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Comment by Balgair | Hacker News Reader

Anecdata:

I hated exercise. Still do. People talk about a glow or a good feeling after exercise. My SO does too. I never felt it.

Until I dieted down to being 'at weight' not overweight. Only then did it feel good to exercise, and only then after I exercised. The act itself is still a terrible experience.

I've put on weight again and, yep, I hate exercise now. But now I know there is a light at the end of the dieting and weightless tunnel. Without the experimental results, I would never have known.

So, its not that I don't trust the science here, I mean, how can I refute it? It's just that my lived experience says that I'm a freak and I'm sitting out on the end of some bell curve or whatever. I know that it got a high ROI, that's why I did these weight loss experiments in the first place. It's just that for some reason, my body and mind hate exercise until I get down to healthy levels.

Thanks for letting me share this.

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Same. Still working on reducing body fat percentage (5'9", 230lbs, 32% body fat) but have been exercising twice a week with a personal trainer for over a year. Have put on quite a bit of muscle. Easily the strongest I've ever been and an in the best shape of my life.

Exercise still sucks. I hate it, it's an awful experience. The only thing I feel during and after exercise is tired and sore. There is no glow, no feeling of being refreshed, energized, satisfied, or accomplished. Just discomfort.

It doesn't matter the exercise, the intensity, cardio or strength, 15 minutes or an hour and a half. It also doesn't matter how long I consistently exercise. I'm at 13 months during this attempt and it's just as miserable an experience as it was day one. Despite assurance from multiple people it'll start feeling good after just a few months more than however long I'd been doing it.

In fact, I would say my actual day-to-day quality of life has gone down since I've started exercising regularly because now I'm sore from exercising most days of the week, whereas I was never sore like this before regular exercise. I deeply wish that exercise could be a positive experience.

I'm always worried I'll fumble and lose the habit because it would feel so, so much better to just stop exercising. (A personal trainer is quite expensive to boot, but there's no way I'd get to the gym and work out otherwise)

You at least have given me some hope that this might change if I get my weight down, so that's something I'll keep in mind.

At this point the only reason I put up with it is in 30 years I'll thank myself.

I’m feeling benefits from just doing 10K steps a day. And that involves putting in earbuds, listening to podcasts or an audiobook, and just wandering around the house. I try to walk after my meals to help digestion. It’s no burden if you’re engrossed in what you’re listening to.

I’ve tried many forms of exercise over the years, but it’s true that consistency beats everything else.

Keep the chin up!

It took me ~4 years before I finally got my act together. I had found an exercise routine I tolerated well enough (Deck of Pain), but it wasn't until I did a (frankly horrible) calorie focused diet that I started weight loss in earnest. 1k calories/day of dieting was awful for a year, but it did work.

It is very much worth it though. I have more energy for the family now and my friends too. I finally got the weight off and, like I said, that's when I finally felt the good feelings about exercise. I was pretty surprised by it too, felt that I was somehow genetically doomed to just hate exercise. Nope, the MDs are right here, being overweight is really bad for you. I just didn't think that it was a mental thing too, but in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense.

You got this, keep it up

I am someone who enjoys exercise, but I only enjoy certain types of exercise. I cannot stand mindless "monostructural" endurance events like running or swimming. However I'll happily chase a ball until I am exhausted. I need some complexity and mental stimulation in my exercise. My favourite type of exercise, which I only discovered relatively late in life, is what I call "compositional movement", where the movement complexity is the point. Things like gymnastics, dance (particularly breakdance), some kinds of parkour, and so on. In other words, I think different kinds of exercise suit different kinds of personalities. It's unfortunate that most physical education doesn't do a good job of introducing people to a range of movement possibilities.

This is really where the focus needs to be for young people, and I think it's where our education system is really failing.

What exercise is best? Why... the one you enjoy and will continue doing!

Focusing on ROI can be a good way to view it for the right personality type, but I think that mentality can be harmful for the wrong personality type who will just grind out activities they don't really enjoy until they give up in exasperation.

I suspect for most people the trick is just finding something - anything - that is physically demanding that they enjoy, and then sticking to that.

You may want to find some activities you enjoy while doing them.

I don't know what you tried, but sometimes a small variation is enough to make it fun and rewarding during the exercise. For example, I find slow road running pretty boring. The only value is doing exercise and relaxing my brain. I gave up many times. But replace the roads by challenging technical single tracks, and I'm very happy and havn't gave up in years.

Yeah, I get this every time I talk about weight loss/exercise.

For reference, I've swum miles at once, run a marathon, played team sports, combat sports, pick up basketball, roughhousing with kiddos, etc. I've not done literally everything, but I feel like I've tried enough things to make a reasonable call.

Look, I just hate exercise. I don't feel energized or happy or fulfilled or whatever. I just feel exhausted and tired and sweaty and gross. There really isn't a second, throughout my life, where I've ever wanted to exercise for it's own sake.

I know, that seems like crazy talk to you probably. But, form what i know of myself and my life, it's just the way it is.

Like I said, when I was 'at weight' for my height and in a good BMI, then afterwards I would feel good and nice and that exercise was worth it. But when I am overweight, then exercise looses that feeling for me. I just feel bad.

Still, thank you for the encouragement and ideas, I do appreciate it.

I hate exercise and I can't even imagine doing it in the morning because it just makes me tired and sleepy. After two hour bike ride or 3 hour walk, I just drop and fall asleep in the middle of the day messing up my sleep schedule. Somehow I feel that even for the author of this article exercise would feel different if he wasn't chasing it up with 45 minutes of binging coffee.

Well, why not try a 45min workout instead of 2-3 hour activities?

Active 45 minutes sound incredibly boring and painful when compared to 3 hour walk I can pretty much zone out of.

Did you misread the article? The author doesn't suggest a two hour bike ride or three hour bike ride at any point, they only suggest a 45 minute routine.

If you don't do this duration regularly enough - you're likely not fit enough to last the effects out and sure, anyone would feel tired or sleepy.

It takes a certain adaptation to reach this level of fitness - and it should be no guess how you get there.

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