Yes, I know exercise is essential to feeling good, becoming fit and hopefully losing weight. That doesn’t mean I have to like it and, truth be told, I don’t. Well, at least I didn’t. Last week, though, something clicked in my mind that helped me to see exercise isn’t the drudgery I’ve always made it out to be. Ever since, I’ve been exercising daily… although I try not to admit that to myself.

A little explanation first.

Shortly after giving birth to my second son I was a whopping 65 pounds overweight. I was still in my mid-30s at the time and how I looked affected many things in my life: my then-career as a trial lawyer, my confidence as a new wife and mother, and my feelings of social relevancy. So when it came to working off the weight I worked hard, going for daily 45-minute grueling aerobic sessions followed by a half-hour of weight-lifting on alternate days. Within six months I was down to the size 6 I’d worn pre-baby boy. Then I stopped.

Those hard core workouts, you see, were both exhausting and boring. I’d set a goal — reaching my old weight — and once I reached it my attention turned to other pursuits: gardening, learning to cook, decorating our first home and becoming a stay-at-home Mom. With a surprisingly busy schedule, and a very active baby turning into an even more active toddler, I just didn’t have time to do the work-out/stop sweating/shower-and-reapply makeup routine.

Flash forward, oh, eight years. (No, I’m not going to tell you how overweight I am now.) Having traded my legal career for freelance writing, looks no longer really affect my income. After ten years being wed to a man who thinks I’m beautiful even when I’m sick in bed with a cold and have snot running down my nose, I’ve come to realize that marital love is bigger than my dress size. (Which, admittedly, is bigger than I ever thought it would be.) My life is even more active than ever before, and so I’ve been telling myself for years that I’m just too busy to really make a regular habit of exercising.

Also, I hate it.

Then last week while stretching in front of the TV to work out a kink in my back I found myself actually enjoying the feel of my body moving. Touching my toes (which, yes, I can still do) brought a wonderful, electric tingle to my underused back muscles. Yoga’s downward dog position tugged on my hamstrings like someone pulling taffy. I sank to the floor, arched the back of my head toward my toes in the cobra position, and felt my spine working out knots I hadn’t even realized were there. A few more moves — most of which used my own weight as, well, weight — and I was wondering why I’d stopped exercising regularly.

Ten minutes into it, the phone rang.

After a brief conversation I “forgot” all about exercising (okay, I decided to do something productive work-wise), but the physical effects stayed with me for hours. I felt relaxed. Mellow. My muscles felt like loose rubber bands instead of tight little balls of constant dull ache. It felt, well, good.

But, I told myself, it wasn’t really exercise. I’d only stretched, after all, and I only did it for ten minutes or so. Why, I didn’t even break a sweat, so obviously it didn’t count.

The next morning, after dropping my son off from school, I came home and decided to stretch again before launching into my workday. Ten minutes into it I was feeling pretty good, and that’s when my gaze fell on a dusty exercise video I’d bought last summer.

At the time, I’d been attracted to the video’s concept: a DVD that lets you choose your target area, exercise intensity and workout length (anywhere from 4 to 40 minutes. (The video is 1-Minute Workout with Minna Lessig, by the way.) I’d used it a few times, found it both easy and enjoyable, and then… “forgot”. But there it was, waiting for me right as I was thinking that perhaps a few more minutes of exercise wouldn’t suck too bad. So I popped it in, did more crunches and lunges in four minutes than I’ve done in four months, and… the phone rang again.

Since then, I’ve come home on other mornings from taking my son to school and worked out with the video a few times. I’ve walked on my treadmill while blogging for 10 minutes here and there, too, although that definitely does bring on the sweat. I’ve even spent a few minutes doing floor calisthenics with and without my exercise ball (which, I’ve found, I’m more likely to use if I don’t put it away in the closet).

But I’m not exercising, at least not in the sense that I used to. I’m just moving around, loosening up my muscles and toning some of my flabbier parts, even if my scale seems to like it. A lot. (As in 4 pounds lost last week.) But I’m most assuredly not exercising. Honest. Because if I actually was exercising I’d feel obligated to think of it as, well, an obligation: something that I must do even when I don’t feel like it, and about which I must feel bad if I “forget”.

