The Wonder Of A Walk

Exercising has always been a challenge for me.  When I was in college, I would go to the university gym and, all pumped up to crank it out, I would max myself out on the treadmill, crunches and the weights.  Especially when I was on a quest to lose the weight that I had gained freshman year (affectionately called ‘The Freshman 15′).  The next day I would be sore.  After a while of going to the gym, I would lose motivation and stop.  Until once again, I had gained too much on my belly – only to find myself in the gym going through the same cycle again.

Why is exercising such a challenge – not only for me but I believe for so many people?  I cannot speak for other people, but I know for me I needed to bring my life under healthy discipline.  The very word scared me, because discipline sounds so unpleasant – but I sorely needed it.

My dad is very disciplined in exercising – every day he faithfully wakes up early and does his morning exercises.  He doesn’t do much – he stretches, breathes, and I’m not sure what else he actually does.  But he does it consistently – every single day.  I used to think that would be boring.

But guess what?  Fast forward many years later – I’m married, I have 2 kids, and a business.  Guess what I developed?  Discipline.  More accurately I’d say that God, as a loving Father, made sure I got the discipline that I needed.  It was surely unpleasant, but He did say that no discipline is pleasant at the time but will produce in us a harvest.

Fast forward to the walk I had yesterday morning by the Harbor.  The difference?  I walked instead of ran.  I walked with a good friend and we talked about our kids, husbands, businesses, and kids’ activities and books.  We talked about some of our past and how our businesses bring opportunities for building healing into our relationships.  We shared our lives! And it was a beautiful view along the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

It was not a rigorous work-out, but the wonder of this walk was we got to weave much-needed exercise into an everyday activity.  With the same block of time (45 minutes – 1 hour), we were building community, discipline and good physical health at the same time!  This I could keep up, and I will start slowly by scheduling it weekly into my calendar.  This is on top of the everyday exercises I’m doing when I wake up in the morning – 3 set sof arm circles, 3 sets of planks, 3 sets of crunches.  It doesn’t seem like much compared to what I used to do in my college gym, but it is certainly more realistic and doable long-term.  The only thing that kept me from being consistent at exercising was wrong thinking – an inaccurate mindset.  Starting small IS a success – you just need to believe it.

Tags: Art of Listening, Health And Wellness, Mindset