Gym one year retrospective
Oct. 5th, 2013 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackGetting Started
I've been going to the gym for about a year.
It took me ages to get started; my first year's membership was a Christmas present from the _previous_ Christmas. I was put off by being intimidated that I'd be ridiculously out of place, and that so many gyms refused to list their prices, leaving you guessing[1]. And that it was something that ought to be so easy, but I'd spent years not doing.
I was incredibly inspired by Mum and by Liv, who both took up exercise and made it stick even though they weren't that fond of it.
I followed a pattern similar to NHS's Couch to 5k at Liv and Eudoxia Friday's suggestions. The name is a slight misnomer, but the idea is to start with what you can do, typically alternating walking with jogging at what speed you're comfortable with for less than a minute, and then build up doing short intervals or long intervals. I didn't follow the program but ended up doing something similar. And many people are surprised how well-worked out the suggestions are, when you become able to join lots of small intervals together and suddenly run for a longer time.
Sticking to it
I was incredibly fortunate that I didn't have any medical restrictions, and had the time and money to run in a pleasant environment, and actually much enjoyed doing regular exercise compared to not doing it. So once I started I pretty much kept it up solidly ever since except when I was physically away.
My biggest problem was always feeling "if I can't do it properly, there's no point", but starting with jogging for just one minute and not kidding myself I could do significantly more avoided that problem.
I used a resolution website (beeminder) to make sure I kept to twice a week, or three times a week, and I found that incredibly useful.
For a while I used fitocracy, and loved getting little encouraging notes from friends, but I couldn't be bothered to update both, and having beeminder remind me not to forget to pick up the habit again after a few days off was really useful.
Current state
Even after a year I can jog 5k, but I can't jog 5k in half an hour, which is the end goal couch-to-5k suggests. But I'm still improving slowly, and I've switched around between several different things, often running once a week and doing swimming or similar.
I have reached the point where I can do hashing or parkrun, and still be at the back, but not be trailing completely by myself and feel like there's no point.
A year ago, I had the twin feelings, "surely it can't be that hard" and "I'll never do it". If I could see myself now, I'd be surprised that since I stuck to it, I wasn't better than I am now. But also, I've achieved something I basically never thought possible (even if that's silly), which is really amazing.
Being someone who does exercise
I feel mixed about being someone who does exercise.
I mean, I don't by the standards of many friends, who do fifty-seven different active things and do uber-macho runs for the sake of it :) And even by friends who don't specifically do exercise, but do a lot more walking, cycling, etc, so are still fitter than me.
But I can say I do exercise three times a week most weeks without fudging the answer[2], and feel reasonably hopeful I can go on doing that. And it's a blessed relief that whenever anyone asks me if I do, I can just say "yes", and not fight the urge to hang my head.
But also, many people I know including me were not good at physical stuff for a long time, and it became an identity thing, that people who run for fun are assumed to be a different species, and often obnoxious about it. So it feels strange _being_ one of those people (even if I'm not very good at it yet).
And also, many people can't exercise as much as they like (or feel they ought) for various medical reasons, or are fighting a society screaming that fat=unfit=disgusting, and talking about exercise can be a trigger for a lot of previous pain. So I always put it behind cut tags and even then I'm not sure if it's ok to talk about.
And on a more practical note, hearing every week that "number X increased by 1%" isn't interesting to anyone who's not at a similar phase of progress themselves, so I try not to bore everyone by gushing about it to people who aren't interested.
Future
What do I want to do:
1. I want to keep up the amount of exercise I'm doing now and keep slowly improving.
2. I want to slowly introduce weights as a regular thing for various reasons.
3. I want to switch some gym sessions for social/fun exercise things: I've started going hashing, I might keep that up regularly, and maybe parkrun, and think about other things.
