Every family has one. That paragon of dietary and fitness virtue. In ours, it’s Aunt Sally. A tiny, wispy iron woman, Sally is a 95-pound repository of all things disciplined and difficult to do.

“It is not that difficult,” she will protest from her position on all fours on the living room floor as she magically arches her back like a cat. “It’s just a matter of practice.” And practice she does – whether it’s tai chi, healthful cooking, or the daily ingestion of a dizzying array of supplements.

Thanks to Sally, my bookshelves are lined with unused cleansing “happy tummy” recipe books from Marilyn and Harvey Diamond, homemade videos of exercises by her tai chi instructor and audiotapes promising better living through meditation. I call it the guilt shelf.

There have been attempts. I once tried making miso soup and stir-fried some tofu. I signed up for yoga. I tried the cat thing. But life always got in the way, and before long, I was back to combing through my salad for every last tortilla strip and candied walnut. In fact, the only thing that endured were the yoga pants. They turned out to be lightweight, comfortable and just perfect for coming in under my goal weight at Weight Watchers.

So it was with accustomed guilt that I received an e-mail from her the other day about exercise.

My eyes darted quickly to the bottom line. “Exercise and thrive,” it said.

“Here we go again,” I sighed.

This time, she was letting me know that scientists had discovered an exercise hormone. Called irisin, after the the Greek messenger Goddess Iris, it carried a message to body tissues to turn white fat into super calorie-burning brown fat and in a some smooth diabetes-defeating move, it even sensitized the body to glucose.

There were two non-surprises about all this: (1) the part I think Sally wanted me to pay attention to and (2) the part she knew I would. The first was that people who did ten weeks of rigorous exercise training had twice the amount of this irisin stuff. Ten weeks?! Give me back the cat exercises. But then there was hope. It seems there’s speculation that the same effect might come from several days a week doing ten one-minute sprints on a stationary bike with a minute of rest in between. The e-mail called the one-minute sprints “more efficient and effective” Maybe, I thought, in front of the TV.

But the second non-surprise brought even more hope. This is the part Sally knew would get my attention. Already, researchers are working on an irisin-like drug that would be – voila! – like an exercise pill. A company has been licensed to develop it. So one day soon, maybe exercise will be simple. We’ll get all the irisin and none of the sweat.

Of course, the e-mail continued, it would not be as good as going to the gym. Obviously. There’s no point in buying new gym clothes if you’re just taking a pill.

Meanwhile, I’ve put up a Google alert for irisin. When the pill comes out, I want to be the first to know.

And I have a feeling the messenger goddess will not be Aunt Sally.

Copyright 2012 Pat Snyder