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I was back at the gym today.

I was into my third mile when an older woman running on the machine next to me turned, did a double-take, smiled and said:

"So you're back at the gym today, huh?"

She had recognized me from the nearly life-size picture of me and Amanda on the front of the Life section yesterday.

"I read on the blog that you didn't go to the gym all weekend!" she said. "You have to do that every day!"

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

Amanda got the same scolding...er...encouragement from a GTCC staffer yesterday.

So it seems each of us has more than the other helping keep us on track. Thanks for the assist, little white haired lady at the gym.

Dear tall guy on the giant stair stepper,

I was very impressed by your initiative, pounding away on the exercise equipment at the gym.

I just don't want to stand within dripping range of your sweat water fall.

Good luck with your work out,

Amanda

I love my gym. It's cheap and clean and they have ten televisions, so I can watch Design on a Dime or Rock of Love while I elliptical my toosh off.

But Joe and I sometimes get bored with the routine. So how about you suggest a fun and calorie-burning activity for us to try?

Here's a couple of things you should know in advance, when you make your suggestion:

1) I don't run. I am not built for it.
2) Neither of us have any shame whatsoever, so be creative.
3) It should be something local and not too pricey (no spa vacations please). The N&R hasn't exactly offered us a budget to do this.

We'll pick the best suggestions and let all of you vote on which ones we should try.

So what do you say? How should we get fit? Roller-skating? Boot camp?

We'll take suggestions until Feb. 22 and try it next weekend -- and take photos and video for you guys to enjoy at our expense.

Amanda is at home today, wondering how many calories there are in Tamiflu.

But I'm in the office, happy to have found these in our vending machine.

I'm also laughing at this piece on karaoke spin classes my colleague Sonja Elmquist sent me from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mick Jagger's voice fills the tiny room, crooning "Ruby Tuesday." A voice from the back calls out, "Is that the Beatles?" Her classmates fill her in. Next, as the Stones start "You Can't Always Get What You Want," McCool-Fry makes the words come true when she tells the class to adjust the resistance on their bikes to "riding somewhere between mud and quicksand." The cyclers comply. As the workout increases in intensity, another voice calls out, "We need Prince to get us through this." Everyone laughs.

Part of me thinks this would be a blast. But another part of me suspects it would be joining the humiliation of not being very fit witht he humiliation of not being able to sing very well.

And I'd be out the door the moment they played "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John...

Yeah -- where staying healthy is concerned, this week has been almost a complete wash.

Amanda and I both came down with the flu and spent a lot of time coughing, stuffing ourselves with medication and, more than once, ordering in and not really caring about calories, fat, cholesterol or any of the rest of it.

The urge to comfort food culminated last night when we actually ordered in Chinese. My love for Chinese food is just this side of being a substance abuse problem, and this is the first time since vowing to get healthy that I've had any. We did split one entree (they're more than big enough for it and that's a good way to mitigate the initial bad decision) but I also ordered dumplings. Like Amanda caving to ice cream, this was my low point. And I was too sick to even enjoy it properly.

Neither of us have been to the gym this week, either. But Amanda's on the mend and I should be by next week. We'll be working hard next week to make up for this one.

Congrats to Joe, who got his health back and promptly went to the gym last night.

And it's a good thing he did, since he is spending the whole day celebrating his recent journalism successes will cake. Got to love those award dinners, but the menu is murder on the thighs.

A few months ago I wrote about our gym on the Triad Diary blog.

The highlight was its bizarre "Lunk Alarm" -- a large blue light and siren that go off whenever anyone grunts, drops weights or "judges" other people. This is designed to make people who are really out of shape and most need to go to the gym feel as though they won't be intimidated weight lifters and bodybuilders. The weight lifters and bodybuilders can, apparently, fend for themselves.

The thing's never gone off at our gym -- and Amanda theorized that it might not even work, that it's just there to psych out the potential grunters.

But then last night, it actually sounded.

Amanda was in the locker room. She heard it, but I saw it. The poor guy who'd done the grunting looked confused when a gym employee came over to scold him as others looked on. He thought the noises he'd made were basic "I'm lifting something heavy" noises.

Shows what he knows.

Well, this weekend Amanda and I let N&R staffer Ryan Seals (an Army Specialist and Iraq war veteran) put us through some of the calisthenics he endured during basic training at Fort Leonord Wood, Missouri.

Ryan really got into it - wore his uniform, yelled at us, made us drop and give him pushups when we screwed up (which was often) -- and did it all in the cold, wind and rain.

But long story short: it was not pretty. Except for that weird psychedelic hallucination I had at the end (no, really...)

Amanda and I have very different weaknesses when it comes to this staying healthy thing.

For her, it's the snacking.

Last weekend I went shopping and, at Amanda's request, I picked up a box of Life cereal. Monday night Amanda ate almost the entire box in a late night snacking frenzy. When I woke up there was enough cereal -- and milk -- for one bowl.

