San Francisco 49ers v Carolina Panthers

My Hate/Hate Relationship

exercise-girls-_4The internets are really good at making me feel guilty.

There are the workout people who post stuff like, “OMG! My calves burn so bad! It feels awesome!” Which is silly, because obviously it hurts, and that is not awesome.

And there are the healthy-eater people who post all the blogs about how you’re going to die from eating store-bought broccoli or how you can cure lung cancer with coconut oil.

And it doesn’t make me want to change or anything. It’s just the guilt.

But I had gotten pretty good at ignoring the angst they imposed. Especially from the the gym-going people. Because I know that I hate exercise with all of my heart.

Over the years, before I’d really figured myself out, I used to get on, “I’m going to be healthy” kicks. I imagined that I could learn to enjoy exercise. I ran or roller-bladed (remember when that was cool?!) or something. It lasted about two weeks and then I’d completely fall off the wagon. Because, as much as I hate exercising, I hate the out-of-doors even more.

When I hit 30 or so, I realized something was wrong. In my 20’s, I could just stop drinking soda for a week and lose 5 pounds. But after 30, my body was like, “You shouldn’t have been drinking that stuff anyway. I’m not going to reward you for doing what you were supposed to do all along.”

There was a sinking feeling that it was now going to take more than diet to get back into my favorite jeans. But I had enough experience to avoid any kind of outside adventures. Instead, I convinced Chris to get me an elliptical. He gave me his stern look and said, “If I get this for you, you have to use it.” (Because he knows my track record.) And I looked at him with my biggest eyes and said, “I will! I will!”

And I did! I might have even lasted a month or two.

But then we started the adoption process and summer break and… OK, honestly, I just gave up. Again.

Lately, I’ve been trying to un-give-up on the elliptical, because I promised my husband I’d use what he bought me, and because of fat in my belly.

I hate it with all of my heart. When I finish exercising, I don’t feel AWESOME, like all of the internet lies about. It is annoying and it makes me sweat. And my legs feel all wobbly. And I want to eat all of the food in the house.

I think acceptance of this is half of the battle. No longer do I have ideas that I will somehow start to enjoy exercise. I will always more or less hate it. So there shouldn’t be any disillusionment to make me give up.

My new goal is to simply make it tolerable:

I vow to never, ever try to do any exercise that involves the outdoors. I vow to always get an awesome snack when I’m done. I vow to watch TV while exercising, because I love BBC and TLC far more than I will ever like exercising.

So basically: indoors, food, TV. If it weren’t for the sweat and wobbly legs, I could almost pretend I’m relaxing.

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