So, despite what it may look like, I am NOT exercising. I mean that.

I am, however, wearing a smaller size of pants today.

Whee!

My daughter has awesome legs. Amazing legs, to be honest. I assure you she did not inherit them from me, and since her father isn’t terribly svelte I doubt she got them from him, either. She got her gorgeous gams the hard way: by working on them.

In addition to volleyball, she’s an avid tennis buff to which the abundance of tennis equipment in her room attests. Somehow, this child of mine who used to trip over her own feet, has become an all-out athlete whose prowess on the courts is truly inspiring. She’s such a die-hard fan that while other girls her age ask for cars (or at least new iPods or cell phones) for their birthdays, her wish list is filled with various tennis racquets.

Apparently, one racquet alone is not enough. There are racquets for indoor play and racquets for outdoor courts. Some are for beginner players while others are for those with skill. Some companies, offer specific racquets based on a player’s typical swing speed and style. Some are for those with swift swings while others are for those who swing hard but slow.

On top of it, some companies like the one that makes Babolat racquets have engineered their racquets to reduce impact and ease vibration, on top of which they offer various string patterns that affect spin and determine the sweet spot.

I had no idea, and I think my daughter was counting on that when she suggested that I take up tennis as a way to get some additional exercise. Standing there, faced with so many different options and styles in the tennis shop, I quickly sniffed that I couldn’t possibly play without first buying myself a real tennis bracelet. (No real players wear those, she tells me.)

But meanwhile, she’d found a new pair of shoes and a visor she just couldn’t live without. Naturally, I bought them for her and pretended that at some point I’d continue shopping for basic tennis equipment so I could learn how to play. She, meanwhile, pretended to believe me. We were halfway to the car when I realized she’d known all along how that shopping trip would turn out.

Love, set, match. Dang, she’s good.

Five-time Olympic competitor and the oldest woman to have ever been on the U.S. Swim Team, silver medalist Dara Torres is an inspiration to men and women of all ages. But considering that she had retired eight years ago, and gave birth a mere two years ago, she’s certainly inspiring women over 40 with her “age is just a number” mindset.

After one glance at her muscled, powerful body even I found myself thinking, “Hey, I might not get that cut but I could certainly try!” Apparently, I’m not the only one. Torres is inspiring a return to exercise among women and men alike.

Of course, Torres isn’t alone. Plenty of folks have been watching the athletes and admiring the skill, stamina and prowess. Fitness chains are reporting a boom in gym membership in the States. But even in Britain, which will host the 2012 games, there’s a call to use the upcoming events to motivate people to shed pounds (and not just the monetary kind).

But as I stand here on my treadmill huffing and puffing away while blogging I just don’t find NBC’s daytime lineup of soap operas and legal shows to be very inspiring.

Those nice, shiny gold medals may only be worth $215 in dollars but as morale boosters they’re priceless. Somehow, though, I think I might look a bit silly were I to start awarding myself trophies for every 100 miles walked.

So, how do you reward yourself for sticking with your fitness routine?

Every month it seems the recommended daily amount of exercise changes. It’s 10,000 steps.

No, wait, it’s an hour.

Oh, no, 30 minutes is plenty, and you can even take breaks.

While few people really believe 10 minutes of daily exercise is enough, it turns out that for most of us trying to lose weight, 30 minutes isn’t enough, either.

A study published July 28 in the Archives of Internal Medicine adds to the burgeoning scientific consensus: when it comes to exercise for weight loss, more is better. It suggests that obese people would have to exercise at least an hour at a time to see any significant difference in their weight.

The study, led by John Jakicic at the Physical Activity and Weight Management Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, followed nearly 200 overweight or obese women ages 21 to 45 through a two-year weight-loss program. The women were given free treadmills to use at home, regular group meetings and telephone pep talks to help keep them on track. Participants were also asked to restrict their food intake to between 1,200 and 1,500 calories per day, and were randomized to one of four physical activity intervention groups based on energy expenditure (either 1,000 calories or 2,000 calories burned per week) and exercise intensity (high vs. moderate).

