There is No Way to Candy-Coat Exercise for Me

It goes all the way back to school....and the first time the term PE was introduced. PE, who knew all those years ago that acronyms would be The Thing? Physical Education, a polite way of packaging torture and embarrassment for those of us with ZERO physical abilities other than walking around and avoiding all other physical activity. That was me, in a nutshell. I was a chubby kid. We were not an athletic family. We were immigrants - we didn't have large circles of friends and we did not come from a background of joining ski clubs, baseball leagues, gym memberships etc. My parents were not overweight or inactive, Dad worked, Mom raised us kids and kept the home and garden - it was pretty atypical 60's, 70's household of the working class. However it did not prepare me for what PE was. Hauling out green gym mats, parallel bars and chin up bars adding to that a long list of torturous activities that we were put through. Not to mention the short-shorts and tight fitting t-shirts we had to wear which, if I remember correctly, were not-so-discreet purple and yellow in colour! I tried to forget my gym kit but if you did, there were spares, gross and they were always smaller in size so that would make for even more embarrassment so it was better to have the 'right' ones than not.

And just for the hell of it lets repeat this torture every OTHER day...I had classmates that counted the minutes until PE time, couldn't wait to get outside to run the track or into the gym to leap off the box horse and the BARS...Seriously ...Are you kidding me? I almost died on those things, I think I may have sciatic damage to this day because of that chamber of horrors known as the public school gym. Don't get me started on the leather medicine ball that we threw at each other that weighed a tonne and smelled like...well...let's just say 'not medicine'. BLAHHH

So starting off your physical education in such a fantastical manner and with a growing weight problem you can see where my aversion for exercise may have been born. To be honest I don't to this day understand the obsession with exercise as a task! By this I mean Gyms, Fitness Centres, basements filled with expensive equipment etc. I understand it from a big business perspective because it IS big business. But while living in Italy I noticed that there were no gyms and Fitness Centres. They didn't have PE classes in school. Kids were not enrolled in umpteen extra curricular sports activities or little leagues. Yes there were community pools and being a peninsula on the Mediterranean, there were a lot of open beaches for swimming. However 'exercise' was not quantified as a separate activity but instead just as part of their lifestyle. I consumed way more carbs and calories aaand 'alcohol' in Italy in my 12+ years there but I did not balloon in weight until I brought those habits back to North America - Why?, because my lifestyle changed - not the calories I was eating.

I walked everywhere in Europe, I went out dancing twice a week. In the summer I would catch a train and go to a beach, I would walk to and from the train station. During the week I'd meet up with a friend and go for a stroll, maybe grab an ice cream but would walk for an hour while enjoying the visit. Vitality is part of their way of life as opposed to having to find ways to insert exercise into a daily routine. They grabbed life with 'gusto' and it worked! Making life, food, movement, and socializing pleasurable. A perfect dynamic recipe for Being! So no more of that hateful word EXERCISE... From now on - Live Life with Gusto...Italiano Style!