Winning the Fitness Game

Have you ever thought of making fitness a game? Wouldn't getting fit and staying fit feel better if you looked at it like a game -- and a game you could learn to be a real winner at? For the rest of your life?

And if the "rest of your life" bit feels like sheer drudgery or a long term sentence in hell, please stop right now and realize that your present attitude is almost guaranteed to keep you trapped in a body that is less healthy, less vital, and less fun than it needs to be.

I've had some absolutely outrageous fun as a result of making the investment in staying fit and healthy for decades. One of those outrageous adventures was solo through-hiking the 2167-mile Appalachian Trail at the age of 59. What a blast! I contracted Lyme disease while doing the Trail and ended up with over 5 years of being devastated and debilitated by those curly little spirochetes.

So, I know how good it is to run around this planet in a body that is exceptionally functional and fit. And I also lave learned how awful life can be when I was so sick that I felt like I was dragging my body around behind me in a body bag -- to say nothing of the days when it felt like someone had slipped two or three other bodies into my bag.

I'm now healthy again and re-engaged in the process of getting back to being incredibly fit and healthy. That's where I choose to live -- fully committed to winning the fitness game for as long as I live.

Today, I'm playing the game by seeing how many times I can climb my stairs. I live in a two story house with a full basement. I've got two full flights of stairs to play on. At this writing, it's a little after 10 in the morning. I've already done 12 flights. I wonder how many more I can fit in before the day is over.

One tactic I use is to use the downstairs bathroom if I'm on the second floor and vice versa. I can answer the phone that's on the floor where I'm not when it rings. Instead of leaving the mail on the landing until I go up to the office, I can make that extra trip to drop it off, then run back downstairs. That means, I get to go upstairs when I return to work.

Stairs are a wonderful piece of equipment for playing the fitness game. Each trip raises my heart rate, increases the strength of my leg muscles, burns calories (over 800 in an hour of climbing!), and boosts my energy level.

I get a little crazy when I hear folks of the boomer generation talking about moving into a one-floor house in preparation for getting older. That's a powerful prescription for losing the fitness game. If you want to win the fitness game, buy a house with five flights of stairs!

In the game of football, each yard gained, gets your team closer to a win. In the fitness game, each flight of stairs moves you to your win! Happy climbing.