By the end of the 24-month intervention, the women who managed to lose at least 10% of their starting body weight (which was, on average, about 193 lbs.) — and keep it off — were exercising twice as long as health authorities typically recommend and expending more than twice as many calories through exercise as women who had no change in body weight. The biggest weight losers were active a full 68 minutes a day, five days a week (about 55 minutes a day more than they had been before the trial began), burning an extra 1,848 calories a week.

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Food eaten:

• Breakfast: Scrambled eggs (1 whole egg, 2 egg whites) topped with 2 tbsp. salsa and 1/2 avocado, sliced; 2 cups coffee. Calories: 284
• Lunch: Massive bowl of homemade pho soup. Calories: 384.
• Snacks: 2 c. watermelon chunks; 2 brown rice cakes; non-fat latte (16 oz.). Calories: 311.
• Dinner: Grilled sirloin (4 oz.), vegetables cooked in packet with Pam (1/2 c. each zucchini, mushrooms, onions, green pepper), 2 c. fruit salad dressed with lemon juice and 1 tsp. honey. Calories: 485.
• Total calories consumed: 1,464.

Exercise:

• 1 hour light house cleaning, 65 minutes. Calories burned: 222.
• 20 minutes on treadmill at 3 mph. Calories burned: 95
• 15 minutes calisthenics (squats, crunches, side lunges and push-ups). Calories burned: 75.
• Total calories burned: 392.

Calories Out - Calories In = Weight Loss
1580 (My BRM) + 392 (Calories burned exercising) = 1972 (Calories Out)
1972 – 1464 = 508 (Calorie deficit).

I’ve been telling you for a couple of weeks how easy it is to blog from my treadmill, but I figured maybe I should show you how little effort it really takes to trick one out so you can, too.

First off, mine is a Weslo Cadence C44 treadmill which, despite what other Amazon reviewers claim, works beautifully. (I just posted my own review saying as much.) I chose that model for its price — having paid a fortune for other exercise equipment that I wound up not liking, I didn’t want to shell out big bucks for something that might also become a dust-gathering coat rack.

Second, my little treadmill desk isn’t nearly as fancy as those created by some other folks. I haven’t added fancy fans or chrome accessories (although I am thinking about getting a clip-on battery-operated fan to keep my face cool). But it works, and it’s perfect for my laptop — which is the computer I use primarily. I imagine, however, that I could just as easily mount a monitor and wireless keyboard on it if I so wanted.

So how am I managing to blog while on the thing? Well, it’s all thanks to my husband’s inventiveness, as you can see here in the photo of the little wooden platform he rigged up to hold my laptop.

Sure, it looks — as one of my friends points out — awfully tacky since I haven’t painted the platform but I’ll probably get around to that at some point. Right now I’m just too busy enjoying it and the nearly 200 calories I burn per hour while using it.

Can you say six pounds lost? I can. And I’m loving it!

Earlier this week I mentioned that I’ve lost 4 pounds since I bought my new treadmill and began using it while I blog. (Yes, even this entry.)

The scale showed my four pound loss, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out where that weight came from. Until today when, since I was actually leaving the house, I put on a bra for the first time in days. Now I know darned well where the weight came from and, if I had my druthers, that would be the last place I’d lose it.

Oh, I’ve still got plenty to spare in the bust area. I’m not so mammoth-chested that I need bulk cable underwires but I’m not that far off, either.

I’ve always thought of great cleavage as the fat girl’s consolation prize, but what if it’s the first thing to go?

In case you’re curious, I’m still keeping up with using my new treadmill while blogging — a fact that’s surprised my husband. When he first rearranged our furniture to make room for the treadmill and then rigged it so I could type while walking (by slapping a board on top of my treadmill’s hand rails and clamping it down with inexpensive vise grips), he figured I’d tire of it in a day or two.

Silly man.

The sole reason why I haven’t been much for exercising in the past is the very same one that keeps many people from doing it: it takes time away from other things that are either more pressing or more fun.

