I’ve been walking for over a year, first thing in the morning before I get dressed with my garden coat over my pyjamas, on the land surrounding our house. It suits me starting the day this way, getting an idea how tired my legs are and how my body feels before I embark on another day. I pushed up the number of steps and the intensity, and it helped loosen the tyre around my waist that had arrived after my hormones went into overdrive.

I’m lucky to be surrounded by such magnificent, inspiring scenery, helping me churn out the steps that I know will lead to a fitter, healthier body.

Visiting our children before Easter, they too enjoy long walks, out in the fresh air with friends and family, and I love nothing more than walking the length of a beach at low tide. This is me at Poppet Sands last week. Walking is essential for me as part of my fitness regime. It suits my body. I used it, pushing a pushchair around with my first born in it thirty years ago, when he refused to sleep during the day and I used it to kick start my weight loss and help me increase my fitness levels.

Dance is a fabulous way to get, and keep, fit, adding the bonus of being sociable and supportive as well as looking after your body. Bellydance fits into my life easily, as I teach on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, fitting in writing and marketing into the rest of the week, as well as working on the land and the house.

Running didn’t work for me; there just aren’t enough flat surfaces to run on where I live, and the recovery time after a run was just too long, with everything else I have to do, and that’s why when you’re deciding on exercise, it needs to fit in with your life. That’s not to say you shouldn’t make space for it, but for me, for instance, if I ran on a Friday, I wasn’t up for gardening/bramble pulling/barrowing until the Monday at the earliest, sometimes not even then. The benefit wasn’t enough for the amount of effort.

I was enjoying yoga after my morning walks, just a few positions and balances, and then I decided to push it; a half hour session to gentle music….after walking 4k steps. I was in agony for three days where I’d overstretched, so my advice is, it is your mind that believes it is still twenty seven years of age, but your body has lived a lot more years! So I’ve left off the yoga for a week, and shall be returning, to just a few poses, every morning.

What exercise do you enjoy? Swimming, bowls, canoeing? Running, cycling, archery? Be inspired to try new exercise and see how much you can fit into your life.