by Elicia Flom

Created on: December 29, 2009

New Workout, New Me

The sign read, “If you do what you did, you will get what you got” and the first few times I passed the sign, I blew it off…just like my earlier attempts at an exercise routine. 

Exercise stinks!

Yes, I agree. Just thinking about a walk around the block, 30 minutes on a treadmill or some other type of monotonous activity I should make my sedentary body participate in to elevate my heart rate, improve muscle tone or just help me comfortably “ziggy” up the two flights of stairs from the basement to my office makes me cringe. When I was younger, I would ride my bike for hours over the same trails, swim the same lanes or play any running game like "kick the can," kickball, freeze tag or "Red Rover" until long after sunset. In junior high, field hockey, soccer and cross country running were wonderful pastimes.  In high school and college, swimming became the place to write rough drafts in my head while falling into the well-known rhythms of breaststroke or backstroke.  So something changed-my tolerance for repetitive exercise disappeared.

Somewhere, exercise became an interruption... rather, a choice between earning an income and "playing". Like many adults, I believed temporarily that signing up for fitness classes, working out with a personal trainer or finding a coworker to walk with on a lunch break would provide the motivation necessary to justify playing instead of working. Like many adults, it was not motivation enough.

New Attitude, Scheduling Playtime

Rather than hurtling past increasingly larger dress sizes and avoiding mirrors, family pictures and window reflections, I realized that in order to continue working, I would have to continue living. The work I do gives me great personal satisfaction but requires that I spend a large part of each day seated. Choosing to work meant choosing to sit. My choice needed to change.

While simplistic, I needed to schedule some playtime.  Trying to convince myself that I should exercise just because it was "good for me" had not been effective in the past. There are a lot of things that are "good for me" to do that I simply don't have time for... going to music concerts comes to mind. Putting some playtime on my work schedule seemed totally silly at first. Adopting the attitude that I was entitled to some playtime every day took me several months to fully embrace. It is still a struggle.

New Exercise, Incorporating Variety

My knees were in a sorry

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