Exercise

                I don’t know about you, but I have never lost a pound by just doing exercise.  There were years where I ate a relatively healthy diet.  And by “relatively” healthy, I mean it was full of lean proteins, vegetables and fruits, but it was also full in ice cream, buttered popcorn and chocolate.  Oh, and anything you can cover in chocolate: caramels, donuts, nuts, cookies.  You get the idea.  Anyhow, every evening I would get on my exercise bike and do forty minutes.  I’d jump on the bike and watch TV or read and tried to keep my speed consistent.   Then on the weekends, I’d pull on my day-glow exercise shorts and jog-run at the park for two miles.  I was in decent shape.  I didn’t know about heart rates or the importance of lifting weights or leg squats, but from my limited viewpoint, I was doing what I could to keep healthy.

                Considering all the junk I was eating, the exercise probably kept the scale from inching up.  When I was eating “normally” I never dropped a pound from working out.  The only time I would lose weight was when I changed what I was eating.  But even when I was on a 900-1200 calorie diet, exercise would help with stamina and keep me toned, but it never dropped any tonnage. 

                 I envy people who say, “I just kicked up the exercise and the weight dropped off.”  I really do envy them.  I think it’s so much easier doing something, than not doing something in order to lose weight.  By that, I mean it would be great to decide to lose the weight by exercising like a maniac and watch it drop off.  Instead, I have to “not eat”.  Not eat certain foods, not eat at certain times, not eat as much, or not eat as often.  It’s hard for me to “not” do something.  But it’s what actually works.  (And sorry about the split infinitives.  I needed to do it to make a point.)