Exercise and Moving More

My sister Rachel has a post up about exercise. She says that exercise doesn't actually make you feel better; what it does is keep you from feeling bad.

You can tell that Rachel and I are sisters. We both hate exercise, but we enjoy certain activities despite the fact that they involve exercise. Rachel enjoys dancing. I loved karate because it was so much fun (and incidentally, I got exercise). I hate to sweat, but I would do it for karate because I enjoyed it so much.

I haven't found a suitable form of exercise since I moved to Tennessee. Part of that is the fact that I have much less free time. And part of it is my $%&*# elbow. But most of it is just plain inertia.

I was thinking of taking up belly dancing, or tai chi, or kung fu, but that would involve taking the initiative and finding a class, and then signing up for it, and then going to it. And I feel bad enough about all the time I spend away from my family because of my job, and I would hate to take even more time away from them just to do something like that. So I have plenty of good excuses not to exercise.

Our Weight Watchers leader encourages us to just move more. I do the small things, like parking farther from the store entrance and taking the stairs. Every day I climb a huge hill to get into my car for the drive home. Also, there's a circuit I take whenever I get up to use the restroom or to talk to my boss or the secretary, so anytime I get up I walk a tenth of a mile. It's not much, but it's better than nothing.

I realize that this low level of exercise is not helping with my weight loss. Last time I was in Weight Watchers, I was getting an average of six hours of exercise a week, because twice a week, I taught children's karate and took the adult class, and then I also walked to school at least once a week. I really need to figure out a way to move more.