The Anti-Spread Campaign

My friend Stacey (the fabulous pastor, above, singing her heart out), of The Almond Branch, devised a plan she dubs The Anti-Spread Campaign. It began after she spent a week with a bunch of other young women ministers and they were talking about the tendency of ministers to spread...around their middles. Its basically a function of a sendentary lifestyle that comes with the job. Sitting around at meetings and visiting people in hospitals aren't activities that are conducive to staying fit. Rather, I think they contribute to a general unhealthiness--tense muscles, upset stomachs, headaches and other unhappy physical symptoms--which really needs to be dealt with intentionally.

I know all about it. Over the past few years I've struggled to find ways to keep healthy, and I've not discovered any good ones on a long-term basis. I have a hard time feeling motivated to stay active when I am doing it on my own--my only successful periods have been when I have friends with whom I'm studying yoga or going to the gym. Up here in Niskayuna I haven't got anybody to exercise with. So while I am technically unemployed as a young woman minister at the moment, I'm going to join up with the Anti-Spread Campaign, in the hopes that friends on the internet will inspire me.

Stacey has decided to run/walk the distance to Rome, and is hoping to make the distance before the Catholic Church decides to ordain women. I don't think she'll have any difficulty winning the race against the church, even if she dawdles a whole lot. She's wearing a pedometer *most* of the time (except for when its clashing with her stylish outfit) and has the goal of walking or running 10,000 steps a day, which comes to about 5 miles for her. See this post to read more about her plan.

So I plan to acquire a pedometer. But I'm going to diversify the plan to include biking. I've got my bike fixed up and its working great, so I am going to incorporate bike miles into my count (though I don't think they count as much as walking or running--biking certainly doesn't tire me out in the same way). I also want to include yoga practice somehow, but I don't know how to count it. Any ideas? Maybe substitute breaths for steps?

I don't plan on posting every day about my progress--maybe once a week I'll give a tally. I am keeping track on a separate calender as to how far I've gone this week. We'll see how it goes.