Weekends can be tough on Facebook. All my pals doing triathlons, marathons, slogging through mud pits and doing other feats of athletic prowess.

I say to myself: "And what are you doing? Sitting on your can, watching football."

I can't help but compare myself to others -- it's just what I do. 

And I beat myself up because I only walk 8 or 9 miles a week and do strength training one or two days a week..

Americans, on average, exercise around 2 hours a week.

I figure I do about twice that, so yay, me!

I have to keep reminding myself of something I was told by one of the doctors at the Non-Surgical Weight Loss program at the Cleveland Clinic Florida, which I did a few summers ago:

"You exercise for health; you eat to lose weight."

So running myself ragged at the gym or pounding miles and miles outside isn't really going to get me there any faster. In fact, when I start to ramp up my workouts, I find myself gaining weight, which is what happened last Friday on the scale. 

Then I read a couple of reassuring things today -- one was an article in USA Today that said brisk walking is great for keeping both diabetes and breast cancer at bay. The operative word was "brisk," so today I stepped up my pace by a full mile per hour.

And then tonight, Amber from the blog Go Kaleo wrote about the benefits of walking:

"It isn’t sexy or rapid or extreme (the things that sell diet books) but walking works. It works really well, and it can work for your whole life." 

Right? Thanks, Amber, I needed to read that. I adore going out and exploring my neighborhood. Heck, I even enjoy sweating buckets like I did today.

I do enjoy a 5k from time to time, and I've done two of them so far this year. But a marathon may not be in the cards for me. (Damn! Even writing that makes me feel guilty! Gotta get over that.)

As long as I keep doing what I love and do it consistently (ahhh, consistency!) I'll be good on the exercise front.