I've started walking for exercise - again

I start exercising like some people quit smoking. An incentive the last time I did this was that our company started a fitness challenge where we would form into teams and compete for prizes at the end of a six-week period. It was very interesting: The definition of "exercise" was left intentionally vague and we were graded on our ability to meet or beat our own estimate of how many minutes we would exercise per week. So, for instance, I estimated I would exercise for 210 minutes a week. I figured it would be no problem to walk for a half hour seven days a week. Well, it turned out to not be as easy as I thought (kind of like writing at least one blog entry a week). But, the fact that I might be letting my teammates down got me outside on days I didn't feel like doing it. It was good motivation and, if I really felt bad some day, I knew I could catch up later in the week. I had a few really long walks on Sundays to catch up for the week!

So, here I go again. I'm starting to gain back the fifteen pounds I lost during our move out of the old house and into the new house and I'm feeling it more when I climb the stairs. This time, while there is another fitness challenge going on, I'm not a member of a team so it is going to be harder to keep going. The best I ever did in getting good, prolonged exercise and sticking with it was when I was bicycling to work. I was riding 14 miles a day round trip and the weather didn't usually stop me. I did that for about ten years. Of course, I was younger then and unmarried. Now with the office moved farther out (it's now a 20 minute drive in the car and on a highway that doesn't allow biking), I can't do that. I'll try to take some pictures of where I walk behind our office and post those. I'll also try to post my progress here from time to time. Maybe that will be my motivating factor.

By the way, the picture at the top is one I took of my son and our dog about five or six years ago. We were walking in the woods not far from our house at the time. It is one of my favorites. It was not taken where I am walking at the office. I'll show some of those pictures another time.