Everybody quotes Bilbo and Lao Tse, right?

Many times, we are told that we can make changes by baby steps.  It’s true.  But what we may not realize is that we are still making changes and changes have a way of snowballing.  Bilbo Baggins tells Frodo, “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”  Or, if you prefer a different formulation, Lao Tse notes, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

There is good news and bad news here.  I like to get the bad news over with, so:  change is often hard and unpredictable.  Sometimes we encounter resistance from unexpected places and people.  Sometimes we have to do things that are harder than we thought we could.  Sometimes we might get stuck or fail.

The good news is that all changes happen one step at a time.  We can start any time.  If we just keep taking the next step, we will make progress.  Just don’t be surprised when our little walk suddenly leads us to weight lifting and then to a reevaluation of what we’re eating and maybe a lot more water-drinking and then maybe some yoga and the need for new and smaller pants…

Deep breath, folks.  We’re stepping out the door and we’re going to end up somewhere amazing!

Five by five!

Some of us love cardio.  Some of us love weights.  (Some of us love the couch most of all.)  All of us can use a little motivation, so here are five reasons to do cardio and five to lift weights, just in case the couch is winning today.

Good reasons to do cardio:

• It burns calories.

• It invigorates the brain and clears the mind.

• It improves mood.

• It helps prevent cardiovascular disease.

• It builds endurance for other fun stuff.

Good reasons to lift weights:

• It makes us stronger, so we can carry our own stuff and open our own jars.

• It builds bone density, making us more resilient as we age.

• It increases our metabolism.

• It makes us look better.

• It is empowering.

Go do it!

No, they're not rose-colored

I still sometimes forget that I wear glasses.  I often remember because things are blurry, either because I haven’t yet put them on in the morning or because the lenses are smudged.  Either way, I can’t see properly until I fix it.

Obviously, this is a metaphor.   There are two things that all of us need to do to ensure that we are seeing clearly.  One is to focus on the appropriate stuff.  Some of us take the long view, exclusively, missing the stuff right under our noses; others obsess on the minutiae and get lost in the details.  We have to employ our corrective lenses to address the difficulties.  In a fitness context, this means that we need both process goals (show up for workout!) and performance goals (run the 5K, bike the century, lift the record-breaking amount!).

The other thing we need to do is get the fingerprints, splatters, and dirt out of the way.  Maybe this means that we work out even if the kids don’t want us to go, or we feel like we don’t have time, or we’re tired.  Maybe this means we stop assuming we are lazy or weak or ugly.  Maybe we realize that we actually detest aerobics classes, but are perfectly happy listening to the latest vampire novel while running along the beach.  Clarity allows for decent planning and planning enables success.

We can do this.