My biggest barrier to staying healthy isn't motivation or willpower, it's time. A lot of us waste a lot of time sitting in offices when more hours there don't make us more effective or productive at what we do. Give me some of that time back to go on 2-3 hour bike rides every day, and I suspect I'd be happier, and find some way to be more productive.
You are downvoted as I write this reply, but I do that as well.
If you look at my sibling comment, you'll see how controversial it is when I point out that this is possible. People are always like "but you don't know me nor how much time I have" but the vast majority of people can sneak in some exercise if we really wanted to. It's just inconvenient.
Or people will say "won't others look at me funny if I do pushups in the office?" Who cares? I can certainly imagine offices where this is impractical, but we of all people are most likely to be able to pull it off.
Meanwhile at the last two places I worked, a few people ended up doing mini-workouts after a week or two of watching me. We ended up using one of the spare meeting rooms as the quick pushup room. It's a comical sight for visitors and new hires. But really, it shouldn't be such an oddity to do some light exercise in life. It just shows how backwards our social norms are, and how they work against us.
But what's also inconvenient are the health issues that arise from sedentary lifestyles.
Majority of are just excuses. Sure there are some people who legitimately can't exercise but majority can if they had the will power. Just look at The rock/Kevin hart, they are travelling, shooting and still sneaking in their workouts. You don't need to be a meat head like them to live a healthy life-style, a 45 minute work out is good enough. I personally feel people don't want to accept that it is their own fault that they are not living healthy life style and thus blame it on external circumstances.
> Or people will say "won't others look at me funny if I do pushups in the office?" Who cares?
Not your main point but many people care what things while understanding that they shouldn't and saying "but you shouldn't!" won't change that, so it's a completely useless sentence which just serves to hand wave a valid problem of your strategy.
It's not a hand-wave. It's acknowledging that where you fall in your own cost-benefit analysis is a personal distinction that you're capable of changing. It's a self-development issue, a process that we hopefully continue until we die.
For example, some men never approach women our of fear of rejection or lukewarm reception. Any man that wants success with women and dating will have to challenge his self-limiting beliefs.
So what if they are reminded of it in an HN comment? Whether that's useless to them only indicates how unwilling they are to change. But it's a prerequisite for the advice in my post.
You know, one of the biggest parts of the warmup of an improv class I once took was to stand up and make noise. Like pretend you are a dinosaur. Embarrass yourself. Without fail, it would snap you right into the headspace of what it took to do improv -- being able to look past yourself and perform.
I was flabergasted as well, its crazy to think that we need so little excersise. Maybe the problem is that people think they have to hit the gym once a week for a few hours, while a few minutes every day is much more effective.
I mean you wouldn't learn an instrument or a language that way, why should your physical response be any different.
I've had periods of my life where I'm very active and fit, and periods when I'm not. To be honest, I have more time now than I ever have before (I work from home), but I'm actually less active.
I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding that staying active is associated greatly with free time or will power. In my experience it's more like a habit. For example, most people would not leave the house without brushing their teeth in the morning. It would just be disgusting. Most people will bathe once a day. Most people will wear clean laundry. None of these things take tremendous amounts of willpower because the aversion to not doing them is so strong.
In the active times of my life, that's exactly how I've felt about exercise. It's just feels awful not to do it. Just like you find time to brush your teeth, bathe, do your laundry, etc, etc -- you find time to exercise. You have a routine in your life and deviating from it makes you feel bad. It seems almost morally wrong to deviate from that routine.
Somewhat ironically, having more free time (and more options), I actually have a harder time doing all of these things now. I work from home and my wife goes out first thing in the morning. I'm alone. Do I need to eat breakfast? Do I need to brush my teeth? Do I need to bathe? Do I need to change my clothes? It's a running joke that remote contractors don't do these things, but there is some truth to it. Where I never needed willpower to do these things before, now I do!
Luckily the fix is simple (because even if you aren't motivated to do those things, you still feel awful not doing them). You make a routine and you stick to it. You remove options. Although you might reasonably think that sticking to a routine requires willpower, it's actually the opposite. Allowing yourself an option and still doing it is what requires will power.
So just like you would never leave for work without brushing your teeth and having a shower, now you must never leave without doing your exercise. And just like having a 3 hour bath is awesome (I live in Japan and go to the hot springs to do that every time I can!), it's not reasonable in most people's lives. You've got 20 minutes to take a shower. Well, you've got 20 minutes to exercise too (I recommend doing it just before you take a shower). Sure it limits your options about what you can do, but that's not necessarily bad.
