What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?

Every morning starts off (nearly) identically:

• Wake up.
• Enjoy a warm beverage (usually coffee, but homemade chai recently entered the rotation).
• Check email, catch up on socials, or read.
• A quick yoga flow with my lovely husband.

Next on the docket is my daily exercise. And this, my friends, is the part I skip if I can.

I’ve never been an athletic kind of gal. I’m much more the artistic type, due in large part to my diminished hand-eye coordination and general antipathy toward sweat and labored breathing. In high school when we had to run the mile, I leisurely walked the curves and ran lightly jogged the straight parts of the track. I ate what I wanted and assumed my youthful metabolism would take care of everything.

I was wrong.

Physical activity is so important for our bodies (of course) but also our mental health. In early 2020, I started doing cardio dance routines on YouTube out of boredom mostly, but also as a means to cultivate joy during a truly terrifying time. (I’m telling y’all, dancing to Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls will put a smile on your face even in the midst of a global pandemic.) The habit stuck, and now I spend at least 30 minutes every day doing some sort of physical activity.

Well, almost every day.

Turns out I’m still not an athletic kind of gal and I don’t think I ever will be. I will always prefer sitting on the couch over going for a run. If I must exercise, I’d like it be in some form where it doesn’t feel like a workout—it just feels like fun. And on the weekends, I have been known to pretend like the running portion of my latest 4-week fitness plan just doesn’t exist.

But I am pushing myself to incorporate more physical activity while also eating more whole (vegan) foods in smaller portions. While I don’t look the same as I did in high school, I feel awesome! (I was too skinny back then anyway—that was the “heroin chic” era of the ‘90s-2000s when too many of us were focused on size instead of health.)

As I type this, I am sitting in my unfinished basement home gym dreading the 30 minutes of exercise I’m about to do. I really really really don’t want to put in this work. But work I must.

Because my body, mind, and spirit are worth it the effort.