52 Changes - Keep on Moving!

I hate to fall behind on these things.  Technically this post is for the week of June 27th, a change that I actually did make that week but never ended up posting between all the traveling and the short work week.  I'm also behind on movie reviews, and I'm hoping to get that put together in the next day or so.  Whew!


Anyway, knowing that it was a short week for me, I decided to make a pretty easy change, i.e. something that I could do in one day and make that count for the week.  I decided to actually get some exercise.  Blah, right?  Well, maybe, but "they" say it's for the best, so who am I to argue?


I'm fortunate to have an insane metabolism, so I can pretty much eat however I want, never gain a pound, and still lie borderline "underweight" on the BMI scale.  That's genetic luck - I know that - but having it in my corner made me rather unmotivated to work out for most of my life.  I have been going to a yoga class once a week for about six to eight months now, which is awesome, but I've mostly gone for the fun of it than any sense of exercise.  Then when I was home recently, my brother's running habit came up in conversation and he asked what I do.  I mentioned the yoga class, and he laughed and asked the real question of the past few years: "what about cardio?"


In my defense, the yoga class is a vinyasa (flow) style one, so we do a lot of moving from pose to pose rather than simply sitting there stretching, but I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn't really strenuous enough.  So I decided to hold this thought as an idea for a week where I need a change I can just drop in the schedule: at least one day of real cardio exercise a week.  That really doesn't sound like a lot, and for sure it's below the FDA or whoever's recommendations for fitness.  But honestly, aside from taking walks during my lunch break and the yoga class I've been attending, I literally haven't been doing anything, so it needs to be a small start.  Last week I ran for about 20 minutes and felt so exhausted.  Obviously this is an area with much room for improvement.


Keeping it up is the real issue with this change, though.  It was pretty easy for me to get outside and tromp around for a third of an hour.  Much more challenging is making myself do that week-in and week-out, when I pretty much hate running.  I ran for the track team in high school, and looking back, I cannot fathom why I did it, since I never wanted to practice and spent nearly as much time trying to weasel my way out of it as I did actually running.  In college I spent one morning in the ISU running club (to try to impress a girl) before I quit, then spent the next few years sporadically "taking up running" to no avail.


Now, don't get me wrong - some people legitimately do enjoy running, and perhaps if I get my stamina up a little more I could like it too.  But at the moment it's really not for me.  So as a sort of add-on, this week we are trying the YMCA, with the potential to join for real after the trial period.  I had my reservations at first, but damn! this Y is nothing like the one I took swim lessons in as a kid back home.  It's huge and brand-new for all us west-side-yuppies, and there's enough variety that I'm unlikely to get bored.  There's a pool, an indoor running track (useful in winter), all the machines, more classes (including yoga) than I can shake a stick at, and the awesome video game bikes.


Not to sound too much like a raving YMCA shill, but the video game bike is so cool.  It's a regular stationary bike, but there's a TV monitor attached that shows your view pedaling through a virtual world.  When the terrain changes, the resistance goes up or down accordingly.  There are tons of virtual settings - we did Macchu Picchu last time - so you aren't going to get bored.  And then there's the fact that you mentally want to pass all the virtual cyclists, so you're motivated too.  It's like a wii fit attached to an exercise bike, and it's awesome!


Based on that, it's pretty likely that we're going to join up, and it should be pretty easy to keep this change going. Last night I tried swimming, for the first time since high school, and man do I have a long way to go.  But with some real amenities (pool, video game bike) and structure (class times to meet), I think I'm a lot more likely to stick with it than I am with a random "I should get outside and run."  If we do sign up, there's no penalty for quitting, but I'm pretty confident that issue won't come up.