Bust

7-Day Exercise Report

This past week has been more or less an exercise bust. An outing with my daughters in New York on the weekend, an occasional snowstorm to shovel, and the sporadic walking of the dog provided the bulk of my mileage.

The rest of my family takes turns taking Arliss out, and they go often enough that he can do all of his doggie business. So, I find that I need to coax him when I want to walk for fun, and he rarely cooperates. When it is cold and windy, that mini-me couch potato rarely deigns to step off the front porch, choosing instead to sniff the air, turn around, and beg to be let back in the house. Not one to question the superior canine intuition, I follow him in, and shortly we are once again ensconced in our respective favorite winter hibernation spots, curled up and comfy despite the raging snowstorms which, if not currently in our neighborhood, still could show up at any moment. We stay in.

Ok, let's stop blaming Arliss. I am the one that needs to exercise, and it is not my dog's responsibility to make sure I follow through.

I had fun shoveling snow this week. I had fun walking with the puppy, the few times he accommodated my desire to take a spin around the block and take in some fresh air. I had lots of fun walking around the city with my daughters, though we spent most of the day sitting, in restaurants and at the theater.

I did move a bit more this week than last. I did laundry and light housework. I went to the library, visited family, started to clean out a closet.

However, I mostly sat.

I made excuses. I wrote about exercise. I wrote about everything else under the sun. In one afternoon I read a whole book of poetry, on the subject of the dead and the undead, written by various famous authors, none of whom mentioned lack of exercise as the cause of the demise of their deceased. Some of the poets' subjects died of heartache, of loneliness. Emily Dickinson said she would not stop living to accommodate Death's need for her company, so Death had to stop what he was doing to come to her.

I see Dickinson's shadow when I look in my mirror—she's sitting in her parlor, writing poetry, thinking about how sitting around and writing poetry and otherwise not getting out much might possibly lead to an early grave.

In short, I spent the majority of my time this week engaged in a great deal of physical inactivity.

Why, you might ask?

To this, I say, "Don't judge me."

"Walk a mile in my moccasins."

"Stress. The other red meat." (Trying to be funny, here. Get it? "Pork. The other white meat." Red meat will kill you. Ha ha. Ha... Oh, forget it. Humor does not translate well in this venue.)

What could be so hard about exercising, that I have failed to meet my goal for this week?

You don't even know.

But for all of you who spent the same amount of time as I did, or more, passively captured in a state of inactivity, I want you to know that you are not alone in your struggles when you find it difficult to get motivated to get moving.

Hats off to you, for reading about motivation to exercise!

And, here's a toast, "To next week!"

It may look like next week promises to be more of the same, but next week is going to be in for a bit of a surprise. We are going to kick next week's butt, and make it answer the clarion call "To Exercise!"

Quantum Exercise

Now, I realize that, having taken a nice walk this morning does not excuse me from thinking about exercise for the remainder of the day. Walking, or any form of exercise that lasts for a certain amount of time and is then over with—until the next round of repetitive, scripted motions—is not enough movement to keep a person healthy. It is not the only thing I need to do physically today in order to save my own life.

While exercising by taking a walk is great, the real trick is to not then spend the rest of the day indulging in the deadly sin of INACTIVITY.

It is the "sitting and doing nothing, physically"— the "not moving a muscle"—for long periods of time, that has recently been scientifically proven to be really, really bad for your health.

Once you have completed your vigorous exercise for the day, continue to remain conscious of your body and its capacity for movement. Shift around that stuff inside your skin: the muscles, the bones, the blood and all that gooey, gushy stuff. Think in terms of the geophysical, three-dimensional coordinates of the space your body is taking up, as you occupy the particular area within the physical universe in which you find yourself sitting or standing.

Every few minutes, make a slight effort, and push each inch of your skin to occupy a different set of measurable coordinates in space. Minute movement is all that is required. Working to maintain almost continuous movement is likely to be most effective at maintaining a healthy body, as a conscious attempt to keep the body in motion is least likely to result in the body experiencing a long stretch of inactivity.

Keep moving, whenever you think of it, and keep in the habit of thinking about how wonderful "constant motion" is for you.

Instead of thinking of your body as a hard (or mushy) solid, think about all the stuff held together inside your skin as mostly being soft and fluid. Keep it all flowing, and moving through space.

*

Now, let's make this fun, and go even further, and use our imaginations to (theoretically) effect movement of our bodies at the subatomic level. We are talking about exploring the quantum physics aspects of mass in motion, and using it to "exercise" our bodies without actually using our muscles, just our minds.

Think of performing exercise at the quantum level, of moving your atoms, your protons, electrons, and even your tinier bits. After all, those particles are indeed the stuff you are made of. Get to know them, just by thinking about them. Work them with your mind; keep them moving, to your advantage.

Think of your individual atoms as particles which are swimming through the air, constantly. The human intellect, when it conceives of the laws of physics and the construct of gravity, understands that the body is held in place on the ground of the earth by forces designed to keep molecules from floating away from one another and disintegrating into a chaotic, amorphic suspension.

However, you are also consciously aware that the efforts of your mind can change the location of your subatomic particles at will, at any second, by your simply acting and making a conscious effort to move your muscles. When you move a muscle, it pushes all of the other particles of your body, which, in turn, move through space.

