Independence, Part 1

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Declaration of Independence

 

The Declaration of Independence is one of the founding documents of our country.  Despite its problems (“all men” meant everybody, until people of color and women wanted to be equal, just for example), the declaration inspires us with its list of rights:  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  When it comes time to consider our fitness, it is a pretty good place to start getting inspired.

 

Take life.  Of course, the very basics of life are about keeping breathing.  Fitness work helps us do that, for sure.  But it also improves the quality of the life we have.  When we get stronger and improve our cardio fitness, when we work on our balance and flexibility, we open up so much more of life.  We’re not so limited in the activities we can engage in.  We feel better.

 

Liberty?  We all have tons of choices, every single day.  When we work out, we increase the number of viable choices we have.  Let me explain.  I could wake up and decide to run away to join the circus.  My odds of getting hired by the circus for anything beyond cleaning up after the animals (although I hope there aren’t any more circuses with animals) improve if I have actual skills that the circus can use.  If I work out hard and build up my upper body strength, I might have a shot at succeeding at trapeze.  If I focus on balance, I might be able to walk the tightrope.  The choices we make today enable the choices we want to make in the future.

 

Then there is the pursuit of happiness.  Any time we’re dealing with pursuit, we want both speed and endurance.  Fine.  I know it’s not a literal pursuit.  But again, happiness is much easier to find when we feel good.  Feeling good is one of my favorite outcomes of working out.

 

So:  get independent and work out!

Wellness Check: Mental and Emotional Wellbeing

On this last day of the month, I am going to spend a minute or so talking about mental and emotional wellbeing.  This is maybe the hardest piece of the wellness puzzle.

All the other things I’ve talked about this month feed into our mental and emotional wellbeing.  They give us the healthy body in which to keep our healthy mind.  For many of us, using the tools for movement, recovery, sleep, and nutrition will give us enough support that we have no trouble with our mental and emotional wellbeing.

 

Many of us may also need a few more tools.

 

This part is important:  I am not a doctor or a therapist or a psychologist.  If you are experiencing serious depression or other mental illness, PLEASE get professional health.  You are 100% worth it and you deserve a healthy and happy life.

 

If our struggle feels like something we can manage ourselves, I have two more tools to suggest.  The first one is stress reduction.  Sadly, stress reduction in this context does not mean that I wave a wand and all the bad stressors in our lives go away.  If only.  It can mean anything from improving our time management to acquiring a meditation practice for three minutes a day.  What reduces stress for some folks doesn’t for others, so, again, experimentation is in order.  Find a couple things that work and keep a list for those times when the stress goes to eleven.

 

The other tool?  Fun.  Sometimes wellness seems like just another list of tasks in an already task-overloaded life.  We have to have some fun, whether that’s laughing our butts off at a silly movie or playing a game with the kids or reading quietly by ourselves for a while.  We all know the things we love to do and don’t do often enough.  Do those things.

 

Be well.

Monday Workout: Christmas in June

Last year I forgot our mid-year Christmas observation.  Not this time!  The 12 days of Christmas in June is important!

How it works, for those of us who don’t know or remember:  we do one push press.  Day 1 is over!  Yay!  On Day 2, we do two goblet squats and one push press.  And so on, until we have completed all 12 days.  Yes, I know this means we will have done 42 burpees.  You’re welcome.

 

1 push press

2 goblet squats

3 Overhead press

4 1 leg squats each leg

5 deadlifts

6 burpees

7 pushups

8 renegade rows

9 mountain climbers

10 jump lunges

11 kb swings

12 plyojacks

 

Wellness Check: 6

A rainbow to eat!

 

1.     Red bell pepper. 

2.     Oranges. 

3.     Yellow squash.

4.     Green beans (or broccoli, or spinach, or asparagus, or any of the other million green veggies)

5.     Blueberries.

6.     Eggplant.

Wellness Check: Nutrition 2

Anybody who knows me will not be surprised that my favorite technique for good nutrition is planning ahead, since it’s my favorite technique for almost everything.  There are some particularly good reasons to use planning for nutrition, however.

One is that hungry people make less good decisions.  If I plan my meals and have healthy choices on hand, I’m a lot less likely to choose ice cream for dinner.  (It’s a sad reality that once we become grown-ups and can have whatever we want for dinner, we also know that ice cream is not the best choice.  Even when we are stressed out.)

 

Another is that we can incorporate more variety.  When we buy a bunch of different vegetables with an actual plan for using them, it’s a lot easier to “eat the rainbow.”  We can experiment, maybe one night a week, with a new recipe or even a new cuisine.  (You know that experimenting is one of my other favorite techniques!)

 

Meal planning is not rocket science.  It’s definitely a skill, and skills can be acquired.  I’ve been doing it for a long time, so it’s easy and obvious to me, but when I started out, I sometimes planned too much food and sometimes too little.  Nobody died, I learned, and my family eats better than if I just opened the fridge every day and had to figure out what to feed them in the moment.

 

Try it and see how it works for you!

Wellness Check: Nutrition 1

There is a lot of nutritional advice out there, much of it conflicting.  Worse, the easiest foods to get in our culture are the ones that are not particularly good for us.  This combination, plus the overall busy-ness of our lives, can lead to poor eating habits.  It’s entirely understandable that we don’t eat the best foods for us.  Fast food companies have huge advertising budgets, fad diets make their creators rich, and trusted sources of information are scarce on the ground.

So what should we eat?

 

There are some basics to consider.  We need enough calories in our food to power our activities.  Those calories, ideally, should come from lean sources of protein, whole grains, vegetables, good-for-us fats, fruits, nuts, and seeds.  Those of us who are older, who work out a lot, or are still growing may need more protein than we think.

 

If we are eating a varied diet, our vitamin and mineral needs may take care of themselves.  A multivitamin can be insurance against any lacks, but I’m not going to recommend a whole suite of supplements (they have a big industry behind them, too.).

 

The general principle is that food is most nutritious for us when it is closest to how it started.  An apple, with its peel, is better for us than a glass of apple juice, no matter how organic and free range.  (Yes, I know that apples do not fall far from the tree and thus do not range at all, but it makes me laugh to think of them doing so willy-nilly.)

 

It is also important that our food gives us joy.  There are certainly times when it is absolutely good for us to eat a food that is not the most nutritional choice—celebratory pizza with the kids after a great report card springs to mind, or eating Grandma’s special pie on a visit with her.  The key is to make those choices consciously and occasionally.

 

More tomorrow!

Monday Workout: Newer?

For the round lunges this week, you can choose to do front/side/back or the newer, fancier version:  cross front, front, diagonal front, side, diagonal back, back, curtsy.  Three rounds.

 

kb swings	30
kb twists	20
kb 8x	10
step ups	30
gorilla row	20
round lunges	10
opposite knees	30
pushups	20
plank/side plank	10