To stay motivated and stick to a regular exercise program, which is more important than ever, now that I am in my sixties, I started an exercise challenge with a good friend who also wants to get in shape and stay fit. We live miles away from each other, and neither of us likes to go to a gym; we both work out at home using light weights and exercise videos from YouTube and/or on DVDs.
We created a Google Sheet for a full year, with each month and 31 days for each month, and we put formulas in to add up the totals for each month, and one grand total for the year. Whenever we exercise, we log the "number of minutes we worked out" on the spreadsheet, and since we shared the Google doc with each other, we can both see how many minutes each of us has exercised for the day, month, year, etc. We are now in our 4th year of this exercise challenge, and I can tell you that this REALLY WORKS!!!
I never thought I was competitive, but this challenge has motivated me to work out on so many days when I was tired, depressed, or too busy, etc. I don't want to fall too far behind my friend, so I check her minutes every day, and this has pushed me to work out almost every day of the week. Sometimes I do 60 mins., sometimes 45, sometimes just 30, but I try to get up and move to a workout as many days as I can.
At first, we made a deal that whenever we met for lunch, the person who was behind the other at that time would pay for lunch, but now we just keep up the challenge for the sake of staying in better shape. That seems to be all the motivation we need to exercise regularly. I recommend this for anyone who likes to work out at home and who has a friend who also wants to get fit.
I’ve always loved dancing and a bathroom disco (!) music is a big stim, and I’ve been practicing yoga, embodiment and somatic movement modalities since the 90s, (i also teach) and this has probably had the biggest impact on my life, helping me stay with myself day to day. Especially the hard ones. I try to take a daily walk outside if possible, trying to access a little nature in the day (or to say hello to dogs/cats) is a big motivator! I coincidently shared some related tools in a post yesterday in case they’re useful, so love that you’re prompting this question and giving some perspective of your experience. Also love Patty’s comment above! 🙋🏽♀️💜♾️✨🌱🌈🌺🦋
- I used to be really unfit, my height hid most of the kilos but I was still quite overweight. I found a running program that started with running only 100m and back the first day and slowly incremented to 2km. It was the thing I needed to not feel like a complete failure for even trying, because each step was reachable or at least within reach. I ended up on a long pause though since I had bad technique and it made my knees hurt.
- For sweets and other extra calories my go-to tactic has always been not to buy it from the store, so then I can't eat it. I gained a whole lot of weight when I lived together with my ex because she had no impulse control for buying the stuff and I had no impulse control for eating it once it was at home.
I just heard of a strategy called urge surfing where you take a meditative approach to wanting something, like the chocolate bar, acknowledging the urge to eat it is there but consciously ignoring it. Your mind should end up getting bored of wanting something it can't have after a while and this should slowly train your impulse control. It wont work for your worst addiction(s) at once, so start easy with the not so bad ones. And if you only have one addiction to work on then I don't know, maybe set a growing goal of for how long to resist before giving in. My aunt, smoker for over 40 years, has successfully gone from over a pack a day to less than half a pack a day by just not smoking the whole cig at once, but still having a smoke when she wants to. There are ways, just need to find the one that works for you.
Never be too harsh on yourself for having given in. You always have the next try.
- I thought I had my addictions sorted when I finally lost the cigarette habit some years back, but there are so many things that you do just to get the dopamine your brain craves that the society dont acknowledge much of a problem but personally it can be a huge boulder in your way to achieve something in your life, be it a clean home or advancing in your hobby or studies. Going for the youtube/netflix binge, gaming, porn... Once you get bored (if at all, losing night sleep) the next task on the todo really doesn't offer you anything in terms of dopamine.
- Simply taking my ADHD medication has helped me with getting started on tasks that previously were really difficult to start or keep doing. It's still not a magic bullet and I need to be very conscious of the addicted behaviour when on meds. Because on the afternoon/evening when the effect of the meds is wearing off, if I start binging youtube it's really hard to stop it.
