Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Fitness Wednesday

Because I kind of hate the "weigh in Wednesday" thing.


I am not a naturally sporty person. I played sports in school, right up until high school, but they were the kind that a) I was already good at and b) didn't take much practice or conditioning.

I loathe running. I fucking hate it from the depths of my soul. It is boring, painful (ugh, my knees), and I am just not built as a distance runner so it never gets easier, just a smidge less miserable. Like, 10 steps in I hate it and want to stop. This is not about hitting a wall.

Gyms bore me. I am almost never going to be the person who thinks "ooh, I'll go mountain biking/climbing/whitewater rafting" on a regular basis. I don't mind hiking in the sense of long walks in the woods on gentle inclines, but there is a point on every mountain hike when we hit the part where it's all rocky and straight up and shitty and I turn into a three year old and everyone hates me and I hate myself and I want to die. So sometimes I'll hike when that rocky part is like 15 minutes. Any longer than that and I want nothing to do with it.

Riding is really my main physical outlet, which explains why after the worst winter ever I started for the first time feeling kind of like I was not as fit as I wanted to be. Part of that is yes, I have some extra weight, but that's never been my top concern. I'd rather my body do the things I want it to, when I want it to, than weigh a certain goal amount. I want to do right by my horse, to feel energetic instead of lethargic, and to just generally be healthier.

Hence the "fitness Wednesday."

So I'm going to try and report in semi-regularly about how I'm doing about that. Mostly, I want to make better choices: about what I eat and how much of it, about how I move my body and how active I am. More deliberation, less instinct.

For the past few weeks I've been tracking what I eat using My Fitness Pal, with a twofold goal: to make sure I don't overeat, especially sugary things, and to make sure that I'm meeting broad nutritional goals - iron and vitamins in particular. My iPhone also has a steps tracker, so I'm trying to increase that a little bit every day - not always hit that magical 10k number, but just, do better. Take another long walk, or force myself to ride, or take the dog out. Anything to keep my body moving.

Anyway - that's my very loose, vague, and unspecific manifesto!

5 comments:

  1. What is interesting is I absolutely hated jogging...then my SO convinced me to run a 10k with him and since I'm not showing this year I needed to do something...
    Now I'm training for it and I don't mind jogging anymore. I don't love it, but I no longer hate it :)

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  2. I have a friend who just lost 30 lbs on Weight Watchers and she looks and feels fantastic. It's slightly motivating me to do the same. But only slightly. Cause like you I hate running and for me dieting is just incredibly painful.

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  3. You and I would be the best hiking buddies. We could sit off to the side and wait for everyone else to come back. ;)

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  4. So much of this resonates with me! I love hiking but only when it seems like a fun activity disguised as exercise and not the other way around. I don't mind exercise (I was a crossfitter for 15 months and am now experimenting to find something else that works better for me) but it's definitely not something I'm passionate about. And I complain about it while doing it. A lot. Running makes me want to die, every now and then in a wave of masochism, I take up running for a few weeks and then promptly quit.

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  5. 'make better choices' nicely sums it up, and is also how i try to approach fitness and diet. good luck and let us know how it goes!!

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