MoMojo:
How can I motivate them to at least try to be active? Whenever I try to encourage them, their usual answer is : ‘try carrying all this around on a walk’.
How can I motivate them to at least try to be active? Whenever I try to encourage them, their usual answer is : ‘try carrying all this around on a walk’.
This is something I can relate to as I have been working really hard on my fitness lately to become more "fat but fit".
I think a lot of thin (or thinner) people really don't understand how difficult exercising is when you're very big. Imagine getting pressured in to going on a run with an imaginary friend who runs marathons, and when after 20 miles you tell them you need to stop because you're in agony and have nothing left, they reply that there's still more than 10 miles to go and accuse you of being lazy. That's basically what it's like when you're very big and someone fitter is trying to "help" you to exercise, regardless of how good their intentions are. Your imaginary marathon running friend needs to realize that while their physical limit might be greater than running marathons, it doesn't mean yours is. And just because you can easily walk a few miles that doesn't mean walking a few miles doesn't greatly exceed someone else's physical limitations. Even a miles can be a marathon to a very big person.
Because it's so physically difficult and usually painful to exercise is why very big people don't regularly exercise. You learn to fear exercise because of the immediate consequences of how you'll feel afterwards, rather than being motivated of how you may feel after many months. The motivation to do something so difficult is just too much of an ask for most. Ask yourself, how much motivation would it take for you to run a marathon tomorrow? Then again a few days later when you're still in pain from the first effort? Because that's what even moderate exercise (moderate from your perspective) is to a very big person.
As I mentioned, I've been working on my fitness for several months now. I started out walking just 1km a day, which I could barely manage, and needed to take 6 breaks at conveniently placed seats along the way. From doing just that I would come home dripping in sweat, looking as red as a tomato. It hurt my calves and feet so much that the pain never went away, and my mobility actually went backwards!
Trying to maintain motivation to do that to yourself is a huge ask, and it's what your girlfriend, correctly or incorrectly, thinks you're asking of her.
For me the key to getting fitter was to not do too much too soon. Walking every day meant my legs never had time to heal, so minor injuries just got worse and worse, which made exercise more and more painful, making me want to exercise less and less. I decided to take it easier by switching to walking only every second day, and if my legs were still hurting from the previous walk, I'd delay the next walk by another day. After a few months of hard work, I now do 3km walks three times a week, only take a break at the half way point (at the top of a big hill that kills me), and instead of being in agony afterwards I actually feel fine and amazingly enjoy going on walks now. My relative mobility in general has increased massively, despite not losing any weight at all (because fitness was my goal, not weight loss).
For your girlfriend, with her lack of motivation due to her fear of exercise, I think the key is going to be taking it VERY easy. Don't try to make her go on a long hike, or a long cycle. Be mindful that your limitations are not hers. If you push her to the point that exercise is painful, a point which is probably a lot lower than you think it is, it will only make her more averse to exercise, and have an affect opposite to which you're trying to achieve.
You'll have a lot better chance to make exercise a regular thing if in her mind she thinks "it's not too bad", instead of "this will be painful". Once she's in that mindset, she'll find motivation a lot easier.
3 years
