Tips on how to get fit

"Perform this routine three times a week for thirty minutes and you will have abs like me. Just 6 minutes a day and you'll look like her (goddess on the cover of a book). Thirty minutes 4 days a week to get a strong core" ...Sound familiar? Stop looking at everybody else's routine to find your own! Beat your own drum. It seems the media looks upon fitness as a chore. The Presidential Physical Fitness Council says you need 30 minutes of cardiovascular work 5 days a week...incorporate yoga, pilates, abdominal work, blah, blah, blah...

Here is my belief: DO SOMETHING YOU LOVE! If you love it, then you'll want to do it every day!

So many times, I read about how to get fit on the treadmill, elliptical, and rowing machine. This is great if you LOVE it. Do you love to go to the gym? Do you love the outdoors? How about swimming, skiing, mountain biking, cycling, running, walking, lifting weights...what do you love to do? Think back to your childhood days and remind yourself of the things you loved to do. As a kid, we'd go camping every summer, hike serious mountains in the nations' National Parks, we'd take our bikes and ride down the coast of Oregon, go running on the beach, etc...We lived an active life!

I am a huge exercise advocate! I love to run and ride, because it's fun. Running and cycling give me the freedom that I crave. Particularly, after having kids, I've found that having the opportunity to ride my bike or go for a run makes me happy. Riding offers me creativity, vision, opportunity, freedom, fitness, sunshine, it's like "WHOOPEE!!!!"

As an athlete, I crave competition, sweat, winning, medals, recognition, and muscle soreness, all of it! I compete because it gives me the opportunity to do something for myself. It's my own sense of self. You can learn more about yourself in a bike race than you can washing dishes. Enter a local race! It could be anything - Sprint Triathlon, a 5km Road Race, or a public bike race. Try it and let the competitive bug BITE YOU!

Enjoy your life! Make exercise fun! Incorporate the strength training, stretching, and abdominal work throughout your regular daily activities in short bursts of intensity. My hand weights are kept near the door of the backyard, so that I may grab them while my kids are riding their bikes. The medicine ball is kept near the bathtub to perform bicycle curls, crunches, oblique exercises quickly. My cardiovascular exercise is my creative outlet. I move to think. We now take daily rides to the post office, bank, and the park, just to get out for more exercise.