ELLEN, journalist and anti-athlete: I am considered somewhat of an expert at juggling priorities at my job. But it all goes out the window when it comes to my personal life. I have spent many years wondering what form of mental illness this is. Why is it so tough for Americans, particularly female Americans, to make their own physical wellness a priority?

Someone once told me that if the president of the United States can find an hour a day to exercise, I could too. “Do you think you are busier than the president?” this adviser asked.

Well, yeah. Does the president have to stop at the gas station on the way to work? Does the president have to figure out how to pay for the prom dress? Does the president worry about taking a second job so he can pay for his retirement?

Here then is the nub of my own shortcoming. I actually think that I am busier than the leader of the Free World. And choosing health becomes easier to avoid when you have that attitude. I’ve got to stop this.

If fitness were my job (and I would argue that it should be), I would be giving myself a lecture about stamina and will and personal strength. These are the characteristics that keep me functioning in a demanding job during a recession in a competitive field. And in a very real way, my own personal fitness program is the same kind of challenge.

I need to work on embedding (to use a word in the press these days) these values in my fitness program just like the military is embedding journalists in the military forces. I need these values popping out of my fitness foxholes and writing up my successes and failures in my own personal battle to keep fit. If I have the stamina to work 15-hour days during Operation Iraqi Freedom, I should be able to get up an hour earlier to work out. If I have the will to push forward a tired staff to continue to do excellent work during week two of the war, I should have the will to keep to my exercise program. And if I have the personal strength to be direct with people about their strengths and weaknesses so they can be better journalists, I should have the same conversation with myself about owning my fitness issues.

But it all falls away so easily.

I use the mantra of “Choose Health” to help me in moments like this. I am trying very hard to stick to my eating plan. But when I am exhausted, I truly crave sugar-laced carbos. I tell myself to “Choose Health” and grab some grapes. I find also that my family will help me if I ask for it. My husband last weekend lured me on a long walk with the promise of a stop at a neighborhood restaurant after I told him I had to get some exercise, but I didn’t have the strength to face a gym.

I also am a big fan of organizations like Weight Watchers and I am very intrigued by SparkPeople.com, an online tracking system. I am seeing more of these pop up on the Web. See webmd.com’s Weight Loss Clinic or Men’s Health Magazine's MensHealth.com Personal trainer. I find the Menshealth.com lineup, which includes the Belly-Off Custom Weight-Loss Planner and the Testosterone Diet Plan, amusing and somehow affirming for the gals in the crowd. It never occurred to me that men have these fitness issues too!

Posted March 26, 2003 02:40 AM