Monday Workout: Christmas comes twice a year...

I can’t let summer go by without a little Christmas cheer.  Yes, it is time for the Dreaded 12 Days of Christmas Workout, swiped years ago from my dear friend and colleague Michelle and now a twice-yearly tradition.  Here’s how it works:  on the first “day,” we do 1 push press.  On the second “day,” we do 2 goblet squats and 1 push press.  On the third, we do 3 overhead presses, 2 goblet squats, and 1 push press.  We continue until we have completed all 12 days, which doesn’t actually take 12 days.  Yes, I realize this works out to doing 42 burpees and that that makes me mean and grinch-like, but it makes all of us stronger.  Let’s do it!

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

Friday Reading Report: More on Critical Thinking

One of the themes of my studying seems to be critical thinking.  In practice, this means I am often annoyed with my textbook.

I offer the following paragraph for analysis:

“Most nutritionists consider vegetarianism a routine variation of a normal diet, particularly if the vegetarian’s motivation is religious or philosophical, the result of a concern for animals, or an aversion to animal products.  When a meat eater goes vegetarian in an attempt to prevent or cure disease, that’s ‘alternative.’”

Class, what is wrong with this picture?  Does the intent of the eater have an effect on the nutritional content of a diet?  Attempting to prevent or cure disease with vegetarianism may or may not work, but the health effects of a vegetarian diet do not change based on why a person chooses to eat a vegetarian diet.

By the way, there is a whole bunch of real evidence out there that vegetarian diets can be as nutritious and healthy as meaty diets and possibly more so, depending on the actual foods consumed.  One of the things on display in the quoted paragraph is cultural bias; Americans, on the whole, love our meat no matter what.  When we compare our diets to the people of Asia and Africa, for example, where far less or even no meat is consumed, we find that people manage to live perfectly healthy lives on the nutrition provided from plant sources.

Another possible underlying bias to consider has to do with lobbying.  The governmental food guidelines on which much of this text relies have had heavy input from the food industry.  Recommendations to eat less meat have been phrased as “choose lean meat,” for example.  We get a consistent “Eat More” message from industry and successful lobbying has embedded it into the guidelines.

We need to be ceaselessly vigilant about our information.  We need to use our big brains to evaluate what we read.

And I probably need to meditate a little more in order to avoid throwing the book…

Growth

Over the weekend, I rode my road bike for the first time in at least a year.  It was both fun and awful.

To get the worst out of the way, it was awful for all the reasons I stopped riding it.  By the second mile, my forearms hurt.  They still hurt hours later.

It was fun because riding bikes in general makes me feel like I’m about nine years old, no cares, grin plastered to face.  I like the wind and the landscape and the feeling of propelling myself into the future.

The fun part means that I am even more determined to find a solution to the awful part.  If there were no fun part, the answer would be easy:  stop riding the road bike.  (I also have a mountain bike, but it is not as light and fancy and speedy as my Best Road Bike Ever.)  I have been approximating my way to the solution for some time now, so what I learned over the weekend was that I’m not there yet.

So far, I have tried expensive bike fitting, supportive wrist and tennis elbow wraps, vitamins, chiropractic, ice, prayer, yoga, rest, more rest, and a bunch more things.  I have more things to try, like new handlebars, physical therapy, and whatever else I might discover that could work.

The point of this story?  Growth mindset.  We don’t get to choose what we have to deal with.  We do get to choose how.  I could give up.  Instead, I choose to keep working.  I am not going to say that there isn’t a solution.  There just isn’t a solution YET.

We all have recalcitrant problems.  We can all decide that those problems aren’t going to win.  It might take a while, but we can do it.