My husband Owen just walked in the door from the PF Chang’s Marathon, limping and smiling from ear to ear after completing his first half-marathon.

I, on the other hand, had signed up to walk it and didn’t even go.

As a teenager in New Zealand, Owen played rugby and ran about 10 miles a night delivering milk in glass bottles (so that tells you he’s in his late 40’s).  In the last couple of decades, his exercise has consisted of walking the dog and intermittently working out at the Y, so I was surprised when he announced that he had signed up to train with Susan Loken and Team Chances.

He enjoyed the structure of the training schedule, the commaraderie of running with his friends twice a week, the challenge of training for a long-distance event, and the opportunity to earn money for Chances for Children. During his five months of training, he progressed from walking and jogging a mile or two at a time to running all 13.1 miles at a pace of 9+ minutes a mile today. I am proud of him - but more importantly, he’s proud of himself!

As for me, I’ve never liked to run and never had the slightest interest in training for an event like that. For the last eight years or so, I’ve loved yoga and hiking - and I’m actually disappointed if I can’t fit one or the other in most days of the week.

Why then, when a friend asked me to walk the half with her, did I say yes? Because I knew I could and I thought I should. 

It turns out that those reasons weren’t good enough because my “exercise personality” is a poor fit for training for a long distance event. My travel schedule can be crazy so I didn’t like the pressure of having to train. I hated missing my yoga class when I needed to walk instead. I resented the thought of carving out long periods of time for distance training. 

Then, just weeks before the marathon, I was sick and couldn’t exercise for nearly two weeks. When I finally recovered, I bought a new pair of shoes and developed a deep blister that wouldn’t heal.  As the event drew near, I found myself dreading getting up early and dealing with the crowds and the traffic.

Hate? Pain? Resentment? Dread? Enough already!!! Clearly this was not my thing. I had nothing to prove and it was ruining the joy I find in moving my body for the sake of moving my body. So I backed out. No guilt, no shame, just an important lesson learned.

Owen reached his goal and rediscovered his love of running. I’m back to my hiking and yoga and realized how much I love the flexibility of exercising on my own terms.

So whatever your exercise personality is, get out there and try different things until you find something you enjoy. When you do physical activity you love, you’ll never exercise a day in your life. 

Join me for an 8-week Spirit of Women/Am I Hungry? weight management workshop at Banner Desert Medical Center and I’ll help you discover joy in physical activity and healthy eating. Call Wendy at 480 512-3852 or visit http://www.AmIHungry.com.

I knew the New Year’s weight loss ads were coming…but I never saw this coming!

Weight Watchers claiming they are not a diet? WHAT???

The same DIET I restarted 17 times? (I don’t give up easily, especially when everyone said it was the best diet out there - so obviously that meant there was something wrong with ME!)

If I had had to go to medical school 17 times, I would have finally decided that wasn’t working either. But I was smart and determined enough to get through medical school so maybe the problem wasn’t me. When I saw one patient after another fail Weight Watchers too (please forgive me if I was the one who sent you there; I didn’t know better yet), I finally realized that diets don’t work (unless of course you are only interested in short term results).

So when I saw Weight Watchers using that very phrase, “diets don’t work,” I was astounded and offended. What were they charging me for all those years?

And to add insult to injury, they are using my tag line, Stop Dieting, Start Living (I am not kidding; I had to take it off my home page http://www.amihungry.com/ but it is already printed on a bunch of my products!). Maybe I’ll have to change mine to: Stop Dieting Weight Watchers, Start Living. But then maybe they’ll revoke my lifetime membership and I won’t be able to rejoin for ”free” for the 18th time.

They even have the nerve to say, “If diets worked, why are they changing every five minutes?” Good point! Why does Weight Watchers change every year? (Oh yeah, I have a similar line on my website, “If diets were the solution, there wouldn’t be a problem” http://www.amihungry.com/health-professional-resources.shtml. Maybe I should change that one too: “If Weight Watchers was the solution, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Really, IF Weight Watchers worked, would anybody still be overweight? I RARELY meet  an overweight person who hasn’t done it - at least once.

Before any of you Weight Watchers fans write back telling me what a great diet, ooops, I mean lifestyle change, it is, just ask yourself a couple of questions:

1. If it’s not a diet, then why do they tell you how many points you can eat each day?
2. If it’s not a diet, then why do you have to earn the right to eat more by exercising?
3. If it’s not a diet, then why do you have to be weighed in?
4. If it’s not a diet, then how come vegetables are “free” instead of just good for you?
5. If it’s not a diet, then why is everybody on it talking about food ALL the time?
6. If it’s not a diet, then why do you have to weigh, measure and write down your food? (unless of course you choose their “Core” plan - then you can eat as much as you want of the foods they say are allowed).

I’m not saying Weight Watchers isn’t a “lifestyle change.” I’m just saying, who wants that kind of lifestyle?