Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!
It’s a new week and a new start. When last I wrote, I’d packed up the car and was headed off to a week’s worth of Commencements. I’m delighted to report that the trip was a total success! My cooler stood me in good stead, and I was able to keep up a semblance of an exercise routine, thanks to hotel treadmills and my own DVDs. I had everything aced … until I got home, and then I fell prey to some vicious virus, which held me in its evil clutches for nearly four (!) weeks. My friends, I was ossified. No workouts. In fact, some mornings it was all I could do to toddle off to work. No energy. And, I’m afraid, my clean eating went the way of my lifting. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
I’d say I’m recovered, but the routine’s been lost. So, the rebuilding begins. However, all is not lost. Once again, I’ve learned a great deal, and I stumbled across two excellent pieces of advice that I thought you all might enjoy reading.
The first popped up in the June issue of “Oprah.” In “What I Know for Sure,” Oprah talked about a recent trip to Africa, and the havoc it played with her schedule. She ditched her workout schedule and ate unwisely … and paid the price. “Unfortunately for me,” she wrote, “the resolve to work out is directly tied to eating healthfully.”
Drum roll please: for me, this is a light bulb moment. When I work out, I eat well. When I don’t, I don’t. The exercise determines the course of my day, in a way that clean eating all by itself does not. To put it another way, with exercise, the food just falls into place; without it, eating is a struggle. Oprah closed the loop in the conclusion of her column when she wrote, “When you nurture and support your body, it reciprocates. The basis of that support is exercise, like it or not. The most essential benefit is more energy. The bonus is weight control. Taking care of your body, no matter what your age, is an investment. The return is priceless.”
Who says Oprah isn’t a 21st century sage?
Then, Geneen Roth turned on another light bulb in the current issue of “Prevention.” In “About the ‘E’ Word: When Did Moving Our Bodies Go From Fun to Work?” she quotes the poet Galway Kinnell who said, “Sometimes it is necessary / to re-teach a thing its loveliness." And she adds, “The reason to move is to re-teach our bodies their loveliness. We live most of our lives in our minds, but the fact is that we are spirits clothed in flesh and blood and bones. By not moving our bodies, we are depriving ourselves of connecting to that long-ago child who loved running, dancing, and jumping in the sun and air. We've replaced the singular, personal joy of moving outdoors with grin-and-bear-it machine workouts.”
She adds, “The truth is, moving your body isn't about any goal other than physically connecting with the fundamental pleasure of and gratitude for being alive. The rest is just gravy.”
When I was sick, I simply felt too lousy to move. There was no question of “powering through.” But then the most remarkable thing happened … as the virus abated, my body started screaming for exercise. My aches and pains, which miraculously go away with exercise, had returned with a vengeance, but because I felt so lousy, I just couldn’t stir my stumps enough to answer that clarion call. I heard it though, I heard it. For me it was as much a breakthrough moment as was Oprah’s.
Exercise means health. Exercise means vitality. Exercise means the simple ability to go through the day feeling complete, feeling whole, feeling well, feeling healthy. Exercise is a blast and a blessing.
I know that many of you have discovered this for yourselves. I thought I had. But I hadn’t. I had to learn it on a visceral level. And this time, I have. And so I thought I would share. Now, how about you? What have you discovered about the connection of mind, body and spirit?
You have bben missed. Sorry to hear you were so sick.
I eat clean/healthy every day and still hate working out and make excuses and avoid it. 