"I don't think we're going to be able to have that in the house again," she said sort of sheepishly.

"But...what if I want some?" I said.

"Yeah, sorry," she said. "No more of that."

I'm just as bad on my end -- but with exercise. Tonight I went to the gym for only the second time this week -- and it's Thursday.

I exercise better in the morning -- when Amanda can't yet move or speak. At the end of the day I'm often too spent to get much out of it. But I have to wake up at least an hour early to hit the gym before work -- and I'm having trouble doing that too.

This week we vowed to support each other more in our areas of weakness. Tonight we held to that vow.

Amanda called from work to ask what we were going to do for dinner.

"I can cook something," I said. "What are you in the mood for?"

"Pizza and beer," she moaned. "Peee-zzzaaa and beeeeeeer...."

"No pizza and beer," I said. "I'll cook us something healthy."

"Can't we pleeaaase have pizza?" she said. "Just tonight? We'll just cheat tonight..."

"No," I said. "I'm going to cook us something healthy. I'll have it on the table when you get home."

When she walked through the door I handed her a plate of grilled salmon and steamed vegetables.

"This is me supporting you," I said.

After dinner, she pulled me off the couch.

"Come on," she said. "Gym time. You've only been once this week."

"Do I haaaaave to?" I whined.

"Yes," she said. "This is me supporting you."

As promised here is the video of N&R staffer Ryan Seals running us through boot camp.

The video is hilarious. But it doesn't quite show how wet and cold it was out that day.

Major thanks to Louis Bekoe for the footage and editing. Although I think the pleasure of watching us suffer was probably thanks enough for him.

Jack LaLanne lets his viewers in on the secret to happiness: fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and, maybe, a little singing.

Jack had it down thirty years ago -- how did so many of us get so fat and miserable anyway?

You know what's a heck of a good workout? Moving. Bending and lifting boxes works just about every muscle -- arms, back, legs. Especially if you are moving to a second floor apartment.

What's that you say? You don't plan to relocate any time soon. Well, you're in luck! You can help me and Joe move this weekend. Having moved about a dozen boxes, bags and suitcases already, I can tell you it really tires you out!

So I finally broke down and decided to try "Shimmy," one of those strange FitTV exercise shows.

As you might guess, this is one of those get-fit-the-fun-way programs, much like "Sweatin' to the Oldies" and striper-cise.

When I hit the dance floor, I'm all hips and shoulder moves and a twist variation. Those are all the moves I've got. Belly dancing seems to be mostly hips and arms, so I figured I might be good at this.

On the show, an unseen narrator explains the movements as the dancers move around. She teaches you a few moves -- in this case the snake arms and hip-piston -- slowly. Then they put them all together in one routine and gradually build up speed.

I could certainly get my hips and shoulders to sway around the way they recommended. But I don't know how graceful I looked bumping around the living room last night.

I did work up a light sweat, though. It might have been better if they had given me something to keep me busy during the three-minute commercial breaks.

Proof it works: my lower abdominals were slightly sore this morning. Considering this is a problem area for many women, I recommend trying this out as an alternative to all the crunches at the gym.

Charlie Engle runs like it doesn't hurt. That's because the way he runs -- at 20, 50, 70 miles at a time -- is more about mental endurance than physical stamina.

"If you can enjoy the moment and get through it, you can change as a person," he said.

The Guilford county resident was the guest of honor at the first annual United Healthcare Greensboro marathon pasta dinner last Friday night. He told some incredible tales of his trip running across the Sahara.

Charlie kicked drinking and drug habits years ago, and promptly replaced those obsessions with another: running.

Running those insanely long distances, under incredible stress, was a habit he acquired accidentally while on a trip to Australia.

He joined a 100K thinking it was a 10K. And despite a total lack of preparation and a strong desire to stop, he actually won.

"I won simply by attrition," he said.

Charlie's not a fast runner. He averages about a ten-minute mile. But he's stubborn. So trekking across the Sahara (which you can see chronicled this summer in theaters in the documentary "Running the Sahara") seemed like an obvious thing to do.

He went through 25 pairs of shoes and drank 1,400 liters of Gatorade. He lost 40 pounds, despite his best efforts.

"My body finally said one day, "Oh I get it. You are trying to kill me.'"

His next endeavor? Running across America. In the heat of summer, starting June 21, Charlie will run straight across the continent from California to New York.

He's going to have to run about 70 miles a day to get there by August. With all the hell he's put his body through, will he actually make it there?

He's not sure. But he's going to go for it anyway.

"The next best thing to doing it is actually trying it," he said.

Sign up to run with Charlie during Running Across America here. Or you can run with him on any given weekend. He usually runs at Country Park on Saturdays at 7 a.m.

So my friend Chris calls me up.

"I've got something for the blog," he says. "A workout."

"All right," I said. "I"m listening."

"Well," he said. "Do you have a sledgehammer?"