TL;DR: Gained too much weight after I fell and broke my arm + couldn’t really move for a while. I have a lot of trauma related to sports, like I was forced to play football like any other Hungarian kid, and I was awful at it, which made others be angry at me for it, which made me reluctant to do it. Even if I manage to do it, I often get brutal, crippling muscle pain, which makes me fo it even less.
Since I"m Hungarian, I cannot rely on health care at all, especially mental health, as it was the very first thing that got cut, amd I cannot afford private care.
Would bird watching be something you might be interested in?
You walk on a trail and get a small monocular or binocular and log the birds you see.
non team sports are great, cycling for example, or mountain bike riding, swimming, running etc
im not a team sport guy but maybe you’ll have someone else to engage in activities that need one other person eg tennis, badminton, squash etc
good luck to you though
Oh man, I wish you were located close to me. It seems nobody can relate to exercise itself being the issue but also being necessary. I’m pretty sure we could walk around and bit about that constantly.
Movement for me has always been the issue. And I don’t mean regular sore muscles. As you said, crippling pain.
I even got into some sports to remedy this specifically and it got even far worse. I’ve got some neurological disorders that might or might not be related.
I just wish I felt the happiness from sports that seemingly should happen.
Diet plays a larger role in losing weight. Pokemon Go + food can get you started if the only thing you can do is walk.
This, but I won’t endorse pokemon go in any way.
Try Tai Chi.
Low impact, not competitive, and not only gets you in shape, but teaches you self defense at the same time without you even realizing it.
Will it make me go from chubby to muscled in a few months like in those AI slop ads?
I just want to say that I appreciate this post so much. I really feel you about the emotional resistance to exercise and how big an obstacle it can be - people don’t talk about it enough. I was bullied a lot in gym class/group sports too, and was in a relationship for a long time with a partner who was very critical about my fitness. Just thinking about “getting exercise” can trigger deep anxiety that makes it feel impossible to get started. It’s a thing I still struggle with.
I second what others have said about starting by looking for opportunities to incorporate movement, rather than setting out saying “I am about to go get me some EXERCISE.” And starting very very gradually. For me, I anticipate the feeling of failure with exercise, so it’s been really important to start with something that feels almost too easy, just to be able to say “I did it.”
A couple things I have learned/try to practice. Some of them sound v cheesy, but have helped me.
- The first goal can literally be - put my running shoes on. Once the shoes are on, I’ve gotten the process started and almost always just go for the run/walk. But it’s important that it be okay if you don’t, too. The goal is just to put the shoes on.
- I have found it helpful to listen to guided run recordings or podcasts. It’s literally a lil voice in your ear reminding you to take it easy, and that you’re doing great for just starting.
- While on your walk/run/bike ride whatever, think about all other people in the world who are also on their first run, or second run or wherever youre at. I find it much easier to cheer for other people. Then I can turn it around and cheer for myself too, once I’ve got those good feelings started.
Anyway. I hope this is helpful. Thanks again for your post. I’m cheering for you and me both!
Can you do push ups? If so, sprinkle a little set of 5, 10, 20 (whatever is a light strain) through the day every couple of hours or so.
Pull ups and squats too as much as you’re able. Push ups give some core work, but some crunches or sit ups would be nice too. Core is key for strength and health.
Some form of cardio too, once a day 30mins. Just walking is fine.
This is what I used (on top of cutting sugary foods from my diet) to get from ~120kg to ~80kg and got compliments on my muscle building despite lifting no weights.
The constant light exercise is also great for mental health, giving a few chances a day for a little mental refresh.
I’m a big believer in calisthenics and just constantly living under the strain you want to be able to operate in. To me it’s the natural path, and I and a few friends had great success with this approach.
Lifting weights can give more efficient gains. If you can find a sport you like (swimming would be my top suggestion for someone with injuries to account for), the social pressure can be a huge help.
But what worked for me is simple constant light exercise. You can do it anywhere, and it gives a very practical strength and endurance that makes everyday life easier and more comfortable.
Just my two bits. Good luck
I can’t do push ups, especially after my injury, never really had the muscle strength to support my own body weight with other than my legs.
You said you can walk— keep walking. A little further each time. I usually do at least a couple miles a day, but it’s literally been 104 where I am, so I haven’t been able to go as far or as fast as I would like—and I’m gaining weight. 😕 So, yes, walking can absolutely help with your weight. Good luck!
I have had multiple doctors tell me that limiting my intake is much more important than exercising.
