For people who easily succumb to guilt, the sight of a treadmill in their den, bedroom or basement often induces deep feelings of shame, reproach and embarrassment. This may be why there is a tendency to cover the device with laundry, hang shopping bags from its handles and dump old magazines on the running platform.

Indeed, there are so many people who own and do not use treadmills that perhaps a “treadmill avoider anonymous” group ought to be formed. Its mission would be to use support, coercion, reward and encouragement to get the members to start exercising on the machine. The first step would be to clean off the machine of all its junk, the second to have it checked out by a service maintenance person, the third to have the owner stand on it without moving for 2 minutes, the fourth for the owner to walk on it at a very slow pace for 2 minutes and so on. By the time the person goes through the whole program, he or she should be walking briskly for at least 15 minutes a day. To help with this, a sponsor would call and check on the exercise regimen and might even come over and talk the member through a few minutes of exercise. Of course, if the member fell off the machine either literally or figuratively, the sponsor would be there to get the member back up and moving again.

These suggestions are made seriously. As someone whose profession it is to help overweight and underfit people regain their health, fitness, and figures as well as increasing their longevity, I know that it sometimes seems impossibly hard to get people to exercise.

Katie was at my weight-loss clinic to lose at least 75 pounds. A person who spent all of her time sitting—at work, in her car, at home, or in restaurants with friends—Katie had an unlimited number of reasons why she could not exercise. Nonetheless, she understood the connection between accelerating her weight loss with exercise and knew the connection between osteoporosis and lack of exercise as her mother was suffering from that disease. Katie felt unfit every time she had to climb up the steps to her front door. She kept telling me that she would join a health club once she lost weight! “ I feel too fat to walk outside or go into a gym; everyone will be looking at me,” she said. There was a treadmill at her home but she did not think she could find it under the boxes and old clothes piled on top of it.

“I just can’t begin,” she continued. “ “Maybe it is because once I begin, I know I have to continue doing it and I have the feeling I will give up after a few days. And not walking on the treadmill will be just another example of my failure to take care of myself.”

Unfortunately for Katie and others like her, there is no support group she can join where she will find others who struggle with the same problem. Although there are an abundance of dieting support groups who deal with the issue of repetitive losing and gaining weight, none specially gives support to those who find themselves climbing on and falling off the exercise “wagon.”

Yet support is only a few computer clicks away. There are organizations like Meet-up, which link people with common interests. You can go on them and ask others to join you in an enormous variety of mutual interests, from play dates with your dog to visiting museums.  I suggested to Katie that she place a notice around her neighborhood and at work offering the use of her treadmill to someone who in return promised to keep Katie company when she did her 15 or 20 minutes a day of walking. It worked. Someone she knew from work came to her house early in the morning and they both worked out before going off the their office. Katie found her pounds finally sliding off and after a few months decided she look “good enough” to join a health club.  And she started to donate those old clothes; not only did they clutter up her home—they didn’t fit anymore.

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