Does anyone else feel depressed when exercising alone? (weightlifting, gym, yoga)

[Zelpha]

As usual I woke up at 5:30am jonesing for an outdoor workout but after a lifetime of running & hiking & biking etc outdoors alone I just can't motivate myself to do it anymore because even though it feels so damn good, the loneliness is maddening. Feels like crying.

So I'm sitting on my yoga mat in the living room and can't bear to do yoga alone, so pathetic & pointless & lonely. My boyfriend, I've come to accept, is attracted to me because of my healthy fit body but I eventually realized that he likes LOOKING at fit bodies but has no interest in exercising himself.

I'm so ****ing lonely & depressed, it's so hard to find healthy people to exercise with. I'm turning into my sedentary boyfriend, I'm so depressed when I'm sedentary but he has made it clear that he will never, EVER exercise or even go on a nature walk with me :'( And since I live in his house, he forbids me to have a treadmill or elliptical machine because he says it will ruin the decor. For crying out loud, he has a 3-story house, and he & I are the only ones in it!! He never even goes in the basement, but nope, no exercise equipment allowed. He doesn't realize (even though I've told him a hundred times) that exercise is my antidepressant. Having a tradmill/ elliptical in the house is as essential to me as an oxygen machine is to an emphysema patient! Without exercise I am a zombie and he's losing attraction to me after he has turned me into a zombie!

So he's said, "Go buy your own house, then you can put a treadmill in it." Oh great, so he'd rather live alone than have a treadmill in his basement.

This may sound like a first-world problem but my depression is so bad that if I don't work out as soon as I wake up in the morning, depression has already clobbered me by the time the gym opens.

[Felix C]

Never I get a high out of working out. I see quite elderly people at the park who can no longer sprint up the hill and think one day it will be me. Sobering moment. So I enjoy what I can do now.
Otherwise I train alone and group train. I prefer alone when weightlifting but group stuff when doing outside training.

As for the BF. Find another one.

[Mary2014]

Probably 90% of the group classes offered at my gym are made up of women. I guess they appeal to many women, but, I much prefer working out on my own. I don't consider working out to be a social event, it is more of a "time for just me" activity.


I suspect the real reason for your depression is your living arrangement. Time to move out and move on with your life.

[Portland222]

I'm the opposite. I get a real high from working out.

[locolobo13]

Time to move on. Are you so afraid of being alone you'll put up with anything rather than be alone?

As far as working out goes; Can you take a class? Join a group? Find others to enjoy activities with.

[picklejuice]

Get a treadmill and lose the boyfriend.

[Marlow]

You don't have an exercise problem. You have a boyfriend problem.

[Calvert Hall '62]

Three years at the gym.


The next 43 years exercising alone.


Not depressed by those circumstances.

[PeachSalsa]

I prefer to exercise alone. I put in my headphones and go. I think my best thinks when I'm exercising too.

[Phyxius]

Your boyfriend is the problem, not exercising alone.