Now, think of all the stuff of your body as flexible, independent parts which are only loosely connected. Each bit of substance at the quantum level is independent from each other bit, and each moves depending on how it is pushed by the other bits. On the larger scale, when you flex a muscle, each bit of the material that makes up your body is pushed by the force of the bump of the moving material connected to it. Everything moves in a specific and predictable way. However, going back to thinking on a quantum level, you see that each of the teeny quantum bits is a separate entity from the one next to it. They are not connected in the same way that a bone is connected to the adjoining muscle, and there is a lot of empty space in between them. When a quantum bit is pushed with a bit of force coming from the quantum bit next to it, it moves independently of those around it, just as when the first domino in a series of standing dominos is pushed, it alone falls. Each domino next in line falls when it is pushed down by the one just before it, though the dominos are not connected to one another.

Use your mind, to remain active as much as possible. Use your imagination. Don't limit the motions of your body to what is allowed by gravity and the laws of physics. Using your mind, you can imagine that you can push your own personal particles through the quantum universe, and make them float wherever you would.

Remember, when you use your mind to think, it really does physically produce a chemical reaction in the synapses of your brain that moves real matter, tiny as it is. Explore your possibilities, in having your brain activity cause a chemical reaction, which pushes against certain of your subatomic particles, which will then flow over, through the quantum universe, and affect the positioning of others of your subatomic particles. Consider moving these particles of yours, one nano-nano-millimeter at a time, by the force created by chemical reactions, just from the use of your mind. Think of it as practically effortless exercise, as you are moving these tiniest of parts merely the tiniest of distances, but you yourself are moving them, nonetheless, by causing the chemical reactions which are created when you perform the act of thinking your thoughts.

This nano-exercise activity may actually help to explain why a person's body uses many more calories when they are actively engaged in mental exercise, even when the rest of their body remains motionless.

Develop an awareness of your physical nature. Use your mind to reach down into the intimate spaces between each of the atoms that make up your own personal mass, and persuade them to visit other coordinates in space, thereby avoiding "inactivity." Imagine that each of the molecules that make up the apparent solid you call "you" is nothing more than a loosely-configured conglomeration of protons and neutrons, hugging each other, and each surrounded by a band of excited electrons, spinning in giddy circles about that particular nucleus they call home. In the next instant, these teeny charged bits change direction and attach themselves to an adjacent set of subatomic particles, ones that might offer them a better perspective on their quantum universe.

Consider now, that subatomic particles do not actually follow the same patterns of motion as their larger counterparts. Subatomic particles do not really move like dominos when they are pushed by other subatomic particles.

Physicists have discovered subatomic particles that, somehow, are inexplicably connected to each other even though they are not physically adjacent. When one moves, the other, though far away, also moves.

Imagine that, using your thoughts, you might be able to convince one of your own subatomic particles to move. And then imagine that you discover that this act does indeed trigger its subatomic twin, somewhere at a distance, to jump and jiggle and exercise.

(If you are not following me, please consult with your friendly neighborhood physicist, for a more detailed explanation of the concepts I am trying to describe, in laymen's terms. He will assure you that it appears I have no idea what I'm talking about. A physicist will tell you in no uncertain terms that, in order to stay physically fit, you must get up off the couch and exercise.)

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The basic message here is that one needs both to actively exercise and to avoid inactivity. Thinking about how to keep your body in motion, to avoid inactivity, can be fun if you use your imagination (and/or convoluted reasoning and imperfect science).

*

Now, which is more fun, physical exercise on the scale of the human body—held together with skin and fighting the forces of gravity—or on the quantum scale, where the imagination can, at will, force the teeniest particles of the body to float through the subatomic universe and stay active?

Have fun thinking about exercise, but please, use your brain and get up off the couch and move your body in actual physical exercise.

Exercise Nut

This morning I was going to write a blog post about my fevered anticipation of my imminent transformation into an exercise nut. I believed this change was about to commence momentarily, as I had just clicked on my as-yet unused iPhone app called "Couch to 5K," which I had downloaded some months ago, and I had just read the first instruction.

"Week 1, Day 1" told me to take a walk.

In my as-yet unwritten blog post, I had planned to digress. I would not be writing, as was my usual practice, with the goal of ironically describing how the point of using this app is to experience the joy of having a toy to play with, that one can fiercely delight in simply by choosing to believe the app is actually going to be helpful in concerting one's efforts to begin an exercise program.

I was going to, instead, examine, through my writing, the various forms of unsatisfactory substitutions we make in our daily lives. I would explore how we convince ourselves that it is not the worst thing in the world to continue doing the things we are used to doing instead of doing those things we had planned to do, even though we truly believe we would make ourselves better people if we actually followed through and did them.

However, before I could begin typing up that blog post, which was already planned out entirely in my head and needed but to be recorded, I got sidetracked into thinking that, instead of immediately indulging myself in enjoying the art of composition—which uses nothing but my trusty computer, my nimble fingers, and my brain—I should first take a walk outside. A long walk.

For exercise.

This, despite the fact that the Weather app on my iPhone had warned me, when I got out of bed this bright and sunny winter morning, that the current temperature was exactly TWO DEGREES BELOW ZERO (Fahrenheit).

However, another quick click on the Weather app on my iPhone informs me now that, in the four hours since I woke up today, the air has warmed. It is now a comparatively balmy nine degrees above zero (Fahrenheit).

