Dr Bridell’s logical and rational & poetic and beautiful & completely guaranteed Diet
#6: “Five Per Fortnight” (Finding the Exercise You Love)
By the Mysterious Dr Bridell

Author's note: This is the sixth installment of a column that explores a new diet based on spiritual rather than physical paradigms.  It is arranged in "bite-sized chunks" that come to you each Friday and that build on each other.  The first few concepts sound deceptively simple, but require discipline and commitment (and practice) to implement — and they lay the foundation for the more enlightening and revealing concepts to come.  Your challenge as a participant is to put the principles into practice each week as they come to you.  If you missed any of the earlier columns, catch up by clicking here to go to the Bridell archives.  And remember that Dr Bridell appreciates feedback and comments as well as questions which you can send to him by clicking here

Putting less (and better) food into your body, and more water, is going to make your body work better.  But you’ve still got to make your body work!

But should it be a chore, a task, a constant struggle to force this work to happen — to force your body to exercise?  Does it have to be something you hate to do but keep motivating yourself to do anyway for your own good, like taking cod liver oil?

Exercising, like eating, should be one of the natural and simple and pure joys of life.  It should feel good while you’re doing it as well as when you’re through, and it should be a way of rewarding yourself, not a way of punishing yourself.

The key is to find your form of exercise, to find the exercise you love, the one that makes your body smile while it’s sweating out that pore-cleaning water and pumping those endorphins around through your expanded lungs and your healthier cardiovascular system.

For me, it’s tennis.  It used to be jogging but now it’s tennis — singles, without breaks between games so that it’s aerobic.  For my spouse it’s the bike ... the road bike if the weather is good, or the stationery one at home if it’s not.  For my daughter it’s running, for my son, it’s basketball.  For my friend, it’s the spinning class at the gym that has a good nursery for her two preschoolers.  For another friend it’s the stair master while he reads the morning paper every day.  For another friend it’s early morning half-court basketball.

For each of us, our chosen form of exercise has become a good addiction.  You can (and should) get totally hooked on the habit of exercise.  I can’t not play tennis.  If I go for more than two or three days without a good match, I feel logy and heavy.... and I also feel stressed and nervous.  If I’m traveling or somewhere without a court or an opponent, I have to run or bike or go to a gym (though I don’t like it nearly as much) in order to satisfy my endorphin need. 

I’m always looking forward to my next match and usually (not so much if I lost) reflecting back happily on the last one.  When I tore a knee ligament a couple of years ago and couldn’t play (or run), I nearly went nuts until I found a trainer who convinced me that the injury was actually an opportunity to work on my upper body strength — which would make me a stronger and better player when my knee healed.

What I’m saying is that you’ve got to find a physical passion of some kind — a form of exercise that you love.  You don’t need to instantly love it.  It takes a little time to get into something, to get good enough at it that it’s enjoyable, and to get hooked on the way it makes you feel.  If you don’t know what your physical passion might be, start trying things until you find one.

The point is that we all need an “output” to go with our improved “input.”  Disciplining ourselves with regard to our input into our bodies — less and better food and more water — has to be accompanied by the passion and rigor of the output of our exercise.  One side is working on the quality and quantity of the calories we put in and the other side is developing the most enjoyable and beneficial way of burning and sweating them out!

Earlier generations didn’t have to think or “strategize” nearly as much about the input or the output.  Their hard physical work was the output, and it was usually so strenuous that it burned up all the input no matter what it was.  But in our age of technology and desk or keyboard jobs, we clearly need a well-thought-out and carefully-implemented strategy for both input and output.  The point is that it can be an enjoyable strategy!

Depending on the type of exercise you choose, you may be able to do it every day, or it maybe something you’re only able to do two or three times a week (which is about the minimum frequency if it’s going to do much good).

Actually, the minimum ought to be Five per Fortnight.  I like the British term “fortnight” — two weeks — because it gives more flexibility.  Maybe you only get to your chosen exercise twice one week — so you crank it up to at least three the next week to meet the minimum of five per fortnight.

Find it!  Do it!  Love it!

Remember to send your comments and feedback to Dr.Bridell@Meridianmagazine.com