Like many people, I have a love/hate relationship with exercise. When I do it regularly, I feel good and I like that. When I don’t do it regularly, I can’t remember what I liked about it and I have to drag myself back to it kicking and screaming. (Actually, kicking and screaming isn’t really accurate because that would be much more active. I suppose that I have to drag my body out of bed as it resists by slumping into a heavier and heavier state!)

Of course, the trick is to find exercise that you truly enjoy doing. And I do have that. In particular, I like hiking. I also like other active, strength building things like indoor rock climbing and pilates mat classes. Unfortunately I just can’t make these things happen on a regular enough basis for them to be my sole form of exercise. I need more cardio in my life in order to feel good.

So what I’d really like to do is find a way to make exercising at home more fun. Home-based exercise is great because it doesn’t require any preparation, it works in any weather and you can fit it in between work and social networking and watching TV and whatever else you’re already doing at home. There are certainly drawbacks to home-based exercise and I definitely don’t think it could be my only exercise option either but combined with out-of-the-house activities it offers a well-rounded exercise option.

In theory. The problem is that it’s tough to find a home-based workout that I can actually get enthusiastic about. It’s easy to start one and then halfway through it decide that I’m done for the day – a huge flaw of the home-based workout. So, in an effort to get excited about exercise again, I decided to try a dance workout with Barbie.

The truth is that I love silly campy things. I love retro things that were sort of kind of cool when they first came out and are now just totally ridiculous. They make me laugh. And if you can laugh while you’re working out then you can enjoy what you’re doing, getting many more benefits than you would get with just straight gritting-your-teeth-through-it kind of exercise.

So I turned on this 30 minute video thinking that the silliness of it would at least get me excited about moving and being active in my home. It’s supposed to be for ages 6 and up so I didn’t expect a major workout. Boy was I wrong! Although the exercises themselves aren’t tough in the way that holding a yoga pose or climbing a mountain is tough, I found it nearly impossible to keep up with the dance moves of the Barbie instructor. How the kids on the video learned those dance exercises is beyond me.

But the truth is that it worked. It made me laugh. And I got most of the way through the video before I gave up on it, did some crunches and quit my home workout for the day.

What do you do to workout in a way that you actually enjoy?

Related article: 5 Ways to Burn Calories (that aren’t all about exercise)

Tags: exercise, smartchick