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Alright, probably not the best pic of me, but I’m out doing something important and long overdue.

Getting exercise.

Which is getting back to reasons versus excuses. I’ll give some examples of reasons, then I’ll tackle excuses.

Reason: a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.

Alright, here are some legit reasons I couldn’t exercise for months. First, I became terribly sick in November. For weeks I could barely get out of bed. By the time I recovered, my family was in quarantine. The quarantine lasted about forty days. It was bad. Once it was over, we had a awful extended snap of cold weather and endless treacherous snow and ice.

You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to walk down an icy road with deep snow on the berms; vehicles passing you close by. Too close. No thanks. Plus, did I mention frigid conditions?

So my condition has suffered. It’s not good.

But for anyone who has been behind the fitness eight ball, you already know what happens next.

The excuses.

Excuse: attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense); seek to defend or justify.

With a reason there is no blame or fault. With an excuse, there is.

It wasn’t my fault we got put through the health wringer, and then the weather was abnormally awful. These are legit reasons for a lack of outdoor exercise.

No, the excuses came when the weather improved. “There’s not enough time.” (PS, I’m retired.) “I’m too busy.” (No, you’re not.) “I want to take a nap.” (Really?) “I can do it later.” (No, you won’t.) The longer the time stretched out, the more elaborate the excuses became, until they were borderline parody.

So, the BS train had to stop. In fits and starts, I started cranking up the exercise machine again. Where I’d like to be is where I was before I got sick, over 7000 steps per day on average. Nothing crazy, about an hour of movement, minimum, per day. This is where I need to be as I approach fifty years old. No excuses, just execution.

Hopefully no reasons pop up. I’ve had enough of those for one decade.

Excuses I can deal with.