Walk this way

A recent survey reported that British adults spend more time perched atop the loo than they spend exercising. This novel means of comparison, promulgated by an outfit called UKactive, was a great P.R. hook. It caught the attention of many newspapers earlier this week.

It is yet one more page in a long-running theme. It’s not just a British thing. It’s global. Modern life, with its urban and sedentary lifestyles, is making exercise difficult, or unpopular, or maybe even both.

Me, I turn into a bit of a slug in urban environments. The notion of running around in a concrete labyrinth has never appealed to me. That’s not to say that all rural settings are kind to outdoor exertion, either. Some are certainly better than others. There are, fortunately, a lot of good ones.

Saipan always stuck me as agreeable for activity, as long as a boonie dog doesn’t want to make a snack of your Achilles tendon.

Although we always hear that people don’t get enough exercise, some people manage to get too much of it. Crazy world, eh?

But it’s true. Several of my friends and relatives have been advised by their doctors to cut back on the jogging thing. The concern is that once you hit middle age the accumulative wear and tear on the joints can start to catch up with you. The grand cost vs. benefit equation threatens to pivot in the wrong direction. The pivot point is invisible. The results aren’t.

With this in mind, the docs preemptively suggested that their patients get exercise that doesn’t impose so much stress on the joints and bones.

Objectively, this is reasonable. But reality isn’t always such a clean play. Subjectively, exercise modes aren’t a seamless proposition to swap. I’d say that about one-third of the people I know who have been faced with this gig eventually resigned themselves to sitting on the couch and succumbing to sedentary decline.

Exercise that doesn’t appeal to you is, well, unappealing. If it becomes a grim chore, it’s easy to put off, and once it’s put off for long enough, it’s no longer a habit. Don’t ask me how I know this. I mean, I would like to tell you, but I just wound my wristwatch and I’m really out of breath.

Meanwhile, I don’t know one guy over 50 who isn’t facing some new pain from an old injury received from college athletics or military service. Our bones are turning into Carbon-14 as we sink into the tar pits of time. During this transition, biology apparently squares the books by marking some of the old liabilities into current values.

So is it time to give up, open a box of glazed doughnuts, and settle into watching Twilight Zone reruns for the next 30 years?

Well, yes. Of course it is.

However, not everybody got the memo on this count. I’ve noted that of the folks I know in their 80s, and even beyond, the ones who are in good shape, are habitual walkers.

Walking, as it turns out, is good exercise, especially if you hold a decent pace. This is one realm where the cost vs. benefit balance seems to get better as the years go by.

In fact, walking can be a very dignified form of exercise. Sure, it’s great to be a fast-moving young hotshot, but the time comes when life can ripen to a more elegant, dare I say stately, pace.

Just as athletes employ a psychological technique of envisioning their victory, I’m envisioning how I will join the walking world.

First, I will put on a Harris tweed jacket. Then I’ll clamp a briar pipe in my teeth, take hold of a brass-knobbed walking stick, and prepare to venture afield.

“Jeeves,” I’ll say, “Ensure that the hounds are caged. I shall be commencing my rounds presently.”

“Quite so, sir. Shall you be requiring victuals upon your return?”

“I do not anticipate being in need of such an arrangement, Jeeves.”

“Indeed, sir. May one therefore presume that you shall be going to the usual place?”

“One may.”

“Winchell’s, sir?”

“Yes, Jeeves. Winchell’s.”