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supertinks) wrote2007-11-15 01:57 pm
women and exercise
There is an article on the BBC news website today about how women aren't doing enough exercise to be healthy (report is here). Apparently we don't have enough decent rolemodels to encourage us to be fit and sporty, because the only female role models we have are WAGs, models and actresses who are all to skinny. Apparently we are all brainwashed by the media into believing that its better to be unhealthily thin than to be healthily trim and fit.
There is also a debate on the BBC's Have Your Say boards, which I have been reading with interest this morning. The general consensus on there is that PE lessons in school were so awful, humiliating, degrading and unmotivating that this is the reason that most women aren't interested in doing sport. There's also a lot of crap on there about how women are too busy doing housework and looking after kids etc to have the time to do any sort of exercise.
You may be thinking "yeah, but look at you, I bet you were on all the school teams etc cos you're obviously sports-inclined" but you'd be wrong. I hated it. Was never picked for the netball team because most of the girls in our school played for the county (I once played for the school B team and the school C team. I mean, how embarrassing is it to say you had to be in the C team??). I was useless at hockey. I would have loved to have played rugby, but girls weren't allowed.
Outside school I rode my bike all the time, ran round lots with my mates, roller-blading, we played football on the school fields in the evenings/weekends. We kicked rugby balls about on the training pitch over the road. I did ballroom dancing when I was much younger as well.
By the time I was in sixth form, I did very little 'sports', by the time I was in Uni I did none (and was eating atrociously). LARP probably counts as exercise but probably doesnt count when you consider all the booze and burgers and snacks you consume at an event!
Its only since I left uni, starting eating properly again, bought myself a new bike and become motivated to change that I've started doing sport again. At the moment its not working just right because I have no proper routine, but that will change hopefully very soon, when I sort myself out again. So if we look ahead a couple of weeks, my weekly regime will include:
1 hour swimming
1 hr 15 mins cycling
30 mins hardcore cardio gym exercise
30 mins more relaxed fat-burning gym exercise
1-2 hours rock climbing.
Which is approximately 4-5 hours exercise a week. They recommend 2 and a half hours (30 mins, 5 times a week) so I think I'm doing pretty good there.
The odd thing to note there I think is that not a single one of those activities is a team sport. I may be tempted, when I have more money and time, to take up something like badminton or squash, but even thats just a nice activity I'll be sharing with Jamie, and not a team sport. Also I may investigate something like Yoga or Pilates, because there's a place that does classes not too far from home, but its expensive so we'll have to see.
I really do think school PE has erased any desire I had to partake in team sport activity.
So, on to the point of this excessive ramble... I want to know from you guys (not just women, although that was the original prompt) whether or not you think you do enough exercise, and why that might be. What was PE like in your school?
I'd do some sort of poll but I'm cheap and don't pay for livejournal, so you'll just have to make up your own answers :-)
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i also had very low self confidence and so was unable or unwilling to try the more aggressive sports like rugby.
fitting exercise in around normal life can be hard. i think the actual thing is for people to stop looking at it as a chore for starters. (some of us smoke and fit that in, binge drinking etc these are all bad for your health, why not just do something good for ourselves for once)
mainly i think people jump in both feet first, try to do too much to prove to themselves they are not unfit, hurt themselves and then use that excuse to avoid doing it ever again. much like many other things in life.
what do i do personally? i walk to and from work, 2 miles each way, i do gym 4 days a week, splitting my workouts sensibly between different muscle groups. i also eat sensibly do not smoke and rarely drink (although when i do...)
oh yeah and no money is a dire excuse, the most effective workouts can be done with no equipment other than your household furniture like chairs anyway so it's just another crappy excuse made by people who do not actually want to do it and do not want to admit it. (saw ros' excuse,(though not aimed specifically at her) but it is one i hear frequently. that one and the 'i have no time' one)
if people are not bothered they should be left to carry on as they are, so long as they don't moan to me about being fat, unfit etc...if they do then i will tell them what they're doing wrong, if that is what they want. invariably involves eating less and doing more!
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And the gutting thing is, I love exercising. I'd spend 15 hours a week in the gym if I could.
right now, 15 minutes would be lucky.
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you are on one end.
on the other is a friend i have who works about 10 hours a week and uses the 'i have no time' excuse....
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Absolutely yes! Jamie made me join the gym, and i started out hating it because I felt like I was being forced into doing something that wasnt fun, and that everyone would be looking at me and laughing because I was using really low settings and not going very fast etc.
after a while I realised that noone gave a shit about what I was doing, because they were concentrating on what they were doing. But I got bored of the gym, so I've turned to activities that are more fun (like cycling properly when I cycle to work, so its actually exercise, and swimming, which I've always loved). Its why we're taking up rock climbing, cos we think it will be a laugh and be good for us.
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