Exercising When You Don’t Want To Move
How to get off the sofa for a little bit…
You’ve made it through another day at work, a day full of parenting or you’re lounging on your well-deserved weekend. Maybe you’re depressed and don’t want to get out of bed and face the sunshine, or even worse, the cloudy days. Many of us want to keep our hand in that bag of chips while mindlessly watching our favorite show after show. Don’t give in to not moving! You don’t have to do much to see and feel a difference.
The summers when my family would move to a different state brought immense boredom, and since we moved in June, I faced a whole summer of nothing to do. My brother and I would eat to pass the time, and it only caught up with me the year we moved to Wisconsin. It had nothing to do with the state, but it was my age that likely played a major factor in my gaining ten pounds in less than two months. My new doctor said I needed to drop that weight, and it was the first time in my life I had been considered heavy.
Being on the thin side had been my default setting, so his proclamtion made me take up running. I found a three mile route and ran it most days. Sometimes I would head to the YMCA and the running group my parents had joined. We jogged at 6:00 a.m., and my dad said he couldn’t believe I would go back to sleep after a morning three mile run. Being almost fifteen made it very possible, since teens love sleeping in. By the time the end of August rolled around I had dropped those ten pounds.
That lesson stayed with me, and when it wasn’t track season I still faithfully jogged. Three miles became my benchmark, and that was always the number I started with as long as I could run. I’d run when temperatures were below zero, in blinding snowstorms and in the deep dark nights of winter, which made spring and summer exercise a delight. I’m not saying you need to start running three miles today, and you don’t even need to run at all. You need to move your body. That’s it!
Improvise. You don’t need to go outside or buy exercise equipment. No gym necessary. I used to step up one step and then step down using nothing more than my basement steps. I didn’t even know people were exercising using special plastic steps, and besides, I couldn’t afford it at the time. I was trying to lose the stubborn baby weight. I stepped my way back into shape, and I put in thirty minutes every day. You have thirty minutes. Break it up into three ten minute exercise sessions if you have to. Don’t think about it the time too much. You will see a difference after just a few weeks, so stay with it.
Nobody has to see you working out. You can even do something as easy as marching in place in front of the television. Find a show you’re into, and suddenly thirty minutes will have flown past. You can stream workout shows if you want to feel like you’re part of a class. You can choose how much you want to spend on exercising. Some don’t have extra cash, but if you do then streaming live classes or having a subscription to online classes might be nice.
Then again, many people are motivated by being part of a gym. They see others working out, and it inspires them to keep with it, or they keep going to the same classes and get to know some of the people in there. That might be what helps you to get your exercise. For some paying to have a personal trainer keeps them in the habit of working out regularly, and that’s exactly what we should be trying to do. We need to keep our bodies moving, so some sort of pattern is good.
There are people who like to exercise six days a week, and for others three times a week fits their schedules better. See how you feel after trying every other day. Maybe transition to working out every day, and take notice of your energy levels. I used to fit walks or runs into a tight schedule by exercising while one of my kids was in preschool. I could take the youngest out in a stroller until my youngest was in preschool himself, and then I enjoyed hour long walks in the cooler autumn mornings.
Another part of an exercise routine is finding when you have the time and energy. If you know by evening you’re too tired to face a workout session (even another small ten minute one), then get it out of the way first thing in the morning. You can fit it into your morning, and I’m saying this as a night owl who used to wake up at 5:59 a.m. just to run or ride an exercise bike. Some of my neighbors walk fifteen minutes in the morning and another fifteen minutes in the evening. It’s fun to see other couples walking in the evenings, so we’ve started to join them.
I am trying to get back to working out, though I don’t think I’ll run again. But walking? I just went onto the “bike trail” this evening, and my husband and I fit in forty minutes of walking. It’s just a start. I haven’t been well enough to work out. I used to love running or even walking along with taking Pilates classes or even some yoga classes, but I am seeing if I can slowly begin to move more. I always think the end of summer is the perfect time to begin a new activity. Let’s get moving!