It is still so cold that I will not even attempt to convince my faithful Shih Tzu, Arliss, to join me on a physical journey down the icy street in search of fresh air and invigoration of my soul.

*

I am happy to report that, this time, I went with my gut.

Before posting this, I got on my sneakers and my coat and scarf and gloves and I took a walk. A nice walk.

Does that make me an exercise nut?

Now that I'm back, the sun is still brightly shining, the air is still clear, crisp, and still, not breezy, and it is now eighteen degrees (Fahrenheit).

My little Arliss was so very happy to take a walk with me.

Making a Difference

I am reminded once again that "thinking about exercising" and "exercising" are two very different things, only one of which actually makes a difference in one's physical well-being.

"Time" Enough to Exercise

I'm considering making the Apple Watch my newest exercise buddy.

Did you notice how that buys me time, gives me at least until April, the expected launch of this product, to actually do any exercise?

The Forces of Nature

Snow shoveling is great exercise and is randomly scheduled, physically demanding, and performed in my favorite sports arena, the great outdoors.

I love having the forces of nature for an exercise buddy.

I Thought about Exercise

Today, I thought about exercise.

That is all.

Rainbow

This morning I finally did exercises that were not scripted. While I had begun to exercise when my daughter rolled out her exercise mat on the living room floor in front of me and I followed suit, after our five minutes of yoga sun salutation poses, I branched out on my own and exercised according to my feelings.

I laid flat on my back on the floor.

I bent my legs and held my knees in my arms and rolled from side to side.

I straightened my legs and stretched my arms overhead with fingers folded and palms facing out and stretched and stretched.

I laid on my stomach with arms at my side and palms facing upward and I lifted my neck and shoulders off the floor as high as I could.

I sat up cross-legged and tried to push my knees outward and down to the floor until I could feel a stretch.

I laid on my stomach and swam the breast stroke in the air.

I laid on my back and brought one leg straight up in the air and the opposite arm up to touch my toe and then switched to the other leg and arm and kept switching over and over.

I did modified push-ups.

I did modified crab walks.

I sat up with legs straight out in front of me and toes curled toward me and I bent forward to touch my toes with my outstretched arms.

I continued changing up for quite a while and incorporated a bunch of movements that did not look like exercise but felt good.

I felt like I looked silly and was glad when my daughter tired of the game and left me to my own devices after the first ten minutes so I could move in ways that might have looked awkward if anyone had been watching.

I exercised until I felt I had really exercised.

Then I rolled up my exercise mat.

And a funny thing happened.

As I was rolling up my mat, I noticed that on the lower half of the mat there appeared a rainbow, glistening on the mat surface and waving and shimmering as I maneuvered the mat until it was all rolled-up and the rainbow disappeared. There must have been a reflection of the sun coming through the picture window somehow, to bend the light and cause the beauteous image I beheld.

I am taking that rainbow as a sign from God that I am doing it right. Exercising.

I am doing the right thing by exercising according to my own needs and feelings. I am allowing the exercise to flow naturally and I am working my body in a different way than I would be if I were following a traditional exercise class.

It makes me happy to think God approves of my creative form of exercising. And I am choosing to go with these "happy" thoughts, to dwell on them for a few moments as I prepare to get on with the rest of the activities I have planned for my day.

It is great to end an exercise routine with happy thoughts!

We, Who Are About to Die of Inactivity, Salute You

This is written for you, persistent reader. You, who would fathom the Call to Exercise that Actually Works. You are still interested in what more I might have to say on the subject of Motivation to Exercise. You are more than curious about whether or not I was successful in saving my own life through figuring out a way to motivate myself to get up and move, to exercise, to avoid INACTIVITY.

It would not surprise you to find out that I did not, in fact, ever discover a magical key which could induce me to commence activity meant to prolong my life and sustain my health.

Yet, you read on anyway. Your font of hope overflows. Your zest for life sustains your inquiry. You root for me to persist in my quest, to conquer my demons. You are sure that I will soon say that, this very morning, I got up out of bed and did ten jumping jacks before coffee.

I am not going to disappoint you, so I will lie, and tell you I got up out of bed this morning and did ten jumping jacks, before coffee.

Aackkk! What am I saying? No, I will not lie. I will never lie to you, my gentle reader.

This morning I awoke a little later than usual, but refreshed and aware of my aliveness. I felt healthy and happy and well rested. I stretched out luxuriously and practiced Full Body Awareness, one muscle at a time.

To my surprise, in between the curves of my lax left upper arm muscles, I discovered a previously hidden agenda with my name on it. At the top was a single word, "rhyme."

Immediately I wrote a haiku (a three-line poem of seventeen syllables which does not rhyme):

            Evil Creator of the Couch Potato

            Doctor Faustus

            inventor of the sofa

            murdered ten million

I do not know who precisely invented the concept of the Comfortable Seat, but, in either literary or religous works, evil incarnate in one form may serve as metaphor for another.

It is likely many more than ten million people have been lured to soft couches and recliner chairs and, there reposed, were put to sleep by television sitcoms, chips, beer, and the feeling of easiness that comes from having, within crawling distance, a kitchen whose cabinets overflow with boxes of sugared cereal and whose refrigerator spills out gallons of milk and cool, caffeinated beverages on demand.

Ice cream, close at hand, is not your friend.

