My Journey to Being More Physically Active

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(Edited)

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It's Monday and honestly it is getting more and more difficult to figure out what to write on the off-days. My first thought was that maybe I am at fault for not being creative enough.. But then, I realized I was at fault for a different reason - I didn't create a specific schedule for Mondays and Fridays. Generic subjects like "Gaming" or "Personal" look cool on a spreadsheet, but then sometimes I get busy and I don't have a pointer on what to write. So in the little free time I have this week, I'll make sure to try to make my Mondays and Fridays more specific - I'm currently looking at Baking for Mondays (hi foodie bee hive!) and Progress on my HIVE goals for Friday, but.. weekly progress posts are boring and uninspired, so I'm hoping to come up with something better.

Now that we have this long and slightly unnecessary tangent out of the way, let's get into the actual post. This time, I will write about my personal development of sorts, as I have been attempting to be more physically active lately. So let's dive in!
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Current Situation


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Random current picture of me (and my girlfriend) cause you know - CURRENT situation.

First of all, note that all I care for in this post - and in general - is the physical activity itself. While I know being physically active can alter my body and make it look leaner or more muscular, that is not a goal for me; the aim is simply to be more active. The reason that is the case is that I love doing things and I enjoy the feeling of a finished workout.

I've always been quite an active person. Throughout my entire childhood, I spent time outside playing football pretty much everyday and P.E. was always my favourite subject - even if I wasn't great at everything, it was so much fun to play sports. Later on I got into hiking - both in nature such as forests, as well as hills and mountains. Finally, I also did some recreational running to keep myself active.

The problem is that in the recent times, especially with how difficult traveling gets lately, I just hadn't had the opportunity to do all these things. Let's look at the reasons:

  • I live in the Netherlands. I love hiking, but part of why I love it is beautiful surroundings, the views.. things that Netherlands lacks. It is a great country to live in, don't get me wrong - but it's got a boring landscape.
  • Own laziness. The more projects that I undertake, the more work that I do.. I find myself doing less and less to go out of the way and be active. I love doing that, but when I sit down after a long day and I know I am about to curate, have to do my SPL daily stuff; I simply lose motivation - this is the biggest problem and I am aware of it.

I also do not have the people around me that I used to for doing things outside with. Note that THIS IS NOT AT ALL THEIR FAULT. It is just that I'm not surrounded by football lovers anymore, so it takes more effort to go out and play that. I do not have my running buddy around - so I would have to find a new one or do it alone. My girlfriend loves being active, but in the traveling way - hiking, exploring, being on the move 24/7. She hates sweating just for the sake of it and that's the only option we've had for a while now. My other friends here are more board games, hangout and chill type of people.
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The Solution


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Here's a surprisingly awful quality photo of my stationary bike and the elastic bands - my entire fitness equipment. I really need a camera or a phone that can take better quality pictures.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how to get more active.. and there have been some solutions I've come up with and actually managed to already bring to happen:

  • Find activities to do by myself. As it turns out, this did not take a lot at all. I already own a stationary bike that's been mostly gathering dust and now I began to use it WHILE doing other things. I field my tournaments teams in Splinterlands while biking, I have interesting videos up and time just passes while I still manage to be productive!
  • Find an active buddy. Again, this was so easy! I was just talking to my friends and it turned out one of them really wanted to tone and lose some weight. While none of this is something I care too much about for myself.. She also wants to be active! While we don't even exercise together, we update each other on what we've done every day - giving some motivation!
  • Find ways to enjoy the outdoors. The most challenging of the three solutions I've come to, but I am trying my best to make it. The friend from previous point goes out on looooong walks with me every weekend and sometimes even more often! On top of that, with my girlfriend we try to explore some places we don't know around our region - it might not be the most exciting, but at least it's new and we get to get extra movement!

In addition to all these things, I also do regular strength workouts - those are the only ones that I do not just to be active and get movement. More about that in the next section!
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Goals



I have a few goals for the upcoming months when it comes to staying active. Let me list them out right here!

  • First of all - keep up with my daily workouts. That includes riding the bike every day, as well as weaving in a cardio workout session found through YouTube. It should not be so difficult - as I said before, I can combine it with doing fun and productive stuff, such as doing my Splinterlands battles or watching educational videos.
  • Work on my strength. Currently, I work with elastic bands 5 days a week. I aim to keep doing it and increasing first the amount of reps I do gradually - and then the weight of the elastic band. My goal here is to be much stronger physically and be able to more easily carry heavier things.
  • Get myself to go out and explore much more. While this isn't an intense activity, it can be great just to get myself to feel more motivated - part of this goal is to do research to actually find interesting places to go around me!

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Closing Words



Overall, it is very important to stay active - it clears the mind, makes you feel good once you are done.. And most crucially - I like doing it. It can be difficult to get yourself to do it, especially in times where there is little to do outside of home (although apparently we might re-open soon!). I can't wait till I can travel again with my girlfriend to get back to being as active as we love to - hiking, trying new things; all kinds of stuff we are unable to do right now.



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