The secret to exercise

The secret to exercise? Apparently there is none.

I just read an article from Time magazine, ( http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-1,00.html ), about why exercise won't make you thin. I knew it! I knew that watching NCIS was a better alternative! My favorite part of the whole article was this paragraph.

"...in June the Association for Psychological Science issued a news release saying that "physical exercise ... may indeed preserve or enhance various aspects of cognitive functioning." But in fact, those who had better cognitive function merely walked more and climbed more stairs. They didn't even walk faster; walking speed wasn't correlated with cognitive ability."

Why I like this part so much? Because recently a group of women I know were chastised for being part of a walking group that was not walking fast enough. WHAT? This kind of mentality drives me insane. Sure, maybe they could walk faster, but if this is the only exercise that they are doing, it is better then none. One of my co-workers lectured me for eating pretzels. She said I should be eating carrots. UGH! Of course, I know that I should be eating carrots but at least I am not eating potato chips. For me, it is all about baby steps. I am currently on pretzels. Soon, I will baby step it to carrots. The walking group? Those ladies will eventually start to walk faster. But I know from personal experience. I can run dang hard and dang long the first day, but I won't run at all the next. Where if I walk/run for 15 minutes for two weeks, I will be able to continue walking/running for 20 minutes the next two weeks. Baby steps.

But what this article was really saying was that as we exercise, we get more hungry and as we are more hungry we can justify eating more and worse because of the amazing workout we just had. The author used muffins at Starbucks (not a problem) and Gatorade (ok, maybe a little bit of a problem), as examples. And this is where it pertains to me. I LOVE lemonade. I love just love any sugary drink. And I always justify myself in drinking lemonade or Gatorade because I just worked out super hard for like, 15 whole minutes. I obviously have burned away any electrolytes that my body so desperately needs so I must have to drink a Gatorade just to be healthy. Yea right. I have plenty of electrolytes left in my body after my measly 15 minute workout. It is most certainly a great goal for me to someday be the kind of athlete that needs to drink Gatorade to replenish burned electrolytes but I am nowhere near that now.

So the moral of this story is that I need to start cutting out my sugaring drinks. This is huge. I drink the Panera lemonade so much that the workers give me free refills, which is against the rules. But since I drink it so much they know me there. Craziness. But as much as I love my lemonade, I hate working out even more. And I have to work out. If not to lose weight, to at least help preserve my bone density and my arteries. And if I have to work out, I am not going to throw away the last 15 minutes of hell on a stupid lemonade. So new goal. Cut down the sugary drinks. Drink more water. I must break my addiction to lemonade. Ugh. Why can't I be one of those people who don't like sugar? I am not sure I have ever met anyone like that, but I hear they exist.