“Despite all my foliage, I am still just a tree in a cage”

Just down there eating shit for its whole life

Start slow. Good for you for starting now! Exercise is so important for both mental and physical health. The most important thing is being consistent, not doing super hard workouts and then burning out. So start with what you think you can maintain. Even a 15 minute workout makes a huge difference to your overall health and energy, so start there. Can you commit to 15 minutes a day of walking, dance, abs, weights, or bike? There’s no wrong way to exercise, you’ve just got to move. Start with 15 minutes, 3x a week minimum. It’ll give you more energy and then you’ll be able to do 30 min. And then more from there! Maybe you’ll find a class you enjoy like Zumba or yoga!

People get discouraged when they think they have to exercise for an hour or it’s useless and that’s simply not true. Start small. If you have a few bad days and don’t workout at all, no problem, just start again the next day! This a lifelong habit!

Do or do not, there is no try. Literally: do something. Anything. Right now. Stand up and do two air squats. Don’t let the fear of not knowing the perfect answer get in the way of starting something right now.

Workout:

Exercise 1: wall press. Stand in front of a wall. Put hands on wall just below shoulder length. Bend your elbows (not at your waist) and let yourself get closer to the wall. Push back to standing. Do this ten times, rest for two minutes, and do it again but the second time do it until you can’t do any more.

Exercise 2: Air squat. Stand in front of a normal dining room chair. Sit down in the chair. Without using your hands. Stand up from the chair. Do this ten times. If you can’t do ten, do as many as you can. Rest standing up for two minutes. Do a second ‘set’ of these but instead of ten, do as many as you can consecutively (up to say 30).

Congratulations, you’ve done your first structured workout in a long time.

The best exercise is the one that you can get yourself to do regularly.

Come up with any sort of plan that sounds good. Make sure it's super easy. So easy that there's no way you can't stick to it. Then do it!

After a couple months of building this new, easy habit, add to it a little bit. Not much, just another small step in the right direction. Repeat as necessary until of you have all of the new habits that you wanted to build.

Yes curious too

While putting in the time, take it easy and don't over do it by going too hard at it. Build up slowly.
You are less likely to want to give up because you hurt if you take it slowly.

Love to hear what you ended up taking medication wise (knowing it’s specific to your conditions)

Take a cue from Atomic Habits and set the bar so low that it’s almost impossible to fail. Can you walk 5 minutes a day, rain or shine, 5 days a week? That’s how I started and did at least Walk Away the Pounds on YouTube and now exercise an hour a day 5-6x week.

I use walking as an example as it’s easy, doesn’t require much except sneakers, and is the easiest exercise on the body.

Do you have a small step? If so just start by doing step ups. Start with just five on each leg and work your way up. Since you haven’t worked out you’ll start to see a change. It’s all about little steps. Even just walking 10 minutes will help. Also try scheduling a set time. For example. I go to the gym at 530 after some time you won’t even think about it. The hardest part is being patient enough to see results. If you need motivation I’m here to help. Best of luck on your fitness journey!

I second the approach of slow. We tend to do too much too soon and our brains love to talk us out of “hard” things we are not used to. We do hard things all the time, so you can do this. Even if you love it, starting small at first(even if it’s once a week) is worthwhile. I loved pole fitness, but it was hard to be consistent until I picked a day to go no matter what. If I felt shitty, well then I had to accept it would be a shitty class. I noticed it took about 3 months before my brain stopped trying to talk me out of it and instead it had become a habit, which meant I was on auto pilot to go and it wasn’t any effort anymore. Then is it got easier to do more. This slow start resulted in years of consistency and increased physical activity that even when I gained weight and lost a lot of strength when I wasn’t active at all during covid lockdown, my body maintained a strength that was significantly greater in my late 30s than it was in my 20s.

Exercising is hard. When I first started I ended up with hematomas- bruises - in my arms and couldn’t straighten them for a week.

Full stop what you are wanting to do it tough. By starting you are doing something that 68% of Americans don’t do.

