Hello, everyone, from the newbie on the block! Claude invited me to join last week on our walk around Paris (was it really only two weeks ago Wednesday?) and despite my fear of structure, I’ll take the plunge. I’m not majorly overweight or out of shape, but I have trouble exercising consistently. Walking in Paris is fun but walking here at home in my little suburb is fairly boring. I take my ipod, however — and there may be ways to spice this up that I have yet to discover. I welcome any and all suggestions…
Dancing is my favorite form of exercise but right now I have no partner and don’t really like to go out to bars and make a spectacle of myself dancing solo! I have done the gym thing with the elliptical trainer and may go back to that in the fall. I have a cardioglide machine which works arms and legs with some spinoff benefits for the core muscles — when all else fails I use this, sometimes in the middle of the night if I can’t sleep. (it works! I fall asleep every time) My house has two levels so I do stairs quite a bit. My pitfalls are that I LOVE to sit and read, or do other sedentary things, and I love to eat. On the upside, I have a garden (right now with lots of weeds) and occasionally I max out on bending and stooping while cleaning things up. The last few days I have been scraping and sanding the woodwork in an upstairs study, and I began painting it yesterday — boy, painting a ceiling is exhausting work!
Goals: To walk every day (or nearly every day…). Steps per day — 6000? If I add a regular walk to my everyday count, that is the approximate total. To cut down on snacking (except in times of extreme stress, when one just has to snack or die). To practice singing at least once a day (this is quite aerobic actually) — I am a professional singer but have really stopped practicing in the last 10 years, and I need to begin again. To use the cardioglide every day, for at least 100 reps. To get back to my floor routine of abs exercises, which was working quite well earlier this year.
It will be lovely to have someone to answer to about all this. And there may be times when I really don’t want to be honest, but I WILL, I WILL! Thank you so much, Claude, for starting this group! I’m looking forward to getting to know you all.
Sara
ElderExercise 
Welcome, Sara. Sounds as if you and Kay have much in common with more need for moving the body than losing weight.
Do you ever download books to listen to on your walks? I can understand how it’s less engaging to walk in the suburbs and wonder if this would help. I look forward to how we can help you figure it all out and, perhaps, get ideas for ourselves from what you do.
-naomi