Day 5 "Winners Never Quit & Quitters Never Win"

Sounds like something hokey your high school track coach would say. I think I saw that in a Sports Illustrated ad once. Wherever I saw it, it's true. This is Day 5, we're 1/18th of the way home. The fifth day of a 90 day plan set apart to accomplish a plan. A solid, common sense plan that includes 45 minutes of exercise a day. Are you exercising? Are you fitting it in? No doubt, there are days when it is humanely impossible to carve out an extra forty five minutes to do anything. Oh, you may have a couple of minutes while you're waiting for a dentist appointment, or an extra ten waiting in the carpool line, but a whole string of forty five minutes? The bad news is some days it just doesn't happen. The good news is, if we're honest, those days are few and far between. What about those days when there is plenty of time? When you could crawl out of bed earlier on a Saturday morning? When you could walk after dinner or head to the gym? The question is: are you exercising daily?
You have to make it happen. How bad do you really want to drop eighty sticks of butter? Aren't you tired of your story? Hasn't your moaning about "how fat" you are grown tiresome? Don't you think it bores others?
I know it does. My story bores even me.
Plan the time, just like you plan pedicures, business meetings, shopping trips to the outlet mall. Above everything else, make your exercise a priority. It's just for 90 days.
If you feel self conscious out there pounding the pavement alone, get a walking partner. You're partner can't always walk when you can? Let your son ride his bike along side of you? Don't have kids? Go to a park and hit their walking trails. The park's too far? Join a gym. You like to walk, but the weather in your neck of the woods is always rainy. Buy a treadmill. Can't afford a new one? Pick up a used one? Treadmills are so boring? Treat yourself to an iPod. Don't know how to use all that techno stuff? Go to RadioShack and buy an old school Am/Fm sport radio with an armband. Do you see where I am going with this? There will always be excuses. We have more excuses than ways to make trail mix.
By far, the most incredulous excuse that I've ever heard is, "I'm too fat to walk, I'll wait until I lose some weight and then I'll walk." Then never happens. A 20po I know confided that she's too embarrassed to walk in public because she fears people will make fun of her (mind you, this is an intelligent, very successful woman). When I see plump walkers and runners out on the streets, huffing next to traffic, pushing themselves in their New Balances home, I NEVER FOR A SECOND snicker or think, "look at those fatties, who do they think they are?" I silently cheer them on, admiring their motivation and wishing it was me out there.
If walking outside is your only option and you've never done it before, just go out and do it. The first time may feel strange and you may feel like every driver is straining their necks to sneak a better glimpse of you in their rear view mirror. Believe me, they're not. And if, there is one demented, psychopath out there who would stoop so low, so what? This isn't about some wacko. This about you. With every walk, you'll feel more comfortable in your skin (and sweats) and you will actually look forward to walking solo. It's like preparing Lasagna all Bolognese; each time it gets easier and easier, until you don't have to think about it at all.
An added bonus is you'll begin to relish the uninterrupted respite to mentally work stuff out in your head, jam to your own music and plan what you will reward yourself with when the 90 days are up. The benefits aren't purely physical. I feel like I can handle any catastrophe after a power walk. Walking gives you renewed energy, empowerment and inspiration. And you can take that to the scale.