As far as exercise goes, walking is great exercise. The difference between walking a mile and running it is mostly time. Do what you can and worry about building cardio endurance later.
Right now my big cardio workout is six flights of stairs I go up daily. It took me months to be able to do the whole thing without feeling like I was going to pass out. I’m still run down if I need to run them several times in a day.
As far as exercise trauma goes find something and make it yours. Little steps, but push yourself. I can somewhat relate as I find handwriting things difficult due to other childhood trauma. I can do it, but I find myself avoiding tasks that would require it still. My trick is to recognize that I’m avoiding it and set a time to actually do it.
Walking can get you a really long way.
The most important thing is to find something that you actually enjoy doing, because that’s the only way it’ll stick, and it sticking is the only way you get any long-term benefits.
In my journey, it was approximately these things in this order:
- I tried running, but didn’t enjoy it one bit. I didn’t understand how to do it properly so it just hurt constantly and gave me lackluster results, so naturally I stopped after a while
- I then picked up walking during the pandemic. I found that if I put on a podcast or audiobook I could do it for multiple hours at a time, just walking around in the forest where I lived back then
- Then I picked up cycling for transport, first to buy groceries and other things, and later also to commute to work. A pair of appropriate headphones for this also helps immensely, being able to listen to podcasts while riding is excellent
- Then I got back into weight lifting, which I had done maybe 10 years back but dropped after I lost easy access to a gym when moving. I always enjoyed this so there’s no real friction here, but the podcasts also keep me mentally stimulated here
- Finally, I got back into running, which was now fun all of a sudden because of everything I had learned about how to do it properly. I started joining a running club with which I run once a week, and learned that it’s quite fun to run with others, and started joining races, which was also great fun
Your journey is probably not going to look like mine, but the first step may look similar at least. After that, it’s all about trying different things to see whether they could be for you, or not.
For me it’s the issue of where to walk. Our location is great but I need to avoid people for various reasons. And now there are lots of dogs being walked which react in unexpected ways I also need to avoid.
And then of course I feel stupid walking somewhere ‘pointlessly’.
Any hints are appreciated (however the avoidance mentioned above is a given).
Nice pun salvo.
Find a non-team sport, or activity, you enjoy. Walking is incredibly healthy.
Walking is like the only thing I can reliably do, everything else comes with a bunch of caveats.
Walking is a great place to start. When I was starting to get back in shape, that’s what I did. Slowly increasing walking distance and small dietary changes. The progress can feel frustratingly slow, but before long you’ll be able to start doing short jogs, and then increasing running distance and integrating stretching and some small bodyweight exercises. All you need is a pair of shoes!
Walking and dietary changes.
Even if it’s a diet you can’t stick to forever, sticking to it for a couple of months, or 10 weeks should make a big enough difference that you find many exercises easier to start, and then go from there. One step at a time instead of trying to achieve finished goal immediately, will probably work better for you.
Walking is perfect, especially in green spaces.
Sounds like walking is for you then. If you want some extra challenge throw on a rucksack with some weight and you’ll get heaps of additional benefits too.
Concur. Maybe toss in a light bit of stretching or like 10 mins of beginner yoga.
Stretching is imperative. I meant to add collagen rich foods, such as pork neck/tail, oxtail, hamhock.
I hear you, i do hate team based and competitive sports as well. Though those are not only type of sports you can do. There are sports you can do on your own on your own conditions and pace.
Now the main bodyweight changes come primarily from diet. Yes exercise can help with burning extra calories, but that should never be the main goal of it. “You can’t outrun a bad diet” does hold true, especially in moder world with calorie dense foods.
Now for dieting, don’t take it as a diet, because that gives an impression that it’s going to be done for a limited time. It’s more of a lifestyle change and shouldn’t be done in a one big change. It consist of baby steps spread out over months to years.
Already showing interest into it is the first step. Reducing portion sizes of some junk foods or switching out a single component can be the next step for the next few weeks.
Weight management and calorie intake should be taken as avarages on a scale of weeks to months.As for training. The muscle pain you describe i assume is DOMs(delayed onset muscle soreness). Yes that will happen every time you put your body through a novel activity that exerts it. That can be reduced, mostly by starting slowly and for future motivation. With consistent training, it can disappear completely.
For example slow pace walking instead of running and slowly over the course of a month or two slowly increasing the tempo until by the end you are running, but minimized the novel stimulus part so that the DOMs would be minimal.Walking, cycling, elliptical, low impact is good for overall cardio. Personally I’d recommend elliptical machine, mostly because it spreads out the overall load between the whole body and i can watch movies during it making it more interesting.
