I tricked myself into working out 3 times per week
happychasing.substack.com
happychasing.substack.com
I've found that I always pushed myself way too hard while running. The goal is not to be fast or have the best time. The goal is to enjoy the journey. That's why I always tell myself now the first few minutes: Don't go too fast, run slow! Slow. Enjoy it. If I start as slow as I can arrange, then everything else follows. Also, how your body feels after a run, is one of the best motivators to do it again.
Sure, these thoughts won't work for everyone, but what does? It's worth a try, anyway :)
It's not an instant fix, but it's a definite uptick in execution. For me. Your mileage may vary.
Eventually I learned to a) slow down at the start, and b) to recognize when I was inching toward the redline, and slow down while still swimming to avoid the panic stop. I felt, and still feel, that there was an important life lesson there: to be attuned to yourself, to make conscious decisions about your behavior based on that awareness, optimize for 'harmony', or 'least disruption'. There are some psychological things going on, too, like shame, guilt, etc that seem really silly now but felt real and were pushing me toward the wrong conclusions!
Not everyone feels like this. I hate running, and hate the way my body feels afterwards. I just want to go to bed or sit down and do absolutely nothing. It wrecks my productivity for hours. I tried to get into running a few times because of the supposed "high" that you eventually start to feel. Never once felt it, even after several months of forcing myself to do daily runs.
If you put in half as much effort in those times, do you think you would've felt the same?
To answer your question, I was sedentary, not particularly overweight but I knew it was unhealthy, and I wanted to do something to get in better shape. I knew some people who were into running and they talked about how great it made them feel. I tried it, kept at it for a while despite what a miserable an experience it was, in the hope that there would be a "breakthrough" at some point and I would start enjoying it.
I now do weightlifting, and it's something I've been able to stick with for a few years. I don't "love" doing it but it's tolerable.
* It helped me to learn a lot about running form, which would make going for a run interesting because there are so many things to observe about one‘s body and form while doing it. Like honing a difficult skill. Same for swimming.
* Finding an intellectual interest in learning about running helped me as well. If I want to do something for hours, I better be really interested in it… (e.g. Daniel Lieberman‘s work / Born to Run / watching races / learning about how athletes today can run so much faster than before, ultra running,…)
* Running without shoes sometimes is a much richer sensory experience and not boring at all.
* I still way overestimated what a proper pace would be for me, and only started slowing down and enjoying running more recently. I know the feeling of feeling shredded the next day, but that means the workout was too hard. It took me over a year to go from a pandemic/work induced low-point to enjoying 5k runs regularly, and I underestimated how slow and steady the change would be. Can‘t emphasize enough how easy the easy runs should be. I can now enjoy 5k at a slow pace even though I could run 20k at a faster pace if I wanted to on any day.
* Finally, I think running is better with friends. [cf. Daniel Lieberman‘s work]
Sprinter's build is a real thing. If I ever run more than 200 meters at a stretch, I'm probably dodging bullets.
Anyway if your feeling exhausted after a daily run then slow down, it takes more than one day to recover from heavy exercise so daily runs should stay casual.
Another way to get into running is to start by just going for a brisk walk and run a little bit when you feel like it. That's how I got into trail running. I was going for long hikes, and at some point I started jogging short sections (maybe only 30 seconds) when I was feeling good. By doing this I could limit the total amount of running I was doing while still getting a good workout in.
Like most difficult things, the more you do it the easier it is to keep doing it
I worked out in the morning because "It's Monday, and Monday is a weekday, so that's why" is far more sustainable in the long term. Sometimes less thinking is better.
This said, for many people with jobs/kids/other commitments, regular workout is more of an exercise in scheduling than willpower. For that, the only advice I could offer is to use the mornings, and be done before anyone else in the house realises.
Last summer I stupidly went hard on one or two of the hot AF days (30C) and went 5-6 miles or so then got home feeling like I’d had the wind kicked out of me.
Needless to say, for the next few weeks my body would feel… scared(?) to go for a run and I had to skip more than a few just from the feeling of apprehension. Now I try to run slow and get home feeling moderately exerted and I actually look forward to my runs.
In fact, if I run in the morning, I get the blues after work because I don’t have a run to go on anymore!
Your comment resonates with me as very plausible. All the places I skate, for practical reasons, happened to be nature-rich parks that are the most aesthetic and pleasant places to be around. The sort of places that I'd lounge all day in, if I had an *excuse* to, if it made any sense to sit around all day on a park bench in the autumn chill. The sort of places my phone is stuffed with random photos I take of. (God-rays through the tree leaves! Cool squirrel!) Maybe I shouldn't discount these minor psychological factors, this atavistic familiarity with nature? Maybe it does have an outsized influence on my actions. I wonder.
