Isn't it funny how we are all different. I get chilled under 70.
When I was young, I went to the beach every chance I could get. I don't do it so much anymore, but I still enjoy it when I do. There are just so many other things I'm doing now, and I like them all.
I turn on the Air Conditioner for a few hours per day a few days of the year. Usually in August. The AC repairman told me that if I don't, it will freeze up. Since a freeze up is the reason he came out for, I believe him. (I tried to turn it on for some guests and it didn't cooperate).
But the good thing for many of us is that the USA is a very big country, with a variety of climates. If you like it cold there is Alaska, Michigan's U.P., Montana and others. If you like it hot there is the south. If you like it in the middle, we have a big middle too.
What I find curious are the people who come from the North to retire in Florida, and then do nothing but complain about the heat. I always wonder why they chose Florida to retire if they don't like it hot.
But that's off topic.
Some people like to walk, some like to swim, some like to dance, some go to the gym, and some sit on their bottoms all day. Perhaps the worse is to be either extremely sedentary, or extremely the opposite. I think the human body needs both.
My parents both died too soon of obesity-sedentary related diseases. Everybody in my family is extremely overweight but me. I saw the demise of my parents as a future possibility for me, and decided that I had to figure out a way to avoid that.
I like life. It's the bird in the hand and I want to be here and healthy for as long as I can. After a number of other attempts, I found low-carb and that works for me (50 pounds down - 13 years and counting).
I also found that without exercise, my endurance was poor, and when I wanted to do something like take a long walk, I'd tire too easily (heart rate and respiration way up).
So I figured I had better take some action about that, as this could lead to an early heart problem.
I don't like going to the gym. I'm not a social exerciser. I run two businesses and I started this before cell phones, so I wanted to be near the home/office to hear the phone ring. So I bought a manual treadmill. I though about an electric, but figured I needed to do the work, not the machine.
Fast forward: I wore out three manual treadmills. Actually wore grooves under the belt so deep that they started to snag the belt. Then I wore out an elliptical and I'm on my second one.
That's my choice. I walk for a half hour, watch my pulse (I like to get it in the high 140s or low 150s - I'm 67 years young), I'm on my screened porch breathing real air, I have bird feeders, and I live near a nature preserve so I often get wildlife to watch, and at the end of the half hour, I've burned between 420 and 480 calories. My heart no longer beats hard when I exert myself, the new nurse at my doctor's thought I was in my late 40s or early 50s (made my day) and all my blood work is in the OK zone.
We all have our health challenges, and it's best if we accept them and take responsibility for doing what we can to stay healthy - with an eye to the long term health. Because if you aren't healthy, nothing else matters.
Bob
|