You eat an elephant, the saying goes, one bite at a time. You work on your health, diabetic or not, in a similar way.

In the excellent Type II Diabetes: the First Year, Gretchen Becker makes the point that she doesn’t like exercise, but she can definitely commit to movement–doing something (anything really) to get the blood circulating. Any kind of movement is better than no movement at all.

Just like it wasn’t realistic for me to write down “ride 100 miles in one day” or “finish the Honolulu Marathon” on my to do list back in 2002 when I weighed in at 265 pounds, it’s not realistic to expect someone who’s been sedentary for a long time to suddenly start running around a track like Carl Lewis. So if you need to start small, do just that–it’s way better than not starting at all, and who knows where the first bite will take you?

Think about it: what can I do today to increase my physical activity for five minutes? It won’t change your world today, but it might a year from now.