[shepwalker]

I always tell people that my life-saving workout device was the Kindle 3. In 2010, I was 315 lbs, sedentary as hell and not making any progress to fix that. The idea of running just seemed like complete drudgery.

I ended up making a pact with a friend to meet up at the gym every morning, and I took my kindle and reread a long epic fantasy series page by page. I started off stupid-slow, with a slight incline. First 25 lbs shed without a problem, and steadily increased my pace.

I've now graduated to actually running outside (yay!) and distracting myself with podcasts, have completed 2 half-marathons, and at one point was down to ~210lbs.

People's motivations and activation hurdles are different - for me it was boredom and accountability - which I fixed with a book and some peer pressure.

[FireBeyond]

That's entirely awesome and inspiring. Out of curiosity, what was the series?

[studentrob]

That's awesome to hear. Often on HN I see people being negative about things like running or meditation for example, adamently saying these things didn't work for them and won't work for everyone. I don't see the point in coming up with a solution for everyone. We all know people don't work that way. Personal anecdotes are a great way to get inspired based on actual experiences. Even if it is shown that some activity doesn't work for everyone, if it works for one person, it's worth sharing!