I’ve tried for years to go to the gym regularly. I despise going to the gym. Putting on workout clothes, mindlessly trudging on a treadmill or whatnot before slogging through a bunch of machines then shower and going home. I loathe the idea of sacrificing 1+ hour of my precious free time just to feel miserable and accomplishing fuck all… Everyone claiming “just stick with it and you’ll start to enjoy it” lies. There’s no other way to say this. Lies. If you love it, good for you, but it definitely isn’t a universal thing.
Walks around town I do kinda enjoy but not enough to make me want to do it. But point me someplace new or nice to hike and I’m off to the races. I love being out in nature, taking in the sights and I don’t care whatsoever if I need to work for it.
The last few weeks I’ve also started to go swimming with my girlfriend. I’ve not been a fan of swimming as a child and basically never did it anymore since then. So I’m pathetic at it but to my huge surprise I do quite like it.
So my recommendation to you is: try loads of different things. Chances are you’ll like doing certain things way more than others. Ideally you’ll find something you love. Or at least you should be able to find something you don’t hate.
Earbuds (Galaxy Buds, specifically) when I’m out and about.
At home, I have a pair of wireless headphones (Bose) that lives next to my desktop rig.
I also have some remarkably good Amazon Basics speakers (from 2014! The only thing that survives from my first machine!) that I use every now and then.
Do you take progress pics and keep track of your time, speed, reps, sets, and weight?
That made it fun for me. I enjoy seeing the numbers go up and seeing my body change. It’s like leveling up in a game lol.
Also I find that some people find it boring bc they see it as a useless activity since they don’t see much progress. Something my trainer told me was that I could never outrun a shitty diet and after my diet was fixed, I was able to make real progress
Yeah I can see a treadmill being extremely boring. I usually ride and run outside, but I had to ride on a trainer for a couple of weeks because of an injury and it was just awful. I couldn’t wait to be done. But when I’m outside sometimes I’ll extend my ride for another 10km just because the weather is nice and I feel good, I’m (almost) never in a rush to finish.
I don’t think I could run on a treadmill either, at least outside I have short goals to reach (ok now to the next lamp post…)
My Gameboy Advanced. Couldn’t tell you my first games, but some favs were Mario Tennis, crash Bandicoot, and some kind of Mario Party game. I also remember a full Frogger game that I really enjoyed. PlayStation 1 was my second console, more Crash Bandicoot and Mario games, Ratchet and Clank, and Madden.
Late 90s and early 2000s were the best times to be a kid (but, of course, I’m biased)
Normally, I would recommend citronella, either the grass or the candles, but I believe it is toxic to dogs.
I believe lavender, catnip and basil are safe, but they’re all mints and may try to take over your garden or yard. They all grow very well in pots though.
You can also try setting a trap. Put out some soapy water. The females are the ones biting you and they need water to lay eggs. They’ll fall in the water and the soap prevents them from escaping. I haven’t actually tried this with mosquitos, just other pests, but I have friends who swear by it.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my favorite couple of genres over the past half year or so has definitely been 90s pop music and vocalsynth (vocaloid and other similar products).
I only really started getting into 90s pop because I found a playlist of songs for it on yt and decided to save it because I liked what I heard.
I was only ever really into Reddit, which Lemmy has handily replaced.
I technically have an Instagram, but I scrubbed it and removed the app to stop me from doomscrolling and giving Meta ad revenue.
Microblogging like Twitter or Tumblr never really appealed to me.
I was born after 2000, so Facebook doesn’t exist in my world.
I do use Discord, but mainly because all my friends and family are on there. I would love if a federated alternative like Matrix became the standard. Hopefully the EU’s Digital Markets Act will help - if I understand it correctly, Discord and other platforms will be forced to allow seamless bridges (which currently will get you banned) under interoperability requirements.
Lifting weights is fun and feels pleasurable. Cardio feels like I’m trying to get somewhere but I’ll never arrive. It’s frustrating. I think it’s because I have ADHD and, well, most monotonous activities are hella hard to keep up for any period of time. Doesn’t help that I’ve been off my meds for a year since developing high blood pressure.
For cardio, I’ve tried different things to trick myself into doing it. Some worked better than others. I used to do long and hard warmups before lifting weights. Of course it had a negative effect on the weightlifting itself, but it was good for my health. To increase effort, I just added 5 minutes each session. Started off cycling 15 minutes at a leisurely pace on the stationary bike, and towards the end I was doing 45 at a much harder pace. Watching the average power climb up each week was fun, it was like a game to me. And the weightlifting at the end of it was the reward to make my monkeybrain accept the annoyance that is cardio.
Of course, then I had surgery (nothing major, a scheduled quality of life surgery, septoplasty to be specific, but I was told to lay off any exercise for 2+ weeks) and then a month later I injured myself. So now it’s been over a year again. Not because my injury was very serious, but because it’s incredibly hard to start, maintain, or re-start healthy habits with ADHD. Incredibly easy to start, maintain and re-start bad ones though -.-
Another thing is, pick a podcast (preferably something funny or informative, not depressing), put it on, and go on a walk. Not the same as running, but on a physical activity for your health scale, if being sedentary is 0% and running is 100%, walking is at least 80% if you ask me. Way closer to running than to doing nothing.
I understand the last bit is difficult for people living in unwalkable cities, but for those who can do it, it feels way better than most other forms of exercise, because you’re getting dosed with happy hormones while you’re walking thanks to the podcast.
Also got ADHD and the way I managed enjoying running was listening to music (for the rhythm) and “zoning out” (aka meditating). What also works out is focusing on an idea you wanna think about, but you run (pun intended) the risk of getting to interesting findings and needing to note them ASAP…
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