Need to get one of those stabilising selfie sticks for recording the adventures - holding a phone by hand results in a choppy nausea inducing clip.
This is the only thing that works for me.
No matter what I do, I can't make myself enjoy the actual run. I failed Couch to 5K multiple times. During my last attempt, I got stuck on week 5 and--frustrated with my lack of progress--forced myself to the top of the hill I was struggling with. I almost passed out, but I felt incredible for the rest of the day.
That did it. Now I'm out there first thing every morning because I crave that feeling, and the more I punish myself during the better I feel after.
I've been lifting for 20 years now. My body still hates it. Oh well :-/ what can you do.
P.S. I never time the runs, I never push it. I just run and don't worry about it. If someone passes me running faster, I yell at them for cheating :-)
I found running to be more enjoyable once I stopped using run-tracking apps like Strava.
Now I just use my phone's built-in pedometer. A run is just a way to help me hit 10k+ steps per day. During my runs I can be spontaneous without feeling like I'm going to ruin my Strava pace, and running isn't this overt start -> finish ordeal anymore.
P.S. after using the heart rate monitor for a while, you wind up with a pretty good feel for what it is without looking.
Basically, focusing on what is good about it now rather than what will be good later is better at building the habit.
This was a key point for me. Like many, I started with Couch to 5K. During my run intervals, I ran too fast. Had to make up for that 2 minutes of walking.
Eventually, after much reading and trial and error, I finally figured out how to run and how to program running. My standard is to keep my 1 mile time right at 7 minutes. I test it once a month. If it is creeping up, I’ll add in more running/cardio. Otherwise, I keep everything the same.
It took a lot of months of “slow” 11 and 12 minute miles to build up my body to be ready to start doing the tempo runs and speed work. I think too many new runners start right off with tempo and speed work because they “gotta feel the burn”, and they get embarrassed being passed. There were times I was going to quit running because I’m maintaining a 12 minute pace and people walking their dogs were passing me.
I don’t remember where I heard this (or read it), but depending on when you start your fitness journey, remember you spent YEARS getting yourself to where you were. You’re not going to turn it all around in months much less days.
Think about it this way, do you enjoy a nice long walk? Most people do. You also don't have to mentally prepare yourself to go on a walk. Do you enjoy a nice long sprint? Probably not. If you tried to do it every day you would have to mentally prepare yourself for the upcoming suck. That's a huge hurdle to making it a habit.
So why not try to find a sweet spot in between a walk and a sprint? Just build up speed gradually from a walk. Once you have days where you have to psyche yourself up to go for a run, you know you are going too hard. Going for a walk and going for an easy run should not be any different for you mentally, although you might have to take a shower after a run.
Hope anyone who has struggled with running in the past is able to regain confidence with this mindset
This works for me because if I miss one day of running then I've failed my goal immediately, whereas missing a few runs won't break the second goal and lets me make it up. This works for other goals as well.
What motivates me to exercise is to focus on the tangible benefits I get from exercise. The main one: I feel great after a good workout. I also love to use running and swimming as excuses to explore new places, which gives me another immediate tangible benefit.
One of the best runs of my life was during pandemic lockdowns in Spain when we were finally allowed to leave the house after 3 months, but only as long as we were exercising. The easiest excuse for me to get a change of scenery was to run a 15k (I had been running 5ks in circles on my roof, so I was in shape). I have never enjoyed a long run so much.
As for myself: I am not really new to running. However, since moving places I didnt run anymore because my only real motivation were the friends I did my runs with. I did other team sports as replacement (which I liked a lot). However, due to covid lockdowns I basically stopped all sports and gained weight. So, something had to give. I tried running (alone!) and thankfully it now works for me (as I advertised ;)). I started with a pace that was basically not really faster than people "walking". Since I have so much fun running right now, I actually have to watch out not to overdo it. I notice my knees a little but I don't really think they are the weakest part actually (losing more weight would help a lot wrt not overexerting the knees). As other posters have said: Going slowly (really slowly! If it feels like you're pushing yourself, it might be better to walk then.) is also the best thing one can do wrt avoiding injuries etc. So I can't really give a general recommendation except trying it out and see how your body feels. I think one can find out a lot by themselves simply by listening to the signals of the body.
Sadly you aren't going to become super muscular riding around a bike, but I assure you, you'll be in excellent shape even with an ebike.
