There is no pill to replace exercise!

About three weeks ago, I was watching a friend's daughter while she was away in Italy with her husband. As part of our daily routine, I started taking her on stroller walks. She loved them, and I realized that I haven't exercised regularly in a long LONG time. Just walking the hills in the neighborhood gave me sore legs and butt after a few days. I used to be a runner (high school and college), so I always thought that walking was below me and not really exercise. Since hurting my achilles tendon in college, I haven't consistently exercised aerobically in a long time (I have lifted weights at the gym with my husband). I would try running, get exhausted, and quit. It was a continual cycle. Now walking has revived me.

Over the last three weeks, I have noticed several cycles and changes in my body. First, exercise feels great the first day, and even the second, but the third day my body felt miserable. I still went for a walk, but it was slower and shorter in order to give my body a chance to recover. My first suggestion is to keep at your routine, but be flexible in your daily routine so that you can still exercise, but also give your body a bit of a break. This is the point where previously I would have stopped running because I was so exhausted on the third day, and sometimes pushing through it resulted in injury. Walking slowly kept me in the habit, but didn't stress my body out too much and prevented injury. I also think it was good for my sore muscles because walking helped move blood to them to help them recover better than just sitting on my duff all day.

Next, I was amazed by the health benefits. The little girl I was watching had a cold, and I caught it. Nothing too serious-- I would wake up with a sore throat or slightly swollen lymph nodes. I continued my walks in the morning with her, and after each walk, I felt a ton better! I don't walk on Sundays, so on Monday morning, I felt even worse, but after my walk, I again felt a ton better! (Now don't ever exercise with a flu or other serious ailment-- go to a doctor and get his advise and stay in bed!) But for a lot of the little kid colds that float around, walking helped a ton. Even better, because walking is low key, it didn't stress my body more so that I became more sick, as can sometimes happen if you exercise too strenuously while you're sick. I really liked this because it meant I didn't have to ruin my new exercise routine for some pesky cold.

As for longterm health, the results of the new federally funded studies are in, and working out just three days a week just isn't going to cut it. If you are interested, you can read the workshop summary here. These studies have been around, but due to my own laziness, I didn't do anything about it. I forgot about them until a few weeks ago when I got a little curious about Tracy Anderson (Madonna's Trainer) and decided to google her. What she said reminded me of the medical studies. She has her own method, but what I took away from what she said was three basic concepts:

1. Exercise for an hour 6 days a week!
If you want a Hollywood body, you have got to put in the sweat hours just like movie stars.

2. Change up what you do at least every 10 days.
I had no intention of doing this and didn't consider it important until suddenly on my tenth day of exercise, my walks became a TON easier, and I realized my muscles were adapting and getting stronger (yay!) and in order to continue improving, I needed to change things up.

3. If you want a teeny tiny body, use high reps and low weights for strength training.
Think Jane Fonda and 80s dance aerobics and calisthenics. Also, use all the little supporting muscles.

Her recommendations aren't very different than those of the government. You see, the biggest problem the government had creating exercise guidelines for the general public is that we are pretty lazy as a whole, and they didn't know if telling us to workout for an hour a day was realistic, so instead they have nice little categories. See The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans here. As for me, I want to be in the category that is going to reduce my chances of chronic disease the most!