Exercise is beneficial in treating depression, yet even knowing that, I’m struggling to encourage my fat backside off the couch. Not sure why, I enjoy exercise when I get to it, I just seem to have some invisible barrier between thinking about exercise and actually exercising.
The bigger problem than the width of my backside, is the state of my brain. The more I don’t exercise, the more my head tells me I’m lazy and worthless. It’s a downward spiral that feeds straight into the dragon of my depression.
Since I am trying to slay that dragon, I needed to get up today and do something. Exercise wasn’t happening so I needed something else.
Modern advise is that the average women needs 2,000 calories daily. Rubbish. Aside from anything else, there’s no such thing as the average woman. The thing is that figure was calculated many decades ago, back when there were a lot less time / energy saving devices. The ‘average’ woman had to work harder at the housework.
Back when we first got together, my husband and I couldn’t afford a new washing machine, so we got an old twin tub that would otherwise be scrapped. It took hours and effort to wash clothes then.
My point is doing chores use energy. So instead of exercising, I dealt with the basket full of clothes that’s been nagging me to iron them for a fortnight.
After taking three hours to work to the bottom of the pile, my legs and back certainly feel like I did a workout. More importantly, it feels good to have achieved something, to have ticked something off the to do list.
This probably sounds like nothing to most, but when in a depressed state, it’s hard to do anything, so doing something is good.
The Write Route 