Aspergers / Autism and Healthy Lifestyles

[Droopy]

Was wondering what everyone on spectrum does with regards to keeping fit and maintaining a healthy lifestyle?

Due to obvious anxiety problems and most not wanting to be around people, perhaps you find it difficult to go into a gym to exercise. Maybe you have low self-confidence in your physical appearance too? What about those with picky eating habits or being addicted to certain foods? How to you maintain the right balance and eat healthy? A lot of us stay indoors and sit at either the computer or television all day too!

I am one of those who spend the majority of my time in my bedroom, in front of my computer for endless hours. At the time of typing this, it has just gone morning and I've been on my computer all night. I rarely exercise and have love for fast foods, being a very picky eater too. I don't like going to the gym either due to anxiety and self-confidence issues.

However, this year I have took a notion to try and change that. I have bought myself some gym equipment including weights and a treadmill so that I can work out in the comfort and security of my own home, at a time which suits me - gyms don't open in the early hours of the morning when I'm awake! I have also begun paying attention to what I eat and tried to cut down on my fast food addiction, opting for healthier foods instead. Finally, I have also tried to get out of the house and socialize more than ever this year, although it is not always easy, with many obstacles being in the way.

How does this affect everyone else? Have you realized that Aspergers/Autism might affect having a healthy lifestyle?

 

[Bay]

My need to isolate and recover from interaction with the world has led to being appallingly out of shape. I do love photography and being outdoors however, and that gets me out a bit. I need to do more.

 

[earthsteward70]

I have a family membership to YMCA. The gym is crowded. You can't do the same routine twice, because someone is on the machine you want.. It has rules too. You've got to carry around a spray bottle and towel to wash everything you've touched. You can only have water. It has windows on two of the walls and folks on the street can look in and see you just as easily as you can look out and see them. There are TV's that you can't hear, and they are mounted too high up on the wall and you've got to crane your neck to look at them. You can have a personal trainer, if you aren't too shy to ask. Not to mention it takes a lot of dedication to get into a routine of exercise, even if you have equipment at home, like I do as well. It might be better next year when my youngest son turns 10 and the boys can go where they want in the YMCA without me being there, like enjoying the pool when I go to the gym. I think it'll make a lot of difference when I don't have to go into the pool with them. They always have 2 lifeguards on duty, yet parents have to be there too if the child is under 10. Rules, rules.. I know, It's so that parent's just don't drop off their kids to run amok at the YMCA all day, and the kids have some self control of their actions.
Next year when he's 10...

Plus, exercise is boring.... It helps to have an mp3 player, or a buddy, but sometimes a buddy is a distraction, and sometimes random people want to talk to you too.

As far as food, I have become disciplined in that department at least. It helps that I have an obsession with plants, and agree with Hipocrates that our food is our medicine. I have adopted a refusal to go out and buy fast food and actually like to cook. When it comes to eating, it's always a texture thing, and I'm just lucky that my texture sensitivities make me not like anything breaded or greasy.

I also think that using the 9" plates make it easier for me to eat less than using the 12" plates. I've gone to the store and bought a bunch of plates only 9" to eat from. It really helps.

 

[Arashi222]

I am a pretty healthy person. I'm not thin but I'm not fat either. I could stand to loose a few pounds but my exercise comes from having to walk to the bus stop and take the bus to work or to the mall to shop when i need to go...or when i need to get dollie things and books. I am also allergic to a lot of processed food and preservatives so I tend to eat and cook a lot of my own food. I find that a lot of gluten free food doesn't have the preservatives that mostly I am allergic to. So that being said. I try exercise by walking bit with my head stuffed in my headphones with me hidden under my hoodie and sunglasses to avoid the sun. .

 

[Kelly]

I go through phases, so I'll be really lazy(except walking the dog everyday), eat junk food, gain a few pounds and then I change and it's healthy food and I become an exercise nut. I'm back on the exercise/health food phase, last time I did this I was doing crazy stuff like aerobics for 2 hours a day, 200 situps morning and evening...thinking about it it does become an obsession when I get into it.

I have an exercise bike so I can sit using my tablet/watch TV whilst working out and I have this baby for when the weather is warm and we can all go on bike rides...

I love my bike just a little bit :bounce:

 

[Geordie]

I try to walk as long as I can and eat vegetables as much as I can.

Otherwise, I admit, I sit far too long to read books, or type stuff to find things. I lead quite a sedentary lifestyle.

