Whole

Fitness, in my opinion, is not just about exercise.  It’s holistic (I am allowed to use this poor, abused word because I’m from Berkeley…).  It’s about what we do to feel healthy and good.

For many of us, this does mean exercise to help our bodies function better.  We are made to move and our culture often gets in the way of that movement; we have to find ways to put it back in our lives so we can be the strong people we were designed to be.

It also means eating food that nourishes us.  Food is more than a collection of vitamins and minerals and calories.  It has implications and subtle effects.  This is why we have the concept of comfort food, although we may want to examine whether we do actually feel more comforted or comfortable when we eat some of the things we call by that name.

It means sleeping when we are tired.  Most of us don’t get enough sleep.  Exhausted people are not healthy and happy people.

And it means having fun.  We need to let go of the bad stresses of our lives.  We need to breathe and laugh and connect.

The good news is that we can begin with any of the parts and move on to the next when we are ready.  Let’s go.

Spiral!

Somehow the downward spiral has become a more frequent image than the upward one.  Maybe it’s that pesky Newton and his second law of thermodynamics at work:  we see chaos happening.  The thing is, the upward spiral can be a powerful force.

One day, we get moving with some cardio.  We feel better and we try out that yoga class we’ve been thinking about.  We realize that we’d like to be stronger, so we lift a few weights.  Our clothes get looser and we kind of like that, so we decide that maybe vegetables deserve a second chance in our diets.  A few months later and we realize that our couch is lonely, we have tons more energy, and our brains our sharper than ever.

There are a couple of things that can get in the way of all that powerful goodness.  One is fear.  We are used to the couch.  We bond over donuts.  What will we talk about with Aunt Matilda now that we aren’t up on all the new binge shows?  And maybe we aren’t the ones who are afraid.  Maybe we have a buddy or a partner who worries that now that we are getting so strong and wonderful we won’t stick around.  Maybe our moms are worried that we won’t be able to eat all the traditional foods at holidays any more.

Another is fatigue.  We have to climb the spiral one step at a time.  Otherwise, we wear ourselves out and slide back down to where we started.

We can do wonderful things when we are patient and kind to ourselves.  Let’s be brave and smart.

Gradual

When things go well with our workouts, sometimes we get tempted to do more of everything.  We often end up with more ice and ibuprofen.

We do, in fact, want to push ourselves.  We just need to use our good judgment about how much.  If, say, we know we’re going to be doing a big run or ride or swim in a particular week, that’s not the right time to bump up all the weights on our strength day.  Or say we want to run both faster and longer.  We need to work on one at a time, perhaps increasing our running time (about 10% per week is a good rubric) for a few weeks and then upping the pace via intervals.

Most of us, even fresh off months on the couch, can manage a 30-minute walk five days a week.  That’s a great place to start.  When that begins to feel easier, it’s time to toss in a strength workout or two.

When we go gradually, we actually get farther faster.