Did anyone here used to hate exercise and learned to not hate it?

SpectrumDT
Sun, 26 Apr 2026 11:32:01 GMT

I am M41 with Asperger. One of my perennial struggles is physical exercise. If I exercised more it would probably keep me healthier especially in my old age, and it would help with a bunch of physical tasks and perhaps even improve my mental health.

But I hate it.

The stock advice is to "find a kind of exercise that you enjoy". I have tried that with no success. I have tried weight lifting in a gym, karate, capoeira, cycling, burpees, rowing machine at home, and running, and I quickly grew to hate all of them.

The best option I have found so far is walking. Whenever reasonably convenient I will walk instead of taking a bus or the bike. (On slightly longer trips I also try to take the bike instead of the car.) This gives me a few hours of walking per week, which is better than nothing.

I am weak and awkward but otherwise in perfectly good physical health. I am naturally skinny and do not gain weight no matter what I do or eat. This is good, but it also means I have no short-term incentives to exercise, and that makes it even harder to convince myself to do it. (During those times when I did exercise more, I did not notice any mental benefits, so I am skeptical of those kinds of claims.)

Now, I am not very interested in hearing from people who easily found a kind of exercise that they enjoyed. Their advice will probably not be very applicable. I am interested in hearing whether anyone faced the same problems that I do and found a solution.

Does anyone here have a similar story and a successful outcome?

Discuss