The ONLY thing that keeps me from despising my body is using it for fun; having it be more than the thing that gets me from point A to point B.
WHAT do you enjoy? I've yet to meet someone who found nothing fun that's physical. They are often, however, not one that a person might think of as a physical activity. Here are some moderate to VERY physically active things that you might not think of:
- Music: playing, or singing
- Gardening
- Massage
- Museums (walking around museums is a LOT of walking)
- Art: painting, sculpture, glass, photography
- Babysitting (especially toddlers)
- Cooking (shopping, standing, chopping, prepping, sauteeing, stirring, tossing, flashing, kneeding, decorating... spend 2 hours or more cooking or decorating -ugh, get into decorating for a workout- and not only are you exhausted but most people can't stand to eat... it's like the food absorbed through their pores)
- Shopping
- Strolling (not "I'm going to walk for my health!" kind of walks, but walking somewhere pretty, chatting with a friend or enjoying the view)
- Sailing
- Flying kites
- Sitting up straight (military trick for maintaining weight and muscle tone is to NEVER lean against anything, even when sitting down). Over 90% of the calories we burn every day are from keeping our muscles and bones upright. Sitting up straight or standing up straight can actually add 1/3 - double your calorie expenditure for the day. OKAY okay, sitting and standing straight isn't "fun" per se, but it's amazing how much PERKIER (and occasionally ridiculous) one feels doing it. And a little ridiculousness/ perkyness can be fun. Or at least, a break from the routine.
- Manual typewriter (back in the days where weighing secretaries was a standard the average secretary gained 15lbs -and kept it on for decades- when the stenography groups switched from manual to electric typewriters ANYTHING that causes a person to keep off 15lbs counts as physical in my book). So if you write for fun in any fashion... break out a manual typewriter and BANG BANG ZWOOSH CLICK to your heart's content.
And only about 1000 more from knitting to hairstyling. That's not even counting the other several hundred that are actually obviously physically active like swimming, hiking, sports, etc.
The point i'm bringing these up though, ISN'T weight loss. (Although a side effect of doing fun physical things is weightloss). It's FUN things that one can do with one's body. If all our body did was hold our mind we could be in a jar. ANYHOW... I'm just MUCH happier in general (and less likely to be in the depths of despair over my appearance) when my body is actually doing fun things. Maybe that's a no brainer. It's taken me a long time to learn that, though.