Off to the Gym

The Ceredo/Kenova Fitness Center opens in one hour, and I'm headed back to the gym after an absence of over a month! If the gym opened at 6:00AM every day it would be much easier for me to go each morning, but alas, the 6:00 AM openings come only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. By the time the place opens at 8:00 on Tuesday and Thursday, I am usually already visiting a hospital or back in my office for morning hours.

I've been absent from the gym for over a month. Several excuses have kept me away, including ministry activities, holidays, Linda's surgery, two medical procedures of my own, traveling out of town, and frigid early morning weather. Most of these factors are legitimate, but I'll confess that the weather has been a convenient excuse. It's just easier to sit around in the warm house and wait for daylight to come than to be scraping windshields or shoveling snow at 5:30 AM!

One legitimate reason for my absence has been an ongoing foot problem that has required some minor surgery. This has kept me in a special boot for several weeks. But, boot or not, I have got to get back in the habit. The 16 degree temperature and dusting of snow will not keep me away today. Four weeks from today I should be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean , headed for a two week mission trip in the Philippines. Losing ten to twelve pounds before that trip would be most helpful. First, it would make a difference in the tight confines of a coach seat on four flights that will take over 31 hours. By the way, on the 16 hour Philippine Airline flight, economy class is called, "Fiesta Class". Trust me - it's no Fiesta!

The other incentive for losing the weight is that I will feel better. I always feel better when I work out regularly, and in the tropical heat of the Philippines, ten extra pounds of blubber is something I really don't need. So, it's off to the gym - boot notwithstanding. I know I need it, and I know I'll feel better as a result. Regular visits to the gym are what I need, but it's not always what I do. Even though taken out of context, I understand what the Apostle Paul is talking about in Romans 7:18b-19 "...For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do." (HCSB)

Look out elliptical machine - here I come!