Functional Fitness

Health experts recommend what they call functional fitness—parking at the far end of the parking lot so you have to walk farther to the door, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, doing stretches while you talk on the phone, delivering messages to co-workers in person instead of always relying on e-mail. Just ways, they say, of adding extra activity into a lifestyle that has become increasingly sedentary.

I try to do these things, don’t you? After all, I don’t really want to become a little old lady who can’t push her shopping cart in the grocery store or even get up from her easy chair without assistance.

But I have to admit, some days I’d like to ask my husband to just let me out at the door. And, wouldn’t it be fun, just once, to ignore the stairs, plop down in front of the elevator, and enjoy an ice cream cone? Two scoops. And yes, sprinkles too.