Positively Healthy Exercise...your way!

Exercise is one of those necessary evils if you want to be healthy. I remember a time when all the people who were experts on this subject said you just had to exercise a few days a week for 30 minutes. Now all of a sudden these same people are saying 30 minutes five days a week for a total of 150 minutes and that’s just to maintain your current weight. Heaven help you if you want to lose weight because then your daily output of exercise needs to twice that. So now you are talking about 60 minutes almost every day of the week! I don’t know about you but I was having a hard time getting in the 150 minutes let alone 300 minutes. Now this new number really doesn’t surprise me as I have told people for years that I have to exercise 60 minutes at least six days a week to lose any weight. It should be pretty clear by now to most of you that I haven’t been very successful at maintaining the amount of exercise. Along with all the other positively healthy choices I am trying to implement this year exercising more is a big one on my list.

The biggest thing about exercise is finding something that you love and doing it. It has to be something that you can sink your teeth into or have a goal at the end so that you can see the finish line. The exercise you choose needs to be personal to you and you alone so that you can do it your way. Now remember this doesn’t have to be something you have done before because sometimes something new can come along and you immediately become passionate about it.

My daughter-in-law Faith is good example of finding what you love and doing it. Faith is learning to ice skate. She grew up in Arizona and I don’t think she had ever put on a pair of skates until a few weeks ago. I find out about this new passion when I receive a text message from my son asking me questions about ice skating. With a puzzled look on my face I text back, “Why?” Promptly he text back telling me that Faith and him were ice skating. He had remembered years ago when I coached roller skating the many times I had taken all the children I coached ice skating and was asking for advice to help her. This has become such a passion for Faith that she now has her own skates and goes ice skating every weekend. We all got to be part of this great adventure last week when we went ice skating after her birthday dinner.

Sometimes a new found love for a certain type of exercise can be found through others. Jennifer, my daughter, started running several years ago. She was introduced to running to raised money for the Luekemia and Lymphoma Society, after a nephew got sick, with her very first race being The Nile Half Marathon in San Francisco. I’m sure all of you are assuming that since her first race was a half marathon that she was always a runner but nothing could be farther from the truth. My daughter only ran for the physical fitness tests at school and she hated every minute of it.  From that very meager beginning to help others a runner was born. She now runs several races a year including the California International Marathon.

Over the years I have tried and done just about everything. Walking, running, skating, the gym and the list goes on. A few years ago I ran a half marathon that my daughter talked me into by telling me that I could walk the 13.1 miles in the four hours. I will proudly tell you that I finished in 2 hours and 45 minutes. Today I am out of practice but have started to run again as there is a new finish line waiting for me to cross. Most of my family will again run a local 5K/10K race that is fast approaching with another 5K/Half Marathon in October. At the October race last year my six year old grandson announced that he wanted to run the half marathon like his mother. After some serious talking we convinced him to start with the 5K. I have volunteered to run with him because we think at seven he is a little young to run without a chaperon on an open course. I am sure this will be the fastest time I have ever run, hopefully I will be able to keep up.*

Most people have a love hate relationship with exercise because they haven’t found that one physical activity to be excited about. It really doesn’t matter what you do as long as you get moving. Make exercise personal to you and do it your way. Take a chance or a challenge to try something new, maybe you will find a new love. Remember to start small and build up to something bigger. By exercising your way it is easy to add additional minutes every week and soon you will find that the positively healthy choices everyday that you make total the correct amount of exercise for you.

*Special thanks to my best friend Debby or Grandma Debby, as my grandchildren call her, because we wouldn't be running any races without her. She is at every race entertaining and chasing after four small children while we run. This how Debbie exercises her way!