Exercise! Love it or hate it, let's motivate each other to just DO IT!

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Old 03-15-2012, 07:31 PM   #16  
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Kaplods, with utmost sympathy, I agree with threenorms in that your sitch is outside of the original question.

Anyone else have input?
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Old 03-15-2012, 08:34 PM   #17  
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The original question was adressing those who in their own mind know they have nothing really wrong with them and present excuses. The question was to guesstimate how much of the population does this.
What do you mean? I don't have anything "wrong" with me per se, but I do have ADHD. There's a substantial amount of evidence showing that some parts of ADHDers brains are different than those parts in the brains of the "neurotypical" population. Personally, I suspect that it's a natural variation, the effects (and possibly frequency of occurrence?) of which have been amplified by the particulars of contemporary Western culture. At any rate, that's a physical thing, even though it's not visible and I don't go around announcing it to people IRL.

For most of my life I didn't know what my problem was and therefore couldn't do much about it other than use the coping and compensating techniques I stumbled into. I got the impression that a lot of my honest explanations for why things hadn't gotten done or were so difficult for me (when they "shouldn't" have been, since I'm reasonably smart and generally hard-working) were taken as excuses by people who simply perceived the world very differently and couldn't or wouldn't put themselves in my shoes. I.e., they seemed to think I had a "mental" or "attitude" problem and was lazy. I suppose the depression and anxiety that eventually developed from the undiagnosed and unmanaged ADHD could be classified as "mental limitations", but they were debilitating nonetheless and weren't "fixed" until the ADHD was treated and I learned effective techniques for dealing with the thoughts that made me depressed and anxious. Exercise is a part of dealing with all of those, but it didn't go very far by itself. And having people imply (or explicitly state, in some cases) that I just needed to work harder (when I already felt I was working my fat self as much as I reasonably could and probably struggling to crawl of out one my recurring periods of depression (often with serious suicidal ideation), usually while going to school full-time and/or working - and usually doing well at both - not an easy feat for somebody who often struggles to pay attention long enough to get to the bottom of the page) tended to just really piss me off. If I were fat, physically relatively weak and so uncoordinated that I was almost guaranteed to be the lowest-performing student in any gym class for people in my age group (like I am) and felt like the going through basic motions of living pushed me to my mental limits (like I usually did), why would I accept as true and find motivation in - or have any patience at all for - being told (basically) that I just needed stop being lazy? I tended to respond better to (and work harder as a result of) positive, nonjudgmental reinforcement that recognized the effort I was putting in and what I had accomplished.

It's not clear to me why people should always be pushed hard to exercise as "intensely" as possible. Obviously, if a person wants to attain superior physical strength, agility, or skill, they'll need to put an exceptional amount of effort into doing that. But if somebody just wants to work on basic self-improvement, why accuse them of "making excuses" for not putting in what they might not see as a worthwhile investment of their time and energy? And if they "loathe" "exercising", maybe they should just formal exercise programs a break and focus on less-structured activities or just putting a little bit more activity into their day in a way that will give their bodies some work and won't irritate them too much.

People should be made aware that the more they put into any sort of personal development activity, the more they are likely to get out of it. However, if their personal goals or their personal definition of "putting a lot in" is different from other people's, that doesn't mean that they're lazy. They might just be coming from a different place, either physically or mentally. Even if they don't have a "real" illness or disability, the process of learning what they really want to achieve and how to best achieve it could take a while. Even so, if they're doing anything at all they're improving on their previous state of wellness (well, unless they get hurt...). I don't think it's possible to tell or really matters whether a person's problems are "real" to you or anyone else or not. They're real to that person.

My incremental improvements in my eating habits, strength, and stamina have been criticized or laughed at by a few people, but doing things incrementally is the only way I can sustain meaningful progress. I gain a more thorough understanding of what I'm doing and don't fall apart from the pressure of trying to deal with too many changes at once on top of all the normal stressors of life. Also, it's more fun and keeps me from dropping it out of boredom. Other people not understanding that doesn't change that it's what works for me. Maybe I'll be able to handle a heavier load as I get more practice and become more efficient at eating well and being active and one day be judged acceptable in other people's eyes, for everything that's worth.

If people don't like exercising "intensely" and are not required to do so to stay qualified for their job or to make the Olympic team, why try to goad them into doing it? Why not commend them on what they have been able to do and encourage them to find some regular fitness activity that's more suited for their lifestyle, overall fitness/skill level, and personality?

Anyway, good luck with your article. On a semi-related note, have you read Move a Little, Lose a Lot by James Levine and Selene Yeager? I heard an interview with Levine on the People's Pharmacy radio show - the book sounds interesting and potentially useful.

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Old 03-15-2012, 10:39 PM   #18  
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About 15 years ago, I had a wonderful supervisor who once told me (I'm paraphrasing):

It's easier to assume that people are "making excuses" than it is to acknowledge that the obstacles in their lives are REAL (to them). People tend to live up or down to our expectations of them, and when we assume someone is doing the best they can - and reward them for that - the more likely they are to continue in a positive direction, often exceeding our expectations for them.


