Independence, Part 4

Another thing we can declare independence from is ideals.  Don’t get me wrong:  I am an idealist.  But we live in the real world, which is often less than ideal.

In our workouts, there are lots of folks out there who will tell us what the ideal routine for us is.  They’ll give us helpful information about heart rates, duration, volume of training, speed, tempo, and all kinds of other stuff.  It’s not that that stuff isn’t useful; it just might not work for us in our particular circumstance.

 

In an ideal world, we’d all get 150 minutes of moderate cardio exercise every week.  Expecting to meet that standard when we haven’t been off the couch in years is not realistic or workable.  Some of us are coming back from injuries, or have difficulty finding a safe place to work out.

 

The ideal workout, from a practical perspective, is the one we do.  It’s the one that empowers us to do the other stuff we want to do, like live a long time or play sharks and minnows with the grandkids in the pool.  Sure, we can aim for the ideals, but we shouldn’t be upset when our ideal is not somebody else’s.

 

Go play.

Independence, Part 3

One of the biggest things we can declare independence from in our workout life is other people’s goals.  This can be a challenge.

What do I mean?

 

Let’s say, for example, that I have just hopped on a bike for the first time in years.  I have a great time.  And, as I start telling people about it, they start telling me about century rides, or hill rides, or single track mountain bike rides.  They suggest different shoes or fancy gear or maybe even a brand new bike.  All of that is intended to be helpful, but mostly it’s discouraging.  I’m at the very beginning.  I want to pedal and have fun and I don’t want to overthink things.  I need to declare my independence from their ideas about what I need to do and do what I want.

 

Or, another example.  Imagine I have never been to the gym before.  I think I might like to try some stuff there and I tag along with a friend, who happens to be a true gym rat.  He shows me his heavy lifting routine, which takes approximately two hours and involves really big dumbbells and barbells.  I go home and think:  I am never going back there again.  It’s too hard and scary.  Instead, I can declare independence from my friend, however well-meaning he is, and I can start with a short workout that is appropriate for my own body.

 

One more.  Imagine I have a routine in which I go to the gym for a Zumba class every week.  I have friends there.  It’s fun.  I feel energetic and good at the end.  But imagine I have a less-helpful friend/partner/parent who thinks I’m not doing enough because I’m not losing weight.  I can declare independence from that person and do what makes me feel powerful and good in my skin.

 

We are all unique snowflakes.  We all have things we like and dislike.  The best workout is the one we will actually do.

 

Go play.

Independence, Part 2: 8

While working on fitness tends to enable our pursuit of happiness, sometimes the fitness work itself can be happy.  Here are some happy workouts:

 

1.     Dance

2.     Yoga

3.     Pickleball

4.     Swimming

5.     Tag with the kids

6.     That sport you love

7.     That hike that inspires you

8.     That thing you do with friends and you end up laughing until your abs hurt

9.     Add your own

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.

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!

Wellness Check: Sleep 2

For adults, the ideal amount of sleep falls somewhere in the seven to nine hours per night range.  (It is possible that you are the one special snowflake who really does function well on four or five hours, but I doubt it.  Try getting a little more and see how you feel.  I’ll wait.)

Getting those hours in requires some planning.  I love a good routine, and routines work great for sleep.

 

The first thing we need to do is to set a bedtime.  I know this might make you feel like you are eight and you’re being deprived of watching all the good shows that come on late, but, people, nowadays we watch things on streaming whenever we want, so let’s get over it.  Then we need to work backwards from the time we want to crawl into bed and figure out what time we need to start getting there.

 

Personally, I am a morning person.  I am lucky if my bedtime routine includes brushing my teeth.  When I had younger kids, though, my routine had to include their routines, plus making sure that there was clean laundry to wear.  Some people like to lay out clothes the night before.  Others are lunch preppers.  Make a list of all those things and figure out how long they take.

 

Then you need to be a grown-up and enforce bedtime on yourself.

