Biking, swimming and walking the beach are my 3 favorite "sweat-producers". A close 4th is tennis and golf....but they cost $$ and I can't find the time and energy to haul out the equipment and go to the clubhouse...but the bikes are in the garage, and he pool is out back...hence my two favorite "go-to" workouts.

Why work out? It's a high...I feel so much better after having "pushed" myself. I think when the day comes that it hurts too much to bike or swim I'll be ready to say....bye-bye...

I pay a trainer...that motivates me to show up even when I don't want to...once I get going, I am pumped and work out hard...after 15 years, I am still not motivated to do it on my own...I need a partner or other person to motivate me...I do walk on my own and I do like "fun" activities like swimming, rowing, playing tennis, gardening...

I don't because I don't. XD I think I would need an external motivator like someone being on my case to join them for a class/session we signed up for or a health condition that was killing me. My internal motivations come for intellectual or humanistic pursuits, not so much physical excercise.

I use the same technique of bullshitting myself and then reneging. The subconscious seems perpetually naive and highly suggestible.

I pay a fairly heavy price for exercise due in large part, I'm coming to find, to unresolved issues with my past brush with Lyme Disease, specifically, PTLDS, Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome. So for me there is no endorphin rush, just physical pain, stiffness, sometimes neurological pain or numbness, and some balance issues lasting 24 to 72 hours after a good workout. I am still experimenting trying to find ways around it. Improvement in diet has helped some; beyond that the only remedy is dogged persistence. All science knows about the phenomenon so far is that the organism leaves behind some sort of enzyme that the body can't clear, which causes a low grade autoimmune response.

I do have a lot of muscle knots (passive trigger points) -- it's like there's a half dozen plastic easter eggs hiding in my calves -- and I bear down on those with a styrofoam roller every day, which is eye-wateringly painful. I also stretch my calves by standing on foam wedges while working at my stand-up desk -- I've gotten to where I can stand that for about 20 minutes at a time -- and I use a custom strap to stretch my legs in various ways. The hope is that over several months I can at least partially undo years of disease, or failing that, prevent any further deterioration.

Mostly I take it in stride; I've been dragging my sorry ass around like a sack of unwilling flesh for 50 years now, since the initial infection, and I hide it well. No one wants to hear about it anyway.

I work out with a trainer for 60 minutes once a week (he also professionally stretches me after, and sometimes before), try to get in 10,000 steps of walking daily (I'm heading out now at dusk to polish off today's quota) and now and then I work out at the gym or on my stationary bike a couple other days a week, only not as strenuously as with the trainer -- good grief, I can't be a basked case ALL week. Balance has improved and I sometimes see erratic manifestations of better endurance and strength. My trainer says I can tolerate more stretching than at first (he says I am tighter than anyone he's ever worked with).

So it goes. Understandably, it took me a long time (about 20 years) to change my relationship to formal exercise from one of loathing to embracing it. My motivation comes mostly from a desire to not worry my wife, not wanting to become totally decrepit, and needing to be as functional as possible for my stepson, who is a young adult on the autism spectrum who I am mentoring in my profession and in life. I was getting to the point that I moved more like a 92 year old than a 62 year old at times, and that just won't do.