If you can't find 20 minutes in your day -- then you have some big problems that you need to sort out. Sort them out because not having even 20 minutes to call your own will burn you out pretty darn quickly.
Confessions of a long time remote worker: once I didn't bathe for two months (I was really depressed). The funny thing is, after a week or so my skin and hair seemed to dry up and stop producing oils/smells (confirmed by a neutral third party). When I started bathing again I got really bad acne for weeks. I'm better about it now, but I'm still working at home and still hate taking showers and brushing my teeth. Try not to think about this the next time you're on a conference call with one of your remote coworkers. :)
Remote working is a lot harder on the psyche than most people think (before they do it ;-) ). Especially if you've done 1 or 2 days a week remote for a while (which IMHO is an optimal way to work), you start to think that working remote full time is going to be all sorts of amazing with no drawbacks. This is my second stint (first one I did for about 18 months, this one is 3 years this week). I'm definitely happier doing the remote thing now, but there are days/weeks/months where I would kill to go into the office (too bad it would cost me about $5K to get there...)
BTW, I've heard that there are bacteria that live on your skin that keep it relatively in good shape if you don't wash. It lives on the oils and urea that you excrete. When you wash frequently, the bacteria doesn't have a chance to sustain a healthy colony, so you end up greasy/stinky. Apparently still better to wash, but not nearly as horrible not washing as people assume (eventually).
You can get a really excellent ROI with things like kettlebells. I'd recommend the book Simple & Sinister and finding a Strongfirst coach in your area (the organization associated with the book).
If you can find a way to manage your time more effectively, barbell work is even better. Rippetoe's Starting Strength and a Starting Strength coach in your area would be your best introduction.
Not that I think you were being literal, but you don't have to ride your bike 2-3 hours per day to get the benefits of exercise. The biggest problem most people face is not knowing what to do and how to do it. The above suggestions should be sufficient to overcome that IMO.
It does take time. But I would put it up in the trifecta of Most Important Things a person can do. Everyone says exercise makes you happier, but I will take it a step further: it fulfills a fundamental need for a person to be comfortable in their own body. Denying yourself exercise for any reason at all is self abuse.
> My biggest barrier to staying healthy isn't motivation or willpower, it's time.
To be fair, if you had more willpower, you'd be more willing to exercise in what limited time you do have. So it's fundamentally a willpower limitation.
This is a very arrogant and insensitive thing to say. Work hours + commute + family obligations doesn't leave a lot (or any) time for many people. And you have the gall to imply they don't have the "willpower" to commit the remaining time they have left to yet another chore.
I mean time seems to be the default excuse for failing to do many things, but it is not literally the reason. You can exercise in only 5-10 minutes a day.
they don't have the "willpower" to commit the remaining time they have left to yet another chore.
Wouldn't them having remaining time, and spending it in another way, imply that it is a matter of will?
We like to think that exercise takes much time, but the reality is that it's just an inconvenience. In fact, the more time we pretend it takes to exercise, the easier it is to disqualify it from our agenda.
It is a willpower issue for the majority of us on this forum who have it well off compared to most people.
You have to make time for it just like you have to make time to budget vegetables into your diet when it's more convenient to eat fast food on the way home. It's your health.
That you think it's insensitive for me to point this out just shows that there are some health issues, like obesity, that are taboo subjects. But we're not at the dinner table.
No, it's not a willpower issue here. I bike to and from work 11 miles, and when I don't have a meeting at lunch, go to the gym. Otherwise, I'm actually productive probably 4 hours a day, tops. Most of my time is spent just waiting on other people at work, because of corporate rules and life. I don't need to be told to work out, it's one of my favorite things to do. But add 10 hours to the 8 hours of sleep we're supposed to be getting, and you're left with 6 hours to deal with everything else in life, including making dinner for your family, dealing with kids in college, etc.
It's not taboo, you're just assuming too much here and instead of asking for a clarification you went right to "nope, it's your willpower". "Willpower" is a hotly contested idea in the psychological community as is, so, yeah, it's more than just "an inconvenience".
Because people justify use of their time with things like "require a certain amount of wind down time to relax". I do the same, so not dodging it. "Had a tough day. After the kids are asleep, I just need to relax for five seconds, is that too much to ask?"
We're all prioritising time. If you can't fit in 1-3 hours of riding a bike, fit in 10 minutes of something else.
(We built https://streaksworkout.com/ to help this. People choose the exercises that suit them and then start a 6-30 minute workout based on how much time they have.)
