I hated sports. Seriously. I had an excellent student complex since childhood, and I couldn't stand doing anything bad. I couldn't run. I did push-ups once - by accident. Stretching was torture. My story with physical activity is not "how I lost weight", not "how I found motivation". But how I started with respect.

When you don't even want to get up in the morning, it's hard to make yourself move. But one day I just woke up with a sore back. Doctors. Pills. And advice: "Well, at least walk. At least walk, the body needs to live."

I walked. As a punishment. First 10 minutes, then 20. No music, no fitness tracker. I just walked and thought about life. Once I stopped by a tree. It had a crack in the bark, like an old man's wrinkles. I looked and for some reason for the first time I felt that the body is not an enemy. It just wants to be listened to.

My first non-hateful activity was dancing. No one saw. I turned on the music and started moving, not like in the gym, but like in the shower: absurdly, funny, for real. Then I added exercises - easy, simple, 5 minutes each. I didn't set goals. I just allowed myself to be a body, not just a mind.

What helped me:
- Don't compare.
- Don't call it "sport."
- Don't count steps.
- And don't ask for applause, even from yourself.

Sometimes I do yoga to jazz. Sometimes I just rock in place to electronic music. Sometimes I just lie in the "butterfly pose" and breathe. This is also movement.

Physics is not the enemy of the mind. It is its sister. Sometimes younger, sometimes wiser. I do not run marathons. I do not go to the gym. But now, when I am stressed, I do not climb into my phone - I just stand on my toes. This is my little "I next to me".