Not "exercise" as in "shape your body to match the expectation that you must look a certain way."
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I don't think I discovered the panacea that will make me far more physically active all of a sudden.
But I think I may have learned something about how I can care for my body without the stress, pressure, shame, & guilt of trying to exercise in the "right" or "most effective" way.
What if the biggest barrier to me incorporating movement into my life was just the belief that I *had* to follow someone else's lead or do one of the "pre-approved" forms of exercise?
@artemis Yes! This! I was a PT for decades. Exercise and activity is what is meaningful and useful for YOU. And ALL activity counts. Exercise as a separate thing is kind of weird, tbh.
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I don't think I discovered the panacea that will make me far more physically active all of a sudden.
But I think I may have learned something about how I can care for my body without the stress, pressure, shame, & guilt of trying to exercise in the "right" or "most effective" way.
What if the biggest barrier to me incorporating movement into my life was just the belief that I *had* to follow someone else's lead or do one of the "pre-approved" forms of exercise?
"Always try to stretch a little farther or hold the pose a little longer."
Why? Fucking why? I'm not trying to be a gymnast. I'm trying to incorporate movement into my life in a way that will help me feel physically & emotionally better.
Do I really need to strain every day? Could I just be slow & gentle & pay attention to my body's signals?
Edit: it's good to stretch further, but personally I've always felt like fitness instruction pressures me to *strain* through things.
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"Always try to stretch a little farther or hold the pose a little longer."
Why? Fucking why? I'm not trying to be a gymnast. I'm trying to incorporate movement into my life in a way that will help me feel physically & emotionally better.
Do I really need to strain every day? Could I just be slow & gentle & pay attention to my body's signals?
Edit: it's good to stretch further, but personally I've always felt like fitness instruction pressures me to *strain* through things.
@artemis are you asking or venting?
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"Always try to stretch a little farther or hold the pose a little longer."
Why? Fucking why? I'm not trying to be a gymnast. I'm trying to incorporate movement into my life in a way that will help me feel physically & emotionally better.
Do I really need to strain every day? Could I just be slow & gentle & pay attention to my body's signals?
Edit: it's good to stretch further, but personally I've always felt like fitness instruction pressures me to *strain* through things.
Tell you what: if this works for me, & my ADHD ass actually can incorporate more movement into my life with this approach, in a month or so I will probably be feeling the best I have in a long time.
I probably won't be skinnier though. But I ain't trying to be.
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"Always try to stretch a little farther or hold the pose a little longer."
Why? Fucking why? I'm not trying to be a gymnast. I'm trying to incorporate movement into my life in a way that will help me feel physically & emotionally better.
Do I really need to strain every day? Could I just be slow & gentle & pay attention to my body's signals?
Edit: it's good to stretch further, but personally I've always felt like fitness instruction pressures me to *strain* through things.
@artemis because it squeezes the acid byproducts of oxygen delivery out of your muscle tissue
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@artemis because it squeezes the acid byproducts of oxygen delivery out of your muscle tissue
@artemis I wish my Mastodon app showed me if a post were part of a thread XD
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Tell you what: if this works for me, & my ADHD ass actually can incorporate more movement into my life with this approach, in a month or so I will probably be feeling the best I have in a long time.
I probably won't be skinnier though. But I ain't trying to be.
@artemis I actually *loathe* exercise. But we have a very large garden. Once the weather gets amenable, I'll be spending time walking, bending, digging, reaching etc all in service to planting & caring for fruit & veggies. By the end of summer, I'll be buff. ;) And well fed.
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@dave
Mostly venting. I do see the value in continuing to push forward, lengthen, build up strength, but at least personally, when I follow exercise instruction, I end up straining really hard.That may or may not be the instructor's intent—maybe I'm taking it too literally—but it certainly feels to me like I am often told to push my body beyond what feels right.
@dave
But if you do have an answer you want to give, I'd be happy to hear it -
@artemis are you asking or venting?
@dave
Mostly venting. I do see the value in continuing to push forward, lengthen, build up strength, but at least personally, when I follow exercise instruction, I end up straining really hard.That may or may not be the instructor's intent—maybe I'm taking it too literally—but it certainly feels to me like I am often told to push my body beyond what feels right.
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@artemis I wish my Mastodon app showed me if a post were part of a thread XD
@Linza
I hate that too! "Oh, there was a context to this? Sure would have been nice if the app would *show* that to me."But actually also, your response is helpful. I don't think it is at all in conflict with what I am talking about.
I am the only one who knows MY body, but I also know there is a lot of wisdom out there that can help me.
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@dave
But if you do have an answer you want to give, I'd be happy to hear it@artemis I'm working on cutting down mansplaining online by asking that first. 💜
The answer is that you signal your body that it needs to improve in something by pushing it just a little. You're shooting for beyond comfortable but before painful. Doing things in that "this is out of the norm and a bit uncomfortable" range gets your body to adapt somehow (stretching tendons, building muscle, burning fat) by making it think that whatever you're doing is the new normal and it needs to adjust.
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@Linza
I hate that too! "Oh, there was a context to this? Sure would have been nice if the app would *show* that to me."But actually also, your response is helpful. I don't think it is at all in conflict with what I am talking about.
I am the only one who knows MY body, but I also know there is a lot of wisdom out there that can help me.
@artemis https://youtu.be/lYFhP4lemTU?is=qL1of2MRkWunZTed
Please enjoy this video by the only human I will take fitness advice from.
A lot of what you're talking about, he also talks about. But cheerfully!