Maybe it's because I'm lazy, but I find having an active life is superior to exercising frequently and having an otherwise inactive life (I also use a deskcycle and a treadmill desk setup for about 2-3 hours at work).
I recently bought a 20lb weighted vest to add some resistance when I'm walking around the house. we'll see how that goes.
this doesn't make an sense, unless you are intentionally using a big, heavy ebike with little pedal assist on purpose; why wouldn't you just stick with the road bike if it's less work, saving the complexity, cost and e-waste?
It is ridiculous to question if there is any effort expended.
I’ve seen a few studies supporting this in general: people ride with the same intensity but go further or get there faster.
There’s a really key benefit which is less obvious: e-bikes remove disincentives. Everyone I know who bought one rides more because they don’t have to worry about that one big hill, or the spot where you need to be on a road & going <20 mph triggers driver aggression, or you can carry your heavier groceries home, etc.
I highly doubt this. I believe it's true for you, but in the Netherlands I always notice how e-bikers generally ride the maximum legal speed (25km/h) but at a preposterously low cadence and while sitting perfectly upright. Non e-bikers on the other hand go slower, have a higher cadence and (if there's a significant head wind) move their torso left and right in accordance with the pedal strokes. No way those intensities match.
I do believe that the area under curve can be similar, because e-bikers can indeed ride further.
The objective part being the heart rate monitor on my watch. I routinely get into the 130-145 range.
Or sometimes not! The throttle is not labor intensive. But that gets boring.
I wonder if there is a large spectrum of power in e bikes, and that bikeshare e bikes are at one end of that spectrum.
If you simply use the assist to go faster but otherwise put in the same effort, then it's exercise. And if you enjoy the speed and it's convenient to travel more or even switch out car trips, it gets extra points. But if you simply take the same amount of trips, spend less time due to the extra speed, and mostly cycle on full pedal-assist (there's ebikes that are simply electric motorbikes with pedals) then no, it wouldn't be exercise.
It's probably the best invention in transport since the car. Remember all the hype for the segway how it'd be the new mode of transport? all that applies to electric bicycles.
It's fine to use it to add work to body-weight exercises such as pullups, squats, etc. but don't wear it for hours just walking around.
(NOTE: The true value here is in the CROSS-INCENTIVIZATION with an existing social relationship, not just the money)
The general truism that falls out of it is:
When possible, always apply incentives to the social fabric, not individuals. i.e. incentivize the edges of the graph (the relationships), rather than the nodes (the people) in isolation. Seek results by always opting to strengthen social bonds, instead of trying to bend people (who are social creatures) into actions while neglecting their social context, which often pull them back into prior habits or prevent the new ones from sticking strongly. Under some experimental conditions, incentives are 30x more effective when you use the money to strengthen a social relationship around an activity, rather than incentivizing the activity itself. (Further, unlike a direct monetary incentive where removing the incentive strongly attenuates the effect, you could now remove the money incentive between you and your brother, and you're much more likely to keep performing the activity even without monetary incentive, because the persistent social incentive is bootstrapped.)
This and other really interesting related research was pioneered by MIT's Sandy Pentland. It's very solid and applies in practice: His lab won the DARPA network grand challenge, where they found those 10 balloons hidden across the USA. He wrote a book. Here's his author talk: https://youtu.be/HMBl0ttu-Ow
The book "Social Physics" is a really great read if the video speaks to you
Frankly, it's affected my worldview hugely. This sort of research has huge policy and regulatory implications imho.
Assume partner (A) and (B) have existing social ties, ie. they're not strangers, and the closer, the better.
Options: (experimenter says)
1. "Hey A and B, for every day you meet your fitness goals, I'll give you 25¢"
2. "Hey A, for every day that B meets their fitness goals, I'll give you 25¢. Hey B, same goes for you."
With proper mechanism design, dollar for dollar, option (2) can be up to 30x more effective than (1).
At least in Pentland's studies, the dollar amount is token and intended to be so small as to be negligible. It being an excuse to strengthen the social relationship (around the new activity) is where the power to change behavior comes from.
As an example, travel and illness threw me off my regular schedule this summer. One I haven't exercised for a while I get kinda miserable, so exercising seems impossible and I have a hard time getting back to it. I couldn't just set a goal of 3 solid workouts per week; I would have failed.
