Stairs

As most of my friends know, I’m anti-gym. It’s just not my thing. The last thing I want to do is exercise for exercise sake. I like exercise to be done as a bi-product of something else - something fun. I didn’t get as much bike riding to work done this summer as I had last summer and I’m feeling a bit guilty. I’ve been looking around trying to find a good fit and bringing more exercise into my daily life. I’m feeling older and realize that this is something that I probably need - both for mental and physical health. I’ve dabbled with the idea of doing yoga again - classes or at home, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve looked and looked and looked and have finally decided to face the obvious elephant in the room standing right in front of me and write it down. I’m forgoing elevators.

There I said it - I wrote it down. No more elevators for me. Funny to say considering I spent the first 18 years of my life in a town that I think only had three buildings with elevators (ok, maybe it wasn’t that small, but there weren’t any elevators in my daily life). But now, I’m a big city girl. And, I finally work at a company where we occupy the whole building so the stairs are unlocked and accessible during business hours. I’m also going to add escalators to the list, but with a caveat - here’s the exceptions:

- If the stairs are locked because it’s after hours - then I can (and should) use the elevator.

- I get one free pass a week for using the elevator at work instead of the stairs. To be used when I’m tired and have the heels on.

- Use stairs instead of escalators unless I’m trying to catch a train and the stairs would make me miss it.

- I get to use the escalator going up at Porter but have to walk up it. It’s a long haul out of that station.

- I get to use the escalator/elevator when traveling and I have luggage.


It sounds like a good plan - works on the thighs and cardio - good target areas for me. I must run up and down between floors at least a half dozen times a day. I’m going to guess I average about 20 flights a day at work (up and down). The whole heels thing made it easier to excuse myself from running the stairs, especially when I was overworked and more likely to stumble. So, what do you think? I wrote it down, so that means it’s going to happen right? This morning I was reading and habit kicked-in and I took the elevator up. But the rest of the time so far (4 hours) I’ve taken the stairs - so far so good!