Neighborhood cleanup as a workout - It worked!

TL;DR A year ago I started doing cleanups in my neighborhood because it had become filthy, now people have changed their ways and it is squaky clean and I have become fitter and leaner in the process.

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So last September, I started. It became too much to bear. I couldn't live in this filthy place. I don't know, but all of a sudden, in the space of a few months people seemed to have forgotten to use the bins? So I started by a few blocks around the neighborhood. Eventually, I kept about a square mile clean, then the following things happened, over the next few months.

• I got too annoyed by how little effort it took from one person, on their spare time to keep that square mile clean. It doesn't take that much and if a neighborhood is littered that means that most people don't care enough.
• If however, streets are kept clean, people are usually reluctant to throw litter on them. There are many streets and open spaces that are kept clean since last September just by that one cleanup a year ago. Some other streets needed more effort.
• After passing through the same streets and watching that there were a few houses that had litter appearing in front of them repeatedly, the same houses, I tried to bump into the people living there and told them nicely that if they let litter outside of their homes, if they didn't do anything about it it's as if they are telling passers by to throw anything, isn't it? Do they like that? That nice question seemed to take care of most of the problems. I always made sure to do the work in my best outfits. I think it gives a different message. That it is everone's job to look after their neighborhood. I'm also old enough and secure enough in my real life that it just doesn't matter what I do to keep fit. It does create the wrong impression for someone to do this job, that apparently even local authority cleaners don't find worth doing.
• People outside of the square mile seemed to have noticed and it looks like they bugged the local authoritiy, why their neighborhood is not as clean and the local authority took care of the rest and now quite some square miles are kept clean!

So I still do cleanups occasionally, only a few months from starting there is litterally maybe 1/10 of the work to do. Maybe not even that. People have remembered to use the bins after all. I have kept my blood sugars low, I need the workout as a T2 diabetic and picking things from the ground is an exercise that I don't get tired of somehow! It seems to have a purpose.

Just needed to put out there that exercise can happen outside of the gym. The blood glycose monitor doesn't lie. The mirror doesn't lie and the looks you get don't lie. It works. Too many squats to count. Anything you can keep up works. I do have issues with diet though, that explains my plateau, but I keep losing now slowly. Most regression happened from last winter holiday break! Weight loss will happen, eventually.

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submitted by /u/lenaag
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