Cycle commuting to work and running. Nothing else has stuck

Running from my problems

Cycling - saves me gas, often as quick as driving would be (we have epic all day congestion here). And its fun except when the weather is really bad. Only drive if I have a heavy load to go somewhere, or if I’m picking someone up or it is pouring

Also swimming - can be done year round indoors, and I dont sweat! Having a waterproof MP3 player helps me with motivation too

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Buying stuff at shops further home.

For example, there’s a bakery a block far from home, but I don’t buy my bread there unless I’m in a hurry; instead I buy it from a bakery 2km away - by doing that I’m walking 40min already (and their bread is better anyway). Same deal with cat food and some groceries.

Taking walks. May last three hours at a time, though I never bothered to measure the distance physically. I also check on my neighbors sometimes along the way and/or stop at the library or church temporarily. Did you know walking is better for you than jogging/running?

What’s worked for me personally is just walking to/from my car at work, it just fits so naturally into my schedule that I don’t have to put any thought into it or have any struggles with willpower, I just do it. I park as far as possible away from the building, so there’s no conflict with just walking in the door, then take a few laps around the building. I work on the 4th floor, so I take the stairs and also do a few laps up and down the stairs before getting to my desk. I do that twice a day (when I get in, again for lunch), then at the end of the day I take one more lap before I get back to my car. I get in +10k steps on a daily basis when I’m in the office consistently and without even really thinking about it or putting in “extra effort”.

My problem is actually keeping it up when I’m not at the office, because then my routine sort of falls apart. I’ve tried building up routines for when I’m at home or on the weekends, but one thing or another seems to come up consistently and I haven’t been able to get them to stick.

I’ve been doing Ring Fit Adventure on the Switch for a couple years now. It’s more interesting than running, I don’t have to get ready and go out to a gym, and I can do it in any weather.

Basically, it’s easily accessible and novel enough that that’s the one that has stuck with me since 2018ish.

Exercise is kind of personal / varies depending on what you like to do. For me there was actually 2 pieces to improving my exercise routine:

1. Starting a habit of exercise.

This was a necessary first step if you don’t already have exercise as a part of your regular life. For me, my goal was just to just arrive at the gym every day. I didn’t workout every day; sometimes I straight up walked in, walked out, and went home (or used the sauna haha). But inevitably, I ended up working out a good amount, and start making it a part of my routine. Basically, my recommendation is not to try and optimize anything at first; just try to make it as easy as possible to succeed at habit-building. Find some kind of activity that is fun and make it a regular part of your schedule. Social sports activities are also great if you can get peer-pressured :P

2. Making exercise more effective

Once I was training regularly, I found things I wanted to improve, and so I started to create goals. I’m a rock-climber, so there are certain things that I want to do to improve that. Once I started working on those goals, I wanted to improve the effectiveness of my gym time. At a certain point, I made an actual daily schedule of what exercises I do. If you want to improve the quality of your exercise, putting in the effort to make an actual workout schedule is the biggest thing you can do imo. It doesn’t even matter if it is a “good” plan. Just actually following the plan, you will find the areas you can fix/improve that plan.

With my current routine, I have a 10 minute warmup mobility routine every morning, climb 3 days a week, workout 3 days a week (sometimes at the gym, sometimes at a nearby calisthenics park), and avoid the gym for 1 day a week.

But it started by just trying to arrive at the gym every day.

For me I bought some dumbbells to work out from home and just do a little but of excessive whenever I get the chance, spend 10 mins doing 1 set in the morning before work, another when I get home, maybe another after dinner and then one more before bed.

Or if I’m working from home I’ll do a little bit throughout the day, sometimes while watching stuff on my laptop, or in between rounds on a videogame.

It works really well, but for me thr biggest issues with exercise was always the time commitment of going to the gym and how boring working out is, so this way mitigates those 2 a lot.

Edit: oh and for cardio, i dont drive, so i walk a lot and go to open volleyball sessions which also doubles as socialising, so still pretty time efficient.

I play Switch games while on my treadmill. The split controller works perfectly for that and makes it easy to forget I’m walking.

5km low soeed running at lunch when I work at home.

I started swimming once a week, last December. That really works for me bc I love the build in cooling system. Sure it has its annoyances but overall it’s my favorite sport, plus almost daily cycling cause I don’t own a car and live in a very cyclable city.

I got a dog. I have to take her on walks. I would never prioritize walking alone but now I have to. It sounds silly but now I hit 200 cal every days (according to my phone) when I used to barely make it to the 100 before.

Beat Saber on high difficulty. Fun, mild cardio.

Another VR game Thrill of the Fight is fun also. Its a boxing game that burns as many calories as rowing! https://vrhealth.institute/portfolio/thrill-of-the-fight/