This. I'm fully aware that I should improve my health for many reasons. But my every experience with physical activity tells me I will feel pain, discomfort, and personal embarrassment in large degrees. (Every experience I can actually recall. I know as a child I was perfectly happy running around - but that is not what it feels like now and I can't recall the feeling then. I know PE classes created negative associations, and those I CAN recall. In horrifying detail.
Everyone that talks about the good feeling you get afterwards either has different physiology, feels pain to a lower degree, or just has a better willpower + long term view. Regardless, such advice just feels like a dodge or an attack. Meanwhile, while my brain KNOWS healthy is better, the consequences just don't FEEL real, so it is far easier to procrastinate. All of which makes activity MORE painful, MORE uncomfortable, and MORE embarrassing (because I'm more out of shape), so it's the opposite of a virtuous cycle.
My issues today are a combination of time (in addition to disliking the activity, I'm disliking the opportunity cost), discomfort, fear, and boredom (if I have nothing to focus on all I end up focusing on is my discomfort. If I have something to focus on, I'll instinctively stop doing things that make it harder to focus, such as movement, which means I have to start focusing on the bad parts again). I know (again, from experience) that I can feel better with more exercise eventually - but it takes weeks at a minimum, involves a lot of discomfort, is easily lost, and has not yet been a strong feeling (though I've never had any activity I maintained for more than 3 months, and that rarely).
All of which sounds like excuses...and are. But they are also real obstacles I need to find a work around for, because willpower and logic alone have clearly not sufficed.
Everyone that talks about the good feeling you get afterwards either has different physiology, feels pain to a lower degree, or just has a better willpower + long term view. Regardless, such advice just feels like a dodge or an attack. Meanwhile, while my brain KNOWS healthy is better, the consequences just don't FEEL real, so it is far easier to procrastinate. All of which makes activity MORE painful, MORE uncomfortable, and MORE embarrassing (because I'm more out of shape), so it's the opposite of a virtuous cycle.
My issues today are a combination of time (in addition to disliking the activity, I'm disliking the opportunity cost), discomfort, fear, and boredom (if I have nothing to focus on all I end up focusing on is my discomfort. If I have something to focus on, I'll instinctively stop doing things that make it harder to focus, such as movement, which means I have to start focusing on the bad parts again). I know (again, from experience) that I can feel better with more exercise eventually - but it takes weeks at a minimum, involves a lot of discomfort, is easily lost, and has not yet been a strong feeling (though I've never had any activity I maintained for more than 3 months, and that rarely).
All of which sounds like excuses...and are. But they are also real obstacles I need to find a work around for, because willpower and logic alone have clearly not sufficed.