You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

gokfar comments on Boring Advice Repository - Less Wrong Discussion

56 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 07 March 2013 04:33AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (557)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: curiousepic 07 March 2013 03:48:20PM *  20 points [-]

Some previously posted boring advice about maintaining an exercise routine:

I was successful in keeping a strict (but light) exercise routine for a year. Here are the main things I think helped me form the habit:

  • Not worrying about quantifying, or optimizing. I would immediately get into the rabbit hole of analysis, when I knew that any exercise was much better than procrastinating until I found the perfect method. Once the habit is formed, then you can optimize it.
  • Reduce physical inconveniences to actually exercising. The thought of going to a gym immediately turns me off, so I knew it had to be at home. That meant obtaining equipment. To keep it simple, this consisted of a yoga mat and a resistance band.
  • Doing it right after waking up. I think this was vital to habit formation, as my mind wasn't very active, and it was easy to fall into routine. Only very rarely did I find myself considering not exercising.
  • Doing it every other day - not too often to get burnt out, and not too infrequently to form the habit. In order to keep a consistent sleep schedule and not have to wake up very early, I alternated morning routines - exercise days and shower days. My workouts weren't intense enough to necessitate a shower immediately after. Also, I worked it in with my intermittent fasting routine on non-exercise days.
  • Tracking it. Noting days that I exercised did give me a couple of achievement hedons. The effect diminished, but not before the habit was formed.
Comment author: [deleted] 08 March 2013 05:01:11PM 5 points [-]
  • Find a physical activity that you enjoy.
Comment author: OrphanWilde 08 March 2013 08:08:42PM 12 points [-]

On this note, something I've discovered:

Jogging sucks when you're overweight. Jogging is awesome when you're already fit.

Try things again as you progress. You may find them considerably more pleasant.

Comment author: [deleted] 25 February 2015 11:38:40AM 1 point [-]

On the plus side, you can build massive arms and shoulders from simple push-ups when you are overweight. Don't need no gym, at least, if you like that sort of be-scared-of-me look. There is no way an obese, say, over 120 kg person could master the 100 push-ups challenge and not have brutal arms and shoulders. However, it will not be 7 weeks, more like a year.

This is really the primary silver lining obese people tend to forget. Just throwing that kind of body around, like playing tennis or going boxing, builds massive muscles. I tell obese people hardgainers probably already envy your calves. One of the hardest muscles to grow and poof you got it for free.

Comment author: curiousepic 09 March 2013 04:21:31AM 1 point [-]

Yes, in fact, weekly contra dancing is starting to replace my previous exercise routine!