It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to give something up when you know just how much you benefit from it. Yes, of course I’m talking about exercise – but also things like meditation and Tai Chi. These things make me feel so good that you would think they would remain a priority no matter what else is going on. After all there is the Zen proverb which suggests, “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you're too busy, then you should sit for an hour.”

But these things are always the first things to be ‘shelved’ when the days are full and the energy tank is empty.

As a consequence of ‘recent shelving of things beneficial to my wellbeing’, I am now trying to construct a new routine and disciplines. After not exercising regularly for just a couple of months, I was a bit frustrated – and a lot put off – by the fact that I recently found one of my ‘familiar’ runs really hard. So hard that half of it was a walk.

So now I have planned a new route, one that is a little easier to keep me motivated and one that I can add bits onto as my fitness levels improve. This means that I will be able to monitor my progress, which will also help to keep me motivated.

My new route includes a steep hill which I am currently walking but bit by bit I’ll walk faster, then jog a little, and then a little bit further and eventually will be running up it (again). And then there are various ‘loops’ and tracks that can be added on to the route too, which will allow me to make it longer as I get my puff back. I find this type of training much more helpful than just going out for a ten/twenty/thirty minute run as the latter is much harder to quantify and to notice any improvements.

The ultimate goal is to ‘go for a run just because I want to’ but at the moment I am having to apply good old fashioned discipline and sometimes it’s as basic as that.

Talking to a friend who is trying to create a new fitness regime in her own life, I reminded her that a hen knows that she has to ‘sit tight’ on her eggs for three weeks for them to hatch. So she does. It’s a three week commitment. And if a hen can make that sort of commitment, surely so can we. By the time you have undertaken your new regime (whatever it is) for three weeks, it will have become a routine and will then soon become a habit. And then you’ve nailed it.

If you want to start running, or jogging, just start by walking but do it regularly. One of the most popular excuses for not exercising is not having time, so if you can allocate a certain amount of time out of your day for a ‘nice walk’, then you’ve ‘bagged’ that time and it’s yours to do with what you want – like jog, or even go to the gym, a few weeks down the line.

I have learned that so much of my physical health depends on my psychological health, and being able to ‘plan’, (and not give myself a hard time when things don’t quite work out as planned) – but ironically, it also works vice versa. I feel more able to plan (and more alert and motivated) when I feel physically fitter. So the bottom line is we need to look after ourselves, and that includes keeping fit by ‘movement’ – emotionally and physically. But this obviously not a new concept as the Roman poet, Juvenal, coined the famous phrase when he wrote 'Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano' — ‘You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body’ — around the end of the first century AD.

And if you’ll excuse my column being a little shorter than usual, I’m just off for my early evening walk/jog. When will you do yours?