If you don’t go to a gym, you can carry your own radio or CD player while you
exercise, as long as you exercise in a safe environment and remain aware of
your surroundings. Portable CD players have improved to the point where
they won’t skip even if you carry one while running. You can even find under-
water tape players for swimming and water aerobics, and some pools pipe in
underwater music. For the ultimate lightweight player, though, consider get-
ting an iPod or other MP3 player, which can store hours of music and doesn’t
require discs.Read Success Stories
We’re not talking about those before-and-after weight-loss ads in which a
blubbery guy with a scowl on his face is miraculously transformed — “in just
six weeks!” — into a grinning, chiseled hunk of muscle.No, we’re referring to legitimate accounts of fitness success chronicled in
magazines and on fitness Web sites. The good ones offer not only inspiration
but specific and realistic advice. One woman featured in Shapemagazine’s
monthly “Success Stories” column wrote that she had ballooned to 226
pounds at age 23. (Get the magazine at your local newsstand or visit http://www.
shapemag.com.) Fed up, she vowed to her husband that in one year, he
wouldn’t recognize her. “That’s when I got the fire in my belly,” she wrote. In
addition to cleaning up her diet, she walked a hilly 3-mile route each night
after work. “My face was beet red, and I could barely breathe,” she recalled.
Thirteen months later she had lost 96 pounds. “Best of all, I had gained self-
confidence thanks to taking care of myself.”Not all fitness success stories are about weight loss. Some are about over-
coming anorexia or starting to exercise for the first time at age 60 after a
stroke. You can find success stories in other magazines as well, such as
Fitness, Men’s Fitness,and Good Housekeeping.384 Part VIII: The Part of Tens