4. I want to do swimming or weights more mornings before work now it's literally on the way, so I (a) have more time in the evenings and (b) I don't waste time procrastinating leaving the house
5. I already have left the fairly luxurious nuffield health (nee greens) and joined chesterton sports centre, which is about half the price, but has a (small) swimming pool, exercise machines, and weights which is all I need. I'm interested to see how much I care. It's strange not having soap dispensers and free towels and saunas, but I imagine I'll quickly get used to it. If I decide I need to be pampered, I can re-join a fancier gym. Or if I discover I'm able to routinely run outside, I might buy some weights for home and join a swimming pool only.
6. I want to say, "ok, this has become a normal part of my life, I'm going to stop thinking about it and spend some time on coding again" :)
Footnotes
[1] Clue: the ones that do list their prices are cheaper.
[2] Plus cycling 10min to work. I'd say "two-three times a week", but most people assume if you say that you mean "three times a week once or twice, but normally 1-2 times a week".
I've been going to the gym for about a year.
It took me ages to get started; my first year's membership was a Christmas present from the _previous_ Christmas. I was put off by being intimidated that I'd be ridiculously out of place, and that so many gyms refused to list their prices, leaving you guessing[1]. And that it was something that ought to be so easy, but I'd spent years not doing.
I was incredibly inspired by Mum and by Liv, who both took up exercise and made it stick even though they weren't that fond of it.
I followed a pattern similar to NHS's Couch to 5k at Liv and Eudoxia Friday's suggestions. The name is a slight misnomer, but the idea is to start with what you can do, typically alternating walking with jogging at what speed you're comfortable with for less than a minute, and then build up doing short intervals or long intervals. I didn't follow the program but ended up doing something similar. And many people are surprised how well-worked out the suggestions are, when you become able to join lots of small intervals together and suddenly run for a longer time.
Sticking to it
I was incredibly fortunate that I didn't have any medical restrictions, and had the time and money to run in a pleasant environment, and actually much enjoyed doing regular exercise compared to not doing it. So once I started I pretty much kept it up solidly ever since except when I was physically away.
My biggest problem was always feeling "if I can't do it properly, there's no point", but starting with jogging for just one minute and not kidding myself I could do significantly more avoided that problem.
I used a resolution website (beeminder) to make sure I kept to twice a week, or three times a week, and I found that incredibly useful.
For a while I used fitocracy, and loved getting little encouraging notes from friends, but I couldn't be bothered to update both, and having beeminder remind me not to forget to pick up the habit again after a few days off was really useful.
Current state
Even after a year I can jog 5k, but I can't jog 5k in half an hour, which is the end goal couch-to-5k suggests. But I'm still improving slowly, and I've switched around between several different things, often running once a week and doing swimming or similar.
I have reached the point where I can do hashing or parkrun, and still be at the back, but not be trailing completely by myself and feel like there's no point.
A year ago, I had the twin feelings, "surely it can't be that hard" and "I'll never do it". If I could see myself now, I'd be surprised that since I stuck to it, I wasn't better than I am now. But also, I've achieved something I basically never thought possible (even if that's silly), which is really amazing.
Being someone who does exercise
I feel mixed about being someone who does exercise.
I mean, I don't by the standards of many friends, who do fifty-seven different active things and do uber-macho runs for the sake of it :) And even by friends who don't specifically do exercise, but do a lot more walking, cycling, etc, so are still fitter than me.
But I can say I do exercise three times a week most weeks without fudging the answer[2], and feel reasonably hopeful I can go on doing that. And it's a blessed relief that whenever anyone asks me if I do, I can just say "yes", and not fight the urge to hang my head.
But also, many people I know including me were not good at physical stuff for a long time, and it became an identity thing, that people who run for fun are assumed to be a different species, and often obnoxious about it. So it feels strange _being_ one of those people (even if I'm not very good at it yet).
And also, many people can't exercise as much as they like (or feel they ought) for various medical reasons, or are fighting a society screaming that fat=unfit=disgusting, and talking about exercise can be a trigger for a lot of previous pain. So I always put it behind cut tags and even then I'm not sure if it's ok to talk about.
