But I Hate Exercise!!!

This is the fourth in a series of posts, primarily intended for folks who are not yet where they want to be in terms of being active and healthy. You can go back and read of the concrete benefits of exercise, encouragement that everyone can participate, a sermon to the effect that everyone should be participating, and a court room argument dispensing with most of the excuses why people do not. This, I hope is the first in a series of posts on how to get started and stick with it.

OK, OK! I hear you. You would exercise but you HATE exercise. Not so, says I. You don't hate exercise, you just suck at it. If you were good at it, you'd enjoy it. Don't you usually enjoy things you're good at? We just need to get you "good" at this.

And if exercise is drudgery along the lines of eating your vegetables or taking your cod liver oil, you are seriously doing it wrong. When it is done right, exercise is play--the best part of your day, the one thing you look forward to, the one thing that you refuse to do without and that dictates all the rest of your schedule.

Think I'm nuts? Ever heard of the runner's high? All those endorphins and oxytocin and stuff that athletes experience in the wake of a good workout are the same chemicals that course through your body in response to sex and orgasm.

(That ought to increase my google search optimization).

So what I'm saying is that exercise is as good as sex! Just like it!

OK, so that was a lie.

Great sex is still way better than exercise. If not, you've taken that whole Ironman compression socks look way to far. You need to find a balance. Make a little friend or text your spouse or something.

But I would say that great exercise overlaps mediocre sex. The point is this: when done right, exercise is way more like making love than eating Brussels sprouts.

So how do we get you from where you are now, to daily whoopie (i.e., exercise)? Well, Dr. Greyhound, your own personal Dr. of Sweet Lovin' has the prescription. I think there are three parts to this game plan, each of which has lots of ways to approach it. They are:

1. Developing The Habit
2. Increasing The Challenge
and
3. Celebrating Successes

Watch this space. More to come.