Other aspect would be resistance training. The most basic training, covering 6 movment types, spread out over 2-3 days is more than enough for overwhelming majority of people. No point to go nuts, with 5-6 days of training to complete failure and then be crippled for the next week and give up/burn out. Slow and steady wins the game. Start slow and ramp up over the course of months to years. Like it took me almost 10 months to go from training barely once a week to 5 times a week and then few more months to solidify the habit and fit it into ny overall life. Nowadays, nearly 4½ years later it’s a rock solid habit.
6 movment types, with examples would be.
- horizontal push(ex, bench press, push-ups, machine press)
- vertical push(ex shoulder press or even lateral raise)
- horizontal pull(ex any rowing variation)
- vertical pull(any lat pulldown variation or pull-up)
- squat pattern(bodyweight squat or any leg press variation)
- hip hinge (deadlift or any variation of it like RDL or SLDL or even good morning and/or hip thrust)
Those can be spread out over the course of 2-3 days, doing just 2-3 movments per day. One movment taking somewhere around 15-30 minutes. Staring out doing each movement once per workout to slowly increasing it to 3 times per workout. With repetitions, anything between 5-30 is good enough and has the same results, though preferably staying between 8-12 is better. Mostly because doing deadlifts or squats for 30 reps will exhaust your cardio first rather than target muscles, but doing 5 reps of lat raise can be rather uncomfortable if doing with free weights(dumbbell, barbell)
If you want let me know and i can help you figure out exact movements or alternatives for even doing those at home. No I’m not selling a training plan or am a trainer, just someone with autistic levels of interest in it.
This person does it. Overdoing it being the enemy of consistency is the most important takeaway.
I try to simplify everything by working up to six sets of ten (I’m basic) until exhaustion but with low weights. Then next time I increase the weight slightly. As your endurance slowly builds you can add more exercises to your routines. You’ll eventually learn about cycling muscle groups to let them build on off days.
Also creatine monohydrate is an option as long as it’s from a brand that gets their purity and potency verified by a respected third party lab (USP, NSF, etc). It’s been shown to help build strength/power as well as muscle-mass benefits in aging populations with strong, high-confidence data. Cognitive benefits are also plausible and mechanistically sensible (creatine plays a role in brain cellular energy metabolism), but the certainty is only low-to-moderate. Plus if you’re investing in a supplement you’ll want to get the maximum benefits from it so it’ll help motivate you.
Swimming is the best way to build endurance/cardio without putting stress on your joints
Did you ever watch Dragonball Z? All the scenes where Goku or Gohan are training to get stronger, building their bodies to be powerful? Piccolo wearing insanely heavy gear to improve his speed?
You don’t need to do sports to train your body. You are giving your body the opportunity to learn how to be strong, to learn endurance. You can’t do that without practicing those things, using your strength, pushing your endurance.
That said, I have found working with kids to be very helpful. I work with a particular young kid who absolutely loves being lifted and thrown about. I use him as my weight training and it is a whole lot of fun, not to mention rewarding making his day more fun. Maybe there is something you can find that is similar?
- Get really into walking. No matter what sport you take up, or any at all, this will still be the most important element as it lets you “warm up” and keep your body in a ‘ready to be active’ state as well as passively burning energy.
So be exploring parks around you, maybe get into photography to help have a reason to take walks.
People can lose all the weight they need to just from walking. It is also considered by some people to be essential for recovering your body from pain after a day where you worked out.
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However, also get into calisthenics. This is solo exeercise designed to not need equioment or only lightweight equipment, therefore you can circumvent going to a gym for it. You’ll want enough space at home or in a park to do it, and this is why many people do choose to do it at gyms anyway.
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Pickleball or table tennis might be good sports to get into if you don’t like team sports.
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Swimming. I need to do more of that. It’s acessible and “hidden away” from prying eyes.
Some useful channels: Yellow Guy Calisthenics. this guy’s advice is valuable to me because it comes across as unconventional and says things i would not have thought of.
But god forbid if you do feel a need to do something more community based, maybe look on Reddit (i know, we alll hate reddit) for people in your local community who might have supportive workout groups. One thing you should know is that gyms are actually quite supportive environments - they need your money and they need nee customers in the community!
One near me actually has an outdoor bootcamp it does in the park’s basketball court, and lots of guided exercises. Something like thst might be good? It’s a smaller and more independent gym which considers itself a family run business.
