Sorry for the long post, but I just need to say it. Last year, I decided to be get into shape, because everyone agrees its healthy. At that point I never exercised since high school athletics. I wasn’t overweight or anything, 6’3″, 185lbs, but I figured it’ll be the good thing to do.

So after a year, I am now nearly the same weight, but have much more muscle and less fat. Several of my T-Shirts are now tight around my biceps. I can see defined abs for the first time in 15 years since I was in high school. Instead of being out of breath and hating running after a mile and a half, I now get out of breath and hate running after 5 miles.

And that’s it. That’s the only positive effects it had on my life. Now onto the negatives and why I regret it.

Training sucked. Every day sucked. I hated running. I started easy at only 1 mile, and slowly over 6 months worked up to 5 miles. Every second sucked, I hated prepping for it, I hated during it, and hated that I forced myself to do it afterwords. After 6 months I decided to make it easier on myself and no longer increase the distance and hope that it’ll become easier. It never did. For weight training I went to the gym 3 days a week between my runs. And that also absolutely sucked. Conveniently the gym is like a 3 minute drive down the road or a 5 minute run, so that made it bearable. But I hated constantly watching what I ate so my muscles weren’t sore. The initial “noob gains” were nice, but after 3 months I started to plateau and barely increased much at all, which makes convincing yourself to keep going that much more difficult when you don’t see any change.

With all this increased exercise I was STARVING all the time. I was so used to having low activity and eating a small amount to maintain that weight, and now I had to force myself to eat way more food than I was comfortable with to avoid passing out from lack of calories. Another side effect that all the exercise had was that I am CONSTANTLY horny. CONSTANTLY. It never ends. I could go several times a day if I could.

And after a year, it never got easier. Never once did I feel like my body “needed” it. I never craved it. Going on a vacation for a week in summer I didn’t do anything and I didn’t miss it at all. It was miserable going back to that routine. And speaking of routine, it never became routine to me. Every single day was a struggle I hated.

So after evaluating my last year of being on a fitness journey, I decided that my normal day to day life is enough. I walk dogs and play with two toddlers. That’s all the exercise I need. Obviously if you are in an unhealthy situation you will have a much different experience than me, but I was already mentally very happy and “fit” enough for my life before I started this. I’m going to enjoy the next year by not doing any of that ever again. My gym membership expires in 2 weeks, and I can put my running shoes away, and I’ve never been happier than now since I can finally put all that behind me.