For the first two weeks of 2007, I did not exercise.  I wanted to be sure that I was eating properly, getting plenty of rest, and changing my attitude about food.  Now that I’m on a solid track with my eating, I’ve begun to add in some exercise.  (Personally, I’m not a big fan of the word “exercise”.  It sounds so… “routine”.  But, I can’t think of a better term, so I’ll stick with using it.)  The real truth is that I’ve been rather sedentary for the past 10 years, pretty much wasting my twenties simply eating, and playing a little golf from time to time.  (I’m actually a pretty decent player.  The one “advantage” of the extra weight was that it slowed my swing down and I had to concentrate more on my short game.)  Of course, during the past 10 years, I’ve also gone “exercise crazy” from time to time.  I’ve used all of the following, ridiculous “techniques” to get in shape:  Walking for three hours straight on a treadmill (after not walking on a treadmill for 3 years).  Joining a gym, and working out 3 times a day for a solid month, and then never going back.  Investing in hundreds of dollars of unused exercise equipment, including weight benches, bands, balls, tapes, and DVD’s.  Playing softball (again, after not playing for 3 years) and running so hard that I tore my hamstring.  These are just a few of the silly things I’ve done in the name of “fitness training”.

Now, I’ve decided on a much less radical, much more common sense approach.  We own an awesome treadmill, a gift from my parents, and I walk on it for about 30 minutes a day.  I’ve also played Tennis a couple of times in the past week.  I’m also doing a lot of stretching and some flexibility work.  Today, I picked up my dumbbells and did a few arm and chest exercises, just to get some blood flowing.  At this point, I’m not going to focus on much, if any, real strength training.  Every single other time that I started working out, I would push myself so hard, and I would end up quiting, due to pain, injury, or exhaustion.  Right now, I’m feeling better than I have in 6 or 7 years, and I don’t want to rock the boat.  I think one of the main reasons people get frustrated with their exercise routines is the overload of information that is now available.  Here I was, fat and overweight, and I was concerning myself with protein shakes, glucose loads, and how many squat repetitions I should be doing.  In other words, I had “information paralysis”.  My mind has so many facts, so many things that it was worrying about, that in the end, I just did nothing.  Now, I’m walking, playing outside with kids, hitting a few tennis balls, getting a good full body stretch, and doing some very light weight lifting.

My weight stayed the same today:  234 pounds.