What I picked was a daily streak of at least 10 minutes of elevated heart rate (zone 2 or better) per day. A short, brisk walk would be enough to qualify. The first days sucked and I had a couple false starts, but yesterday was streak day 18, and now going out for a 3-mile run or doing 30 minutes on the indoor bike actually feels good. So now I'm ready to commit to something more serious, but it took a ramp-up to get my brain ready for 3 real workouts per week.
And, in today's developed world, it's EXTREMELY easy to secure our safety and physiological needs. Once these basic needs are met, we find ourselves in a position where happiness is a function of self-esteem, fulfilling relationships, and physical health.
The problem is that these higher goals take hard work to obtain and maintain. And, our brain isn't wired to want to do that hard work - as long as we're safe & satiated, it wants to check out.
As a result, we have to learn to trick our brains into feeling motivated to achieve these higher goals.
One way to do this is to attach failure of goal completion to something scary like loss of income (see OP's article) or social status. This will trigger motivation because you're endangering your safety and physiological needs (which is what your brain is programmed to react to).
Another way is to learn to silence your subconscious programming (that voice in your head that convinces you to be lazy). You can do this with meditation or by following the 5 second rule: When you feel yourself hesitate before doing something that you know you should do, count 5-4-3-2-1-GO and just start moving towards action.
Finally, after you're done taking action and doing the hard work, you'll feel good. Taking time to notice these positive feelings, and building a causal connection between hard work and positive self-esteem makes goal completion easier as time goes on.
Being lazy is completely natural, and instead of feeling badly about it, we should just accept that our programming is misaligned with the modern world, and learn to take action towards being happy despite of it.
Note that Beeminder allows manual entry of data — I use this to track “work out 3x / week” type goals, but also has plenty of integrations (e.g. Apple Health data) for goals like “walk 10k steps / day”
The latter makes it much tougher to cheat yourself
I'm glad it works for other people, but the glaring conflict of interest makes it a hard no for me.
Anyway, we have a whole elaborate essay on why there's very much the opposite of a conflict of interest: https://blog.beeminder.com/defail/ (about how Beeminder revenue is proportional to induced user awesomeness)
There's a key faulty assumption that may make it seem like our incentives are more perverse than they are. Namely, it's not the case that Beeminder goals are binary things that you either succeed or fail at. They're things you make long-term graphs of, like averaging 10k steps per day or working 40 hours per week. You pay Beeminder because your overall progress is much greater with Beeminder than without it, even though the specific moments you pay are kicks in the pants when you've deviated from your commitment.
I'm definitely interested to hear if any of this is persuasive. We hear the perverse incentives thing a lot so we need to figure out how to convey our apologia much more concisely in our intro material! (And thank you for voicing it!)
As somebody who's spent decades supporting the Long Now, I believe that a lot of what's wrong in our society is people incorrectly understanding their long-term incentives and focusing on the short term. And I'm happy to believe here that Beeminder's long-term incentives really do work out to be mutually beneficial when handled by you.
But there's just no way I need the mental overhead of wondering all the time whether me paying you when I fail in a given instance really conforms to the ultra-long-term, 12-dimensional-chess understanding of conflict of interest. And then if/when it does, whether I'm failing enough to give you sufficient money so that there's a balanced exchange of value. That is way too much overhead, especially for a tool I'll be using in areas where I'll be hitting my cognitive limits on the regular.
I totally believe this works for some people, maybe most of them, but for me it's a non-starter.
I'm worried I'm not really grokking your underlying argument though. Maybe it just feels gross to have this kind of setup with a third party as opposed to doing it with friends. That's the kind of thing I can't argue with so if it's something like that we can leave it at that. Thanks again for helping me think through how to convey our pitch for the general non-perverseness of it in any case.
It's true that any company can turn greedy, and many do. But a problem here for me is that the structure is more dangerous when it does. If HBO turns evil, my downside risk is the $15/month I pay them. But with a habit incentive system like this, the downside risk is larger and unknown. And given that the whole point is to build habits that people stick with, "you'd cry foul and quit" is in question. Look at the way the various online games milk vast sums milk from their "whale" players for example. When behaviors are correctly engineered, plenty of people don't quit.
For me yes, doing it with friends is different, because the metagame (or in Carse's term, the infinite game) is about the friendship. That too acts as a downside risk limit. But if your company were taken over tomorrow by invading aliens or private equity MBAs, all they'd want is the money.
And again, very important to me is value-for-value exchange. E.g., I'm a Newsblur subscriber. I was on their $36/year subscription. They just added a new $99 tier. I signed up immediately not because I need the features, but because I value it higher than $36/year and want to help make sure they're well funded.