 

I know.  No fun.  But definitely useful.

 

Tomorrow:  more techniques for better sleep.

Wellness Check: Sleep 1

It pains me that most of us are running around on not enough sleep.  Sure, we’ve all had to pull the occasional all-nighter for school or work, and we’ve all also had times when we were having so much fun that sleep seemed irrelevant.  Many of us have dealt with the sleep deprivation that comes with a new baby, or even, sometimes a new puppy.  All that stuff is part of life.

The sleep deficits I’m talking about are the ones we develop as a result of the increasing cultural pressure to do more, faster, and all the time.  Our work creeps into our “off” time.  Our off time is full of activities for ourselves and our kids.  Then there’s the housework and the yardwork and the volunteering in our communities and oh, yeah, we’re supposed to keep up on current events and the world needs saving and what the heck am I making for dinner?  Sleep starts to seem like a luxury.  That is not ok.

 

First of all, let me remind everyone, again, that they are beloved children of God, or valuable humans, or essential to the world, however you best hear it, just by existing.  You are enough, without doing anything.  I start from the premise that everyone deserves to be healthy and happy.  Sleep is part of that.

 

While we sleep, our brains and bodies take out the trash.  Memories consolidate.  Muscles repair themselves.  We can’t possibly be really healthy without enough sleep.

 

Still not convinced?  Fine.  We are less productive when we are overtired.  (I hate that we hyperfocus on production, but if that’s the lever I need to push to get folks to rest, I’ll do it!)  Tired people have accidents, make mistakes, and take longer to complete tasks.  Plus they tend to be crabby.

 

Maybe we started the year with some good intentions around getting enough sleep and as time went on, we got distracted.  Now is a great time to get back on track.  Tomorrow I’ll talk about what that might look like and how we might get there.

Wellness Check: Recovery and Regeneration 2

I hope that yesterday I convinced everyone that recovery and regeneration are important.  As we check in here in the middle of the year, we might notice that rest has not been as plentiful as we would have liked, or that we are more sore than would be ideal, or that we find ourselves catching every bug that goes around.  Those are all good signs that moving recovery up the priority list might be an idea to consider.

The top three techniques for recovery are things we pretty much have to do anyway.  The key is to do them to the right extent and to the right standard.

 

Number one is our sleep.  I’ll be focusing in on this particular modality all week next week, but let’s start with one idea:  get seven hours.  (We can argue about why that’s not possible in the future, but for now, just try it.)

 

The second top technique for recovery is nutrition.  I’ll spend the week after next unpacking this one in more detail, too, because there’s lots to think about, but for now, I just need to remind everyone (even me) that running on sugar and caffeine is not a sustainable practice.  Eat a vegetable every once in a while, at least!

 

The third top technique is hydration.  All liquids count toward our total hydration, but our best choice, most of the time, is water.  Aim for half your body weight in ounces per day (e.g., if you weigh 3,000 pounds, you want to drink 1,500 ounces of water; I chose a ridiculous quantity because some of us fixate way too much on scale numbers.)  (If you do, in fact, weight 3,000 pounds, please do not be offended.  I am impressed that your walrus self has learned to read!)  If that sounds like too much math, try to drink enough that you need to use the bathroom every hour or so.

 

Good news, right?  We have to sleep and eat and drink just to keep existing.  We’re already doing an adequate job because here we are, still breathing!  And just a few little tweaks can make us feel even better.

 

Need help?  I’m a wellness coach, you know.  I can help you set achievable goals in every area of wellness.

Wellness Check: Recovery and Regeneration 1

Once we get back into our movement and/or exercise routines, we discover (or rediscover) that recovery and regeneration are important.  There is a current in gym culture that I deeply object to and it is the “no pain, no gain” and related stuff.  Yes, we sometimes have to get uncomfortable to make progress, but if we are in pain, something is actually wrong.

Further, without recovery, we don’t make gains.  Our muscles get stronger not while we are working, but when we are done, when we rest and the microdamage we have caused repairs itself, only better.

