Get a gym membership and go every day. If you have trouble going routinely sign up for classes or a personal trainer so you feel more obligated to go on a regular basis.
Heh, that sounds like a nightmare for me personally. If going to an artificial place to get tired every day works for you, that's great, but this is not generally good advice. If it's purely about physical fitness (I'm really not quite sure what your goal with this method is, perhaps you could edit to clarify), going into nature to cycle or jog is much better due to the nature-happiness correlation (e.g. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001391651245190... but there are many sources for this).
> Heh, that sounds like a nightmare for me personally.
I will share my anecdote with you.
I did light jogging and weights in the gym, 3x a week. Then in 2020, the gyms shut down. COVID was raging throughout my country. I stayed at home all day and worked from home.
I struggled with work ever day. I felt work was too hard. Not being in the office and not being able to whiteboard with teammates felt like a rapid change i didnt know how to handle.
My stress and anxiety shot up to an all time high. I would work from 9am-6pm, keep thinking of work into the night, and feel tired, exhausted.
I was desperate to get some sense of my former life back. I started ordering food on Uber Eats and Door dash for comfort.
I tried eating healthier options, but my weight ballooned by 20lbs. I went from being able to do 30 push ups in one set to not being able to do 3 push ups.
This year, I rejoined a gym. I started going 5 days a week, even if it meant just sitting idle for 15 minutes of my 35 minute work out.
I not only lost a bunch of the weight, I got much stronger. I learned to realize when I was feeling anxious or stressed, and my exercise actually helped me overcome it. Regardless of the work situation or tight deadlines, I wouldn’t skip the gym. I wouldn’t skip meals anymore. I’d drink lots of water.
Now - my health comes first. And for the most part, I’ve gained more peoples respect in my professional life. My company didn’t lose any money because I started valuing myself as a person. My company didn’t fire me either.
Op said he had a problem with being sedentary. That is largely a problem of habit. If you are already in the habit of jogging or cycling regularly good for you but if you aren't you almost certainly need some kind of structure (ie: scheduled time and place someone is counting on you to be there) to get to a place where you are doing it on a regular basis and not regularly rationalizing reasons to skip a day.
My take on this is, one has to find an exercise form that is (un)pleasant enough to engage in long-term. For me it's biking and mostly bodyweight exercise in my improvised home gym.
It's really worth it every time I do it, and I do it just 2-3 times a week.
Sorry if it came across like that, this is not what I meant. It's just about going to the gym specifically, and daily to boot, not about being fit in general.
There are some really nice gyms out there that are almost like spas. You don’t have to go and work out like an animal every day. Sometimes I’ll go and do a light workout, maybe swim, and then soak in a hot tub.
Some days I’ll run in the woods near my home but that’s not so enjoyable in the winter.
> If going to an artificial place to get tired every day works for you
So, the office?
If it doesn't work for you, fine, but the gym is a great place to go. Stop discouraging people because you don't like it or having a single goal (physical fitness) is bad.
I don't pay for going to the office, so I don't think that comparison really works.
> having a single goal (physical fitness) is bad
What part of my comment gave you that notion? I should edit this because it's absolutely not what I meant (a sibling comment also commented as if I said getting fit has no benefits).
Yes! Physical fitness is super important. If you have trouble going routinely, find something more interesting, like rock climbing. Use a bicycle for personal transport if you live somewhere civilized.
I can second rock climbing, whether outdoors or inside. Its format is addictive. I also found tennis very easy to fall into. On the opposite end, there's running and swimming. They feel like misery for me personally. Others find them easy to do routinely. Just have to find what works for the individual. There are sports out there that won't feel like a chore.
It sounds odd but I believe sometimes creating that obligation can hurt people's efforts. Anecdotally, I've seen many people sign up with a personal trainer, planning to go regularly, find the first few training sessions hard and then not want to go again as they know the trainer will push them. I try to give people the advice of going routinely even if they don't have a routine once they're there. Associate it as a place you go before you associate it with any other feelings and you might find yourself having a workout just because you're there.