This wasn't about weight loss. I was a new probation officer, and he overheard some of the probation officers complaining about their clients who were "just making excuses."


I also learned that my assumptions made a great deal of difference in how I treated a client. When I assumed they were "making excuses," I wasn't impressed with any of their efforts. The most minor of failures was proof that the person was "just making excuses."

However, when I assumed they were making an effort, and acknowledged not only the effort but even the smallest of successes, it often did wonders. So many of these people were folks who had never experienced true encouragement from anyone.

People KNOW when we think they're losers, whiners, complainers, and excuse-makers (just as we know when people think that of us). It can so easily become a self-fufilling prophecy that I think it works best to believe that people are doing their best (even if their best doesn't meet OUR standards of success), and to work with THAT. Encouraging them to do more, praising them when they do (even if it's "barely more") and building on the successes.

I think in may aspects we're more interested in forcing a person to acknowledge their "excuse-making" than we care about helping the person make progress.

I've seen that in personal trainers and in probation officers. "I don't want to praise this person's efforts, because their efforts aren't good enough. I don't care if praise will increase the person's efforts, I need them to acknowledge that they're an excuse-making F-UP."

I think that trying to define how many people's excuses are legitimate and illegitimate is pointless. They're all legitimate obstacles to that person, and defining one person's obstacles as legitimate and another's as an excuse isn't productive.

It doesn't matter if my reasons for being less active than I could and should be are medical (fibromyalgia, osteo and possibly rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune connective tissue disease, unrepaired fractures in my feet, the added pain of just being 200 lbs overweight....)

and someone else's is that they're worried about time away from their kids, or even just boredom.

I'm not going to say my obstacles are legitimate and there's are not, because to get better you have to address your obstacles.

Ironically, I somehow found it easier to address my more tangible obstacles. In many ways, I dealt better with physical obstacles than I did with the mental/social ones. I wasn't strong enough to overcome some pretty small obstacles such as finding the time for exercise in a busy life, or being ashamed of being seen exercising in public. Maybe I didn't take those obstacles as seriously as I did the disabling effects of physical illness. Or maybe I just needed to have a big enough enemy to fight (when it was just my convenience at stake, exercise was the first thing to be sacrificed in my life. When it was my life, and my quality-of-life I knew that I HAD to reorder my priorities.

It just illustrate that it's better to view them all as obstacles, rather than as excuses or legitimate issues. If you address them all as legitimate obstacles you find ways over or around them, and you do it by your own needs and priorities, not anyone else's.

The people who have obstacles they see as smaller than yours are going to call your obstacles "legitimate reasons," whereas those who believe their own obstacles are greater than yours are going to call yours "excuses."

Excuses and their legitimacy are entirely in the eye of the beholder, and entirely counterproductive to overcoming them. If you refuse to see "excuses" and only see "obstacles" you're better able make changes and to help others make changes.
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Old 03-16-2012, 12:20 AM   #19  
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I think most of it is mental. I know I didn't like working out when I first started. Then if you do it on a consistent basis, it becomes a habit. I am a person who likes structure, therefore I now like working out because it's a part of my daily routine.
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Old 03-16-2012, 01:54 AM   #20  
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Originally Posted by threenorns View Post

it *should* go: workout and feel fine, maybe a little pooped, more likely energized. wake up the next day stiff and sore. wake up the day after feeling like you've been king kong's pinata. wake up the next day just feeling stiff and sore and then it's a quick recovery from there.
Should? For YOU, from YOUR perspective, to achieve YOUR goals for yourself.

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imo, i'd say about 70% of men and 95% of women at the gym are not working to their potential.
So what? Is exercise only worthwhile if someone pushes themselves as hard as they possibly can?


People exercise for different reasons, and with different approaches. As someone who used to loathe exercise, I've found that, for me, enjoying my exercise while achieving improvements are the keys to keeping me exercising and improving my fitness/stamina/strength/etc. It's very similar, actually, to my approach to weight loss - to successfully lose weight, I had to both enjoy what I was eating and see the results of my efforts. If I had made myself miserable while losing weight, I wouldn't have been able to sustain the effort and would have given up.

In regards to the exercise, I'll use running as an example. I tried C25K on two occasions, and both times gave up a few weeks in. I was sincerely trying, but it felt SO hard to me, and I truly hated it. I felt like a failure each time I couldn't complete the runs intervals I was supposed to complete. And so I figured, well, running just isn't for me - I'll never be a runner. But much later, when I started running on my own without a program, and very, VERY slowly - I realized I COULD run, I just had to do it in a way that *I* could be comfortable with. And for me that meant not pushing myself as hard as I had been when I was trying to do C25K. That is, choosing to NOT push myself to the limit of what I could handle was what allowed me to be successful. And now? I run a few times each week. I can do 5 miles at a slow pace, or 3-4 miles at a little faster pace. I'm both happy and sweat-soaked when I finish a run. When I increase my speed too rapidly I end up having a miserable run and feel like a failure when I can't complete it, but when I up my speed slowly and aim for gradual improvements I really love running and look forward to it.