So if you had a similar service where I paid you a subscription fee and then money went to, say, my brother, that would be a different deal. My downside risk is limited, the metagame keeps things safer, my cognitive load about systemic effects is manageable, and it adds a social component that means more to me than cash incentives anyhow.
I hope that helps!
Failing intermittently in the short term - and losing money for it - will cause any rational actor motivated by the financial argument - as you clearly are - to try and work out why and fail less, hence proving their service is working for you.
In the long run, there are no scams, no dubious businesses, no casinos, no ponzis. In the long run, we're all dead. But in the short term, people lose money all the time on stuff that doesn't work for them. Is this one of them? Apparently not for some people. On the other hand, MLMs have plenty of people who talk them up while losing money, so it's hard to say from the outside.
I have been a customer of theirs since 2014. The few times I have had to interact with support they have always helped me (and to be clear I only remember having to contact support when I had a legitimate reason not to complete some work for a given day).
I'd like something like this that pays into my retirement, a long-term investment or donates to charity, with maybe 1-20% going to Beeminder or whatever.
Hiring a good trainer has lots of advantages:
- you don't have to think about what you need to do
- they show you safe vs unsafe movements and keep you safe during training
- it's an appointment, so you're less likely to miss. My trainer doesn't normally charge for missed appointments (too nice IMO) but I pay by the month so I have to pay if I miss
- my trainer creates several circuits of 3-5 exercises and they are done 3-5 times each. The circuits are designed so that different muscles are used in each exercise, ie, "active resting", so an entire workout can fit in a half an hour for example.
If you have the funds, highly recommend hiring a trainer. Now I actually enjoy working out 4x a week for 45 minutes.
High turnover - I had about six different trainers during that time.
They all picked some random exercises for me to do whereas I'd rather have a well thought out schedule.
They are all flakey, lots of appointments cancelled last minute for "family emergencies."
Two asked me out on dates. I guess this would be an advantage for some, but I was interested in getting fit, not picking up men.
One was kinda mean to me.
I found going to yoga classes MUCH more useful.
This is great for the author, but this type of motivation tends to fail at a certain point. So I'd say you can start with this, but in the meantime find something you love/like doing.
When I do reach it, I plan to set a new goal around maintaining that.
For the other kettlebell nerds: the goal is 100x 32kg swings in 5 minutes and 10x Turkish getups with 32kg in under 10 minutes (the "simple" part of Pavel's simple and sinister)
For me, having kids did it. Being able to get in good routines while I’m still young is my hope that I will be able to squeeze out another visit or two from them by extending my life a few more years.
Hacking your habits is a great place to start, but getting clear on why you do certain things is how you master it.
I think the ideal sport for recreational exercise is tennis. It only requires 2 people, 2 racquets, a ball, and a court. The court is perhaps the biggest obstacle, but there are public tennis courts all over the place. And if you've got money, you can join a tennis club. (The article author mentioned squash, which is fine too, but I think tennis courts are much more prevalent than squash courts.)
Team sports like soccer are harder to organize for amateur adults, though there are leagues and pickup games.
In a sense, the article author turned exercise into a social sport, with monetary prizes. The details are different, but the essence is the same: competition between two people rather than solitary effort.
I use weights and resistance bands to make it a bit more demanding and I can do it at home and enjoy it. No need for hacks.
Mostly, with a little bit of powerbeats VR, beat saber, boombox for fun / warm ups.
(Started by friends)
Over the years I tried biking, running (street, trail, track), swimming, various machines, other things I'm probably forgetting. Hated every minute of it, and could never stick with it.
I tried weightlifting a few years ago. No machines, just barbells. I honesly can't say that I love doing it, but I have been able to stick with it 3 days per week and I only miss if I am sick or have an unavoidable conflict.
If you can't get into the habit of working out, try something else. Also try variations of group/solitary activity. I'm a pretty introverted person but one thing that helps with getting to the gym is knowing a group of people there.
For more on this topic.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/dan-ariel...
First hand experience : you'll not be bored, they're smart and loving, and energetic (and hilarious). You'll therefore be more physically active without being bored than you thought possible.
And when people joke about border collies being high energy, you'll get lots of exercise rolling your eyes. Ours has a husky rescue friend, with comparable and likely much higher energy level, but generally, a canine makes a great personal trainer.
A good one has a private space for each dog to chill, and several periods a day of group socializing. My dog absolutely loved it.
But leaving them alone? Nope.