 

Recovery and regeneration are not intuitive in our wider culture either.  We hear a lot about hustling and we glamorize being so busy that we don’t have time to sleep or eat.  Excuse me, but no.

 

Tired and sore people are usually not happy people.  (I say usually because there are certainly times, like after a really intense workout, where we are happy because we’ve done more than we ever thought we could, or broke a personal record, or are bathing in endorphins.)  When we chronically deprive ourselves of recovery and regeneration, we are depriving ourselves, not only of our best performance, but of our best existence.  (This is the part where I insist that you are valuable and wonderful and need to be in the world even if you don’t do anything.  You are not your performance, no matter what your boss or your family or ads tell you.)

 

So:  How is recovery going for you?  (Tomorrow I’m going to talk about things you might do to recover, in case you need ideas to reboot.)

Wellness Check: Movement 2

If we’re already nailing the part where we move our bodies on the regular, it might be time to consider whether we’re getting enough exercise.  All bodies need exercise; what that exercise consists of varies from body to body.  What follows are some general principles that need to be applied with love and common sense.

There are three categories of exercise that most people need:  cardio, strength training, and balance/flexibility work.  The guideline for cardio is that we need to get our heart rate up for about 150 minutes per week, which works out to 30 minutes a day for five days.  There is some math we can do to figure out what constitutes “up” (220 minus your age gives you your maximum heart rate.  Your cardio range is from 65-85% of that number.), but I personally like the talk test better:  if you can talk with some pauses for breath, you’re working hard enough; if you can sing, you’re not doing the job; if you can’t carry on a conversation, you’re doing too much.  How you get your heart rate up is up to you.  The possibilities are legion:  walk, run, swim, bike, play soccer, chase the kids, do stairs, dance…  Bottom line:  five days, 30 minutes, briskly.

 

For strength training, we want to do one to three strength workouts per week.  What we do depends on our goals.  Talking to a trainer (hey, that’s me!) can help clarify what might be a good idea.  No matter what the goals are, we want to use weights heavy enough that it’s hard for us to complete the final rep in a set.  The number on the dumbbell should go up as we keep working, not every time, but every couple months at least.

 

Balance and flexibility are skills.  I know a lot of us think of them as talents, but both things improve with practice.  There are a couple of ways to go about that practice.  There are always yoga and Pilates classes or individual sessions (yep, me again!).  However, we can use those otherwise wasted minutes throughout our day to build in some practice time.  We can stand on one foot while we brush our teeth.  We can stretch while we wait for the microwave.  We can do some single leg squats in line at the grocery store (bonus points for amusing our fellow shoppers).

 

If all that still seems complicated, talk to me.  I’d be happy to help sort it out.

Wellness Check: Movement 1

It may not be the official start of summer, but June is here.  The beginning of a new season is a good time to check in with where we are with our wellness.  How are those goals we might have made back in January?  Or, more basically, how are we feeling?  Over the month, I’ll be gently reminding us all about the different pillars of our wellness.  This week, we’re talking about movement.

So here we go.

 

Today is one of those times when I might seem overly concerned with distinctions.  Sorry/not sorry.  Exercise and movement, while related, are not the same thing.  I am absolutely in favor of both of them (I mean, that’s my job), but when we’re talking wellness, we are not necessarily talking about exercise.

 

Movement is anything we do that is more energetic than pushing buttons on the remote while we sit on the couch.  It includes things like weeding the garden, trudging up and down the stairs to put away laundry, walking a dog who clocks negative miles per hour and sniffs every plant along the sidewalk, and the like.

 

Exercise is a little more focused.  We have a purpose when we exercise, whether that is getting stronger, working our hearts and lungs, improving balance, or beating that other team at pickleball.

