(Updated June 15, 2008)
Most people promoting physical activity have fitness as their 'thing' and are motivated to do the exercise to achieve it; they don't understand people, like me, who just really don't like to exercise, or exertion in general. My 'thing', it turns out, is fun. I know that about myself now, and I accept it.

1953 was my formative year; TV appeared out of the blue. Also the year I started school, which I resented right from the start; learning can be fun, but I preferred to do my own scheduling. I would have worked it in as comics and television allowed - we only had the three channels, so I'd have been fine.

So, I'm not a 'be all you can be' kind of a guy. But I discovered through a bizarre series of incidents starting with the army drafting me in 1969 - in basic training they actually made it official that I'm not a 'be all you can be' kind of guy, but I'd do - that fun is more fun if you have plenty of energy. The incident in basic was the first and only clue until years later, and I was effectively clueless when I got out of the army weighing 247 pounds twenty-two months later.

I finally, without really knowing it, put the knowledge to use eight years later at age 32 when I stumbled on a motivation technique I now call 'Energy Focused Exercise'. I was trying to get myself to go beyond good intentions and actually ride a stationary bike every day - just knowing about the energy reward wasn't enough. I was doubtful the simple approach I came up with would work, but it did, and I realized later, not for the reasons I thought it would. Over the next twenty-three years short-lived and infrequent diets and workout programs came and went, but the bike was there through it all. The bike wasn't about fitness or weight or health. The bike was about energy and mood within the next hour.

At age 55 I discovered an activity that I enjoy rather than just tolerate - JumpRock. It's so much fun that I don't have to force myself to do it every day - I have to force myself to cut back when I overdo it. You can't believe the euphoria of the music and jumping and endorphins combined. The better you get the more fun it is and the more creative - although it may not look it - I can't judge.

The most amazing thing is that I myself am amazed at the results in agility, stamina, and muscle tone - even now. So my message is that if I can do it starting at 55 and it was never really difficult beyond the initial frustration of trying to learn, then it's probably true for most people. Most who try jump rope and give up just don't get beyond the boring part to find out how much fun jumping to music is. That's the only way I can explain it. And you don't have to take my word that it's easy to learn.

Even if you're not all about fun, or if you can't or don't want to jump rope, you can use Energy Focused Exercise techniques to internalize the links from good mood to energy to physical activity. Best of all, they don't involve drudgery, because drudgery kills both internalization and visualization. Drudgery is why I came up with the idea in the first place; Energy Focused Exercise is visualization combined with activity which can be used in other ways, as I'm finding out more and more.

I'm not selling anything, because my goal is to become famous as the sedentary old guy who introduced the world to Energy Focused Exercise, JumpRock, and Heavy Hula Hands. My ultimate goal is to become famous for being famous so I can be on Hollywood Squares and enjoy all the perks that go with that. Oh, there is one other little thing I could use help with.

Energy Focused Exercise - For my people, the sedentary, everything else is drudgery and angst until you quit or die.