Month of Gratitude: Body

November is gratitude month!

Today I am grateful for my body.  I mean, without a body, where would I be?

 

My body takes care of all kinds of stuff without me even noticing.  I don’t have to remember to breathe (although sometimes it helps!).  I don’t have to figure out how to digest my food or keep my internal temperature at a healthy level.  When I get a scrape on my knee, my body just fixes it!  Blood moves all by itself.  Even my lymph system does whatever it is it does without any interference from my conscious mind.  And that’s just the maintenance portion of the show.

 

When I want to go somewhere, my body gets me there.  When I want to move things, my body coordinates all the bones and muscles to get it done.  I have my own personal meat monster to do my bidding!

 

Then there is the joy my body provides.  I get to feel the sun on my face.  I rejoice in flowers (obviously!).  Tasting food, listening to music, smelling herbs or petrichor, all the pleasures of the world are brought to me through my body.

 

Thanks, body!

Month of Gratitude: Cardio

November is a month of gratitude.  There is plenty of research out there that suggests that practicing gratitude is good for our health.  For Reasons (OK, because gratitude practice tends to backfire when my personal Depression Monster is in residence:  how can I be dealing with the DM when I have so much to be grateful for?  And we spiral from there…), I am not a Gratitude Journal kind of person, but that does not mean that it doesn’t work in the general sense; it just doesn’t work for me.  That said, I am going to practice some gratitude here this whole month.

So:  what am I grateful for today?  Cardio exercise.  When I am crabby and cranky, odds are good that some quality time on my spin bike will do the trick to fix my mood.  A walk outside has a similar effect, plus no one will hear me grumbling.

 

Even if I’m not feeling like grousing, cardio is something wonderful for me.  It makes my brain work better, increases my available energy, and burns calories.

 

Anybody else grateful for a pumping heart?

Monday Workout: They're Baaaaaack

This week, burpees are back.  Sorry/not sorry.  Three rounds.

 

mountain climbers	30
bench press	20
burpees	10
kb alt arm swing	30
kb hammer curl	20
kb halo	10
squat raise	30
flies	20
Russian twist	10

The Amazing Stickie and Medicine Ball Rotational Toss

The Amazing Stickie knows how important it is to work in all planes, even though she herself is two-dimensional.  Today she is doing a medicine ball rotational toss.

To begin, she kneels in the proposal position, holding a medicine ball next to her back hip with both hands (i.e., twisting toward the back leg).  From there, she tosses the ball across her body.  (It is helpful if she has a partner to fetch the ball back for her between reps.)  When she has done a set on one side, she repeats on the other side.

Halloween Hint

Today I’m just going to offer a small Halloween hint.  It is:  buy candy that you don’t personally like.  Then there is no temptation to snarf it all instead of giving it away.

Routine

I am a big believer in routine.  For a long time, I resisted this.  I mean, I wanted to be one of those floaty creative people who went as the spirit moved and somehow managed to be interesting and well-dressed at the same time.  Yeah, OK, I was deluded.  And not just about the part where I am ever going to achieve well-dressed.  (I’ll settle for clean.)

It turns out that, for me, routine is the thing that unlocks both creativity and achievement.  I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

 

What I observed, when I looked at my life, was that the things I did automatically always got done.  I, like most of us, do not forget to brush my teeth when I get up in the morning.  I have forgotten to eat approximately twice in my entire life.  Attaching other things I wanted to do to those automatic tasks eventually turned them into automatic tasks, too.  Which means that now, when I get up in the morning, I know that I’m going to get certain stuff done without devoting a lot of mental energy to it.

 

One of those things is my workout.  It just happens, along with brushing my teeth.  (Haven’t tried working out and brushing my teeth at the same time, but I don’t think it would work very well.)

 

Please note:  I am a morning person.  Attaching stuff to my morning routine is relatively simple for me.  Even making an evening routine is a struggle because I am extra stupid at that time of day.  We need to do stuff at times that work for us.

 

Try it.  Then tell me how it worked!

Monday Workout: Halloween!

The end of the month means a different workout style, which seems appropriate for Halloween week.  Costumes optional.  Three or four rounds, depending on time and energy.

 

H - high knees	30
A - Arnold press	10
L - lunge	20
L - lateral raise	10
O - oblique crunch	10
W - woodchopper	30
E - extend triceps	20
E - elbow plank
N - narrow squat	20