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@artemis I'm working on cutting down mansplaining online by asking that first. 💜
The answer is that you signal your body that it needs to improve in something by pushing it just a little. You're shooting for beyond comfortable but before painful. Doing things in that "this is out of the norm and a bit uncomfortable" range gets your body to adapt somehow (stretching tendons, building muscle, burning fat) by making it think that whatever you're doing is the new normal and it needs to adjust.
@artemis it's important to listen to your survival traits by not pushing to the point of pain. If you do something that makes you sore for a day, it's important to not do that thing again until the soreness goes away so your body can rebuild whatever is sore more strongly.
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Not "exercise" as in "shape your body to match the expectation that you must look a certain way."
"Exercise" as in "loving your body & being kind to it by moving in ways that will help you be healthy & feel good in the body that you have."
@artemis one effect of talking to parts/systems of my body: it reframes taking care if them as a personal relationship, of appreciation and mutual support
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@artemis it's important to listen to your survival traits by not pushing to the point of pain. If you do something that makes you sore for a day, it's important to not do that thing again until the soreness goes away so your body can rebuild whatever is sore more strongly.
@artemis anyway, the reason that advice of "hold a little longer" exists is the assumption that you're trying to improve on that pose or stretch or whatever. If you're not trying to improve on that thing, you can safely ignore that advice.
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@artemis I'm working on cutting down mansplaining online by asking that first. 💜
The answer is that you signal your body that it needs to improve in something by pushing it just a little. You're shooting for beyond comfortable but before painful. Doing things in that "this is out of the norm and a bit uncomfortable" range gets your body to adapt somehow (stretching tendons, building muscle, burning fat) by making it think that whatever you're doing is the new normal and it needs to adjust.
@dave
I really appreciate you asking. That changes the interaction from mansplaining to "hey! I know a thing you might benefit from knowing."And that's good advice. That is the happy medium I hope I will find by doing this. I believe I have a good sense of what a good stretch feels like vs. strain, so perhaps I need to tune into myself more & tune out the external expectations that are not helping me.
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@artemis https://youtu.be/lYFhP4lemTU?is=qL1of2MRkWunZTed
Please enjoy this video by the only human I will take fitness advice from.
A lot of what you're talking about, he also talks about. But cheerfully!
@Linza
Oh thank you! I will absolutely check this out! -
@artemis one effect of talking to parts/systems of my body: it reframes taking care if them as a personal relationship, of appreciation and mutual support
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@Linza
Oh thank you! I will absolutely check this out!@Linza
Ok, yes, this is great. Very much the energy I am looking for. -
"Always try to stretch a little farther or hold the pose a little longer."
Why? Fucking why? I'm not trying to be a gymnast. I'm trying to incorporate movement into my life in a way that will help me feel physically & emotionally better.
Do I really need to strain every day? Could I just be slow & gentle & pay attention to my body's signals?
Edit: it's good to stretch further, but personally I've always felt like fitness instruction pressures me to *strain* through things.
@artemis "slow and gentle and paying attention to my body signals" makes me think of Qi Gong movements. Over the past 2 years or so that's been the only kind of movement I can consistently manage even on bad days (that, and perhaps going for a walk). If you are curious, I can recommend any videos on the youtube channel by Kseny Gray: https://www.youtube.com/qigongwithkseny But I also completely understand the feeling of just moving your body in whatever way feels right without any instructions.
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undefined oblomov@sociale.network shared this topic
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Dave, @davew writes: "Coder is analogous to calling a chef a chopper." lol yeah i should call painters "brushers" or "watercolour devs" or something :-)
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@gloriouscow @lritter i don't know of any hash tags for those but i'd be astonished if there weren't any
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@gloriouscow @cr1901 For myself, with regards to dealing with the cognitive dissonance, of watching technologists I personally know and admire adopt LLMs (some of which are on here, too, and who I am somewhat embarrassed to say have seen my unhinged anti-AI posts 😅):
I think this has been much easier for me to deal with, because my personal observation for a long time has been that technologists have a very weak sense of ethics. Both in the sense of having good ethics that I agree with, and in the sense of having thought about the subject of ethics at all. Most technologists have not sat down and decided what their moral boundaries are, and what the relationship of their own morality is to the technology they use or develop. Even very skilled ones that I have learned a lot from. Most people are content to think that technologies are value-neutral, and are content to follow the trend of what everyone else is doing.
I have observed brilliant technologists, long before LLMs, shrug at the ethics of many other things, so for me it is entirely believable that they shrug at the ethics of this, too. I don't think many of these people are inherently morally bad, but I do think that they just don't care. This is bad because I do think that people just following the trend into widespread AI adoption is an ethically bad outcome. However, I also think that as AI backlash increases, if the pendulum swings back to anti-AI being the norm in software: they will follow as well.
It is also the sad truth that for minority women in many computer fields, we must work with brilliant peers who are not necessarily bad people, but who by way of their privileged position in life will say and do ignorant things. We must see someone saying something hurtful, but not make a fuss about it, because it's not worth the time of having to personally educate that person, to deal with the backlash, or to be labelled as a "confrontational" person. And we must do this as well, for brilliant colleagues and mentors and people we admire, and that we learn a lot from. So in that sense, I am very well practiced at this kind of cognitive dissonance - I do it in order to preserve a career.
I hope this is maybe a little helpful for you, though this is only my personal experience. And if you do take a break, I hope it is a restful and rejuvenating one!
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@gloriouscow @lritter also I recommend # macrophotography (and the various non-english equivalents) though fair warning it has the occasional closeup on insects. my wife introduced me to that one last night :)
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@gloriouscow here's the list I gave @lritter https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@aeva/115947337211705540
