“Don’t look at it as, ‘Here’s where I am,’” Lesley Richmond tells me. “Look at it as, ‘Here’s where I need to be.”
Lesley has had to quickly slip into fitness grief counselor mode after I’ve learned that I am a 175-pound weakling. After trying to squeeze the life out of a hand-held strength measurement device for 15 seconds, the device has laughed in my face (is that sand in my eyes?) and dubbed me “below average” when it comes to “muscular strength.”
“But I do strength training!” I plead in what even I recognize as a pathetic suggestion that the device can’t possibly be right. Even more pathetic: The hordes of other folks doing this five-point fitness assessment offered for free by Be Active North Carolina are taking far worse news with far more grace.
Be Active NC is a non-profit founded in 1991 by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Its goal: to get North Carolinians off the bench and into the game. It tries to reintroduce the concept of physical activity into the public schools with its Just Push Play and Energizers programs. It tries to get inactive adults moving with its Be Active Steps program, which encourages folks to walk the recommended minimum of 10,000 steps a day by giving them a pedometer and place to log their walks. It goes after seniors with its array of Be Active Aging programs. And it goes after everyone across the state with its Be Active Van, which goes everywhere from the Lexington Barbecue Festival to the North Carolina Pickle Festival to let people like me discover not where they are, but rather where they need to be. read more