Oops

 

[Jesse]

I enjoy cycling to and from work. It's about 45 minutes each way and the best thing - I am on my own and can go at my own pace. I have tried going to the gym and didn't mind it too much for a while as long as my wife was with me - but I was never comfortable there.

I find I sleep much better after I have exercised and generally feel better too.

 

[Butterfly_Lady]

I don't have a healthy diet but I have gotten to where I am trying to walk some every day or atleast every other day. I walked twice around a couple blocks in my neighborhood and as I get back in shape I will increase it. I haven't been much for exercise for quite some time and knew all along that I needed to get back into it. I figure this would be a good new years resolution.

 

[smith2267]

I lift weights. It's kind of a stim for me, so it isn't hard at all it's pleasurable.

I take supplements and try to eat reasonably well.

 

[Soup]

I take a bunch of supplements too like Smith. I'm short & very slim by nature. Just by doing the regular things I do around the house (up & down 2 flights of stairs many times over) with the dogs & in Spring through Autumn, riding my bike, I've kept in shape.

As for healthy lifestyle, Aspies, our emotional/mental stability is hard fought & hard won in modern societies. We're prone to sensory overload & live in environments where we get bombarded with stimulation. We need to retreat & withdraw but society places excessive value on constant social interaction. If there were schools for Aspie youth, we could be taught in ways that empower us & work with our interests & strengths. I think many more of us would be able to parley our strengths & interests into lucrative careers. Too many Aspies with high IQs & deep knowledge in specific domains are flipping burgers, stocking shelves & pushing brooms.

Many of us can zone out easily. Monks & acolytes in Asian countries study for years to learn how to do what we do naturally. We use stimming NOT just to use up excess energy but also to facilitate a calm dissociative (aka MEDITATIVE) state. Monks use repetitive speech patterns (mantras) & often movements as well (many Tai Chi Chuan forms are moving meditation).

I have a screw-ball theory (many of them, actually) about these culturally treasured healthful practices & Aspie culture. The impulse to withdraw completely from society into a virtually silent, predictable solitary regimen there to engage in stimming (called by other less stigmatizing names) & zoning out (now called meditation) is reflective of our impulses & values (not each & every Aspie, but many more of us than NTs). Here in the west, there are few outlets wherein our natural tendencies have socially acceptable contexts in which our 'folkways' are valued & cultivated.

In order for us to live truly healthy lifestyles, I think we need to work on creating opportunities for us to be ourselves without every one of our traits getting mislabelled as a pathology.

 

[Divrom]

It really bothers me how sedentary my lifestyle is.

I do a lot of weights. Pretty much constantly picking them up from 6pm-10pm, 10 reps here, 10 reps there, etc.

I also have an exercise bike, but have got out of the habit of using it. That's a shame, as 2 years ago I was doing an hour a night.

Recently I got a gym membership and would go for the last hour before they closed. However, I've got to be feeling pretty good to do that.

 

[slimjamin]

I'll try and keep this short, haha.

I was diagnosed in November 2012 after a few years of depression/anxiety. When a friend of mine threw me in the deep end and made me see a psych, I was surprised when she started talking about Aspergers. A few things clicked, though. My depression/anxiety came about when I became more aware of my mindblindness. For most of 2012, I had started to realise that I had a different thought process to most of my friends and peers - very black and white, right and wrong, yes or no kind of looking at the world.

And it really, really helped me to start eating properly and exercising. I guess you could say I "sperged out" about it (I love this term, despite it being derogatory sometimes, I think it really fits me once I start gaining an interest in something and drop absolutely everything to learn more about it). Diet was easy - I learnt what I had to eat and how much, and I stuck to that. The gym actually helped my social anxiety as well, surprisingly. I think about it this way: there's a social setting with social rules in which I can operate in and learn. It's like forced interaction - if someone is using something, I approach and ask how long they will be, they answer, interaction successful. Sometimes people ask me what I'm doing or why I'm doing it (Olympic lifts, for example) and since I read absolutely everything I can find on the subject, it's a topic I'm comfortable talking about with a complete stranger.

And when the gym is busy and they turn the music up, I just put headphones in and I take a Rubiks to keep my mind off things during rests.

Since I've started going to the gym, observing and taking note of social rules in other settings (such as a pub/bar, shopping centre etc) has become easier. It's all information exchange. I love information exchange. And I'm not so adverse to socialising now that I think about it that way.

