Why yes, I do know lots of ways to do it wrong...

So yesterday I wrote about reasonable goals in a somewhat quantitative way.  Today’s list is qualitative stuff that can sabotage us and what to do about it.

1.     We missed a day, so this was clearly a bad idea and we suck.  Nope.  We missed one day.  That means we have thirty other days we can show up and do stuff.  We aren’t striving for perfection, just improvement.

2.     But really, we suck.  Nope.  Still not true.  If being mean to ourselves was a good way to succeed, we’d all be done with all of our goals by now.  Trying counts.  Showing up counts.  Being nice really counts.

3.     We set this goal because everyone else thinks we should.  Really?  No.  We need to tell the truth about what we actually want.  If other people think it’s weird, that’s their problem.

4.     We set this goal because we really think our spouse/kid/friend should do it, too.  Nope.  We only get to do our own work. 

Now go do stuff.

A new leaf for July!

Welcome to July!  It’s a new month and who knows what it will hold?  There are certainly plenty of things we can’t control, but we can set some reasonable fitness goals.  Please note that I said “reasonable.”  We are not going to lose 100 pounds this month or go from couch to marathon.  Here are some examples of how to determine reasonable fitness goals for various aspirations.

“I want to lose weight.”  A reasonable goal for a month is five to ten pounds.  Losing more than that in a month requires some unhealthy behaviors that at best are not sustainable and at worst put the rest of our wellbeing at risk.

“I want to exercise more.”  If we have been lying around for the last long time, we start small so we can crush the goal and use the success to spur us on.  It is almost always best to begin with cardio because cardio gives us the tools to adapt to weight training.  I like to encourage people to do just a little cardio every day because then it is a habit.  We start with a half hour of walking and even that can be broken in half or in thirds.  By the end of the month, we should be able to do that half hour a day.  If we are already doing cardio, we can add time or intensity (go longer or faster), or we can branch out into weight training once or twice a week, which should be habitual by August.

“I want to eat healthy.”  There are several ways to approach this one.  One I like is to remove the crap.  We all have a kryptonite food that tends to sabotage our best efforts.  It is time to end that relationship for good, dear ones.  That is one abusive partner, baby.  Dump sugar’s butt (or toss the chips to the curb, or kiss the margaritas good bye, or whatever else we need to do).  The other approach I like is to make sure we add the good stuff.  There are approximately ten gazillion different diets out there, but I can tell you for sure that science supports at least these two things:  eat veggies and drink lots of water.  By the end of the month, we should have established new and better patterns, either by adding or subtracting.

If you would like more specific goals tailored to your very own unique self, give me a poke and we’ll talk.

Dirt is ok

I admit there is not much to like about living in a pandemic.  However, one bright spot is that we are all realizing the magic of outside.

I’ve been pushing myself to go outside for years.  (I had to overcome a family culture that did not believe in dirt, among other things…)  When I could do distance biking, it was an easy sell because I loved it.  After that became less available to my body, it took a while to find something else, but now I love going hiking with my kid.

When we were out last week, we saw dog-walkers, trail runners, and mountain bikers.  In the past we have come across kids investigating pretty much every leaf and rock and stump and lichen and bug and their mostly-patient parents.  The very air is different under trees or near water or both.

We are blessed to live so close to so many beautiful places.  Pop on those shoes and go… it’ll be fun!

Monday Workout: All Balls

I like this workout because medicine balls are fun and my particular ones are colorful, so it is a pretty workout, too.  Rescues and slams are hard without a medicine ball, but feel free to substitute other exercises in their place if you are using dumbbells instead.  Three rounds.

All Medicine Ball
woodchoppers	30
twists	20
rescues	10
ball slams	30
curls	20
pushups	10
overhead high knees	30
skullcrushers	20
Russian twist	10

Zzzzzz

I’m tired today, so here is a self-serving list of five reasons to take a nap:

1.     We are, as a group, underslept.  More than a third of us get fewer than 7 hours of sleep per night.  Catching up is not bad.

2.     It reduces stress.

3.     It keeps us from overeating.  Seriously.  Tired people eat more.

4.     It makes us more productive later.

5.     It feels good.  Yes, this is a totally valid reason.

As we say around my house, don’t bite the bedbugs; they hate that.

You Don't Have To Like It, But You Do Have To Do It

Let me get this out of the way first:  I have nothing against gratitude or positivity or cheerfulness.  Well, not much, anyway.  I even have a gratitude practice in my daily journaling.  It has documented benefits and increases joy and all that important stuff.

It can also be annoying as hell.  And sometimes counterproductive (check out Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich if you’re interested.)

There are times when the best thing we can do is to acknowledge how we really feel, even if it is not the socially acceptable positive emotion other people would like us to experience.  In other words, sometimes whining is good for the soul.

What whining is not is an excuse to avoid doing the unpleasant whatever it is.  Those lunges aren’t going to do themselves.  If bitching about them the whole time gets us through, that’s awesome.  The lunges are done and we might even have come up with some creative new ways to describe how much we hate them.

The best part?  Afterwards we get to feel extra virtuous because we’ve done something we have admitted is hard and terrible.

Two questions and a disclaimer

Some weeks go better than others.  We all know this, but we could consider planning for it.  (No, this does not mean that we pencil in three days of hiding under the covers, or at least not necessarily.)  I find that there are two questions to ask and that there is one important disclaimer when it is time to figure out what we’re going to do for fitness when things go wrong.

One question is:  what’s the minimum I need to do to maintain my health?  For most of us, half an hour of walking per day at a moderate pace is about right as a minimum, whether we do it all at once or in two or three chunks.  We cope better with whatever the heck life is throwing us when we are healthy, so finding that half hour is worth the trouble.  And then don’t think about it anymore.

The other question is:  what part of my fitness activities makes me feel good?  When stuff gets hard, some of us find that we need the mood-lift of cardio or the stress relief of yoga.  Doing the things that help us manage our emotions and our stress when stuff gets hard is not selfish.  We are giving ourselves coping tools so that we can do what needs to be done.

And the disclaimer:  There are times when we don’t need to do any fitness activities at all.  If we can’t find a half hour, if we don’t want to face exercise, if we just can’t do one more thing, that is all right.  Fitness is not another thing to beat ourselves up with—it is there to make us happier and healthier and it will still be there when we have enough spoons to get back to it.