Doctor Faustus, god of INACTIVITY, we worship you for caring enough about our human desire for creature comforts that you went ahead and created them for us.

We, who choose to indulge, salute you.

Assessment: What I Learned from Blogging About Exercise

• It is fun to write about exercise.

• Taking the time to write about exercise has not increased the amount of time I spend in actually doing exercise.

• Writing about motivating myself to make exercising a new habit has not yet produced in me any additional motivation to exercise more often or more intensely. I realize that I may not have given this experiment enough time.

• I have long suspected that all it takes to develop a habit of exercise is a change in attitude.

• I have a gut feeling that it would be a good use of my creative energies to work on solving the logistics of making my house an environment more conducive to the practice of exercising.

• I believe that my gut is wrong. Rather than continuing to do any mental work at all about the business of exercise, or any preparation for exercising whatsoever, whenever I get the urge to do so in the future, I should simply stand up and start doing jumping jacks.

• From now on, I will wake up every day with a view that my house is a welcoming place for anyone whose intent it is to move the body in a healthy way.

• If I decide to take no further action in maintaining this blog, please view it as a good thing. If I am not writing here, it is because I am actually exercising. I invite you to do the same.

'Fessing Up: I Missed a Day of Exercise

Did you notice? I missed a day of exercise, early on, but did not write about it.

I did write something every single day so far this year, and I did write always about exercise. But, on that fateful day, a day not too far into my "Year Committed to Transforming My Body through Establishing a Habit of Easily-Accomplished and Not-Too-Demanding Daily Exercise," I did not meet my own personal quota of ACTUALLY EXERCISING.

It was only day three or four, and I have already blocked most of the particulars out of my mind.

It was totally embarrassing then, as it is now, to admit defeat. As the clock approached midnight on "The FIRST of What Will Most Likely Be the MANY Days I Have Failed To Complete the One Tiny, Little Daily Step I Need to Accomplish EVERY SINGLE DAY in Order to Reach My Primary Goal for the Year of NO LONGER BEING A COUCH POTATO DOOMED TO AN UNPLEASANT AND PAINFUL EARLY DEMISE," I recognized my impending failure to live up to what I thought were not too unrealistically high expectations for myself.

I cringed. The clock passed midnight. I had not rolled out the yoga mat. Did the ten ab crunches I did before I got out of bed that morning count? How about the thirty seconds of squats I did while brushing my teeth? The bending down to touch my toes in the shower, twice, when I had only dropped the soap once?

I had to admit it. I was a slacker. The most I had done about exercise that day was to think about it continuously.

I felt awful about my not having followed through on what was supposed to be a simple plan of action. Yet, it was not the first time in my life I had let myself down, and would likely not be the last.

I had managed to knock myself off my high horse of over-confidence in believing it would be a cinch to master this exercise thing. Yet, I was not done for. I got up, dusted myself off, and continued onward in my journey. My ego was bruised and battered, but not down for the count.

Still, I was massively disappointed in myself for letting me down. All I had wanted to do was to be able to say, next December 31st, that I had gotten up and moved my body every day for a year. Was that too much to ask? On next New Year's Eve, I wanted to proudly announce that I had, self-conscripted, participated willingly and practically effortlessly in a series of simple exercise motions, for each of 365 days in a row. That I had pushed myself to a new sublime body awareness, and was completely satisfied with the glorious results.

In the first few days of what was shaping up to be the Year of Neverending Failure and Comeback, I had already grown comfortable with the idea that my own personal goals of intellectual success as a writer were necessarily entangled with being able to sustain my body in a condition conducive to maintaining fitness. I recognized that if I continued in my current habit of writing, trapped within the physical embodiment of a couch potato, I would soon be doomed to lose what was left of my body's fitness. If I did not get up off the couch occasionally, I would eventually no longer have at my disposal my mind's comfortable writing nook, a cooperative, pain-free, healthy body that would obey my commands when called upon to buckle down and type.

"Failure is not an option!" had been my unspoken motto, as I had embarked on my trip to the Land of the Hale and Hearty on the first day of the New Year. There was no need to announce my motto aloud, of course, because who would need to state out loud something so obvious?

What had happened to throw me off course, and so soon?

If I am lucky, I will now be able to deconstruct what happened, and I will describe my reaction to the uneven turn of events that led to my ignoring the Siren Call to Exercise which I thought I had employed as a hired hand. I will fire this inept serf, if necessary, then attempt to outline precisely which steps I plan to take to make sure my neglect of duty does not happen again. I may have to step up and hire a professional exercise guru, a motivational speaker, a former-couch-potato-turned-fitness-pro to guide me through the initial stages of this transformation I desire.

I am not going to be starting over, in my quest for self-improvement, but will recognize this glitch for what it is, a bump in the road to a state of improved physical fitness. I'm taking this as a wake-up call, and hope to learn from my mistake, and not make the same mistake twice.

Just Sitting Around? Try "Conscious, Slow-Moving Exercising"

In my sitting for three hours at the Red Cross table as a blood drive volunteer on what turned out to be a slow day, I recently had an opportunity to put into practice my theoretically-beneficial, self-invented exercise routine I call "Conscious, Slow-Moving Exercising." I managed to keep my body continuously moving much of the time, even though, to the casual bystander, it probably looked like I was simply sitting and doing nothing out of the ordinary. There was little else to do, as an all-day snow storm had made the roads icy and very few people were able to make it out to donate blood.

