Exercising - The Activity Most Love to Hate

So you know my basic exercise story from the "Fitness" page.  have been exercising since I was fourteen, and I'm sixty one now.  Not every day, and in my twenties I fell of the exercise wagon for a while.  I began to work out with weights as a teenager, struggling to gain some self-esteem by overcoming my being on the chubby side, not very athletic and, with a little help for an abusive stepfather, not packing much self-esteem.  My colllege years were when I really put daily effort into weight lifting with the entent to compete.  That's when my weight moved up to approximately 200 pounds...a lot was muscle, but I'm sure my body fat was up there too.  I kept on working out during my twenties.  It felt good to look muscular, which worked out well with the chip on my shoulder from childhood (Grrrr); I was walking around staring guys down.

Well, not to be redundant, but that all caught up with me on that fatefull new years night.  From then on, my routine changed to maintaining as much muscle mass as I could while dropping the weight down to 160 pounds, a level I read was far more appropriate for a guy 5' 11".  It was hard to let go of the strength I felt at the heavier weight.  I definitely lost some arm & shoulder strength.  What I quickly realized is the weakness in my legs, hips and middle torso when I started running, biking and stair-climbing espeically.  I found that the arobic exercises left me more relaxed in addition to burning off more calories.

For me, the hardest thing about exercising is getting my lazy ass out of a chair, away from whatever sedate task I'm doing, get the exercise togs on and actually start exercising.  Once I'm doing something, e.g., the elliptical or treadmill, weight gym, running outside, it doesn't matter, it takes me about 5 minutes to get "in the zone" where my thoughts drift and no longer linger on wishing I were any where else right now.  My habit is to work out with the weights machine first, for 30 to 45 minutes, then something arobic for about 30 minutes, so overall it's a 1 to 1 1/4 hour workout.

I should mention that for a while I tried yoga but to do a complete sequence, or practice, it took yet another hour out of the day.  I just have too many other activities I want to do in a day to devote that much time to pure exercise.  That said, yoga is great for reducing stress, keeping your body nimble, joints able to navigate free range of motion easily.  Key links to gear and websites about exercise Things to do to make working out more enjoyable