In the past month I’ve only missed two days of exercise. For some people that might not be a big deal, but for me it’s huge.

This year so far I’ve been trying to complete the rings on my watch. I wrote a blog about it and you can read that one here.

The three rings represent calories burned while moving, standing for at least one minute for each of twelve hours in the day, and completing 30 minutes of exercise a day.

… That last ring needs some explaining: Exercise as recorded on my watch is any time my heart rate is elevated past a certain range for a minute or so.

Most days I will get a few minutes of exercise just doing what I do in a day. If I’ve walked somewhere fast or shovelled snow, I’ll get that ring to move a little.

There are some days – and in the last month there were two – that I completed that ring by doing everyday activities that elevated my heart rate for a total of 30 minutes in the day. But in the last 34 days, I’ve actually worked out 32 times.

… I haven’t been this active since I was in my early twenties and was always running, playing, and doing things every day!

Sometimes my workouts have been short, maybe twenty minutes on the bike or rowing machine; other days I’ve played hockey for 60 minutes or more.

There have been a few times that I’ve come home from work and felt too tired to exercise, but I’ve done it anyway.

Times that I couldn’t exercise between work and an evening meeting, even though it was 10:00 or 10:30 pm when I came home, I still put in time in the gym.

And that’s what’s helped me. I have a mini gym at home, one room in the house – my son’s old bedroom to be exact – where we have equipment and a TV.

The TV is critical because I don’t think I could keep working out without some kind of distraction.

I have three basic pieces of equipment that I use: a treadmill, my old bike on a trainer, and a rowing machine.

When I think about how well I’ve done exercising this past month, I also realize that it’s just a month. It’s too soon to say that I have a pattern or a way of life now that includes daily exercise.

And that is the important thing for me to remember. I’m not doing this to reach a goal, or to say that I completed something. I’m doing this to make a change to my life.

When I was young, I naturally got exercise every day. At my age and with my work, I have to build exercise into my routine because my days don’t naturally produce it.

I feel so good right now, maybe this is how I always felt when I was in my twenties … now I’m not taking it for granted.

Here’s the thing: I now have to work at something that I didn’t have to even think about 40 years ago. There was a time in your life when you didn’t think about changing or renewing yourself. But when you become a Christ-follower, you have to daily put on the new self, your Christ nature, by building the fruit of the Spirit into your life. Don’t neglect your new self.

That’s Life!

Paul

Galatians 5:22-23

Question: What are you doing to daily exercise your new nature?