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Comment by scrapcode | Hacker News Reader

The benefits of exercise are abundant and I don't know many that would argue against that. If exercise is so beneficial to the whole being, why is it such a difficult thing for us to implement regularly on a long-term basis? Even during periods of life where I've been in a good routine with working out, there still seems to be some sort of internal resistance to going to "do the thing."

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Our reward centers evolved in an environment where nutrition was hard to come by and exercise was a daily fact of life already.

Our bodies use of exercise for healthy regulation of our mental state is probably an evolved dependency of that life as well.

The brain tries to minimize energy expenditure due to evolutionary factors and only wants to expend energy if absolutely necessary. Therefore you need to trick your brain into doing the right thing.

Because most exercise is both repetitive and boring, and people tend to have continued interest in new novelty

Sure that happens to everyone at times. Even champion ultra marathon runner David Goggins talked about sitting and staring at his running shoes for 30 minutes before he could force himself to get out the door. I find it helpful to set up fixed schedules and create some sort of accountability to a coach or teammates. That way there's no decision making involved in the moment, you just go out and execute the plan.

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