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What's next? 8 hours sleep?

I know! I love pasta too much to give it up

OOP did mention chronic pain, so to them it probably is.

when you spend most of your time in a relatively sedentary lifestyle, walking a mile can be a lot of exercise. for someone who wants a minimum of 12,000 steps a day, it seems like nothing, but for someone who averages maybe 1000 steps, it can take a lot of physical and/or mental effort. especially if that person is dealing with chronic pain or depression

You don't have to be tired for it to be exercise

Yeah, same. Its remarkable tbh

Your fitness level really affects how much activity you find tiring. I remember back when I was a teenager working at a grocery store I freaked out because I saw a woman dripping with sweat and panting (I was worried it was a heart attack or other medical emergency) and she explained that she's fine, she just decided to walk her shopping instead of getting a motorized cart today.

Or for a more personal anecdote, I got on my bike for the first time in a decade early last spring and barely made it one block on the bike before being at the nearly-vomitimg-from-over-excersion point then by biking every day I got up to biking 8 miles a ride by the end of fall

There are evidence based tips from behavioural psychology you can use to help. Some examples....

Will-power is a finite resource in the day, so if exercise is left to the end of the day then it is easier to leave out.

If you keep your exercise clothes laid out then it removes that barrier and makes it easier to get up and go to exercise. When I get home from work I change straight into gym clothes even if I'm not going to work out for another couple of hours.

Keep a TV show/audio book that you are excited about, that you only ever watch in the gym. Then you can never progress the story without going to the gym.

It really is difficult. There are a lot of good tricks you can play to make yourself do it, you just gotta find which one works for you.

Someone else mentioned having a show that you only watch while exercising. If non-static exercise like running or walking is more your thing, swap that for a podcast or audiobook. (I recommend checking your library's audiobook programme if they have one, or check out one of the smaller audiobook sellers, before giving money to Amazon's Audible, if possible.)

Another option is to set yourself a goal. Tell yourself you're doing a half marathon in six months and actually sign up for it to commit yourself. Or a 60 km bike ride. Or an Olympic distance triathlon. If you want, especially if you've already done this trick once or twice and need something a little spicier, add a time goal to that. Do the HM in under 2 hours, the triathlon in under 3, whatever.

The hardest part is often getting out the door. Tell yourself it's a success if you just put your shoes on and step outside. Once you're there, its much easier to start running than it is from inside. If it's still hard, tell yourself you'll just run to the end of the street and turn back. Once you're at the end of the street, set a new goal, etc. I find it best not to plan a run that involves multiple laps, because I'm much more likely to end up only doing 5k if I plan on doing 2 laps of a 5k course than if I set out on a 10k single loop.

Have people you train with. Training directly with people is best, and as an added bonus is really healthy mentally in terms of socialising. But failing that you could always find an online group of people, or just a chat group of IRL friends, who check in on each other and hold you accountable.

If whatever exercise you have been doing doesn't work for you, try something else. If you're not a runner, hop on a bike. If you don't enjoy riding, get in the pool. A social team sport like netball, touch footy, or ultimate frisbee could be good, if you can find a friendly non-judgmental group.

If you're a data nerd and/or the kind of gamer who likes getting all the Steam achievements, buy a Garmin. Try and build up a streak, or watch your time or distance climb the more often you train. Earlier this year I earnt myself the trophy for meeting my step goal 90 days in a row—I had step goal set to automatic, where it increases every time you meet your goal, and decreases if you miss it. Increases more if you overshoot by a lot.

You could plan out some GPS artwork and ride or run a route that draws something cool. You may need to train up to be able to achieve the distance, if your artwork is more ambitious.

That's just a few of the tricks I have used at varying times to varying degrees of success to help keep up my exercise habit.

My brother walks excessively and I'm envious. I've never been healthy in my adult life, but I used to move a lot more. A few years back, though, I broke my ankle and the ER surgeon apparently repaired it using a method that's easy to mess up ... And messed it up. I can stand and walk, but doing so for any noteworthy distance or time is hard and very painful. Honestly, even things like showering take me out for a while to recover. I rarely walk down my driveway to get the mail because I'm never quite sure I'll make it back up.

Two subsequent orthopedic surgeons have said that, while there are things they can do that might slow down how bad it gets worse, it will probably never get better. As I said, I've never been healthy or fit in my adult life, but since I broke my ankle I've probably gained another fifty pounds. It's embarrassing.

CFS is a bitch for exercise, I used to "have it" until we found and treated my underlying cause.

Get 100,000steps a day and you will feel some real shit

Undiagnosed (aside from TTT at home) EDS/POTS here (mild), I biked enough to notice a difference but I didn't hit the point where it aligned with this post (maybe because I don't really sweat, stress on my body changes the effect?). Even with inactivity, muscle loss is not an issue for me.

Though the biggest issue with cycling for me is that I don't really have (m)any destinations, distance makes most trips not viable for what they are (particularly factoring in return trip) or add complication when it comes to hours or weather. Daylight savings ending combined with shorter days ruined it for me, too.