You burn up to 40 percent more calories with the same effort, but you're using your upper body. You also see increases of up to 25 percent in a cardiovascular workout.

If you take a five-mile hike with Nordic walking poles, and you're not used to using your upper body, you'll be sore the next day. It may look silly, but it works.

Nordic walking poles are very popular in Europe; they have Nordic walking parks in Germany and the Scandinavian region. They were developed in 1997 for cross-country skiers to train in warm months.

You can't simply will yourself to like things, either. As Jeff Bezos has observed, 'One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves.

It's just nice because all I have to say at an assembly is body basics.

Follow your passion was not the message I heard growing up. Instead, I was told that the practical realities of surviving "in the real world" were far more important than any person living a "sheltered life" such as my own could imagine. I was warned that overly idealistic dreams of "finding something I loved" could in fact be a breadcrumb trail into poverty and disappointment.