 

Like I said, both are good for us.  Even those of us who do exercise regularly need to think a little about movement.  I’m pretty sure everyone has heard the phrase that sitting is the new smoking.  I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s increasingly clear in the research that putting in a half hour at the gym and then sitting the rest of the day is not our best path.  Humans need to wiggle.

 

So:  are we all getting our wiggle on?

Mother May I: 5

We made it to the end of the month!  Hooray for us!  But there is one last permission I’m granting:  permission to rest.  Here are some ways to incorporate rest:

 

1.     Between sets.

2.     Between rounds.

3.     On vacation.

4.     On rest days.

5.     When we’re sick/tired.

 

Rest is where we heal and get stronger!

Mother May I: Far

There might be a theme emerging here.  Yesterday, I said we didn’t have to go far if we didn’t want to.  Today I would like to emphasize that we are allowed to go far, too.  Just because somebody else thinks is silly to ride 100 miles on a bike or run a marathon or do a triathlon doesn’t mean we need to listen to them.  Some of us really love our endurance events and that’s cool.

The overarching principle here, as in the whole month, is that we get to choose what our workouts are based on what works for us.  We are allowed to have whatever workout we want.

 

Anybody who argues with us about this can be ignored.

 

Go play.

Mother May I: Not Far

This week’s permissions are similar to last week’s.  Today, we have permission not to go far.

While it is true that often the hardest part of a workout is starting it, we can get overwhelmed by the sense that we can’t just run; we have to run far.  We can’t just go for a swim; we have to do a gazillion laps.  And so on.

 

Some days, we just don’t have a lot of oomph to work with.  On those days, we do, in fact, get credit just for showing up.  We may not build a lot of muscles in our body, but our character muscles get bigger.

Mother May I: 3

When we’re kids, people bribe us to do stuff.  Behave at the doctor?  Get a sucker.  Good report card?  Pizza for you.  Now that we’re adults, we get to set our own rewards for working out.  May I suggest:

 

1.     Massage.  Or a hot bath.  Or anything that makes your body feel fabulous.

2.     Milestone treats.  Chop up that big goal and reward yourself for each segment.  This could be a scale number, a distance reached, a weight lifted, or whatever else you’re measuring.  Make it small enough to be manageable but big enough to be meaningful.

3.     New gear.  Who doesn’t love getting new workout clothes?  Or comfy shoes?  Or a cool new thingamajig for that activity we love?

Mother May I: Go Slow

Yesterday, I reminded us all that we can go as fast as we want to.  Today I want to clarify:  that might mean not going fast at all.

We can choose the pace we like best for our workouts.  Some of us prefer to work out longer at a more manageable pace compared to our hare friends.  Tortoises have just as much fitness success.

 

One application of this principle is that nobody has to run who doesn’t want to.  We can get just as much fitness from walking.  The best exercise is the exercise we will do.

 

Go play.  At your own pace.

Mother May I: Go Fast

If you want to, you have permission to go fast.  You don’t have to wait for anybody else.  You don’t have to waste any time.  As long as you are working with good form, you can go as fast as you want and that is entirely good.

A lot of us who were raised female got the message that we shouldn’t be too fast or too good at stuff.  It might cause awkward questions.  We don’t need that kind of baggage.  We can run as fast as we possibly can and no one gets to tell us not to.

 

Go play.

Mother May I: 4

Today’s permission has a bunch of flavors.  We have permission to play games.  Here are some ways that might play out (pun intended).

 

1.     Literal games.  We can get our workout while playing football or pickleball or soccer or water polo or baseball.

2.     Mind games.  We can see if we can trick ourselves into doing one more rep or one more sprint.

3.     Distracting games.  On a long run or bike or hike?  Play the alphabet game like you did when you were stuck in the car as a kid.  Or I Spy.  Or race other people to landmarks (with or without telling them!).

4.     Streak games.  How many days in a row can you show up at the gym?  How many workouts can you make it before you need new shoes?  How long can you go before washing that lucky shirt (actually, please don’t do that one.  The other people in the gym don’t deserve that.)