I Want a Jumperoo!

As I've been sitting here, lamenting the fact that I have not yet been able to get my body in motion as part of my new, healthy lifestyle, I noticed my daughter in her Jumperoo, bouncing herself into a state of laughing and babbling glee. Oh, how well she is going to nap this afternoon!

Then I realized that I have been going about this whole exercise thing all wrong. I keep thinking of exercise as a regulated, regimented thing that I have to drag my butt out of bed to do, involving some kind of video or TV program, or a trip to the gym. Clearly, that has not been working for me.

Looking at Caroline jumping away, I can't help but think how fun it might be to have one of those Jumperoos, adult-sized, for myself. Of course I'd look pretty ridiculous -- and where the heck would I put it? -- but the heart of what I am thinking isn't all that crazy. Remember how much fun it was to just play? A game of tag, jumping rope, hopscotch, or even just spinning around until you got dizzy and fell down -- these were a BLAST, and we didn't have an inkling that we were actually getting exercise. I think that is the best possible approach to exercise.

Now, I haven't been completely inactive: for a few weeks now, I have been playing a weekly game of basketball with some friends at the local middle school. It has been enormously fun, despite the fact that my lungs are burning from about ten minutes in... and, go figure, I've gotten an hour of heavy exercise in each week without blinking an eye. I look forward to it every week.

I do realize that there will probably be some forms of exercise that are necessary and might not be entirely enjoyable, but with more fun-based activities as the core of my routine (oops, there's that word again) it could be far more tolerable.