I Hate Exercise

My first failure at an attempt to exercise came in high school.

My friend Aimee and I decided to go walking in the mornings before school. We started out great. It was helpful to have someone outside in the wee sma's of the morning to motivate me to get my sorry arse out of bed. I didn't want to stand her up.

Well, I'm not sure who stood up whom first, but I guess it was inevitable. We started missing more often than we would have liked, and after a while it got cold and we stopped doing it altogether.

The following 13-14 years have followed the same pattern. I commit myself to exercising. I make goals. I take baseline measurements. I make a log. I exercise.

Then I remember I hate exercising.

Then I stop exercising.

I don't think I've ever reached any of my exercising goals. Ever.

Part of my problem is that with my chronic health problems, I have overactive pain receptors in my brain. Basically that means that when I stub my toe it hurts me more and longer than when you stub your toe. My brain doesn't shut down the pain signal.

What that means for exercise is that it doesn't get easier. It continues to hurt. I do it for a few weeks, thinking that it'll get easier as I get in shape and my muscles get used to the new activity.

Well, that's never happened yet. I'm sure part of the problem is that I don't stick with it long enough. Don't get me wrong. I get stronger. I build endurance. I get more fit (marginally). But it doesn't get easier. I don't learn to like it.

And what's with the "endorphin rush" I've heard about? All I feel is dread, pain, and exhaustion when I work out. I don't feel any high when I'm done. I think all runners are masochistic. How can running possibly feel good, people?

When I'm done exercising I feel a grim sort of satisfaction. I feel like a martyr. I sacrificed my comfort to the gods of fitness, and there is a slim sort of achievement in that. But I never learn to look forward to my workouts.

Now that I'm about 7 weeks postpartum, I'm feeling the urge to get this baby fat off my jiggly tummy. So it begins again.

I've made goals. I've even started working on them.

If history repeats itself I'll fail miserably in about 3-4 weeks. Finding the time to exercise is likely going to be an excuse for why I stop since my children won't let me work out unless they are both asleep. They are rarely asleep at the same time.

I have a whole list of (what to me are valid) excuses.

This very blog post is of course showing my defeated mental state and has doomed me to failure before I've hardly begun.

So how do I change this about myself? Is it even possible? People change so infrequently, and when they do it is quite gradual.

The scriptures teach us that God gives us weaknesses on purpose that we may come to Him and overcome them. We are taught that our weaknesses may become our strengths. Hmm. It must be possible.

So here we go again.