Just Do It

When I heard about Madonna building a zillion dollar gym next to her home in London, I got jealous. I would love to stumble out of bed every morning--or better yet--have my personal trainer haul my ass out of bed every morning, and walk over to my personal gym to get fit and fabulous.

I obsess about fitting some type of exercise into my daily routine. Not only does it work off that glass of wine (or two) I have with dinner, but it also relieves stress and keeps me from getting too twitchy.

When I quit my job five years ago, I had great exercise ambitions--I was going to train for a half marathon, maybe even a triatholon. But trying to fit that kind of time-intensive exercise routine into my family's schedule proved too difficult. My husband tells me to get up when he does, but I don't want to work out at 5 am--I just can't function the rest of the day.

Even going to the gym a couple of days a week got to be too hard because at one point my younger son, James, decided he didn't like the gym's nursery and would cry until one of the staff members had me pick him up.

I was beginning to give up on working out until I came across a workout routine in the Internet. It involves walking up and down two or three stairs over and over--it is the original step class. I decided to make into a circuit training routine, in which I walk up and down the stairs for five minutes then stop and do some situps or pushups, then do five more minutes, etc., for a total of 20 minutes. I then throw in a 10-minute daily yoga routine from Cyndi Lee "Om Yoga" book to get some good stretching in. This was going to be my version of Madonna's mega gym.

Of all the exercise routines I've tried, this one is the easiest to plug into my day. I get my boys their breakfast and then put on my gym shoes and Ipod and hit the steps. After about 10 minutes my heart rate has gone up and I'm sweating. And the best part is if one of the boys yells at me to change the TV station or get them something, I just walk over and do it and then go right back at it.

This routine will keep me going until the fall when Ethan is in school all day and James is in preschool two afternoons a week. Then I will have four blessed hours to myself to go to the gym.