Are You Taking Care of YOU?

I’m not one who’s big on ending one stressful season with a bunch of equally stressing demands on myself. So, I typically don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. But after Weight Watchers yesterday, I’m making this year an exception.

One of my friends there (we’ll call her Susie) has been battling breathing problems for over a year. Even with the oxygen system she carries with her at all times, her breathing has worsened. I’ve noticed that in the past few months she has been losing weight, but hey, it’s Weight Watchers and that’s kind of the point. Yesterday another friend mentioned that Susie was sick. With her breathing problems, we were all concerned and asked her what was wrong.

Silence.

We waited.

With tears threatening she said, “I’ve got lung cancer. I won’t be here for next Christmas.”

This is a woman who never smoked, but her husband and mother did. She’s been at her goal weight since I’ve been at WW and that’s been for five years.

Susie is a very sweet person who never has a cross word for anyone. She’s a hard worker, always out in her garden, or picking fruit, or gathering walnuts—which she shares with all of us.

Susie’s plight brought home that what happens to us isn’t always in our control. However, we can take care of what we can take care of. So—full circle here—I’m going to break my rule and make New Year’s Resolutions this year. As if by plan, the cosmos has presented me with options. I already have a pedometer, a Fitbit (www.fitbit.com). It provides me with all sorts of helpful information. It automatically down-loads all the info to a website where it keeps track of the number of steps I take, the flights of stairs I climb, the intensity of my activity, how many calories I burn, what I eat, and my sleep patterns. It also provides me the option to have a network of friends who have Fitbits. We compete for who can get the most steps in a day. The competition keeps me going.

Today on FOX News, they featured a guy who had a similar experience to the one I’m having right now. A friend died of cancer—again, full circle—which brought home to him that he needed to get more exercise. He’s in the same predicament that we writers are. In order to do his/our job, we have to sit at a computer for hours on end.

This man wasn’t detoured by the fact that there wasn’t anything out there that would work for him and his office mates. Nope. He decided to invent something. I love American ingenuity. He came up with FitDesk (http://fitdesk.net/) You attach your laptop to the stand, then peddle and write away the pounds. They demonstrated it on FOX News this morning and it works. The peddling didn’t jiggle the work station area and they were all able to use their laptops with ease.

I went to the website and the device is $249.00. But, if it will allow me to get exercise while I write, I’m all about that. If all goes as planned, my peddling it will register as steps on my Fitbit and I will be one happy little camper. If the world does come to an end on the 21^st , I’ll be able to hook the peddling up to a generator that will run my computer.

What do you do to keep in shape?