How To Stay Fit Even If You Hate Exercise

You want to stay fit but you hate exercise

You want to have a flat tummy, the right shape, maintain your banging body or live a more healthy life but hate exercise?

You are in constant need to tuck in your tummy to look good in a dress have screenshots of your ideal body on your phone, and you just look at them every once in a while and say I can’t kill myself I’ll start tomorrow.

So you eat at 2 am just before going to bed because you know people in your family are fat.

If any of that sounds like you, then pause.

Step away from the fridge S L O W L Y with your hands where I can see them because this post is for you! 

Well, you are not the only one. Not all of us can “find ourselves” with yoga, or by travelling the world. Apart from the fact that I hate travelling, I don’t have enough money for transport.

We all can’t be like Khloe Kardashian who loves the gym and probably sees herself in gym heaven in her dreams. Most of us know that we should exercise more, but we just feel life is short and Jesus is coming soon so we say- ‘I’ll rest for today. After all, this body is not my own. In the end, it shall return to dust’.

The first mental picture I had of the gym was of sweaty angry looking men lifting heavy weights with Dwayne Johnson-ish muscles, huffing and puffing, Chanting ‘no pain! no gain!’ and making the face you make when you are constipated and trying to poop. But now I know better. It’s not only about losing weight or building scary muscles, but staying fit and healthy.

However, I still haven’t been inside a gym at the time of writing this post. Truth is, everyone wants to be fit or at least a nice figure these days. Hence, the tsunami of product adverts like:

• Get 6 packs in 2days with this natural syrup
• How to get your flat tummy in 5minutes
• Newly discovered belly fat sucker
• The ultimate quick action fat terminator
• Dr. Ogbonge  overnight six packs syrup
• And the weird person in your comment section on Facebook saying “Hey Rose I lost 10pounds……”

Before I list out the various ways you can exercise without even knowing, note that in order for any of these procedures to work you must follow these simple rules

Rules Follow To Help You stay Fit Even If You Hate Exercise

• Pick an exercise you enjoy– first of all I understand that you hate exercise but I am sure there’s that one thing you can do that isn’t too overwhelming. Find it and do it.

• Take baby steps- I remember some 3 years ago I decided to join the association of morning joggers. I jogged until I was drenched in sweat and that was mostly because I wanted to jog for longer than my roommates. It is rather difficult to say if I jogged for almost an hour or almost 10 hours. It sure felt like 10 hours to me. Although my roommates think it was under 45 minutes. 45 minutes, one hour, 10 hours, who cares? I jogged for a very long time. After I was sure that they’d have gone back to the hostel, I jogged back feeling like the one with the greatest stamina. Well, they weren’t back, I desperately needed to bath and felt really nauseous. Throughout that day and the next, I felt excruciating pain in my legs and that was my last day. For someone who last jogged 7 years ago to do that much on the first day, I killed my fitness dreams before they even had a chance to mature. I guess all I’m saying is, you can’t do everything over night and don’t try to impress anyone with your stamina. Start small then grow into it!

• Consistency is key- exercise is like everything in life. Be consistent. Even the bible acknowledges consistency when it said “pray without ceasing”. Find a routine you can stick to with a little effort and build up from there.

• Set feasible/realistic goals- Don’t deceive yourself by saying you’ll lose 50kg in a week. Start with 5kg in a week and you might lose 1 or 2kg, that’s progress.

• Reward yourself- I did not say you should reward yourself with a box of pizza before and after meals for a week! Instead, set targets like “if I lose 2kg this week, I’ll get myself a new pair of shoes”.

With all these struggles in mind, I penned down these simple things we can incorporate into our daily routines to make exercising not seem like a chore and more importantly, yield results.

8 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay Fit Even If You Hate Exercise

1.) Eat right

I can’t emphasize this enough. Waking up every morning to jog and then drinking a big sized carbonated drink after jogging, to “cool down” because you feel hot is funny. Engaging in stupid fasting isn’t the answer either. Like my mum will say, eat 3 times a day but reduce your ration and change your menu.

2.) Take the stairs

Taking the stairs can help you burn fat more than you know. It involves more muscle movement than jogging or running on a flat surface. It also works on your glutes, biceps etc

3.) Trek

Trekking is one underrated form of exercise. The benefits of trekking are very important. If like me, your feet swell up as a result of sitting or standing too long in one place, taking a walk might be just what you need. In my case, it totally removes all traces of swelling. The fun part is you don’t have to trek from Calabar to Lagos. Just around your neighborhood in the evening is all it takes. Thank me later. Trekking a good way of exercising without knowing it. Plus, you save money and help the planet.

4.) Dance

I can’t dance to save my life, so don’t worry, I got you! I dance in the secret and my only audience is my mirror. When I do this, I sweat so much and sometimes pant. Because all that body movement can be all you need. You can dance like a mad person without any judgement or risk of seeing your dance video on the internet with the hashtag #whenyouaresecretlymad. It’s just you and your mirror.

5.) Clean your house

Cleaning and decluttering is always a win. All that high dusting, sweeping, mopping, and cleaning is part of exercise. I’ll be the first to say cleaning isn’t fun for me. It is not my idea of a good time. However, cleaning as a form of exercise helps me kill two birds with one stone. To make it fun, you can play a good song, sing along, and dance while at it. In the end, you’d have exercised and cleaned house

6.) Stop eating late

This has been my habit for many years, I eat whenever I am hungry I don’t care what the time is. I eat whatever is available. Now I try to drink water instead of eating. Drinking water not only keeps me hydrated, it fills up my stomach and helps me forget I am hungry.

7.) Avoid lying down immediately after eating

One of my bad habits I am also trying to curb. I could just eat, push my plate aside, lie down and start fidgeting with my phone or start seeing a movie on my laptop. 2hours later I would wake up to my phone or laptop in an absurd position.

8.) Try swimming

Have you ever seen a fat mermaid?

Exactly, that’s how they keep fit! My pet peeve for many years has been swimming in public swimming pools. But if you have no problem you could spend time swimming.

It’s 2020 in a about 2 weeks, how much longer are you going to ‘tuck in your tummy to look good‘?

How much longer are you going to say ‘everyone in my family is fat so I can’t help it’?

I can’t assure you that you’ll ever be an instagram fitness influencer with 10million followers and a verified account, but you’d surely derive all these amazing benefits of exercise.

Your Turn!

Do you also hate exercise? Which of the points are you guilty of? Let me know in the comments!