To top it off, I've gone from a 95kg chubster to 73kg and being able to wear skinny jeans.

 

[HelloDizzy]

I am very compulsive about things I take seriously and off and on it's been a very rigid healthy lifestyle. I'm on my way back to that state currently after spending quite a few months intoxicated and bloated. I would rather go hungry than eat fast food or anything too fattening at this point and I exercise every day.
I think this has a lot to do with the perfectionism that often accompanies Aspergers.
Naturally I'm a thinnish size (3 to 5 in pants) with broad shoulders and I gain muscle easily so I fit the meso-ectomorphic body type. I can indeed check chubby though >_<

 

[camdengolf]

My obsession is weight lifting and nutrition. I weigh 226 lbs at 5'10'' with 10% body fat. My AS has been able to take off in this field. The gym is like my stomping grounds mostly since i look big and feel big, i feel more confidence when im in the gym and outside of it too because of how i look. I added 60 lbs this last year from jan-jan(started very slim). I stayed in a consistent routine all year long with a few changes here and there(which are hard for me to make in my routines). The biggest part though is diet. I have eaten the same breakfast for the past 5 months, everyday haha. I laugh about it because I love routines so much, hence why i am good at the gym. I think it is a form of stimming for me. But diet will determine 80% of what you gain or lose in the gym.

 

[Dragon's Tooth]

I get obsessive about exercise. Good and bad thing. I can push myself harder because I want to get further.

I used to go to the gym but stopped for a couple reasons. First off there was only two cross trainers at the gym I was going to. I have to use a cross trainer or bike for cardio due to injuries on my feet and knees. I hate the bikes so that left cross trainer. And if they weren't available I would go into a full melt down. Secondly it was costly. Some gyms near my home want $40 a week starting price. Too much for my liking. Lastly the quality of the equipment at the last gym I joined as pretty low and then there wasn't much so I didn't want to waste my money. They were a YMCA so there was a pool which was nice for a cool down after a work out.

I ended up convincing my husband to buy me a cross trainer and some weights. Now I work out at home. But there is a problem that you can face with that. Its way easier to talk yourself out of using the equipment when its at home. I found paying for it I wanted to get my money's worth so I was there nearly every day. At home its easy to go meh I'll do it tomorrow.

The biggest down side to working out at home is when I get on the floor to stretch or do my abs ... I get two dogs licking the sweat off me where ever they can find or wanting to sit in my lap. I love my hairy licking coffee tables but they usually don't know when to move lol.

 

[Biblio-Love]

I had a gym membership, but quickly realized I HATED gyms. So now I go for (mostly) daily walks with my dogs. I have a hoola hoop behind the couch, which I use occasionally. It stores well and is fun. I also bike ride, swim, and do yoga. I try to exercise three times a week. I prefer quiet, solitary activities. Although sometimes I have dance lessons because I enjoy dance so much.

In terms of nutrition, this is something I am working on. I hate cooking, and enjoy sweets very much. I recently bought a vita-mix, and have been making green smoothies in the morning. It allows me to eat great amounts of kale when mixed with pineapple or banana or blueberries. Super easy and quick. My kind of meal preparation.

 

[Dragon's Tooth]

lol I'm a bit like you biblio-love. I'm lazy and like an easy meal. Luckily salad is a great lazy meal especially when you can buy lettuce in a bag lol.

 

[slimjamin]

I have eaten the same breakfast for the past 5 months, everyday haha.

How many times have people asked you, "Oh, don't you get bored of the taste?"

It's about the numbers, not the taste! Haha I can definitely relate to this, I ate 4 boiled eggs, tuna and cottage cheese every day for 6 months last year.

 

[camdengolf]

How many times have people asked you, "Oh, don't you get bored of the taste?"

It's about the numbers, not the taste! Haha I can definitely relate to this, I ate 4 boiled eggs, tuna and cottage cheese every day for 6 months last year.

Lol over the last year I have eaten two things for breakfast hahaha....either organic wheat cereal with raspberries and a 30 g's of protein protein shake, or 1cup egg whites 2 whole eggs and 1 potatoe. I ate the latter for 6 months lol

 

[Cerulean]

My need to isolate and recover from interaction with the world has led to being appallingly out of shape. I do love photography and being outdoors however, and that gets me out a bit. I need to do more.

It has the opposite effect on me, my need to isolate and recover takes me on long hikes and multi-day backpacking trips.