You're so right, Orchid. I know you are, because the same thing has worked for me:

I walked to school my entire life. In junior high and high school I lived far enough away to qualify for the bus, but my parents felt it was close enough (just over a mile for junior high, a couple miles for high school) to walk.

The rule according to my Dad was that we walked unless it was 10 degrees or less. On those days, we'd get a ride in the morning. Though still walked home.

Then in college, I walked a couple of miles to get to campus, and of course, walked from building to building for my classes.

With both pregnancies, I walked at least a mile every day, to control the edema in my legs. And once the kids were born, I walked or biked with them daily. (In retrospect, I am not sure it was totally safe when I biked with two kids -- one on my back and one in a child seat) -- since my bicycle had the racing style handlebars, so I was riding in a tucked position... But no harm came to anyone!

These days I don't get anywhere near that level of physical exercise, but I credit my base level of health to all those years of exercise and healthy food. (Oh, my mother was a foods and nutrition teacher, so you can BET I always ate healthy meals. Even now, I still believe I do a good job of creating good healthy home-cooked meals -- though these days we DO eat out for 2-3 dinners a week.)

And, I believed in passing it on: Both of my kids got regular exercise and continue to do so to this day. Tomorrow my son's participating in another half Ironman.

And I love that he is doing it in support of his charity of choice: Team in Training, which benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

I'm even more proud of how well he did with his fundraising for this race: To date he's personally raised 127% of his goal: Woo Hoo!