Your New Exercise Companion.

Your new exercise companion is going to help you through the tough spots. This friend will make it possible for you to walk, even when you don't believe that you can. Your companion will be there for you in a week, in a month, in a year. This companion will be faithful and will never say, "I can't run today." Meet your new exercise companion, Every Day.

This is a radical concept for many of us. In school, we take gym class only three days a week. We are told to work out 3 - 4 times a week. Aerobics classes meet Tuesdays & Thursdays for 8 weeks. We go to work five days a week and rest on Saturday, Sunday, or both.

What do we do EVERY day, besides eat, sleep, shower, and brush our teeth? Well, now we will walk every day.

The sun will come up. The sun will go down. And in between, we will walk.

If you have exercised 3 times a week, you know that you are always thinking in terms of at least the week that you are in, and maybe the past week and the coming one, as well. This is because, if you can't walk today, then you will plan to walk tomorrow. If you walked just twice this week for whatever reason, then you may plan to walk 4 times next week. Your negotiations can get pretty fancy. (I'll discuss this further in the Honesty section.)

Since we are now exercising daily, we will only have to think about one day at a time -- TODAY! And the question isn't "Will I walk today?" but it is a more exciting one: "Where will I walk today?"

Are you committed to this plan? Here is a test to see if you are:

Fill in the blank: "I will walk every day except ___________."

Is there anything in the blank? If there is, you are not committed.

If you decide you will take Christmas off, then Thanksgiving will come around and you will decide to take that off. Easter, Passover, Ramadan, Boxing Day, Valentine's Day, Presidents' Day, Sundays, weekends, vacations .......

If you start whittling days away, you have killed a critical part of your power. That power is your STREAK. When I first began this, I went out the first day and felt good. Then the second day, I came in and felt even better. Two days. Then on the third day, I completed my walk and realized that I didn't think that I'd ever done three days in a row before! I had a streak going! The day of this writing, 27 March 2002, my streak is 250 days!