What Three Hours Of Exercise Really Looks Like

By annie

Throughout all of my counseling sessions, the topic of my “excessive” exercise comes up most often. This week we determined that I work out for a minimum of three hours a day, sometimes doing as much as six hours depending on what I have going on. Of course everyone is freaking out right now. THREE HOURS, wow I could never do THREE HOURS.

Yoga, strength training and cardio six days a week.

Here’s a typical day.

Yoga – 1 hour. OK I call it yoga, although what it might actually be is that I am old and it takes me that long to get out of bed. Six months, or so, ago I developed a wonky hip. It takes about an hour of stretching and bending to get the wonky worked out. It also helps me be less sore after trying new things, which I am always doing.

Multi-tasking / strength training – We’ll call it an hour too. I have a touch of the ADHD. Shocking. I know. I am also acquiring many letters to go after my name. Sometimes studying nutrition sucks me in and I lose track of time, other times, I need to stop and do pushups or jump rope, or run up and down the stairs a couple of times to get the sillies out. Maybe I should medicate instead? This method has helped me maintain a 97 average so far, and it’s free. So, totally counts as an hour in my book. I also do this when I’m doing something “relaxing” like watching TV. Even more so since I lost the DVR in the divorce. If I leave the room during commercials I sometimes (often) forget to come back. So instead I do pushups for 3 minutes during commercials, or lunges or pull ups, or anything really.

Running or biking or rowing or skating – something cardio – anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. Excessive? Hardly. In fact, it’s not excessive enough, but I do what I can. A “quick” run of 30 minutes is a workout for most people. For me, it’s barely worth putting the shoes on. This is not me bragging or anything, but if you want to go run a marathon, 30 minutes 3 times a week isn’t going to get you there. Rowing class is an hour, kicks my ass. Roller Derby takes two hours, sure there are breaks here and there, but really, we’re bustin it for two hours.

I’m not even counting all the latent exercise I do. Like wearing my skates around the house in order to get used to being on them, and working on foot work while I do laundry. I take the stairs instead of the elevator. Exercise for me is not something I dread. I look forward to it. I crave it. Maybe I’m like a crack addict who doesn’t “have a problem”, but really, I think I’m just not lazy. What I wanted to give to you by writing this is that you too can be not lazy. You don’t have to devote 90 minutes in a gym every day. Just work exercise in to your day, little by little and pretty soon you’ll be defending the position that three hours isn’t even really doing anything at all.