Remember Mikey , the little boy from the Life cereal commercials that hated everything? With a little prodding from his brothers he finally tried the cereal and didn’t like it….he LOVED it. As commercials throughout the years would show his love for the cereal kept going. The moral of this story was that if you find something you like it is easy to stick with it (especially delicious Life cereal). Most everybody is familiar with Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan and ad campaign. If not you must REALLY not be into sports or actually watch less TV than I do (if that’s possible). The moral of this campaign was to stop making excuses and get moving (and while you are at it buy some Air Jordans). By now, unless I lost you to Youtube by providing the link above you are probably wondering why I would mention cereal and shoes back to back. As odd as it sounds when combined they create the attitude that helped me lose nearly 100 pounds the old fashioned way. This same attitude can help anybody achieve the same results – or in other words if I can do it you can do it too. I can help. For the rest of this post let’s assume you’re Mikey and I’m one of the brothers (or both if you really want me to be a pest). You are looking at exercise with your nose turned up and picturing spending countless hours sitting on an exercise bike at a gym and being bored. I have to agree…sounds boring to me too. However there are plenty of other exercise options therefore I can’t let you use that as an “out”. Listed below are a few that I used (and yes all of them worked): 1. Running (outdoors…much more fun). 2. Biking (again outdoors…much greater sense of accomplishment than stationary bikes and the change in scenery makes the time fly by). 3. Going to theme parks (I timed visits with a pedometer a few times and a typical trip resulted in nearly 2 total hours of walking…plus if it has a water park next door swimming can be added). 4. Yard work 5. Spending the afternoon at the pool (as long as you walk around frequently and of course swim). 6. Ice skating – good exercise and amazingly I was able to skate without falling on my first try (maybe living in Colorado before and skiing helped). I skated quite a few laps. I think not knowing how to stop had something to do with that though:). I imagine you saw options 1 and 2 coming but the last 4 maybe were a bit of a surprise. Basically, if you can get moving you are burning calories and those count just as much as any you would burn at the gym. There are several other activities that can count. So that eliminates the “I hate the gym” excuse. Next I will eliminate the “I don’t have the skill to do those things” excuse. Neither did I when I started. Yet I still got out there and did them (Nike would be proud). When we are taught things like Algebra (or Calculus I and II if you’re an engineer like me:) ) most of us realize we won’t be hailed as the next Einstein but we still take and pass the tests Yet we let the fact we won’t be the next Carl Lewis or Lance Armstrong keep us from exercising. Why is that? That’s too convenient of an excuse and unless you can prove to me you are the best in the world at everything else you do it can’t be used here (I told you I would be a pest). Besides, your only goal should be constant improvement and NOT to be like anybody else. So there, I’ve eliminated the 2 biggest excuses I hear people use. Key points are to incorporate various activities to reach your goals and to just get moving. If you have other excuses you or somebody you know uses let me know and I will debunk them too. While you are at it please answer this question for me: As a long distance runner would it be better to be associated with the Energizer Bunny or with Forrest Gump?:)