Finding the drive to thrive

<p>For every healthy reason to exercise — good for your heart, brain, psyche, legs and looks — there are plenty of excuses to not.</p><p>Do any of these sound familiar? I'm too busy. I'm too tired from working all day. Exercise is boring and risky. I have no skills. I have no pool. The bike path is too far from my house. I'm too embarrassed to wear shorts, too old to learn a new sport, too broke to join a fitness club. Sloth runs in our family.</p><p>There are new arguments all the time to get Americans to move. The American Heart Association reported at its recent conference in San Francisco that people who are physically fit in middle age double their chances of surviving and thriving into their 80s.</p><p>Still, we resist, said Dustin Davis, fitness director at the Airport Health Club in Santa Rosa, who calls motivating clients “the hardest and often the most draining part” of a trainer's job.</p><p>Dr. Kirk Pappas, a sports medicine specialist and assistant physician-in-chief at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, sympathizes with the tendency toward sloth. In college he was cut from the baseball team and his coach told him he'd make a better student than a fielder. Pappas ended up spending lots of time in the library, which helped him become a doctor, but he also started eating badly and getting less exercise. Then one night when he was a resident he was eating in the hospital cafeteria and heard that another doctor in his 40s had a heart attack and died swimming in his pool. With that grim reminder, Pappas went on to change his eating habits and began biking and running.</p><p>“My motivation? Mortality,” he said.</p><p>That's one good reason to get moving. But how do you do it? Here are some ways.</p><p>Start simple. “Don't say you want to climb Half Dome if you've never walked Annadel,” said Pappas. “Pick something that allows an early victory.” Pappas, who personally aims for 60 minutes of cardio activity a day, said ideally he wants patients to do 150 minutes or more of exercise a week. “But how about 20 minutes of exercise three times a week? Do that and you get that first positive feeling.”</p><p>Make a public commitment. When people make their behavioral change public, see a reminder posted on the bathroom mirror every morning or tell someone else, that's a positive predictor that they'll keep to their goal, Pappas said. He said he has a patient who posted on Facebook that her goal was to walk 150 minutes a week. “And now she gets comments from people asking her how she's doing,” Pappas said.</p><p>Choose a support person. Have an exercise buddy, “someone who can be calmly honest with you,” said Pappas. “Not judgmental. Someone who will say ‘come on' when you say, ‘I don't have time to exercise.'”</p><p>Or get a dog. A dog needs to be walked and accepts no excuses. A study by the University of Missouri showed that people who walked with a dog were more consistent in walking and had a better walking speed than those who had a human exercise partner.</p><p>Imagine yourself there. Consider what you'll be able to do if you make some healthy changes. Travel to Guatemala, play on the floor with your grandbabies, walk your daughter down the aisle. Short-term goals are great incentives and then when you reach them you're (hopefully) hooked into the exercise habit.</p><p>Everyone else is doing it. Sonoma County ranked high in a national study on happiness and Pappas said it's not hard to see why. “Our whole culture is about being outdoors. I see a guy at Spring Lake who had a stroke and walks with a four-pronged walker.” Then there's a 94-year-old patient who came to him for a cortisone shot for her shoulder because it was hampering her walking routine. “I want to be 94 and moving and complaining my shoulder hurts,” Pappas said.</p><p>Create your own ritual. Marisa Vossen of Sebastopol, teacher and mother of two, created a no-excuses workout that she can do at home or traveling. She calls it “Take 10” and the aim is to do 10 repetitions each of 20 different stretching and strength-training exercises, including jumping jacks, different crunches and push-ups. She fits them in whenever and wherever she can — first thing in the morning, while watching TV or before going to bed. She explains that to “take 10” is not to take a break, but to “do something for myself.” Usually the full regimen takes about 30 minutes. To keep from getting bored she counts in Spanish or backward, and listens to her favorite Brazilian music.</p><p>Think how you're saving money. 150 minutes of exercise a week is “equi-potent to a Prozac prescription or a session with a psychotherapist,” said Pappas.</p><p>It feels so good. Trainer Davis said he feels happier the more he works out. He sleeps better. He has more energy to keep up with the students he coaches at Windsor High School. It's also a stress relief. And at 29 he still easily fits into his high school varsity letterman's jacket.</p><p>It beats dying. Pappas said he usually avoids playing the mortality card with patients he's trying to motivate. “But sometimes I'll say to them they're simply going to have a shorter life unless they take care of themselves. I'll remind them that every few minutes of activity improves almost every condition, be it depression or diabetes.”</p><p>Susan Swartz is a freelance writer and author based in Sonoma County. Contact her at susan@juicytomatoes.com.</p>