by Gulrukh Tausif

Created on: March 04, 2011

A couple of weeks ago, I bent down to pick up my daughter’s crayons from the floor and heard an ominous sound from the region of my knees. Creak, creak.

“What in the world?” I wondered, I then spotted my son’s toy engine under the sofa and went forward to retrieve that too and heard that sound again. “Creak, creak.”

Yep, couldn’t ignore it this time. My knees were protesting vehemently and that left me flabbergasted.

“Come on, I am only 32,” I told my body. “Yes, but you have not been taking care of me,” came the stern reply.

“But I am quite active. Don’t I run after my kids all the time, cook, put away clothes, search for lost items, pick up toys, match socks, locate keys and …”

“That’s not exercise,” my body retorted.

And I was left speechless.

Ok, I do watch morning shows and I am a big fan of all the exercise instructors in funky outfits that tell us to bend this way and that. The problem is that at that time I am eating my breakfast and who can ditch marmalade toast to bend this way and that at 8 o’clock in the morning?

Now faced with the possibility of a revolt from my skeleton system, I had to re think my priorities.. Join a gym? But who’ll tackle the mountain of household chores while I am away, huffing and puffing on tread mills? What about the hassle of getting ready each day, locking the house, waiting for transport and not to mention the astronomical membership fee? Nope, the gym was out of question.

Go for long walks in the evening? But I’ll miss my favorite television shows. Beside that’s the time for evening tea for the family. Not possible.

“OK. I’ll buy some exercise videos and try to turn into Jane Fonda in the privacy of my room. I just need one hour each day. Shouldn’t be too difficult,” I thought.

Wrong . Finding one hour of privacy proved to be more difficult than shopping for sugar at Utility Stores. Exercising when my husband was at home was totally out of question. No need to alert him to the fact that I am approaching middle age. Next he’ll be counting my calories for me and wouldn’t let me order Double Chocolate fantasy that I absolutely need to stay alive. With weekends and evenings out of the way, that left me with hours between 9 to 5 on week days only.

At first I thought exercising in the morning would be perfect. Then I started noticing a particular gleam in my

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