The Los Angelista January Fitness Challenge: Day 1

January 01, 2012

The Los Angelista January Fitness Challenge: Day 1

Last week I posed a question on the Los Angelista Facebook page: "Anybody want to do a workout challenge with me for the month of January? Exercise at LEAST 10 minutes a day every day?"

The response was a pretty resounding "YES"--which means I'm clearly not the only one who'd like to see more muscles in her hustle in 2012.

So, welcome to the Los Angelista January Fitness Challenge, an easy chance for all of us, black, white, yellow, red, and brown--and OK, the purple people, too--to build the habit of daily exercise.

At this time of year folks are always making resolutions to eat right and exercise. For 99 percent of people those resolutions are forgotten by February. Having been there before, part of the problem is that we try to do too much too quickly. Going from not exercising every day to putting in 30 minutes or an hour every day is a BIG change. If you're as busy as I am, some days finding 30 minutes to do anything extra feels like an impossibility.

That's why I figure a 10 minute minimum is a doable option. In 10 minutes, I can turn up the radio and dance around the house. I can do a workout that's on YouTube (like these from SparkPeople), or I can do what I did today, which is take my dog for a walk--yes, walking is exercise--through the hills. Even though I only planned to walk Andromeda for 10 minutes--the minimum--I ended up walking her for 27 minutes, which means I exceeded my goal! Whoo hoo!

Now that may not seem like a lot for someone who's training for a marathon--and yes, I did run 10.2 miles on Saturday--but even I need to step it up. Before I got acute bronchitis in November I was running three to four times a week. Not being able to breathe curtailed that workout schedule pretty quickly. I'm trying to work back up to that. So yeah, working up to exercising every day is going to be a challenge for me, too.

If you still want to join the challenge, it's NOT too late. I mean, today was a holiday so if you didn't do anything, I don't blame you. I didn't even get up till 2 p.m. and then I laid on the couch watching back-to-back episodes of Storage Wars--till Andromeda came bouncing around and I realized I needed to take her for a walk.

Every day in January I'll be posting my workout over on the Los Angelista Facebook page. And, every Sunday during the month of January I'll post an update here on our progress. Here's to collectively getting healthy in 2012!