No, I don’t have suggestions, rather I’m looking for some.
I *MUST* exercise. I *HATE* to do so. Like, really hate it. We bought an expensive treadmill. I hate it. Running, in my opinion, is for those that haven’t mastered driving.
I’m very open to suggestions, but don’t be offended if I don’t follow any given advice…
100 pushups. It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. http://hundredpushups.com/
I am *so* with you on this one. Richard is making us one of these, http://www.carliefairchild.com/?p=85 — although there’s some talk of the laptop instead mounting on a recumbent bike. Either way, I figure even if I walk REALLY slow or ride REALLY slow while I do my news reading online for an hour a day, that’s got to be as good as running and working up a sweat for 20 minutes. Right? Ok, I know this isn’t entirely true from a cardio standpoint, but I think my sports medicine doctor would applaud me for being kind to my knees. 🙂
The thing that scares me is that I’m actually considering the pushup thing, Wolfger. I could blog my misery, which adds some motivation. (How weird is that?)
Remember those belly-shocking belts that were supposed to work out for you? Yeah, I almost bought one… 😉
I never bought one of those, but a friend did and I tried it out. I think it goes without saying that the results were unimpressive, though it does actually work the muscles and get them sore….
Shawn, I use the elliptical. I also hate exercise with the red-hot passion of a thousand suns, and I find if I “save” episodes of my favorite TV shows, then doing it doesn’t bother me quite as much.
This weeks pick: Last season of “Eureka.” W00t!
Walking is my exercise of choice. I walk with my friend at lunch, and it gives us a chance to laugh and talk and get the hell away from work as much as to exercise.
The other thing I would *highly* suggest is doing little things to add more steps to you day. Use the rest room furthest from your office. Take the stairs. Run up the stairs. Park as far away as possible when you drive somewhere (this actually saves me time, since I don’t have to drive around looking for the “best” spot).
Take a break every hour and walk around for five minutes (tell people you’re on your healthy smoking/coffee break.)
Just do little things every day to get yourself moving around. Even if you can’t commit to a full exercise program, every little bit helps.
But the best thing is to find a partner. Someone (like me) who will nag you into getting your butt out of the chair.
Maybe consider walking with your daughters. Tell them you want to walk every day and so they can take turns walking with you AND give them full authority to nag you until you walk with them. They’ll LOVE that I bet.
And if you walk with a different daughter every day, you’ll also be getting to spend time with each of your kids alone, while making yourself healthier so you’ll be around for all their graduations and weddings and kids.
Your post are my sentiments exactly… I think the best exercise for lazy people is eating right.
Seems like the people who eat healthy are the ones who exercise, and the people that eat crap are the ones who don’t exercise. I figure just pick the lesser of 2 evils.
But what do I know… I just ate taco bell 🙂
*slaps self* for being a hypocrite 🙂
I love Michelle’s idea about the walks with the kids. 🙂
Ryder is also correct about eating right (and, probably more importantly, *portion control*).
Walking uphill is a really good way to get your heart rate up without quick movement. If you have an expensive treadmill, you should be able to crank up the incline and just walk. At first it seems too easy, but before you know it, you’re breathing hard and sweating.
Well, I’m kind of into yoga at the moment, so that’s what I would recommend. 😉 It’s good for core strengthening and flexibility, and if you’re doing it right you sweat a lot – but not so good with cardio things (but then you have a treadmill for that).
John was trying to convince me to take up some martial arts. I’m slowly working my way up to that, I think. Maybe next year.
I have a friend who is doing the 100 pushups thing. He blogs about it regularly. I think he’s in the middle of “Week 3” – but it’s been more than 3 weeks because sometimes he has to repeat a day.
Overall, I think the key thing about any exercise you do is that it’s more fun with other people.
I would suggest that you do something you find fun so that it doesn’t seem such a chore. A weekly racquetball date with a friend, a short hike to a waterfall with the girls, a canoe paddle on a lake, ballroom dancing lessons with your wife – surely there has to be *something* in the world of physical movement you might find recreational rather than just duty? (besides that, get your mind out of the gutter.)
