I Should Get More Exercise

I should get more exercise. I could give you plenty of reasons and excuses why I don't. I have a knee that is missing tendons on one side. I have a shoulder that was dislocated as a child that still bothers me sometimes and I have fairly severe joint damage to one ankle.  All of these things are true. The ankle in particular bothers me fairly often. 

They are not, however, the real reason why I do not exercise enough.  Having a bad ankle would not stop me from doing sit ups or any number of abdominal exercises.  Having a knee that acts up when the weather is bad does not keep me from using hand weights to pump up my muscles.  No; the real reason I do not get as much exercise as I should is that it is not as easy as not exercising.

If you have a car, you probably know that your car will run better with regular oil changes. Your tires wear more evenly if you rotate them from one side of the car to another on a regular basis. Having a tune up can prevent costly repairs down the road.  Your body is the same.

Your body is a machine. It runs better and lasts longer and is much less likely to have major long term problems if you treat it right. This includes regular exercise.

My older sister was disabled. In my entire life, I never saw her walk. She was bound to a wheelchair and to a bed.  This did not mean she never got any exercise.  We used to do what we would call chair dance. She would sit in her wheelchair and I would sit in a kitchen chair and we would turn up the music and move just our upper bodies.  Sometimes she would just push her hand against mine to try to strength her arms.  She did the small things she could. 

So it is ridiculous to even try to tell myself that I could not exercise more than I do.   Maybe I can't run with my busted up ankle and most days my dance video games only get about 2 to 3 songs out of me before I am limping away. This does not mean I can not get more exercise. It just means I can't do that particular exercise. So I need to focus on the things I can do and make more effort to do them.  That seems like the kind of thing a goddess should do.