In my case, both homeschooling and my work online keep me busy the majority of the day. When I’ve finished those there’s still dinner to cook, dishes to wash and a list of chores that have to be done. Making time for exercise has — until now — meant letting one of those other things slide and I’m far too much of a neat freak to let housekeeping go for long.

But combining two things so I can accomplish them both in the time it takes to do one? That appeals to the efficiency freak in me big time. Best yet, by blogging as I exercise I almost don’t notice that I’m exercising at all.

Hey, lookee there: I just crossed the 1-hour workout mark in the time it took to read email, browse news headlines, check on the shipment status of the Skinny Bitch cookbook I just ordered and type this here post.

Total calories burned in today’s workout (2 mph walk): 180
Total pounds lost since I began blogging from my treadmill: FOUR

Walk on.

I’ve abandoned my morning walk around the neighborhood. I’m not a morning person to begin with, so about the fourth time I hauled myself out of bed and headed outside to find it cold and rainy it just started to seem more frustrating than not.

Then there was the day my walk turned into a near-run as a rather seedy-looking man followed behind me. I had the feeling he hadn’t chosen to wear an overcoat and low-brimmed hat as exercise gear, and I didn’t feel like finding out whether my hunch was correct.

Which is not to say that I’ve given up walking as a form of exercise. I haven’t: I’m just not doing it outdoors. I’m not dodging dodgy people or travel trailers jutting from driveways onto the sidewalk. I’m not hustling along with my fingers crossed in the hope of not seeing that old lady who goes commando.

I’m walking on my new treadmill in the comfort of my living room.

In fact, I’m doing it now. Yes, right now… as I type!

After reading about others doing it, I decided to get myself a basic treadmill and rig a shelf to hold my laptop on it. Oh, I’m not breaking any speed records — I’ve got it set at 2 mph — but I am burning calories while blogging.

Is it working?

Well, last week I lost three pounds. Three! Whether that’s from the exercise or the two days I spent feeling nauseous is hard to say, but it’s still three pounds. I won’t tell you how many more I hope to walk off because, well, that would be giving away my weight and I’ve made a point not to do that. (A woman has to have some bit of mystery, after all, and considering how much else I share about my life on my various blogs, that’s all I’ve got left.)

But, hey, if you happen to see me blogging a bit more on my various sites, now you know why: I’m actually exercising, but I’m hoping the blogging will keep my lazy butt from realizing it.

Last week I did such a good job of taking morning walks. Every morning I ignored the siren call of my alarm clock’s snooze button and lugged my sagging butt out of bed to pound pavement for nearly a half-hour.

This week?

I haven’t done squat.

Part of the reason is my innate laziness: sweating to the sunrise doesn’t hold nearly the appeal for me that sleeping in does. Part of it, though, is also due to my problems with foot pain.

Oh, I’ve bought new walking shoes with awesome support. But by the time I’m midway through my walk, I can’t feel the outside edges of my left foot aside from my pinkie toe which has felt, frankly, like someone was twisting it off. Slowly. And since I’ve been overcompensating for that pain, by the end of my walk my right ankle has felt like I’ve been on ice skates for hours.

It hurt. And, naturally (since there’s nothing else to do while walking) I started obsessing over all the possible causes.

Could I have rheumatoid arthritis? Is it a sign of peripheral arterial disease (PAD)? Should I start taking aspirin therapy or look into chelation to clear out my arteries?

This morning, I decided that foot pain or no foot pain, one of the best things I could do for my feet would be to reduce some of the poundage they have to carry around every day. So I got up, shrugged on my sweats and shoved my feet into shoes.

Or, rather, I tried to. Right about the time I was shoving my sore left foot into its shoe a Lego tumbled out.

That’s right: I’ve been walking for a week with a Lego in my shoe. No, I have no idea why I didn’t find it before. Yes, I’m pretty certain how it got there but I love the boy so I’m letting him live.

I’ll be walking again tomorrow morning, that’s for certain. By that time I can only hope my elderly neighbor has finally found a pair of underwear, because my out-of-shape heart can only take so much.