No one knows more than my wife that I am in need of some attitude adjustment. That's why she eagerly put my new exercise bike together while I was at work yesterday, the long day (7am-11pm). I am happy to report that it works. It took some effort to break a sweat, finally reaching my target heartbeat of 160. The first twenty minutes or so I could only feel the warming tingle of blood coursing through my extremities -working, but not exercising. Then it hit, after twenty minutes but before thirty, at mile 6, resistance level 3, 19 mph, the sweat began to run. The final ten minutes, the cool down, were oxygen fueled euphoria -or the closest I've come to it while sweating. The readout can not be trusted, but I was entertained by the idea that my 40 minutes on the exercise bike burned 1/5th of my calorie intake for the day. If it were true, I'd ride for 2 hours in a vain attempt to shed 1700 calories every day, eating whole pizzas for lunch.
The best thing about exercise, and this is nothing newsworthy, is its ability to adjust attitude. It magically cleans up all that garbage I am capable of finding within. I wasn't sure if this foldaway bike would become just another piece of furniture to hang a sweater on, but after today I feel reassured. I used to go for fast walks in the park, but I always felt repelled by the morning rush traffic between here and there -somehow more intolerable in morning than evening. And then I was always distracted by the park itself, I could never stick to my practice, and time passed, and then it was late. The bike -I just get into the sweat gear, get on for 40 minutes, then jump in the shower, all in an hour.