Let us know if you think of anything. 🙂
I like walking too. I’ll walk the kids to the farthest park, sit and read and watch them play and then walk the mile home. 🙂 Uphills, both ways! Muhahah
I go swimming every morning, M-F. I do an hour of breaststroke – it burns 231.8 more calories per hour than front crawl/freestyle. After the first week (and three lessons with a guard to help me get my kicks right) it became so fluid I don’t even think about it anymore; it’s an hour of meditative/cogitative/vegetative time, depending on which I need most. In fact, it’s gotten to the point that if I miss it, I get grouchy because I didn’t get in my “me” time.
I think the key is finding what you can do and zone at the same time; the runners and bikers I know say they aren’t thinking about running or biking, their having “personal time” while they’re out there.
I’ve also cut out “excess” calories (not dieting, just cutting back to my recommended intake); the little 100-calorie packs of snack foods have really helped with that. I counted for a couple of days to get an idea of what my intake was, and what is in the various foods I usually eat, and now I just pay attention to what I’m eating rather than actually “dieting.” (Which never works, at least for me.)
keith and I talked about this last night…we have decided that we want to take up something together….and we have chosen FENCING.
Small problem….no one around here teaches it.
(Keith vetoed ball room dancing again…)
Walking is good…walking with your kids is better…as long as you don’t walk to the ice cream place…kind of defeats the purpose…i know…that is how it used to work for me 🙂
Getcherass outta the chair and run, trunk boy! (I can be smug because I ran 21 miles this weekend).
Seriously, after the first month of sucking wind, the endorphins kick in and things get better.
I was horribly out of shape at the beginning of this summer, now I’m just out of shape (and have dropped 12 lbs). But I on non-rest days I either average 5 miles or 20 rounds on the heavy bag, plus about 45 minutes’ cool down on the bike.
But the best thing for fun exercise is a heavy bag. I love my Wavemaster – no tearing up the joists in your house from all the pounding, no chains, and you can move it outside in the summer. It gets out your frustrations. And it lets the kids know that Pop is still someone to be reckoned with. 🙂
I think the idea of making your girls nag you to walk is a great idea! If schedules permit, try for a family walk a couple nights per week — I knew a family growing up who did that. They all went out together to walk the dog.
Hey! Walk your dog! Do you still have that teensie little guy?
And I like yoga, too — it doesn’t feel like exercising. It feels like breathing and stretching, and then the next day your muscles say “HEY!!”
If you find something that works, let me know because eating chips and drinking cokes while watching tv just isn’t doing it for me anymore.
If you want to stay inside:
http://www.housegymnastics.com/
Not really a serious suggestion just a cool website.
Bill and I are trying to do yoga every other day, we have a DVD it’s about 35 minutes long. Then on the other days we focus on certain parts of the body for about 15 minutes or until the reps are done, we don’t like to exercise so we try not to make it seem like its gonna take long. We can do it and get on with whatever and we haven’t used up lots of time. If this is something you would want to try, I can email you the site we got the exercises off. Bills sleeping or I’d give it now, but he knows the site not me. Bill also found a site where you can build your own pull up bar the hangs on a door frame and can be taken down, it requires to screwing in to the walls or door frame. Bill has seen good results, I haven’t but I skip more days then him.
Walking is also great, it helps with all over health.
Depends on your life style, but the earlier comments of walking farther certainly help (and walking up stairs, I work on essentially the 3rd floor, we don’t have an elevator, and I have to carry 10-20lbs with me, great exercise). Or, if you’re looking to have an activity, I suggest Tai Chi. It’s excellent. Sure looks slow, but if you’re not sweating by the third set of moments (damn, forgot the name for them), you’re not doing it correctly. Plus, it teaches balance, harmony, smooth movement, and confidence. “Door hinge, no rust” as an old sensei once said.
I can see two solutions.
‘One’ is, to walk (as suggested many times). This is a good workout and my research so far make me believe, that it’s much mor healthy than it feels and probably the best workout for human beings.
‘Two’ is, to tweak your mind. I hat every single move as far as I remember for my whole life. Now I do 4 time a week sport. Not that I love it, I will never love sport, but I gave up hating. This is able by letting go the hate and all the things I prefered to do instead of sport. You need some training in ‘letting go’ but it pays off – not only in sport.
Running really is like that , why run when you can drive
5 Tibetan rites!!! They are easy, fast and really work 😉