2004-01-12 - 1:05 p.m.

I got up at 5:00 this morning and did Walk Away the Pounds the Three Mile Walk. It is not possible to type that in a way which can properly express the enthusiasm injected into the phrase by Leslie Sansone.

I bought a two DVD set of Walk Aways at Target (Tar-jey, that fine boutique) a few months ago. I am always buying new exercise stuff. Naturally, the key to my weight loss and lifetime fitness is finding the magic video, or combination of videos, that is going to make me get out of bed and exercise and stop eating. Yes, I am fully aware that the real key is for me to actually get my butt out of bed and do the exercise. As long as I get a good mix of cardio and weight work, and don't eat everything in sight I will, in fact, lose weight and become fit. It's actually not possible for it to work any other way.

Just try and tell me that as I stand in the DVD aisle of Target, or peruse the Collage Video Website .

Today I did get up and do it. I "walked" three miles in 45 minutes and stretched afterwards. It is not a lot. It is not high intensity. It is not advanced exercise. It's just kicks and side steps and lots of silly hand waving. But it is better than nothing. I am moving towards fitness.

It is a slow process.

I can feel the workout the next day when I really put the effort into it. I can feel my abs from the knee lifts and twisting. I can feel my glutes from the kickbacks and squatting. I can feel my hips from the wide side steps. I can even feel my shoulders a bit.

On the days when I get up and exercise I feel better all day. I have more energy. One day a student said "What did you do this morning? You're so hyper!"

I like the Walk Away workouts because I can do them without too much thought. There is no complicated choreography, and they're low impact, so I don't get breathless and feel like a fat slob. (Yes, I am a fat slob, but that's not the point.) I don't mind the silly chatter because I don't tend to pay much attention to it. When I exercise I think about a hundred other things. I only pay enough attention to do the right steps.

I used to walk on the spiffy treadmills at school. I walked 4 mph at an incline for an hour. This was back at 150lbs, and I burned 500 or more calories in that hour. I rarely noticed the time, despite the sweat, because I was thinking about everything else. It was great. I can't afford a spiffy treadmill of my own right now. The one I want is more than $2000, which is not in the budget right now. So I will continue to walk away the pounds, and try to make use of the rest of the library of exercise videotapes hiding between the Back to the Future Trilogy and Buffy Season 1.

I would like to do the Four Mile Walk , but I'm not going to buy more stuff until I do something with the stuff I have.

Yeah, that's a nice resolution. Remind me of that next time I'm in the video aisle.