Exercise doesn't come easily to me. I was never involved in sports as a kid-- I quit swimming lessons once I'd gone as far as I could go without joining a swim team; I was taunted out of any interest in soccer by some fanatics in a 3rd grade gym class; and I was bucked off a horse too soon into my attempts at riding for that to hold its appeal.
So when it came time to jump on the exercise bandwagon to keep all the indoor activities and love of cooking from making me yet another overweight college student, I had to overcome the fact that moving around has few pleasant associations. In fact, breathing harder and all the sweat and muscular discomfort are mostly associated with childhood humiliation and, in the past eight years or so, sore boobs.
Never the less, over the past year I've managed to work out little ways to not only get myself on that treadmill, or exercise bike, or elliptical. Some of these seem like common sense but they've really helped me, and I'm the queen of rationalizing. I'm making this self-celebratory and self-indulgent post as a marker of my triumph today-- 30 minutes and 200 calories on the treadmill, a goal I have thus far only met on the far-friendlier elliptical machine.
*If you are of the female persuasion, spend some time finding a good bra. You can't get really going if you have to clutch yourself the whole time. I can personally vouch for Moving Comfort brand-- they really hold the girls up, back, and out of they way.
*Not everyone likes to read while working out, but more me it was the only way to make the process remotely enjoyable. Listening to music energizes some, but for me music just makes me try to figure out how many agonizing minutes are left based on guesstimating how many songs I've listened to at roughly 4 minutes apiece. Reading blocks the display panel listing the time and keeps me distracted. But what to read presents some difficulties. Too dense or literary a book and I can't focus enough on the book for it to properly transport me from the discomfort of jogging up an artificial hill. Magazines sometimes work, but if the articles are too short or just aren't interesting I can't keep up the distraction either. Fortunately my grandmother mailed us a whole series of books by Janet Lambert, 1940s teen chick lit, basically, that my grandmother and mom both read as teenagers. Light, peppy, addicting, and long enough for several sessions. I don't let myself read them unless I'm working out, so if I'm ever going to find out how the dramatic engagement at a picnic or startling rescue at a horse race turned out, I have to get back on the treadmill ASAP.
*A lot of experts and magazines suggest small goals-- five pounds maybe instead of the whole fifty, for example. But what if you're like me and the five pounds is the whole deal you've got to lose? I'm just want the results Kevin Spacy professes in American Beauty, when he says "I wanna look good naked!" So for me it was upping what I can do on the treadmill. When I started out, 20 minutes was an agonizingly, horrendously boringly long time and I struggled to get past 15 minutes or 115 calories, whichever came first. So I told myself I was going places if I upped that to 30 minutes or 200 calories, whichever. The goal is still a struggle some days, but it's being met more and more consistently. Maybe time to raise the bar?
*Giving myself an alternative. Somedays I just don't want to work out. I don't have the time (especially during the school year) or the inclination. Huffing and puffing up a fake plastic hill just isn't turning me on that day. So I'll treat myself to a guilty pleasure like Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? and make myself do yoga and light free weights for as much of the program as I can stand. It's all about self-bribery, people. I reserve certain things as off limits unless I am exercising while doing them.
* Having a backup plan. I do not have a consistent routine. I spend a lot of time up at Dear Boyfriend's house or out with friends for the day, often impromptu, so even though I have a treadmill in house, I'm not always around it. This is where the backup plan comes in-- Dear Boyfriend, for example, has a family gym membership and I can go with him as a guest. We have a nice routine-- always using the same two elipticals right next to each other so we shame one another into higher performance. Not a whole lot I can do when I'm out with sedentary friends, but I'm about to go to England to live in an ancient manor house with not a piece of exercise equipment in sight. Solution? I'm packing a jump rope for when I get stir crazy. Similarly, during the school year when I have to walk-- gasp-- all the way across campus to the gym (which is incredibly discouraging, especially in the winter) I get a friend who is actually disciplined about her fitness regimen to "force" me to go along with her when she goes to the stationary bikes.
The moral of the story is to give yourself a lot of time to meet your goals-- because if you are anything like weak-willed, rationalizing, chair-loving me, you will fuck up a LOT. And to make exercise as much of a treat as possible. And to make priorities- - ordering the healthiest thing on the menu as restaurants is not an option for me because I am in a restaurant to eat something fabulous, which to me usually equals cream sauce, NOT the boring baked chicken I could make at home. In fact, cutting corners food wise is not going to work out well for me (and a lot of others, I imagine). I love good food and I don't want to feel deprived of gourmet goodness, but I also already don't eat a lot of crap like soda and ice cream. Many of the things magazines and such advise you to automatically cut out I never ate in the first place. So if somethings gotta give, it had to be my aversion to exercise.
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