 minutes) and, like Ann said, over time I moved more and started doing long walks with my dogs, then spin classes, then jogging, then trail running, then biking again and now a lot of Rowing Machine and Assault Bike workouts (and still leisure biking and hiking).

Do what you can and stop when it hurts. But be religious about it and what seems to be miniscule improvements will be incredible over a year or two with consistency.

I despised running as a kid but ended my running career doing 8 to 10 mile trail runs. I'd come in near last but loved it. I'm was (until a back injury last year) a fairly competitive indoor rower as well. I row 6 to 7 miles a day on a machine and love it. It's my time for me and I listen to music and do it on my deck and watch birds. If I can't workout, I'm cranky!

So I've certainly gone through the journey from seriously obese to dreading workouts (only saw it as a way to eat more at first!) to being addicted to exercise.

An important component for me was eating back exercise calories as long as your being honest with portions and weighing food if it's not packaged. I saw exercise as a way to earn a small snack or dessert. That motivated me to workout.

I was morbidly obese when I started. I had to rest going up the stairs. I got winded walking across a room. I was too weak to carry more than a single can of vegetables at a time.

“Exercise” was awful. I decided to start running. I could “run” for about 5 seconds at a time. Then I needed about 5 minutes of a very slow walk to recover enough to try to “run” again. There was nothing fun about it.

When I started lifting weights, there were some movements that I wasn’t able to do with ANY weight. Just moving my body through the air was my max ability. There was nothing fun about that either.

But I stuck with it. Slowly the weight started to come off, and little by little I became more fit. I eventually ran my first mile (I’ve now run a couple of marathons), I was slowly able to lift a bit more weight (I can now pick up 200+ pounds off the floor).

But the real change was in the rest of my life. I can go up multiple flights of stairs carrying loads of laundry, I can bring in most of my groceries in a single trip, I can haul the dog food bag with one hand. I can hike a hundred miles over a week - and see things I would never have been able to otherwise see. I can do all kinds of adventuring. I can go for a bike ride just for fun to check out the sunset over the river.

While I do very much enjoy running now, the truly enjoyable part of exercise comes from being “fit” and being able to do stuff-pretty much anything I think I want to try.

If you’re already fit enough to do the fun stuff? Then go forth and enjoy the fun. That stuff all counts.