How Often Do You Exercise

"First say to yourself what you would be;
and then do what you have to do."

Epictetus
(50-138, Phrygian Philosopher)

How often do you exercise?

According to a recent survey, 35% of the respondents said rarely, 12% owned up to only a few times a month, 33% admitted to a few times a week, and only 20% proudly said that they did daily workouts.

Speaking from over 50 years of up close and personal experience in the "Diet and Fitness Wars," I do know that no matter what some of the media experts say - your weight isn't budging without a serious daily cardio workout - even with a good, healthy diet - so you better get busy if you want to be Speedo-worthy by this summer.

I'm not saying that you won't lose at least some weight by dieting, alone, but not enough. The first year I was on my last diet - the one where I lost 130 pounds in 2 ½ years - only 40 pounds dropped off without daily exercise. Nothing to sniff at, I know, but . . .

What I'm saying is once it was pointed out to me that I was "playing at working out," and once I saw what daily cardio did for a friend's husband who lost the same amount of weight as I did but in a much shorter time frame, I kicked my daily cardio into high gear making it my top priority every single day.

They say that it takes 35 days to make or break a habit. That philosophy sure worked for me - after 35 straight days of walking one hour a day with my 2 dogs as my companions, we haven't stopped - and all my weight's still off into my 6th year.

(I do need to shave off another 10-20 pounds to further lighten the load, but that's another story for later.)

And you don't have to go out and kill yourself exercising eight hours a day, every day, like you're on the "Biggest Loser," either. Weight loss and daily cardio aren't as difficult as they make it look on TV. Plain, old walking did it for me - that and cutting the white starch and sugar carbs from my diet - and each component continues to help me keep those 130 hard-won (or lost) pounds off - hopefully forever.

Do what you have to do to get where you need to go health and fitness-wise. Begin right now - for the health of it.



Laura Dion-Jones Casey
America's Pro-Health Activist - among other things
May 1, 2009©
550 N. Kingsbury St. #120
Chicago, IL 60654
Cell: 312-933-7325
E: dionjones@aol.com
http://www.lauradionjones.com/