Exercise For The Right Reasons

I have two major events coming up in 2008. My eldest child is getting married and I have a high school class reunion. When women foresee a major event, what is one of the first things we think of? Yep, I need to lose weight and get into shape.

I’ve always enjoyed strapping on my ipod and going for a walk, but then my friend, Denise, called last winter and mentioned walking together. So we have been doing that, maybe once or twice a week, which according to the experts isn’t enough. The problem is, once I started walking with Denise and building our relationship, I no longer enjoy walking with just my ipod. I have my favorite songs on it, but it’s just not as much fun. I thought about joining “Anytime Fitness.” It’s just a couple miles down the road so I can easily hop in my car and drive there so I can exercise, although I am amused by the irony of driving somewhere to exercise. Anytime Fitness is rather appealing to me, not for the exercise, but I could have 30-40 minutes for guilt-free reading.

I will freely admit I do not have a 20-, 30- or even 40-year-old body, but a lot of that has to do the fact that I am not a 20-, 30- or even 40-year-old person anymore. In Women of the Word, we are working through Beth Moore’s study on “Daniel.” Babylon is an enticing place and our culture is no less a Babylon than it was in Daniel’s day. Why do I think I should lose weight? It’s not really for health reasons. I have absolutely wonderful health, I don’t bother with a flu shot, I rarely get colds. And I try very hard not to take that for granted and thank the One who gives me that. No my Babylon says I should look a certain way and I buy into that, plus don’t I want people to tell me how simply maaaahvelous I look? Those would be the true reasons for feeling the need to exercise. I keep forgetting it’s not all about me. In John Ortberg’s book “At the End of the Game It All Goes Back In The Box,” he says experts tell us that if we exercise, it will add two years to our life. But those two years are spent exercising. Could we do something else with those two years?

I’m not against exercising. I just want to do it for the right reasons. I do want to stay in good health, I want to have those couple hours with Denise each week and if we can build that relationship by walking together, that’s great. I like to be reminded though that it’s about the relationship and not the exercise. And I think I will look into joining Anytime Fitness because I really want that 30 minutes of reading time.