When I was younger, I used to play sports. In recent years, I tried kickboxing and loved it, but had trouble fitting it into my regular schedule after I came back from sabbatical, and I finally stopped on account of shoulder pain and panniculitis (inflammation of the subcutaneous fatty tissue) in the front of my lower leg, which I believe had to to with the kicking trauma.

I have always hated running; I admire people who can do it, because it seems to be  phenomenal exercise, but I find it deathly boring, among other things. I would prefer to have some sort of activity where there is someone who pushes me to do stuff (because I know I will cheat if left to my own devices) and I like it if there are other people around, but such an activity would have to be one I can accommodate in my schedule and which hopefully doesn’t involve excruciating shoulder pain.

There are also constraints in that I don’t want to make my DH have to pick up the slack regarding handling the kids on account of my exercise too many times per week. With child drop off and pickup/evening activities of various children, my time at work is highly constrained, so I also can’t just take an hour to go to the gym in the middle of the day.

If people really want to exercise, they find the time. I completely agree with that. My problem is that I don’t really want to exercise, but I know that I should, because I am getting older, I sit too much, I don’t want to get diabetes/hypertension/heart attack/blood clots from too much sitting, and I would like to see my kids grow up.

So, how does one squeeze in the time to exercise, when one should, but is not burning with desire to do so and therefore is not willing to go to great lengths upending her and everyone else’s schedules? How do you fit in the minimum necessary exercise around the fringes of your schedule? And what is the true minimal exercise? People say 1 hr per day, which is too much of a time commitment for many people, and definitely for the likes of me who don’t actually want to do it.

Kudos to everyone who exercises regularly.
However, this is a post and a question for the rest of us, for reluctant and/or simply lazy would-be or barely exercisers (especially those who work and have young families):

Do you exercise? How often, how much? What would you consider an acceptable minimum? How do you squeeze it in?
How do you will yourself to do it? Were you once more or less lazy than you are now?

Can one stay fit and healthy long-term, while never falling in love with exercise? Is it possible? Or are heart attacks looming in our collective future?