To lose weight, you have to exercise. Right? My whole life, that’s what I heard. The doctors said, find exercise that you enjoy and can sustain, and you’ll have fitness for life. Calories in, calories out. Nevermind that it took literally hours of strenuous work to burn off the calories in a single modest meal. Exercise was the worst part of every weight loss regimen I ever tried. Then I found keto, and the pounds melted off without a lick of exercise. If there’s a single lesson my weight loss journey has taught me, it’s that calories in/calories out is bullsh!t. 

I hated exercise so much as a kid that I almost had to repeat a year of high school. Hauling around an extra hundred pounds made even the low bar of activity that high school P.E. required difficult. After 3 years of getting F’s in P.E., and only in P.E., I was on track to not graduate on the expected timetable. I ditched, I shirked. Fortunately, my kindly P.E. teacher gave me the opportunity to make up 3 years of failing grades by “running” a mile every day at lunch for two weeks. It was terrible. But I did it – kind of. There was a lot of walking.

And so I didn’t exercise after that for 15 years. In 2002, I joined the local YMCA and did their beginner fitness program for a few months. It was actually…pretty great. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that the whole process, from cardio to weights to soaking in the hot tub afterward, required an investment of about 3 hours every other day. Still, I felt powerful, and my body was heated up like a Ferrari (an obese, sluggish Ferrari) the whole rest of the day. All subsequent efforts at exercise have been an effort to recreate that experience. And I actually lost some weight! All it took was basically pursuing fitness with time investments that equalled a third job. But after I stopped working conveniently close to the Y, I stopped going.

Fast forward 18 years – 18 years with basically no exercise – and I was laid off during COVID. By this time, I had lost that 200lbs, and exercise was comfortable and possible like never before. With an endless expanse of unfilled hours in the day, and wanting to lose 30lbs that I’d been slowly gaining, I resolved to make physical fitness an important part of my life for once. What I wanted was to feel about exercise like I felt about meditation. You hear from people who exercise daily that if a day goes by without it, they feel off and agitated. I wanted to get to a point where regular exercise was part of what made me feel whole and healthy. 

So I exercised. I went on miles-long walks with the dog, took up jogging, used yoga and High Intensity Interval Training videos. I worked and waited for the magic to happen. I patiently logged the hours (many hours, every day), anticipating that any day, exercise would make me feel like a metabolic superstar.

It never happened. 

I blew out my hip doing yoga. Jogging gave me runner’s knee. Physical therapy was required. Did I mention that I was exercising for hours every day? I never got to a place where I felt like it was making a difference in how I felt about myself – if anything, I felt worse. I certainly never got to the place I was when I was working out at the Y in 2002. And despite hours of cardio, I didn’t lose a single pound. My metabolism didn’t change a bit. Even before I knew I would be going back to work, in disappointment and frustration, I declared that exercise would never work, and gave up the project. 

But I did do one thing – I kept walking the dog. Even when I returned to work, that dog needed walking, and I was going to do it. So we walked for 10 minutes in the morning, 20-30 minutes at lunch, and 20-30 minutes at the end of the day. I walked on lovely Portland days, and dreary and frigid Portland days. I made daily visits under the trees in the park nearby. I explored my little neighborhood, and loved watching the yards evolve with the seasons. 

And – and this blew my mind – you know how everyone from your mom to your shrink tells you to go for a walk when you’re under stress? In my morbidly obese life, that sounded just terrible; there is nothing relaxing about huffing and puffing your way down the street. But in my new body, getting my limbs moving, and communing with the trees – that totally helped me right-size problems that I was ruminating on. Walking felt downright good. I was able to unclench in the middle of the day in a way I never had before.

And I didn’t even know it. I didn’t set out to sustain exercise in my life – there was no intention to say, “This is the exercise I am happy with,” it was just an organic extension of what I was already doing. And if I don’t get to walk like usual, I feel downright off. On my most recent trip to the doctor, they asked the standard question: “Do you exercise?” 

I responded no. Then I said, “Oh, I walk a little bit.” 

“How much?” “About 45-60 minutes a day. It’s not exactly strenuous.” 

“That’s great! You are living your best life, aren’t you?” 

Yes. I guess I am. I had done what the doctors said – I had found exercise that fit into my life, that I genuinely enjoyed, that gave me health benefits, and that sustained good mental health. I never thought I’d get there. 

What has your path been with exercise? For those out there who feel a void without your workout, how did you get there? For those who despair of ever making exercise a positive part of your life, what have you tried? I’d love to hear from you!