And here’s the problem: I hate it.
I resent every second I spend on that thing, no matter how
much I try to make it fun with high-energy music or multi-explosion
movies. People keep telling me that I’ll
start getting an exercise high and then I’ll enjoy it. Or that my body will get used to it and then
if I miss a day, I’ll miss the exercise.
So far, not happening.
I kept hoping it would but it’s not, leaving me to wonder. Some people do obviously enjoy exercise and
reap the benefits of it. I’m just not
one of them. It makes me wonder. Maybe there are people who never get the
exercise high. Up until the last century
or two, it didn’t matter if you liked exercise or not. You had to do a fair chunk of physical labour
just to survive. There wasn’t the option
of being sedentary, at least not for most people.
Our bodies are designed to preserve calories above almost
every other goal. There’s very little in
life which doesn’t seem to increase your ability to put on weight. Even starving yourself drops your metabolism
and makes it more likely you’ll put on weight once you start eating again. Consistent and dramatic starvation tends to
lead to a food obsession, even if the individual wasn’t concerned about weight
or food before the starvation. That
tells you how important it was to our ancestors and how close to the margin of
starvation we evolved.
Of course in a world which includes a McDonald’s drive-thru
every few kilometers, those particular adaptations start to suck. Exercise will help but it’s a slow process, a
gradual eroding of extra calories and it won’t help if you give in to the extra
appetite that exercise stimulates. The
only surefire way to be thin is to either a) inheirit a fabulously active
metabolism and never, ever abuse it or b) reduce your food intake
permanently. There are surgical options
but those are the only two non-hospital ones.
Once you reduce your food intake, your metabolism goes
down. It’s preparing you to survive a
cycle of starvation-abundance. Once you
allow the intake to go back up, your body will shove everything into storage,
anticipating the next cycle. So you
can’t ever allow your intake to go back up, the dirty little secret which keeps
the diet industry rolling.
It’s not very encouraging.
But it’s necessary. If you want
to live a long life and preferably, one which doesn’t involve a lot of hospital
stays, then you have to be fit. Not
Hollywood fit, but reasonably fit.
I’m going to keep on with it. It’s something I have to do if I want to be
healthy. But it doesn’t mean I have to
like it.
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