Life on a Treadmill
Well, this is not a metaphor. Literally how we should treat treadmill as part of our life.
Sport and exercise. Two words that are easy to say, easy to execute, but very difficult to commit.
We can plan, oh this weekend I will wake up early, wear my sport suit and shoes, and I will go jogging around my neighborhood. I strongly believe we will be able to plan and execute this. But will we able to stay committed for every weeks?
Some challenges we are facing to be committed to outdoor exercise activities:
- Time. It has to be done on certain specific time. We missed it, we skipped it, because it is not convenient to do at later time, i.e. during hot noon.
- Fashion. We are going outside of house. So it is pretty much mandatory that we wear acceptable clothes and shoes. You can’t just go running around with your pajamas, right? 😆
- Weather. If it is rain, oh let’s skip it tomorrow of next week.
- Route. Your environment might not be that ideal. Inclining road, pollution from the passing vehicles, or even being chased a dog roaming on the street. Not that I disagree it would be a good running exercise though. But surely this can add into de-motivation.
- It somehow ended up with us buying snack or heavy calories food after the sport activity finished. There goes all the effort. Hey, good meal after sweating up is always good, no? 🏃
Let me go back a bit into how it all began.
My wife, an official National Judge and Referee for Pencak Silat martial art in Indonesia, her job requires her to be always in good physique. For some reasons (like some points mentioned above), it is difficult to us to be exercising regularly. She is not satisfied with her recent physique test. We both agree that we need to find alternative where sport should be fun and can be easily done every day.
While we were visiting Timezone arcade, she was interested in a dancing game called Pump-it-up.
Dancing is fun. It also can burn calories. Not only her, our son is also interested and love watching how people can be very good in scoring that game. Having said that, she had been asking me for a while to buy Pump-it-up dance floor. I’m glad I was reluctant — not only because it is expensive, but because of the following reason.
We actually saw a lot of people were amazing at playing this game. Like able to score more than 1000 combos without any mistake on a terribly high beat song. However, somehow many of them were — I apologize beforehand — overweight. This article does not mean to discredit any people or body shaming, but I need to incline to a fact that, this game, no matter how sweat it gives, does not seem to be very effective in reducing body fat.
Yes-yes, I understand, it could also be because people don’t moderate their food intake 😅
I might be biased, but on the other side, when you actually see people who regularly do jogging, most of them (if not all) actually managed to reach ideal body weight. Anyways, this leads to our agreement, that we should go and buy a Treadmill instead. And there we have it in our house.
I find treadmill is very convenient to use:
- You can use it anytime you like, morning, noon, night, like literally any time.
- It is indoor. You don’t care about weather. You don’t have to wear shoes. You don’t have to wear sport suits. You can even be naked ( — please don’t listen to me on this)
- Your exercise is up to you. You want to run, you want to walk. You want it quick, you want it long, you decide yourself according to your own pace. Nobody will be seeing nor judging you in how you exercise, unlike in a gym.
- You don’t have to worry about roads, route, or neighbor dogs 😆
- You can do treadmill while listening to spotify or even putting your phone/ tablet and watching movie on it. Time surely files when you do this.
Alright. One issue remains though. How can we be committed to be exercising regularly.
As for me, because I love watching anime, I have set this promise. I will not watch my favorite anime, unless I am doing it while on treadmill. At the time I am writing this article, I am currently following this anime: Hanamaru Kindergarten.
It is super kawaiiii and funny. One episode lasts more than 20 minutes, it is more than sufficient exercise period on your treadmill.
I hope this tip can help you in exercising regularly. Cheers! 🍻
