yes, exactly

[cellio]

This Drabble strip speaks to me. (Edited to fix link.)

The issue with exercise for me isn't physical exertion; it's time. I'll grant that the net gain is likely to be higher than depicted here. That doesn't motivate me; I find my actual time now more valuable than my hypothetical time at the age of 90.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

This excuse rings strongly for me. One possible amelioration, which I am investigating, is doing useful things while doing cardio, e.g., reading research papers. Though there is this problem where there's only so much blood to go around, and my brain gets less of it while on the bike...

[cellio]

I hadn't considered reading while biking. (I don't watch nearly enough TV to make any parallel processing there make sense.)

I haven't used a stationary bike (only the transportation-oriented ones); do you need to hold on to the handlebars (a) at all and (b) more than trivially? (I don't see well enough to be able to just plop the reading material down on top of the bars, so at least one hand has to be dedicated to holding it up and the other has to be available for page turns.)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Modern exercise bikes are designed with this in mind. Often they have two or three sets of "handlebars", one pair near your hips, one below the console, and one wider on the console. Either of the first two are suitable for holding while reading. Some machines even have a lip at the bottom of the console to put your reading material on, or the Y near me has these clever Z-shaped racks that hook over the machine and present a shelf to rest the papers on. They're perhaps not close enough to the head to read for you, though. You can certainly peddle with no hands on the handlebars, especially on the reclining bikes (which I prefer), but if you're like me you may sweat on the books.

We used to put the home exercycle in front of the TV, but that didn't work as well.