To stay motivated and stick to a regular exercise program, which is more important than ever, now that I am in my sixties, I started an exercise challenge with a good friend who also wants to get in shape and stay fit. We live miles away from each other, and neither of us likes to go to a gym; we both work out at home using light weights and exercise videos from YouTube and/or on DVDs.
We created a Google Sheet for a full year, with each month and 31 days for each month, and we put formulas in to add up the totals for each month, and one grand total for the year. Whenever we exercise, we log the "number of minutes we worked out" on the spreadsheet, and since we shared the Google doc with each other, we can both see how many minutes each of us has exercised for the day, month, year, etc. We are now in our 4th year of this exercise challenge, and I can tell you that this REALLY WORKS!!!
I never thought I was competitive, but this challenge has motivated me to work out on so many days when I was tired, depressed, or too busy, etc. I don't want to fall too far behind my friend, so I check her minutes every day, and this has pushed me to work out almost every day of the week. Sometimes I do 60 mins., sometimes 45, sometimes just 30, but I try to get up and move to a workout as many days as I can.
At first, we made a deal that whenever we met for lunch, the person who was behind the other at that time would pay for lunch, but now we just keep up the challenge for the sake of staying in better shape. That seems to be all the motivation we need to exercise regularly. I recommend this for anyone who likes to work out at home and who has a friend who also wants to get fit.
I’ve always loved dancing and a bathroom disco (!) music is a big stim, and I’ve been practicing yoga, embodiment and somatic movement modalities since the 90s, (i also teach) and this has probably had the biggest impact on my life, helping me stay with myself day to day. Especially the hard ones. I try to take a daily walk outside if possible, trying to access a little nature in the day (or to say hello to dogs/cats) is a big motivator! I coincidently shared some related tools in a post yesterday in case they’re useful, so love that you’re prompting this question and giving some perspective of your experience. Also love Patty’s comment above! 🙋🏽♀️💜♾️✨🌱🌈🌺🦋
Thank you for writting this! It helps to know I'm not alone!^^
- I used to be really unfit, my height hid most of the kilos but I was still quite overweight. I found a running program that started with running only 100m and back the first day and slowly incremented to 2km. It was the thing I needed to not feel like a complete failure for even trying, because each step was reachable or at least within reach. I ended up on a long pause though since I had bad technique and it made my knees hurt.
- For sweets and other extra calories my go-to tactic has always been not to buy it from the store, so then I can't eat it. I gained a whole lot of weight when I lived together with my ex because she had no impulse control for buying the stuff and I had no impulse control for eating it once it was at home.
I just heard of a strategy called urge surfing where you take a meditative approach to wanting something, like the chocolate bar, acknowledging the urge to eat it is there but consciously ignoring it. Your mind should end up getting bored of wanting something it can't have after a while and this should slowly train your impulse control. It wont work for your worst addiction(s) at once, so start easy with the not so bad ones. And if you only have one addiction to work on then I don't know, maybe set a growing goal of for how long to resist before giving in. My aunt, smoker for over 40 years, has successfully gone from over a pack a day to less than half a pack a day by just not smoking the whole cig at once, but still having a smoke when she wants to. There are ways, just need to find the one that works for you.
Never be too harsh on yourself for having given in. You always have the next try.
- I thought I had my addictions sorted when I finally lost the cigarette habit some years back, but there are so many things that you do just to get the dopamine your brain craves that the society dont acknowledge much of a problem but personally it can be a huge boulder in your way to achieve something in your life, be it a clean home or advancing in your hobby or studies. Going for the youtube/netflix binge, gaming, porn... Once you get bored (if at all, losing night sleep) the next task on the todo really doesn't offer you anything in terms of dopamine.
- Simply taking my ADHD medication has helped me with getting started on tasks that previously were really difficult to start or keep doing. It's still not a magic bullet and I need to be very conscious of the addicted behaviour when on meds. Because on the afternoon/evening when the effect of the meds is wearing off, if I start binging youtube it's really hard to stop it.