What's this Blog About?

How many times have you – and by you, I mean me – begun the New Year with a lame vow to eat less and exercise more?  Usually the goal is to lose weight; fail at that enough times, and it changes to “I’m not focused on my weight, I just want to get healthy and feel fit,” which is exactly half the truth.  Of course we all care about our blood pressure and cholesterol, especially after a certain age, but I personally do not believe that for any woman, it stops there.  We all want to lose weight. We all care what we look like on the outside as well as on the inside.

Probably the most “fit” I ever get is when I’ve gone to the gym consistently, but long experience has taught me I can’t keep it up.  I get bored and start looking for something else.  I have also started and stopped running enough times to know that I simply do not have the mental and psychological strength to build to any level of competence, much less excellence.  How I envy and admire those who do. 

But I have always loved to walk.  Walking I can stick with.  Walking is not a chore for me.  The problem with walking, though, is that a brisk 1-2 mile walk after dinner is not enough. It’s better than nothing, and it’s great if you’re 75, but if you still entertain thoughts of one day reclaiming some semblance of that smoking hot body you had in your 20s, you’re going to have to put in more work than that.  So I was hit by the idea – simple, but not easy -- of walking five miles a day.  To not worry much about what I ate, or what else I did or didn’t do health-wise, but simply walk five miles a day and see what happens over the course of a year.

Why five miles?  Why not three, or four?  Because three’s not enough, and four probably is, but doesn’t seem special enough.  And I need to do something special.   I can knock out four miles in a little over an hour, but five takes me (at least for now) an hour and a half.  And an hour and a half sounds more special than an hour.

I need to do something special.  Something that not everyone can do.  Okay, anyone with a reasonably healthy body COULD walk five miles a day, but the great majority could not sustain that over the long haul. I want to be the one who does, and I want to see what the results are.

The plan is five miles a day, six days a week.  The day I take off will vary from week to week, based on mood, health and schedule, but I think it’s important, both physically and psychologically, to let my body rest and restore that one day. Ideally, the five miles will be done in one walk, but I can envision times when it will have to be split up within the day.

My companion on this journey will be Banks, my beloved pit bull rescued from the pound almost exactly a year ago.  He loves to walk as much as I do.  Banks spent two miserable months confined at the shelter before I claimed him, and sometimes when we walk, his joy is almost palpable.  A sudden sharp breeze sends him into an exuberant gallop; a friendly remark from a passing stranger makes his whole body tremble with good will. I love him and he loves me, and I can’t think of anyone with whom I’d rather walk 1,560 miles this year.

Five miles a day, six days a week. One thousand, five hundred sixty miles.  I look forward to sharing the adventure.