After nearly 8 weeks of nearly constant exercise, I gotta
say I’m not as excited about it as I was at the beginning. In fact, I’m
starting to have some of those thoughts one has (“Do I REALLY have to do it
today? It’s not working. I hate it. I can’t wait for 100 days to be over”) that
lead pretty quickly to giving up.
Luckily, or unfortunately, I can’t give up. Not only do I
have 45% of my 100 days left to go, but I’ve become convinced that working out,
and hard, has to be part of my daily routine for the rest of my life, if I want
a long and healthy life.
Maybe exercising is never going to be something that just
comes naturally to me, but I can’t just hate it and do it over and over anyway.
Because I know myself, and I know that I WON’T. But perhaps if I can focus on
what’s good about it, I can get through this week, and the next and the next.
1.
I admit, some of it is actually fun. Riding my
bike, at least when the weather is warm but not too hot. Yin yoga, especially
hot yin, especially the runner’s high that comes after being in a 110 degree
room stretching for an hour.
2.
It’s a good time to catch up on my listening. I
often listen to ebooks, inspirational podcasts, and YouTube videos while
working out. It’s really the only chance I get to do that.
3.
I like being strong. I don’t know any other way
of getting strong.
4.
There’s no tired like the tired you get from
working out hard. It’s soooo good to be that kind of exhausted. I think I sleep
better on days when I work out, even when the workout is in the morning.
5.
It strengthens my heart and lungs. My
understanding is that those 2 things are pretty important to my continued life.
6.
When I put stress on them (by jumping up and
down, for instance), it also strengthens my bones, which are apparently turning
to glass as I approach 30. No broken hip
to land me in the hospital where I die within weeks for me.
7.
It’s one of the few things that’s pretty well proven
to be a defense against Alzheimer’s. In fact, it improves brain function
overall, not just at the end.
8.
It lowers
LDL by some mechanism that isn’t fully understood yet. I’ve been worried
about my LDL since 2 annual checkups in a row have come in high. I think my doctor
is on her way to wanting to prescribe me a statin, and I am both horribly no-compliant
with long term drug regimens AND anti-pharm in my approach to dealing with
things.
9.
It’s mood-enhancing. I know from my several
bouts with clinical depression that the last thing one wants to do when down is
exercise, and yet exercise is the thing that lifts mood immediately. I have to
assume the same thing is going on when I’m NOT depressed.
10.
It’s satisfying to know it’s over every day.
A note: I actually had to google “what’s good about exercise”
to come up with a list of 10 things—that’s how discouraged I was at the
beginning of this post. I’m glad I did. Writing it has, in fact, made me
re-committed to getting out there and doing it every day; the LDL and Alzheimer’s
evidence are actually super-important to me. Those aren’t things that you see
on a day to day basis, and it’s easy to forget that things are happening in the
body that aren’t obvious. I’m really glad I did this.
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