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The July Project: Number 23
I’m thrilled when people comment on my exercise regimen—or my blog—and say that I’ve inspired them, or that I make it look easy. But I wonder sometimes if “making it look easy†is doing a disservice to people who are working hard on their own projects for self-improvement. So tonight I want to come clean—it ain’t always easy.
I spent an hour last night trying to come up with a blog post. It was the end of a very long week with mountains of work, many hours of writing, two rowing classes, and a workshop to finish preparing …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 20
I received a note this morning from a Facebook friend who’s struggled as hard with weight loss for most of her adult life as I have. She asked, “Can you send me some of you exercise motivation magic? [I’ve] fallen off the wagon…. The battle never seems to end.â€
I wrote back to say that I know the feeling very well, but that somehow it’s helped to stop thinking about fitness in those terms. I’ve tried to make exercise part of who I am—not a short-term project, and not a battle, either. Her words stayed with me all day: the battle never seems to end.
Last weekend I happened to catch an interview with Valerie Bertinelli on CBS News Sunday Morning in which the 49-year-old actress talked about losing 45 pounds, and about her efforts to come to terms with why she gained the weight in the first place. She mentioned plans to run a marathon, and the interviewer chose to sum up the story …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 18
In 2008, I attended a lecture by Dr. Henry Lodge, one of the authors of Younger Next Year , a book that purports to offer ideas to help men fend off some of the physical symptoms of aging. The central theme of Dr. Lodge’s talk was a point that might seem counterintuitive: that we need more exercise as we get older, not less.
In the question-and-answer session that followed his presentation, someone asked Dr. Lodge, “So how much exercise is the right amount?†He replied that although no one has nailed down a precise, scientific answer to that question, a good rule of thumb might be four days a week in your 40s, five days a week in your 50s, and six days a week from your 60s on …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 16
I’ve written a couple of times before about Rule #2: Everything Counts. Today will be one of those days when I invoke Rule #2. I put in a long work day, then packed my bags and took off for Galveston. I didn’t get here until after 10 p.m., ate a late dinner, and then settled in to write. As soon as I publish this post, I’ll go for a walk. It’ll be after midnight, so I only plan to walk the four blocks down to the Seawall, then maybe a few blocks along the beach and back. That’s okay, because in this game of getting some exercise every day, everything counts.
I don’t entirely grasp the psychological mechanisms at work in Rule #2, but I know that it works …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 9
A few days ago, I mentioned the rules of the exercise game that I’ve been playing:
Rule #1: Do something every day.
Rule #2: Everything counts.
On Wednesday, someone who’s been reading this blog lately said to me, “I just can’t exercise every day.â€
I replied, “I’m not saying that you should …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 5
I wrote a draft blog post this morning about some social aspects of taking care of your health. I’m saving that one for another day, though, because I’d rather share the story of tonight’s trip to the park.
I was starting my walk at Memorial Park tonight when my iPod battery died. Rather than carry the useless thing for 6½ miles, I walked back to the car and threw it in the trunk. As I started again, I considered whether the dead battery might be a sufficient excuse for cutting tonight’s walk short. I rationalized the value of getting home an hour earlier, maybe getting some more work done before bedtime.
But when I’d walked about a mile, I ran into Gary, an old friend and a park fixture like myself. He was walking in the opposite direction, but when we met, he turned around and joined me. We walked together the rest of the way. I didn’t cut my walk short after all.
Three miles later, we got to talking about some of the other “frequent flyers.†We talked about the guy who …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 3
The first time I got serious about exercise, I became a member of the YMCA in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The Y offered an incentive program for runners. They gave out 6 x 9 index cards on which you could record your miles by inking in a grid of 500 tiny boxes. When you filled the card, you turned it in with $5 and got a downtown ymca 500‑mile club T‑shirt.
I filled up two cards, so I also got a 1,000‑mile club T‑shirt before I left Knoxville. I worked hard for those cheap T‑shirts. Even though the card program relied on the honor system, I scrupulously discounted fractional miles and pushed myself harder every time I neared the end of another row of boxes.
Fast-forward to the summer of 2004 …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 2
I see T‑shirts with slogans like “Softball is life,†“Rugby is life,†“Shark-diving is life,†and so on. I used to find them stupid and arrogant. What the heck is that even supposed to mean: softball is life? Obviously, there’s a lot more to life than softball.
 Gotta have it? Go ahead and click. I won’t tell.
Then I found my own exercise passion: walking. It didn’t turn into an obsession overnight, and I never felt compelled to rush out and buy a walking is life T‑shirt. But I got hooked on it.
And over the course of several years, I discovered the wisdom of the T‑shirts …[MORE]
The July Project: Day 1
I like to take on a new self-improvement project or two every month. I pick some part of my life that needs work, and then I try to give it time and attention every day. This week, as the first half of 2010 came to an end, I got the idea of collecting my favorite ideas about diet and exercise—a draft owner’s manual for my body, a reference I can turn to when I’m struggling to lose one more pound. Maybe someone else would like to read it, too.
I’ve lost about a hundred pounds in the last six or seven years. When people ask me how I’ve done it, I don’t like to give them the simple formula …[MORE]
Note: This post is a sequel to Walking Every Day, Wherever I Find My Feet.
 On my way to Dallas yesterday, I ran into a traffic delay in Spring and another one near Centerville, where I-45 was reduced to one lane for about five miles. It took more than half an hour to crawl through the construction zone. So I didn’t get into town until about 8 p.m., only to discover that in the two months since I made my reservation, I’d somehow confused my hotel (the Marriott Suites Market Center) with another one nearby (the Marriott Residence Inn Market Center). That mistake added another half hour to my already-too-long journey.
Nevertheless, as soon as I finished checking in, I dressed in walking attire and headed up the freeway to Bachman Lake …[MORE]
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