I've rediscovered my love of hiking. Combined with my love of photography, going out on a Sunday morning for a hike through the local nature parks with my camera makes me forget that hiking is actually exercise.

I just bought a bicycle-- the first one I have had since I was a kid in the 80's. I absolutely love it (now that I've gotten used to sitting on a little bicycle seat...). He is shiny and blue and I'm still deciding on a name for him. I also bought a bright pink helmet. We didn't wear those as kids so I'm getting used to the funny headgear.

I pack a picnic and a good book, ride out for an hour or so on one of my favorite trails, have a little lunch along the Potomac, and ride back. Sometimes I meet up with friends who do the same thing, but I usually like to ride by myself. It is more like a fun little outing than anything else, and I'm learning my way around a much bigger area than I did with my walking and running. I'm amazed at how much more ground I can cover. It makes me feel like a speed demon after the poky walking and running, even though speed is not really my goal. It's so much fun!

Reading this post really made we want to play volleyball. It has been so long since I've done that. I remember how much fun it used to be.

Try fencing! It is the most kickass sport in the world, hands down, no contest.

There is no ideal fencing body. Different body types gravitate to different weapons (tall and lanky to epee; short, bouncy and explosive to sabre; medium height and generally athletic to foil), but personality and style are far more important in deciding what you fence.

Fencing is where smarts, aerobic strength, anaerobic explosiveness, and flexibility converge. It's a lot of lower body, so your legs get really strong (J. Lo should have forgone butt implants for fencing lessons). Fencing has a steep learning curve, but it's extremely fun and you can do it literally your whole life. (I fence people from 16 to 60-something, and the 60-something beats me.)

Here ya go: http://usfa.org/ (Click on "Find A Club In Your Area" at the top.) If you decide to give it a go, most clubs have a series of adult beginner classes where they provide you with the necessary gear.

Weet,
You sound just where I was a few years ago, mentally and perhaps physically: formerly an athlete and dancer, when I became a grownup and got busy with other things, fitness became a burden, and I exercised less and less until I was completely out of shape. I kept trying to go to the gym, and might temporarily restart an exercise habit, but I never enjoyed it much and it was always the first thing to go when life got busy.

After a while I figured out a couple of really important things:
1. All-or-nothing thinking is destructive, I have a habit of doing it, and I was doing it with exercise. Must do cardio and strength training and flexibility and work out every day! Or… mmm, chips, couch, good.
2. I hate using cardio machines. I find it intolerably boring.
3. When you’re not in shape, exercise IS harder and less fun.
4. The more I thought about exercising to lose weight, the less I wanted to do it. The more I thought about exercising to get in shape, the more motivated I was. In other words, the more I thought I about what my body looked like, the worse I felt, and the more I thought about what it could do the better I felt.

I’ll spare you an overly long story and skip to now: I consistently do some kind of exercise minimum of 2 days a week, usually 4-5, in really good spells every day. While I do often have to push myself to begin, once I’m going I rarely think about wanting to be doing something else. Ye old iPod is great for that (especially Podcasts and audio books), and so is group fitness (for me – not everyone’s cup of tea, I know).

You asked, so here’s my advice:
1. Make a list of the kinds of exercise you hate doing. Things you just don’t see yourself ever enjoying. (In addition to cardio machines, mine includes yoga. I know that’s heresy or something, but I just don’t enjoy it!) And now… don’t do those things! Set yourself free from feeling like you have to. You do have to exercise for your health, but you don’t have to do the particular kinds of exercise you hate!
2. Now think about some active things you don’t mind, or think you wouldn’t mind if you tried them. (For me, this was swimming, something I loved as a kid and hadn’t done in years, and aerobics classes, which felt satisfyingly like dancing).
3. Start a little at a time. Give yourself time to get the habit into your life – just once a week to start, then bump up to twice, then to three times. If you never go more than three times a week, you’re still three times better off! And also give yourself time to build up some fitness. Physiologically, it’s pretty easy to gain aerobic fitness, but we lose it quickly. It takes longer to build up muscular strength and endurance, but it stays around longer.

Remember, just like your body deserves your love and respect, it deserves to do what it was made to do: move around!

I have found that working out to get better at something I really love to do makes exercising more palatable for me.

For example, I'm learning how to race sailboats with my fiance and I am a NIGHT. MARE. I'm clumsy, I've had some pretty dangerous falls, I'm not strong enough to do certain things, I even have trouble hoisting my body weight from one side of the stupid boat to the other when tacking.

That said, I LOVE IT.

I know that the stronger and more fit and agile that I become, through working out, the better I will be. So when I find that my motivation is really waning, I take a look at the black and blue marks all over my body from saililng, or I think about a humiliating tumble on the boat, and I get my lazy ass on the treadmill! It's a huge motivator!

i have never ever been a teamsport person. don't really love the rah-rah-rah of it all. but i recently discovered Dragonboating. I don't know where you live, weetabix, but if you like the water at all, this is an excellent, active, but not exhausting water sport. Seeing the city from the perspective of the water, sometimes I forget i'm working out at all. Here's more info: http://www.usdbf.org/

Also...I find exercise much more fun when I can do it with my dog. Or borrow someone else's dog. Since we got a puppy last year, I have found myself yearning to get on the hiking trails because I get so distracted watching her explore all the new sights and sounds. 3 hours goes by pretty darn quick.

I feel lucky that I have an exercise I truly love: swimming. I'm not the best swimmer, but I'm not bad and I love to challenge myself. I have a website I get workouts off of and I try to get faster and better at it. It's the only activity I've ever done where I look forward to kicking my own butt with a tough workout. That's how I know it's right for me. The more I do it, the more I want to keep doing it.

I like Sonce's advice of making a list of what you do and don't like. Because you're only going to get out there and do it if you enjoy it and actually WANT to get off the couch.

The Wii Fit is a lot of fun. We've played at a friend's house and though I was skeptical as to its value for improving fitness, there are honestly some activities on there that give you a good workout. Also, there are some ridiculous elements that had me laughing so hard my abs were sore the next day. I'm trying to convince my husband that it's worth the expense. Maybe we'll get one for Christmas...

Buffy marathons while on the machines and old lady water aerobics!

I'm not really much of an exercise fan. Have never been lucky enough to find any sport I really enjoyed playing. So the way I do it is to work exercise into something else I'd have to do anyway. For example I will walk to the supermarket with my little granny shopping cart instead of driving, or I will ride my bike to work or get off the train one stop early and walk the rest of the way. There is also my daily dog walk. When I got a dog, I committed to walking her every day because otherwise it wouldn't be fair to her (she's an active breed). I call her my exercise machine. While it's hard to get out of bed some mornings, the fact that she's sitting there staring up at me is a great motivator.