friends who have successfully exercised please share your exercise secrets

i would like to become more Fit

I have only successfully had Regular Workout for two unrelated six month periods of my life but in general:
- don’t overdue it when you’re just getting back into it
- at least one personal trainer session very helpful
- video game boss themes

+1 to personal training being helpful

i did a few weeks. very expensive but helped make the whole thing 100% less intimidating

- podcasts

- find activity you sincerely enjoy and do that

- doing short stints repeatedly is more impactful than doing fewer, longer sessions. this one is real hard for me as a person who is used to like ILL WORK DOUBLE HARD TO MAKE UP A SKIPPED DAY bit that doesn't actually do anything

I've been off and on forever, but one thing that really helped me a lot was doing small group training for about a year - it taught me good technique and foundational knowledge of basic exercises / breathing that are easy to repeat at home or on my own when I was trying to do the gym thing

I did fitness boxing successfully every day for a year, and having a Designated Time for it and the game counting my streak was what kept me going.

partial-assing is better than no-assing. if you don't feel like doing something (me, right now, this very moment), then determine the Least Possible activation energy for you / the things you like doing the most and do that, even if it's like, 10 reps or whatever. often once you get into doing it it'll be easier to do more

I personally often need help deciding what to do, so for a while I used an app / body bands with prescribed workouts, and lately I swapped just to their card deck so I can have a library of things to pick from if I don't feel like free-forming

sitting in here to discover the secrets

also mega +++1 to doing what you like. I hate hate cardio. I will never do cardio routines or exercises on my own again. they make me miserable! I like my resistance bands and free weights. sometimes I put on music that puts me in a dancing mood and just freewheel dance for a few songs. it's a good warmup, """cardio"""

also Zombies, Run! was great to get me walking for a while

make it as convenient for yourself as possible

from my own failed attempts, i'm convinced the "find something you enjoy" is the key...... it's just that I don't enjoy exercise.

convenience and it MUST be fun. Just Dance, Zombies Run🙏, and treadmill with a TV were my only successful fit times

the most important thing for me is the sustainability of the activity. if i don't enjoy it i probably won't keep it up, so it's very important that I will regularly show up for it.

and when you've gotten it to be your routine it is way easier for it to stop being a Thing To Do, and it's more like oh, this is the time when i do this thing, ok then

For walking, I started paying attention to my step counter on my phone and decided I wanted my weeky rolling average to always be above 5,000 steps, which has got me walking a lot more than that sneakily because now I am paying attention to number and want it to Go Up

For gym, +1 to personal trainer for a little bit just to build confidence/habit and then drop them when you have that

ash mentioned once that walking at least four times a week helps and my doctor confirmed it, so like. I go for a mile walk outside and do two days on, one day off. sometimes the one day off changes depending on schedules.

Sticker chart!!!!

Give sticker every time I do a walk, get reward

Yeah, routine and enjoyment. +1 to those. I hate running and weight lifting bores me, but i really love to swim. Every time life has kept me from it, I always wanted to get back in the water. That matters a lot.

treadmill in sight of TV, area to put phone or laptop nearby, watch videos or play games while on treadmill, have games that are step-based (pokemongo egg hatching), audio books

But also, start now. The older you get, the harder it is to get the body in good shape, or to get back to it. Getting back in the pool after 3-4 years at 41 hit waaaay different and harder than the same gap at 33.

dungeon fey : I just laughed at this for like five minutes ty for the gift :')

Be like these cats not like that cat

Japanese TV show Cat Lifting fish Kawaiiii

dungeon fey : just like me fr