The latest medical research shows that extended periods of "inactivity" are very bad for you.

Determined to do more than just sit still for my three-hour shift, I found it to be not that difficult to maintain a degree of almost-constant motion and to keep my body always moving, if only just a little bit.

So that I would not appear to be actively exercising and thereby look strange to passersby, I alternated strategic large movements with almost imperceptible tiny ones. I tried to look natural. I stood up and walked a few steps at least once every twenty minutes, pretending to look down an empty aisle to see if I could spot a friend, or to peer out the front window to see if it was still snowing. I leaned down and stretched out over the floor, not as a person exercising, but as one who had just dropped a pen and was reaching to pick it up. I sipped from my water bottle, which I kept on the floor behind my chair so that I would need to move a bit more to fetch it and return it to its place. I crossed and uncrossed my legs, folded and unfolded my arms, shifted in my chair from side to side, turned to look over my shoulder, first on one side, then the other. I straightened my spine and lifted the top of my head straight up, then lowered my chin to look down at my fingernails. I reached across to the far side of the table and picked up a brochure, then held it up to "read," all the while taking turns tensing my arm, shoulder, and back muscles. I flexed my feet, slowly, and tightened my calves, my thighs, my buttocks, my side, abs, and everything else, slowly, so as to be unnoticeable.

I also moved, one at a time, each of my muscles all over my body, in almost imperceptible slow-motion circles, lengthening stretches, and tightening contractions. I practiced muscle awareness, moving the focus of my attention to each section of my body in turn, beginning with the muscles at the tip of one pinkie toe and moving from toe to toe and then to the foot, ankle, and upward. I made sure to account for every single muscle and move it at least once per awareness rotation.

I did not move quickly, which would have made me look antsy and nervous. I relaxed and moved slowly and casually.

What I did not do was to remain seated, stationary in one position, glued to my cell phone, moving only my thumb muscles in typing or scrolling, as I am wont to do when passing time playing games, browsing the internet, or participating in social media. One could argue that such time is not wasted, as it exercises the mind, but the entire body must be actively engaged in order to avoid the physical "inactivity" that has been proven so dangerous to one's health. Yes, it is ok to play with the phone, but it is important to multi-task and play with your muscles at the same time.

I did all this mini-exercise easily and almost effortlessly, staying in motion, whereas if I had been at home and not trying purposefully to keep moving I would have had no trouble at all remaining perfectly still, except for my typing fingers, for an entire three hours, and longer.

I think of my skin, and then of all the stuff inside my skin. That's the stuff I want to keep in motion, to keep it healthy. In high school chemistry class, when we wanted to cause a chemical reaction, it helped to shake things up, to stir the mixture to make the elements physically touch, thus sparking a chain of events altering the individual components and creating something new. Inside my skin, if I keep in motion all of the elements, some of which are liquid, some solid, then good and necessary chemical reactions are likely to keep happening. The amount of motion does not have to be vigorous to be effective in causing good chemistry to happen, it just has to keep things flowing and moving around. I think of my blood bringing nourishment and carrying away waste products to each cell in my body. If each cell keeps getting a fresh supply of blood, the body stays in better health.

There is research that says that moderate and vigorous exercise is good for you and research that says that physical inactivity is bad for you. There is a happy balance somewhere which probably includes mini-exercise, and science may work on that one next.

For now, I plan to keep things inside my skin in motion as often as possible and think healthy thoughts, to continue to remind myself that it is important to avoid inactivity. It's easy to do!

7 Reasons to Consider Skipping Exercise Today

Are these good reasons to skip exercise today?

1. You're dead.

Yes. Go ahead and skip today's daily exercise. While even a tiny bit of exercise might have made you feel better yesterday, no amount of exercise whatsoever is going to make any difference today. You're done!

2. You're up to your eyeballs on a snow-covered mountain waiting for Ski Patrol to find you and stop the bleeding.

Yes. Keep breathing, gently, and don't move a muscle. Exercising increases the heart rate and shortens the time it takes to bleed out.

3. You're in the emergency room waiting for the x-ray to see which bones are broken.

Yes. Keep breathing, gently, and don't move a muscle. This is not the time for "Head Tall," "Spine Lengthening," and not even "Ab Tightening." Any exercise at all may put one of your nerves at risk of permanent incapacitation by being severed by the shards of a broken bone.

4. You're being held hostage by a gunman in a bank.

Yes. Keep breathing gently, and don't move a muscle. You don't want to attract attention to yourself by making any sudden motions. You want to be able to breathe tomorrow, and you can't do that if you are shot dead today.

5. You are sick in bed with Ebola.

Yes. Keep breathing, gently, and don't move a muscle. Exercising increases the heart rate and shortens the time it takes to bleed out.

6. You are pinned under a desk in a building that has fallen due to earthquake and you cannot move a muscle, but you are not bleeding and your bones are not broken.

No. Even if you are not able to move a single muscle, think about moving your muscles. The latest research shows that the simple act of thinking about moving a muscle by exercising can improve muscle strength and maintain a greater level of fitness, even when the muscle you are thinking about is totally incapacitated.

7. You are sick in bed with anything short of Ebola.

No. You need to keep up your spirits and keep up your strength. You'll need the extra energy exercise can afford when you are on your way to recovery.

