Health and Fitness, Part II

I think that every few months I find myself in the middle of a new health kick. I convince myself that I need to eat better and be more active. Yesterday, I decided to take a brisk walk along the Boulder Creek Path. It was just a three-mile walk, round-trip, but it felt nice. So I told myself that I need to do that more often and that, with all of the mountains and trails surrounding me, maybe I should go on more hikes. Feeling this exciting wave of enthusiasm, I thought, "hey, maybe I should join a local gym or athletic club, because they have tons of cardio machines and great weight rooms." So I searched around and was slightly disappointed and annoyed to find that memberships for most of these clubs run about $300 a year. Sorry, I have an editor's salary, so I'm not ready to spend that much money on a club. Although disappointed, I told myself that I should just do what I've always done, work out at home with my dumbbells and free weights. I've always worked out at home with free weights, and I always got results, so if the record ain't broke, why break it. I also remembered that I had a balance ball, you know one of those inflatable balls that people use for yoga or pilates or any of the other trendy exercises these days. I don't use it for yoga or pilates, but I improvise and use it as a workout bench. I took out my balance ball and started to inflate it. Some balance balls come with an electric pump or a foot pump where all you need to do is step on the pump to inflate it. My balance ball came with a hand pump, so the motion of inflating the darn thing essentially amounts to trying to saw a branch off a tree. Eventually I inflated the ball and managed to plug it up without losing too much air. Then I decided to test it out, and because I haven't used it in a while I had to get reacquainted with it. I must first say that I'm a lot like my Ma in the sense that I occasionally have balance problems. I leaned against my "balance" ball and tried to roll back a tad so that I would have my back on top of the ball so that I would be in the position of an imagined bench press. Well, I sort of rolled back too far, rolled out of control, and nearly broke my neck. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But, not to be discouraged, I tried it again and managed to stay on the ball the next time. The next test was whether I could find my position on the ball, manage to stay balanced, and use some weights at the same time. And I managed not to kill myself. So, I'm feeling better about the potential of my workout routine. Let's just see if I can keep it up!