I hate exercise. I've never been an athletic person and this has likely aided into my downwards spiral into obesity. So I have to get exercise in my day without actually thinking that I'm exercising. What I have done is I've started taking the stairs. No more elevators for me. I work on the 4th floor, but make sure I park on P3. That's one good hike up the stairs when I'm in the office. I also go up and down the stairs a few times a day to get lunch, see clients, get cool office supplies from the supply room...Some days the supply guy must think I have a crush on him because I'll go down to get one separate item, three times! Little does he know, I'm just working out.
On the days when I'm not in the office, but in the community with clients, I also take the stairs. Even if it means I'm helping someone look for housing and I have to walk up 10 flights of stairs in an apartment building. The building manager may think I'm crazy when I ask to be pointed to the stairs, but what do I care? It's not like they're actually going to be renting the apartment to me. I'll end up with the killer ass and legs and when I go back to pay a call, we'll see who's laughing at who!
I know I look ridiculous when I'm climbing (sometimes crawling) up the stairs, and my heavy panting suggests imminent cardiac arrest. But now I feel like I have to prove to myself that I can do the stairs. Just last week I was in the stairwell at work, sounding like I just ran the Boston Marathon. Someone from my floor, but not my department, came in from the third floor. She looked at me with alarm, but I was able to choke out that I was okay, just catching my breath. She stood with me for a good five minutes explaining the importance of breathing while doing the stairs. She even showed me where to breathe from and made me practice breathing from my diaphragm. I was just so grateful that a) she took the time to help me with my breathing, and b) that no one else came in and caught us with her hand pressing on my diaphragm, because I would have felt like a bigger tool than I already did.
I must say, since I started doing the stairs a week ago today, I have seen a vast improvement in my endurance (and by endurance, I mean that I still don't have any but at least I no longer feel like dying when I get to my destination). I don't actually have to rest anymore to get from P3 to my floor. I still look like complete crap when I get to the 4th floor, but I don't need to stop. I'm not looking forward to Friday. I have an all day meeting on the 7th floor. That's 10 office floors I'll have to climb up first thing in the morning. All I can say is that they better have coffee for me when I get there, and some kind of gold star would be nice too.
My actual goal is to climb the stairs of the escarpment in Hamilton, which is where I live. They are super tall and a five minute walk from my house so would therefore, make the perfect free gym. Hamiltonians refer to the escarpment as The Mountain. Now picture if you will something as large and daunting as the Rocky Mountains (4401m). That is not The Mountain in Hamilton. Hamilton Mountain is more like a big hill. It would kill you to toboggan down, but anyone could climb the stairs. That may be, but when I can climb to the top of the escarpment, without feeling like impending death, I will feel like I climbed the Rockies:)