Running Regularly, And Other Habits

10 Oct, 2025

A few months ago, I started exercising regularly. I mean, I've been "exercising regularly" on and off for years, to no one's surprise, but I have been actually consistently doing it for probably my longest streak yet now. Also to no one's surprise, this has improved by mental and physical health, made me feel more confident, and expelled anxious energy.

Here's a timeline of exercising in my life thus far:

• As a teen, my brother and his wife had a membership to a really bougie gym. I went sometimes, skinny as a twig, and thought it was pretty fun. They had a sauna, climbing wall, pool, hot yoga, guided cycling, the works. Eventually it cost too much money for my brother to continue going, and I didn't even attend that much anyway after a while.

• Use parents' home gym to work out every other weekday. Helped to be at home, as I have agoraphobic-adjacent tendencies, especially related to driving. Eventually they dismantled their home gym to use the room for something else. I used the free app Caliber to track and plan workouts, which I still recommend for people new to working out who don't know where to start.

• Lower standards for exercising and do it solely in my bedroom. I found that if I saw exercising as something you need a bunch of equipment and a gym for, it actually kept me from exercising more. I kept one pair of dumbbells in my room as my only equipment, and started working out every weekday. I was also off-put by having to change clothes to work out every day, since I get all sweaty, so I simply didn't wear clothes. That's uh, not something you can do at the gym. This is also when I started using the app Hevy, which I still use to this day. You can find curated workout routines for free and track them easily, with little videos on how to do sets.

• Get membership at Planet Fitness, because my job at the time covered gym expenses. This showed me the power of gyms, and how much easier they make working out. Having an actual treadmill, weights, and cycling machinery was awesome, and I started running the most I ever had since high school P.E class. I didn't do much strength training because I was (am) socially anxious and scared of people nearby. This was ultimately the downside of having a gym, because I had to drive to it. It wasn't that far, I just really am that anxious about driving.

• Present day, I use my fiancé's parents' home gym because it's on the same property. It has everything I need: dumbbells, treadmill, air conditioning. This means I now work out 4 days a week for an hour, which has been fantastic. I'm still working on being able to run longer and faster, and lifting more than 30 lbs. I do about 30-40 minutes strength training, and 20-30 minutes running usually. When I'm really feeling unmotivated, sometimes I only run, or I do high-incline walking instead of running if my leg muscles are feeling sensitive.

From the beginning, the point was very much just doing some exercise each day, no matter how small. A walk, 10 minutes at the gym, whatever, just go do it. I can't really say it has gotten much easier to exercise; I'm procrastinating going to work out this second, writing this post...

Something that helps me go do something I am mentally resisting doing, such as working out, has been to-do lists. This doesn't work for everyone, but I've found that having an annoying notification on my phone, set to repeat every day, gets me to Do The Thing. The satisfaction of clearing that day's tasks is phenomenal as well.

I use Todoist for this. The free plan is more than enough for me, personally, and I even have a shared to-do list I share with my fiancé. This includes a grocery list, upcoming plans with friends and family, and a whole shared project just for wedding planning. My routines include simple stuff for now, such as working out, reading scriptures for 30 minutes¹, and attending catechumen class every Wednesday at 20:00. Having a to-do list for my habits has been immensely useful, especially sorting them by day of the week, and having individual Home/School/Work projects.

Hopefully I'll keep exercising like I am, and maybe even more, with more motivation.

Subscribe via email or RSS

Footnotes

#lifestyle #thoughts