Not everyone wants to push themselves to their limits. Not everyone's primary goal is seeing improvements as rapidly as possible. My goals with exercise are to 1) ENJOY it, because that's what keeps me doing it, and 2) see improvements over time. It has worked for me.

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Originally Posted by theox View Post
If people don't like exercising "intensely" and are not required to do so to stay qualified for their job or to make the Olympic team, why try to goad them into doing it?
Exactly.

Last edited by chickadee32; 03-16-2012 at 01:54 AM.
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Old 03-16-2012, 07:52 AM   #21  
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With regard to the debate about people doing their best vs. making excuses/laziness, I think there's a middle ground. Kaplods, I did not read all of your posts, but I do want to comment on some points in your last post. Those who hold a position of authority or expertise (e.g., probation officer, doctor, personal trainer), must find a balance between giving legitimate praise and challenging someone to reach his/her potential. I must admit that in our society, self-esteem seems to have gone awry, especially among young people. They have been praised to the nth degree for every little thing they do, so that many don't take criticism well and are convinced, to the point of narcissm, that they don't need any improvement----that it is, in fact, the authority figure/expert who is wrong. I agree that it is difficult to impossible sometimes to get into someone's head and really tell if he/she is doing his/her best, but I definitely think there is less humility and more excuse-making today than in years past.

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Old 03-16-2012, 09:07 AM   #22  
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Should? For YOU, from YOUR perspective, to achieve YOUR goals for yourself.
actually, no - from a biological perspective, that is how the Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness cycle runs.



Quote:
So what? Is exercise only worthwhile if someone pushes themselves as hard as they possibly can?
there are many ways of working to their potential, not just going balls-to-the-wall. the majority of ppl aren't doing any of that - they're not even trying to find out what approach works for them - they just follow some article or some trainer and when it doesn't work, they shrug and spend their gym time strolling on the treadmill chatting with their bestie who's cruising on the elliptical.


Quote:
People exercise for different reasons, and with different approaches. As someone who used to loathe exercise, I've found that, for me, enjoying my exercise while achieving improvements are the keys to keeping me exercising and improving my fitness/stamina/strength/etc. It's very similar, actually, to my approach to weight loss - to successfully lose weight, I had to both enjoy what I was eating and see the results of my efforts. If I had made myself miserable while losing weight, I wouldn't have been able to sustain the effort and would have given up.
which is exactly what i said above.

Quote:
In regards to the exercise, I'll use running as an example. I tried C25K on two occasions, and both times gave up a few weeks in. I was sincerely trying, but it felt SO hard to me, and I truly hated it. I felt like a failure each time I couldn't complete the runs intervals I was supposed to complete.
same thing - those intervals aren't "thou shalt" run x minutes. those are targets. if you can only do 30 seconds instead of 90, so be it - you do 30 sec until you can do 40, then 50, and so on. once you CAN do the required interval for the required time period, that's when you move on to the next stage. when i trained ppl in the gym, i'd give them, f.ex a 4-wk program involving 3 sets of 8 reps for the bench press.

they can do whatever weight allows them to meet the required sets and reps OR
they can use a higher weight and work up to doing 8 reps - once they've done 3x8 for 4wks, it's time to do a new program. one kid i trained, it took him nearly 3 months to finish the "4wk" program - i did draw the line, however, and made him start with a weight that allowed him to finish 5 reps successfully (any heavier is dangerous).


Quote:
Not everyone's primary goal is seeing improvements as rapidly as possible.
unfortunately, the vast majority of ppl in the gym and on diets WANT to see "incredible results with a minimum of effort!!!! have your beach body by june!!!!!".

there are various reasons:
1) the constant bombardment by media showing images of (debatable) physical "perfection" so we're all made paranoid because we're merely human.

2) the idea that we shouldn't have to actually strain ourselves - whatever we want should come wafting towards us at our summoning.

3) that there's only one way to do things - "my way or the highway" - and if you can't do it that one way, then you're a miserable failure and you might as well quit.


i signed up for c2k too - i don't run. i don't like running. i'm massively overweight, my boobs are too heavy, and they HURT and if i wear a sports type bra, i feel like i'm being suffocated. but walking is not doing a darned thing for me - and i mean it: i walked 10k/day, winter and summer, for months (i have a border collie) and it did squat-all. there's no gym with a treadmill available unless i want to drive 40 minutes.

which i don't.

so i will run.

i'm supposed to run 30 seconds, walk 90. i figure by the end of march i'll be able to run 30 seconds and that's okay - so a program that "should" take "so" long will take me 10x longer. big deal - i'm not going to win a million dollars if i complete it per spec, am i?
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Old 03-16-2012, 04:55 PM   #23  
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Oh. My. Seems I opened up a can of worms.

Please note that in my earlier posts I state that I'm not an IN YOUR FACE type of trainer and I ALWAYS allow for the client to back down in intensity whenever they feel necessary for all of the reasons stated in other's posts.

I was just simply trying to get a middle of the road opinion on the simple topic. I asked the time and there's now a debate on how to make a clock.

Sorry.
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