Postcard from the Frozen Tundra

[ptownnyc]

Interestingly, -6 degrees Fahrenheit is a real number. It doesn't feel significantly worse than 10 degrees Fahrenheit, but you do feel your inevitable death coming on quicker - a lot quicker. This is a temperature that nature saw fit to serve us in the Hudson Valley last night. I imagined forest deer freezing solid so suddenly they shattered out

Comments

[trawnapanda]

If the running does get the knee and hip complaining, there are machines (?ellipticals?) that make you do the same muscle work without the wearing/damaging thump-thump-thump of rapid foot-falls.

y'know, I'm with yr hubby (maybe it's because I was born in the UK too). Why would people want to go to the gym and lift heavy metal to face level and do things that are uncomfortable and even painful? There's a joke that you never see a smiling jogger - they're always grimacing. And it's true. (the joke goes on to suggest that driving by you should put them out of their misery, like a post-cat-play mouse. I wouldn't go THAT far).

But really - "I'll feel better after this" only carries the argument so far. "Runner's highs" of flowing endorphins are not things that many people are prepared to punish themselves (and I use that word advisedly) to get. "I have to do this for my health" is scolding yerself to go to the gym. Scolding is NOT a good way to modify behaviour, to get compliance. It just isn't. People who are scolded into behaviour A resent it, and will avoid as soon/much as possible.

Obviously this "really getting into this fitness thing" works for you, Paul, and hooray for you. But it aint doing it for the hubby, and I can't say I'm surprised. If you want him to exercise, and I do actually understand the benefits thereof, then maybe the best thing you can do to advance that cause is to find something enjoyable to do that incorporates enjoyment, fun. Doing things with a partner always helps, for reinforcement reasons if nothing else. Dance, run TO somewhere, do SOMEthing that is both enjoyable AND pulse-raising. Because lifting heavy metal to face level, or shoving exercise equipment from one side to the other and then back again, is the task of Sisyphus and ultimately B-O-R-I-N-G. Those who are into fitness gitter on about expansions and reps and things they did. It interests them, so it works for them. But if the interest level is somewhere below ankle-height, it doesn't work for me, and it's not going to work for your hubby.

Best of luck.