I have run marathons and I promise you I started at a half mile.

Aim for what I call a shitty mile.

In those case, aim for a goal on your machine where if you wanted to talk it may be a little difficult to do so using a resistance that you wouldn’t want to have a long conversation. From there you know what your starting point should be.

You should do 20 min of it the first time. Then 2 days later 25 min. Use a goal of 30 min every other day but change the resistance till your body tells you it’s hard to keep a long conversation going.

TLDR; start with anything. Aim to get your hr to a place where it would be a little tough to talk and exercise. When you can do that for 30 min. Keep increasing the intensity to get the same sweat going. This is where you can use goals of kcals. Aim for 200 kcals then 250 in 30 min… it will come if you are willing to do it. You got this.

Now I gotta get back to running… I ran 4 miles today and felt like I was gonna fall over. I’ll be right there with ya

Take a walk everyday. Doesn't matter how long. Start there and you got this!

Nothing like specificity— if you want to hike, get out and start walking. Don’t even set a distance or time requirement at first, just go every day. Don’t get crazy at the start, around the block, ease into it. Just build that expectation that you’re going to do something every day. This alone will get you to hiking.

At your age (I’m right there too) adding in some strength training will really make you feel good too. There are a ton of body weight workouts you could find online. Even just adding some squats or basic deadlifts with some milk jugs would make a difference.

I started doing these 7 minute workouts a few years ago and they were great and could be a good starting point: 7 minute workouts

Accountability partners and an emphasis on building a daily habit.

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Just walk. Anyone can do it, it's good for your mental health.
Then add in stairs. Maybe your park has those exercise stations? Keep it low impact

Your 20s are going to end. This probably sounds true but abstract to you now, but your 20s are going to end. How are you preparing for that?

If you’re like me, you’re probably preparing by rushing to accomplish things, feeling bad that they’re not enough, pushing yourself harder, rinse and repeat. You might have a bucket list of things you feel like you “have” to get done before you’re 30. And when the big day comes, you might stay up all night repeating to yourself, “I’m still in my 20s. I’m still 29. I’m still in my- auuugh!” as the clock hits 12:00.

What I wish I had done was prepare myself for a seamless entrance into my 30s. By viewing the decade as another opportunity to get things done, to become who I want to become.

Let’s be real, the only reason why we think our 20s are the end is because all our favorite characters in books and movies are supposed to be 20s or younger, right? We’ve been conditioned to see only young people go on the hero’s journey and do big things. Start searching for the source of that narrative and challenge it. Because 30 is coming for you and nothing you can accomplish will be big enough to keep you from feeling like a failure when it does, unless you accomplish that paradigm shift first.

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Takes a lot to recognize your problems and a hella lot more to take that first step towards resolving them. You sir are my 1st Chad of 2023!

METALLICA!

And to you for making yourself go and doing whatever it took to show up for yourself to get better. Not many people make it that way sadly

It might not be a bad idea to check in with your doctor first as well. He or she may have some tips as well, not to mention the health check.

My wife hadn’t worked out in a while and got back into it by doing yoga. It’s a gentle way to naturally build strength and flexibility with straining yourself on a piece of equipment.

I was 45, post breast cancer, 40% body fat and muscle mass was well below 40 pounds. Basically I was 215 points of fat on a frame.

Step one. Make the time. Start doing SOMETHING at that daily time.

You can “not exercise” at any time. However- you have to show up at the workout spot/place, fully dressed, at the scheduled time. You can look at the door or whatever. THEN you can decide to not workout.

Drink water. Basically only water for now.

Meet your intake of daily lean proteins. Don’t worry about the other things to start. Just hit your protein target every day. Not over, but especially not under.

That’s where I started. It grew organically from there.

Under 30% fat and dropping. Muscle mass at 57 pounds.

Do NOT rely on weight. It’s useless. I dropped 4 pant sizes while weight was 155-157. Went from A 10 to a 6.