Keep moving, every muscle possible, no matter how sick you are. Even just a little bit of motion will help to avoid muscle atrophy, which can happen faster than you ever thought possible.

8. Why are you even looking here for a Number 8 on this list?

No! There is not a single reason not to exercise that we have not already covered. You are still breathing. MOVE something now!

Rearranging the Furniture

I rearranged my living room furniture to make floor space for three yoga mats, one each for myself, my daughter, and my husband.

Once a day, we drop everything else we are doing, roll out our mats, and exercise together. Following the instructions on our iPhone apps, we do "yoga sun salutations," then a "7-minute workout."

The important thing is, we do it together, and with a smile. At the end of our session, whichever one of us it was who had first broached the subject that day with a cheery "Let's do yoga!" and got the rest of us to drop everything and exercise for a few minutes (and, so far, it has always been my daughter), they are heartily thanked for motivating the rest of us to move. Once we are in position, my daughter calls aloud the names of our movements, "cobra," "downward dog," "jumping jacks," and whatever the other words are that recall for us the series of motions we expect will improve our health if we do them earnestly. We do our best to assume the poses and jump the jacks vigorously.

We have rearranged our furniture, but also rearranged our lives, committing to one another that when one of us says, "Let's do yoga!" the rest of us jump up and start rolling out the mats without question.

I guess we have formed an exercise support group. And I'm glad it's working.

I will be so sad when my daughter goes back to college in a few weeks. I hope she calls daily, if only to say over the phone, "Let's do yoga!"

I promise I will drop whatever it is I am doing and roll out my mat.

Is It Time to Exercise? Yes!

If you are breathing and conscious and thinking about exercise, you are very fortunate. You have found time to exercise.

It is always time to "exercise." I have been just as guilty as the next person in thinking I am too busy to exercise, and it is time to admit I have been wrong. It is always time to exercise, and I can move my body in a more positive way, to improve my physical fitness, no matter whatever else it is I think I am doing with my body at the moment and whatever else is occupying my conscious mind.

The problem is, I am not in the habit of moving my body. I am in the habit of resting, unless the activity I am engaged in calls for physical activity.

I am now going to work on changing that, until I am in the habit of moving my body, unless the activity I am engaged in calls for remaining at rest.

My brain is never too filled with compelling thoughts nor too overflowing with the effort of mental work to have no room to allow for the thought, "How do I stay alive?" Our brains are always working overtime with that thought, though we are not conscious of what exactly it is that we are thinking that results in our staying alive. Most of what we do toward that goal is done out of habit.

We are in the habit of breathing. We are in the habit of eating and drinking regularly. We are in the habit of avoiding dangerous people and situations, of staying alert to our environment so that we can switch gears at any moment, should there be a sudden need to stop whatever else it is we are doing and immediately take action to protect our physical bodies from imminent harm.

The trick now is, to make it a habit to recognize that there is a new situation we must constantly be aware of and avoid. We must become conscious that physical "INACTIVITY" is just as dangerous to our health as the other things we consciously avoid, out of habit, in order to avoid possible pain and injury.

Motion is the key. If you are moving, even if it is just a little bit, you are avoiding inactivity. Define "exercise" as "remaining in motion," and you will find that it is very easy to be exercising at every moment.

Practice body awareness. Several times an hour, pause, and consider the state of your body. If you find that your body is deeply entrenched in a state of inactivity, simply move something. Any muscle will do, the more the merrier, but move at least one muscle. Soon you will be thinking of exercise as the act of increasing the amount of motion in which you are actively engaged.

Work on making "motion" your new habit for physical fitness. Stop and think, discover what it is your body is doing, and increase the number of muscles in action and the intensity of those actions. If you are talking, wave your hands a little more. If you are sitting with your legs crossed, bob one foot up and down. If you are driving, arch your back a little bit, then reverse the arch and pull in your abdominal muscles a little bit. If you are watching TV, do a "pelvic roll," moving your lower body in a clockwise circular motion three times, then three times counterclockwise. If you are laying in bed, make a fist and tighten your arm muscles all the way to the shoulder, and then relax the muscles in reverse order. If you are in a meeting, hold your spine a little straighter, your head a little taller. Pull in your abdominal muscles, just for a few seconds.

It may seem harder to keep your body in motion when you are in and around other people, unless you happen to be in an exercise class at a gym. You may be concerned that others will notice your body motions and think you are crazy if you are moving more actively than the people around you. This is somewhat of a valid point, and is the reason why most people think of "exercise" as something one must make time to do, and to do in a place designated for "exercise."

However, look around you and find those who are most physically fit. Even when they are sitting still, they seem to have more of a body awareness. Their posture is straighter, they hold themselves more easily, and, when it is time for them to get up and move, they transition to motion more graciously.

Think of your body as "all of that stuff contained within the sack called My Skin." It is a lot of work to hold up all that stuff rather than let it sag and fall where it may, and the key to constant motion is to work at holding it all up and actively hold it all together so that it is the best body it could be.

Arrange the stuff in your sack in the most beautiful and graceful way, and rearrange it during the course of the day, over and over again, until it becomes second nature to have your body be in motion. Hold your body in such a way that it is always at the ready for quick movement at a moment's notice. Think of having the poise of a ballet dancer waiting for the curtain to rise, the confidence of an Olympic marathon runner just before the starter gun, the alert readiness of a soldier on patrol.