So I changed to running for just 5 minutes first thing when I woke up, which equaled to running around the block. Then get a shower immediately when I got home. After that I felt so much more clear mentally that I wanted to wake up next day just to run. Knowing that I would only run for five minutes it no longer was a chore.
Some Econ professors also discovered this a while back and created stickk.com which allows you to put up a monetary punishment when you don't meet your agreed upon goal. The loss of money and having someone else keep you accountable greatly increases your motivation to achieve your goals.
The money you pay if you don't meet your goal is donated to charity.
Yep, I dropped three tech names. I'm surprised but they work. The key is daily effort. I close my rings every day, for weeks and months on end. On days when I don't feel like it, I still force myself and then I feel great afterwards. I've done that enough times that I know for a fact that it will work when I'm not feeling it. The other key is to set a reasonable goal so that everyday isn't a stress. For me, that's 600/45/13.
From the depths of the COVID lockdown to now, my VO2Max has risen from 25.5 to 32 which for my age bracket is pretty good. Fun fact: donate blood and your VO2Max will go down.
The silicon guilt works for me. Yeah, I enjoy being in the gym and maybe not everyone does. But this gets me over the hump of wanting to work out to working out.
My test was on a stationary cycle vs. a treadmill. Which worked better for me as I have shit running form.
It is an estimate but it goes up with a fair amount of effort. It gets harder to make progress the further up you go. But I'm here to tell you that 32 feels a LOT better than 25.5 did. The downsides to working out is feeling sore. But the down side to not working out is feeling crappy. I'll take sore over crappy.
And again, the only thing trackers do is keep me honest with myself about daily effort. Works for me.
A few months I had an injury followed by a long post surgical recovery (still under way). I am forbidden from almost all exercise until the surgery heals.
And I notice it! I don’t think as well, I sleep more, and I have trouble getting things done.
Now I am really eager to work out!
to see a decent sixpack in normal situations without intense flexing/lighting, a male typically needs to be at about 13-15% bodyfat.
I’ve been powerlifting and body building for about 8 years now. I hover right around 15%. I don’t have a 6 pack. I doubt I ever will. I tried once a couple of years ago. My energy level was so low, and I hated all the food I was eating (chicken and broccoli 2 or 3 times a day, as little salt as possible, etc.). I got to 12%, had a 4 pack, and called it a day. I’m happy where I am now. Not ashamed to admit that I didn’t have the mental fortitude to accomplish the task.
What was your starting point, though? Were you already lean, or maybe skinnyfat but with good muscles underneath?
I play games like this
https://www.vrfitnessinsider.com/review/the-thrill-of-the-fi...
https://untilyoufall.schellgames.com/
https://www.lesmills.com/us/fit-planet/fitness/bodycombat-vr...
I’ve lost 25 lbs so far
The overall answer is "whatever works for you." One saying that I've found does impress people is:
If you can't find time to exercise, you'll have to find time to be sick.
Do you have time to wait on the Customer Support line for your health insurance provider, listening to "Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line." for half an hour? Didn't think so.
We text the group- gym 1, gym 2 etc as we start our workout. Anyone can say “proof” which means we have to send a selfie. If you don’t do 3 gyms in a week, there is some penalty which no even remembers or enforces.
If anyone's unsure about the maths on that then don't worry, "you don't count the day you're on when you're counting days " ;-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eECjjLNAOd4
I changed my behavior again, i was working too much to actually "want to do/start it".
I'm at 3 hours per day ATM. ( Back seems to be ok! ). Next step is to change to weight training and reduce the amount of hours, since the current slow-paced cardio phase is not sustainable. But i hope it helped me for my back as a transitioning phase...
I'm going to bring this up to my girlfriend and see what she thinks. I think this could introduce some healthy competition to our fitness routines.
Maybe having a bet like this with my sister who is also trying to become more active might help.
Maybe I missed it. What classifies as a workout in your model with your brother?
Sloth is strong but hate is stronger.
It is, in fact, the best cure for hangover!
Also there is nothing that FORCES you to pay to the other person, no legaly binding contract so if you really don't feel like you're just gonna say "fuck it and fuck you" and it's gone.
Your second point shouldn't be an issue for anyone who has some level of maturity and/or values their relationship with their friend... not like it is likely to break a friendship but it seems like a dick thing to do.
You're correct. It's optional. There's no contract. But that's exactly the point.
It's a simple nudge. I tiny but effective behavioural hack.
The alternative is what? The status quo (which isn't working)? I guess the question is: what's your answer then? That's not being troll-y. I'm seriously curious about other effective alternatives.
and thats the end of it.