By Diane Lockspeiser

There is a difference, and personally I prefer the latter, while my husband Steve prefers the first. He will happily walk on the treadmill, which I hate to do. I prefer to walk into town, or go up and down our steep hill to the garden several times a day. Gardening itself gets me bending and stretching, sometimes in quite unusual ways.

My way is called “lifestyle fitness.” It’s one of the reasons why I painted murals for so many years, very physical work, rather than sit at a desk all day as Steve did. I had tried office work earlier in my life, and just the thought of going back to it made me depressed.

  Until his ankles started protesting, Steve used to love to run. He ran circuits around the neighborhood on nice days as well as regularly on the treadmill. He even ran 5K races for a while. Me? Well, let me just say that if you should ever see me running, look behind me to see what is chasing me!

Of course, as we get older our strength and endurance usually lessens, and our chance of injury increases, but that doesn’t mean we should stop exercising, whichever way we prefer. I have noticed that I am the most achy if I’ve been sitting around too much. Up and moving works out all the kinks as long as we don’t overdo it. There is a saying that if you listen to your body when it is whispering, you won’t have to hear it scream.

Now that the weather is slowly improving, it’s all the more reason to get out, enjoy Springtime, and have a nice gentle conversation with our bodies!~