Use your imagination. Make your mind envision of your body the various possibilities of what it could be. Make it your goal to recreate the stuff of your body, inside your skin, until it is formed in a better way than what you currently experience as "my body."

Recognize that "a little bit" more motion is all it takes in order to avoid inactivity and maintain a healthier, more fit body.

Make it a habit to move, just "a little bit," at every moment of the day. Avoid "INACTIVITY" consciously, until it becomes a habit and you find that your body is almost always in motion.

What time is it? It is always time to exercise.

Day Two: Still Exercising!

Yes, I exercised today.

Twenty minutes of yoga first thing in the morning. After only a few days of this routine, I am feeling stronger in my feet muscles, and have noticed I have better balance. Yoga is easier every day: the tree pose, the cobra, downward dog, and the rest.

Just a few days of exercise, and no more teetering as I stand and raise one bended leg, rest my foot on the side of the opposite knee, and raise my hands in the air, pretending I am a tree. Trees do not teeter. They may sway, in a wind, but they are firmly grounded. I am a tree. With yoga, I am fully grounded, and stronger.

I have also been remembering, during the rest of the day, to keep an eye out for an exercise opportunity. Watching a three-hour movie on TV becomes a chance to do occasional leg lifts. It helps even to just lift one leg in the air and swing the foot up and around in a circle, first in one direction, and then in the reverse. A couple of times every hour that I am seated, I simply raise one of my feet, six to twelve inches up off the ground, and twirl my ankle, drawing circles in the air with my big toe. Then I switch and move the other foot. So simple, but it really makes a difference in fitness.

Sitting down all day and not moving can kill you, according to the latest research. Move a muscle, any muscle, even if just a little bit, every time you think about it.

The best thing about daily exercise is feeling better about daily exercise.

An increase in hope for the future is a nice benefit, too. I went shopping today and looked at clothes that do not fit - a little too small, but stylish - and thought of my new-found dedication to fitness, and I was filled with hope that, by next Christmas, I may find that Santa delivers what I want.

I want to feel good and healthy.

Need Help with Motivation? Accept Divine Intervention

You want to be physically fit, yet you do not exercise. You desperately need help to get started, to become motivated, to move. It would be helpful to see through new eyes just how really wonderful are the changes exercise can bring to your life. You would most likely keep exercising if only you had enough encouragement to stay the course, to keep moving, to keep your body healthy, fit, and in shape.

No matter your belief system or your take on the manner in which the cosmos is ultimately organized: Are you ignoring signs from the universe that might help you toward your goal?

If you would only open your eyes and ears, and then recognize it was there for you, would you accept divine intervention meant to encourage you to exercise?

My advice is to take a clue from your environment. Pay attention. The rationale for maintaining a habit of exercise is something we all know, but how often do we ignore an opportunity to exercise? How often does it seem the universe is conspiring to make us move our bodies, but we find a way around it and refuse to cooperate?

We cannot find a parking spot near the store entrance, so we are forced to walk a very long way from the far end of the parking lot to the door. Instead of acknowledging that the universe is helping us to exercise, we turn the car around, go home, and plan to shop another day when the parking lot is less crowded.

We are in the basement, and suddenly we recognize that the item we are looking for is stored in the attic, so we are forced to walk up three flights of stairs. Instead, we give up the task we were working on, turn on the TV, and forget about doing that much exercise.

It hit me this morning. I was working on my writing on the computer, when my daughter woke up, came downstairs and into the living room, and said, "Mom, let's do yoga!"

"Later, after I finish this and then take a shower." I had lots on my To-Do list for today.

Immediately, I remembered I WANT to exercise, I NEED to exercise, and here was an invitation from the universe, an encouragement to do what I already knew I needed and wanted to do.

I stood up. "Yes, I changed my mind! Let's do it now! Yoga. I need the exercise," I said, allowing the sign to finally reach my mind.

How many of us have a beautiful, thoughtful, sweet, adorable young girl come to us first thing in the morning, when we are most ready to exercise, and ask us in a loving way if we are ready to do the thing we really need to do? It is as if God himself came on a cloud to be my exercise partner.

"Thank you so much! I'm so glad we did yoga together. Let's do it again tomorrow!" I said when we finished our session and rolled up our exercise mats, putting them away until next time.

Exercise, Day One: Calisthenics? NO!

My Year of Daily Exercise, Day One.

Six-thirty in the morning, and all is quiet. I do not want to wake the family by performing calisthenics in the living room before sunrise.

Hah! The absurdity of that last statement astounds even me. I giggle at the thought that it could now be me, who might actually make too much noise by thumping the floor vigorously with set after set of perfectly executed jumping jacks. I would love to be able to expect that it might be this couch potato who is waking up the next-door neighbors due to the intensity of her earth-shaking exercises. But the reality is, that body-moving is an activity that hasn't happened to this body in such a very long time that it seems so very unlikely that it might be happening any time soon.

"Not waking up the family" also sounds like it might provide a great excuse to avoid many difficult forms of exercise, especially the hard ones I used to enjoy doing with ease but haven't attempted in years. However, "not performing calisthenics" is already a part of my new and improved exercise plan. I want to avoid any exercise that might hurt me. I quite consciously avoid damage to any of my body's important parts, e.g., any organ or tissue that is in any way connected to a sensory organ that might possibly be tempted to send a message to the brain entitled "PAIN."

