GERDing for Exercise: Making Your Workouts Fun II

Exercising to reduce weight is a key component to treating gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and heartburn symptoms. As discussed in the first part of this blog series we want to make exercise loads of fun so you'll love doing it.

Before we dive in, keep remember these two simple points. First, the goal of exercise is not to kill yourself for a week and then quit. Exercise is a lifestyle. As long as you're moving, you're alive. If you're not moving, you're dead. Second, make exercise fun!

Even More Fun
Still think exercise can't be fun - take one look at professional athletes. Those guys are smiling, laughing, slapping high fives. They love what they do and no one is in better shape. One of the reasons they love exercise so much, is it has purpose for them (which was also in the first part of this blog series ). Find purpose in your exercise and it will immediately become more enjoyable.

Get A Partner
The vast majority of us like to hang out with other people, so why exercise alone? Get a partner. Heck, get two or three. Just having someone else to exercise with is motivating and makes exercise more fun. If you're one of those people that just likes gabbing with your friends, now you can do it during a walk, jog, hike, bike, etc.

Join A Team
If working out with one person is fun, just think how great it would be with a whole team. Team play is like going to a party for exercise. You can play volleyball, basketball, softball, squash, flag football. Join a runners or walkers group. The choice is yours. Two of my best friends play in a soccer league. No coincidence, they're two of the most in-shape people I know, but they rarely go to the gym. Teams are fun. You get to share experiences, meet new people, and you're all working toward the same goal. Plus, the parties after the big games are a blast!

Entertainment
If you're serious about losing weight to treat your GERD and heartburn symptoms I have one major piece of advice for you: Get an iPod . These little devices can do so much more than play music. For example, I frequently listen to books, interviews and comedians when I exercise - all from my iPod. Can you imagine cracking up to Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy or Ricky Gervais during a run? I can, because I do it frequently. You get some strange looks when you bust out laughing during a run, but having that much fun while getting in shape is well worth it!

Exercise=Great Things
If you don't think of exercise as drudgery or a 'set of rules' that you absolutely must follow, you'll soon realize that almost all great things in life come in the form of exercise. What do I mean by that? Think about it. Climbing Mount Everest, that's one heckuva workout. Winning the Super Bowl? Yep. For us more average joes, add surfing, skiing, hiking down the Grand Canyon, kayaking Penobscot Bay, going on Safari in Africa, you can even add giving birth to a baby to that list. See, as humans our natural state is one of motion. It shouldn't come as any surprise that the things we most admire and often most wish to do, come through exercise, which is really just a fancy word for moving. The opposite of moving is death, and the view from inside a coffin isn't nearly as good as the view from the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Yep, Even More Fun
With all those tips, you should be able to think of quite a few really fun ways to begin exercising, but there are even more ways to have fun and exercise. In fact, we've barely touched on some of my favorites. More on that in the days ahead.