And on a more practical note, hearing every week that "number X increased by 1%" isn't interesting to anyone who's not at a similar phase of progress themselves, so I try not to bore everyone by gushing about it to people who aren't interested.
Future
What do I want to do:
1. I want to keep up the amount of exercise I'm doing now and keep slowly improving.
2. I want to slowly introduce weights as a regular thing for various reasons.
3. I want to switch some gym sessions for social/fun exercise things: I've started going hashing, I might keep that up regularly, and maybe parkrun, and think about other things.
4. I want to do swimming or weights more mornings before work now it's literally on the way, so I (a) have more time in the evenings and (b) I don't waste time procrastinating leaving the house
5. I already have left the fairly luxurious nuffield health (nee greens) and joined chesterton sports centre, which is about half the price, but has a (small) swimming pool, exercise machines, and weights which is all I need. I'm interested to see how much I care. It's strange not having soap dispensers and free towels and saunas, but I imagine I'll quickly get used to it. If I decide I need to be pampered, I can re-join a fancier gym. Or if I discover I'm able to routinely run outside, I might buy some weights for home and join a swimming pool only.
6. I want to say, "ok, this has become a normal part of my life, I'm going to stop thinking about it and spend some time on coding again" :)
Footnotes
[1] Clue: the ones that do list their prices are cheaper.
[2] Plus cycling 10min to work. I'd say "two-three times a week", but most people assume if you say that you mean "three times a week once or twice, but normally 1-2 times a week".
no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 08:26 pm (UTC)Similar thoughts from me below ...
I've been jogging pretty regularly since April - this being the latest of several rounds of jogging for a bit (so I wasn't starting from scratch). I think I'm probably at about the same speed as you - I can't do 5k in 30 minutes either.
I definitely identify with what you're saying about 'being someone who exercises'. I am slowly starting to see myself as 'someone who exercises', having started off 6 month ago as 'someone who dances and jogs to support the dancing'. Wanting a high level of fitness for dance performances is something that I've been able to hold onto as a motivating factor which is not related to weight or appearance, which is really helpful. Also, at Sidmouth Folk Week this year (which was what I'd really been training for) I was able to more than keep up and was injury-free and generally feeling good all week, which was pretty damn awesome.
I feel very very lucky to have lots of things that make it easy for me to work on an exercise habit - I live a couple of minutes' walk from some excellent places to go jogging, lots of people go jogging there (= not feeling very self-conscious because there are a huge range of people jogging, not just ultra-fit people), I bought expensive-and-supportive jogging shoes when I had lots of money and they still fit and haven't worn out, and I work a 9-5 job with flexitime which is close to home so it's easy to fit things in around the working day. In the last 6 months I've probably spent £10-£15 on jogging - £2.50 on the runtastic app (which has been really helpful for me, because it GPS-tracks you and tells you how far you've gone so I can zone out until I hear the "distance: N kilometres, duration: X minutes" voiceover for the target I'm aiming for), and something like £10 on an armband thing to hold my phone and a wrist-wallet thing to hold my house keys. Extremely low-cost exercise in a pleasant and nonthreatening environment is something that should be available to everyone (although I bet it often isn't).
For the future, I am aiming to jog 9k every week. This can either be a couple of 2k jogs (which are easier to fit in before work or between work-and-other-evening-commitment) and a 5k, or a 4k and a 5k if it's a week where that's easier to organise. I jog outdoors, so with the days getting shorter I anticipate it getting harder to motivate myself to get out there - so I'm not aiming to increase anything, just to maintain the habit. Luckily there are lots of routes with no cars and few cyclists so jogging in the half-dark is still safe. I'm also planning to start spending more time playing Dance Dance Revolution (with a dancemat on the Wii) - which is the only other exercise form I've found which actually gets my blood pumping (and doesn't have the days-are-getting-shorter problem).
I don't exactly like jogging. But it's fine. And I like being fitter than I used to be. Plus it's time in the week to listen to In Our Time or Thinking Allowed podcasts - which I do like.