How do you get your exercise or routine exercise, if any?

Post Reply New Topic

^^^
i am motivated to get away from ill health, and i am motivated to like the reflection in the mirror. both ways.

a mountain is even better..

^^^
where i live is very hilly.

My biggest motivation is feeling less stressed, and more energetic. Keeping the random creaking, popping, and aching at bay is always good too.

i sure wish I could keep the random creaking popping and aching at bay, but all the exercise accomplishes in that regard is keeping 'em from getting worse [so far]. i'm having to get back into shape with a still-healing [8 months out] shattered arm/elbow from a bike/deer accident, that is an extra challenge.

Definitely quite a challenge there. Good for you for not letting it stall you. A bout of the flu for a week had me all out of sorts, so I can't imagine how it's been for you...

but it did stall me, from august 23 [the accident/hospitalization] until november, when i was able to at least start walking again.

Damn, the worst I've had is shin splints. If I couldn't use both elbows, I'd just stay in bed.

I exercise pretty much every other day & working out is something I really enjoy. It is supposed to be a natural way to decrease stress & depression.

We have a elliptical, treadmill, rowing machine, bike and weight machine in our basement. I like the elliptical. I exercise 3-5 times a week for an hour or hour and half. I also am taking Zumba once a week.

I walk abit with my girlfriend; how often & how much kind of depends on where we need to go but we sometimes go out just to walk. It's usually at least every other day & I would guess & average an hour. My girlfriend has some 5 pound weights that I try to remember to use a couple times a day; I get tired at about 20 reps & don't want to push myself for much more. I sometimes carry heavy things back home from when we go shopping(like packs of soda cans) & that's like a 40 minute walk. I carry bags of laundry to the laundromat about 2x a week & that's maybe a 10 minute walk there &again for back home.

Usually I exercise every other day and sometimes may miss two days in a row. Today it was nice out so I walked 30 minutes and jogged 15 minutes. Exercise helps me decrease stress and depression. Sometimes I like to go to a Zumba class or workout with a dance exercise DVD too.

I am an aspie (155/200 and AQ=36), an INtp and a 5 on the enneagram.

I find that I have the most fun when I am playing hockey, and hockey is one of only two sports that I'm decent at. It is a big part of my social circle, as well, which is pretty important for an aspie, I suppose. I used to be mostly surrounded by geeky engineers like myself, but hockey has helped me to move past that to a much more diverse group of friends.

Trouble is, I'm getting too old to just play hockey. My knee and back are both pretty wonky, and I tend to feel much better if I go to Bikram Yoga twice/week. It's brutally difficult to start with, but it has changed my body over time in ways that I didn't know it could. I'm so much more flexible and I have much better body control, as well. It's nice to tie into the body. In difficult poses, I find that I have to remember to breath, and that helps me to become more at peace with this body of mine. I also have to check in with the wonky knee and back and take time to figure out what they need.

Part of the difficulty of getting started with the yoga was my social anxiety. I didn't know what to expect. I was afraid of looking like the out-of-shape person that I was. Ashamed of my body, really. Luckily, my wife dragged me into it, and I can see what a gift it was. I feel much more comfortable in knowing that everyone is doing their own thing in there, even if they are sweating buckets and scantily clad. They are much more concerned with themselves than with me, as they should be.

As a side note, Bikram Yoga is great for those who get all concerned about excessive sweating. Everyone sweats buckets. It's part of the process! I find that I have to consciously give myself permission to sweat in normal day to day living, but I can just let go of that when I'm in a Bikram studio (kept at 105 degrees).

Sweating may be an important part of our body's ability to detox. I'm not sure about that, but I just notice that I feel better when I let myself sweat things out.

On a health note, I often reflect on Byron Katie's point about health. When we focus on health, we tend to focus on the pain and what is "wrong" with our bodies. In fact, there is nothing "wrong" about our bodies. They are all doing exactly what they are meant to do and are pretty amazing contraptions, if you ask me. When I contemplate this, it helps me to remember that there isn't a whole lot to fear in this world. We're all going to die. So what's to fear? And yet I do it anyway, especially in social situations.

All of the Byron Katie stuff aside, I do have my share of health issues, most of which seem to be associated with the trauma of divorce and remarriage. My adrenal function was awful for a while there, my gut was irritable, I got headaches galore. But I slowly rebuilt from that with a very clean elimination diet and a lot of therapy, among other things. So it feels like I'm emerging a bit from my shell. The recent discovery of my aspiness wasn't too much of a shock, really, having known about my fiveness on the enneagram for a while. I appreciate this forum and all of you that post for helping me to put it all in perspective and helping me to know that I'm not alone. Daniel Gilbert, in his book, Stumbling On Happiness, helped me to see that we are all horrible predictors of what will make us happy (aspie and NT alike), but the one thing we can do is to ask people who went before us about their experiences. That does seem to help,. I appreciate all that you all have shared here. It helps to reduce my stress levels and that makes me happy.

Went for a 10km run with a friend on an evening last week, then went for a ~15km run myself yesterday early eve.. took a few doobie time breaks (you know, to get that runner's high.) and to stretch w/ some roadside yoga. It wasn't fast, not by a long shot, as I still have a lot of work to do to improve my cardio.. but running & yoga have been huge in my regular exercise over the past several months. After I got in I had a good stretch and did a bit of an ab workout and a set of pushups. Slowly but surely I'm going to get in better shape and stay that way. Well, I already am in better shape than I was.. but good shape, very good shape.

I like to start my day off with the alarm clock set to play a new Daft Punk song every day. When that comes on, how could I not want to move at the beginning of my day! I also eat very healthy, first meal of the day tends to be a meal with fish oil or coconut oil with a greens shake, sometimes coconut oil goes in the green shake or I just eat it plain, and I also eat a high protein source afterwards, usually whatever is available that's light on the stomach. To perform my best I need to start my day off right and this seems to be working well. Working out is not something I dislike, I envision a better me while working out and enjoy it. It's the stretching that is a struggle. Stretching can take about 40 minutes to an hour to complete which is usually cut in half before the workout and after, and it's very boring, having to sit and stand in one spot for so long just stretching, counting down the time. To combat the pure boredom of stretching, I usually put on a calming nature show on the computer for it to run in the background. I prefer something narrated by David Attenborough, he has a very relaxing and interesting way of speaking. Once the stretching is done, I do feel great. Being flexible has many advantages so I just tough it out.

Well, I eat lots of fried crap, myself. French toast, eggs in a basket, grilled cheese. So I burn off all the calories by sitting there and watching the TV. Working the remote is hard work!

In reality, given my absolutely horrible diet, I've recently started trying to do a little bit, maybe a half hour of cardio a day. I hate hate hate the gym, it feels so darn artificial, so I'll do a mile walk around the local cemetery, or, like today, go chop some wood, or help my mother with her garden. Anything to get me out of the house and outdoors. I've also found a really nice patch in the next town over, a bunch of hills that haven't been developed yet, so sometimes I go hiking out there. I'm also trying, once deer season hits, to get a license and learn how to hunt, non-deer-stand-and-beer style, actually stalking the animal.