For a body unused to regular exercise, performing calisthenics is a definite no-no.

We want to strengthen our bodies and become fit. We do NOT want to injure ourselves and be forced to give up exercise and suffer for years in pain (like we did last time).

We will ease into our daily routine of exercise, gradually.

Remember: You Want to Exercise Daily

The first thing I thought of upon awakening this morning, Day One of "The Year I Regain My Fitness," was that I needed to exercise, and for that, I patted myself on the back. Mentally. I was too tired to actually move and pat myself on the back. It was New Year's Day and I hadn't had enough sleep.

I was so happy that I had remembered, without prompting, the fact that I now have as a daily goal: "Exercise"!

Too often "Exercise" has been on my To-Do list and ignored. After all, I am busy. And I am not in the habit of exercising. I KNOW I should exercise, which is why I put it on my To-Do list.

I often write To-Do lists of "Important Things to Remember to Do" and, once dutifully recorded, the itemized goals become conveniently forgotten and discarded, as do refrigerated leftovers I don't have time to eat because there is always a new recipe I want to try. These great ideas always, at the time I have them, seem so vital to my everlasting happiness and indispensible to my inevitable success.

I carefully clear my calendar to make room for them, terrific activities, such as "visit the Louvre (learn French first)," "knit a 100% cotton Irish cable-knit sweater (learn to knit first)," "join the adult swim team at the YMCA (buy a bathing suit that fits and doesn't make me look flat-chested first)," "write an iPhone app to remind myself to floss daily (learn the latest iPhone app programming language first)," "create a Mary Magdalene stained glass window for the living room (sign up for the stained glass workshop at the local high school and re-read The New Testament first)," "run a 5K for charity every weekend to meet two goals at once: get in shape and save the world (buy decent running shoes and workout clothes that fit first)," etc. It is nauseating to think that so many of my wonderful ideas have gone the way of my household's plant population, dead from neglect (why, oh, why do they always need water!).

To have remembered today that I want to exercise daily is, for me, a major accomplishment of which I am proud. I hope that I am on a roll, that I will remember every day when I wake up, that I want to exercise TODAY!

For Absolute Beginners: Kegel Exercises

Today is Day One of the year in which I have determined I will be very seriously continuously monitoring my journey to physical fitness, from an initial state of admittedly infinite weakness.

Today I awoke too early, having stayed awake last night just long enough to see the ball drop at Times Square, which announced to me that the time for exercising had offically begun. As I lay in bed just before I dropped off to sleep, the gravity of my situation hit me: I would actually have to do exercise, every single day, for an entire year, and then for the rest of my life. Starting NOW!

In a panic, I determined to begin exercising immediately, just in case I did not get a chance to exercise at all during the following day. I wanted to be absolutely sure I would have something that I could enter into my exercise blog, something that I actually did with my own physical body that could be counted as exercise. Something that I could write about convincingly, and, of course, it needed to be something that would have a positive effect on my level of physical fitness. I needed to be able to convince, not only my readers, but also myself, that I was following through on my commitment to full body recovery.

So, as I lay in bed in the wee hours of the morning of January first, during those last five minutes of consciousness before I fell asleep, I did Kegel exercises.

Yes, Kegel exercises, those tiny little pelvic floor exercises that you rarely hear about when people talk about their vigorous workout routines. But yes, those wee little Kegel exercises count, too, and are actually really very, very important. As I Kegeled, I congratulated myself for having discovered, just in time for my first day's entry into my exercise blog, the absolutely perfect exercise for beginners, but yet one that is critical to maintaining good health in every individual.

Kegel exercises are the one exercise that everyone should do every single day, several times a day. You can do them anywhere, anytime, and, though they do involve the pelvis, you can't see the internal muscles move, so no one need be the wiser. Kegel exercises are prescribed by doctors to prevent incontinence and to improve sexual functioning.

To do Kegel exercises, which also strengthen the pelvic floor, improve abdominal circulation, and increase overall wellness and well-being, one sets one's focus on the muscles of the lower pelvis, those supporting the bladder, the rectum, and the sexual organs. You squeeze these muscles, one by one, slowly, until you have tightened up every muscle you can imagine, from the bottom of your torso up to a few inches below your belly button. Imagine that your pelvic area is a large elevator shaft of ten floors. Begin on the ground floor and work your way up to the top floor. Tighten the muscles on the ground floor, move up one flight to the next floor while keeping the muscles on the ground floor tight, and add the tightening of the muscles on each floor as the elevator slowly moves up to the tenth floor. Then, release all of the muscles, one by one, just as slowly, beginning with those on the top floor. Going down in the elevator, release muscles as you go, until you reach the ground floor, when you will have fully relaxed all of your pelvic muscles. Repeat until bored.

Instructions for Kegel beginners include how to find and isolate exactly which muscles the Kegel exercises will be tightening. One way to find the muscles is to imagine you are passing urine, and then imagine that you stop the flow of urine by tightening a muscle - that is the muscle you want to start with. (Don't do this while actually urinating, as it might cause a urinary problem.) You might like to search the internet for "Kegel exercises" for further instruction, or ask your doctor.

Kegel exercises: good for men and women, young and old. Try them today, and make them a part of your daily routine, along with brushing your teeth and using dental floss.