Freedom

Roger Barrister, the runner featured on Chariots of Fire, is famous for his speed but also for saying, "I feel the Lord's pleasure when I run."

I love that line (I also love the music, and the movie.  It never gets old)!

I feel that, and I also feel the Lord's purpose.  When I run.

Who knows why God programmed our bodies to attain that high.  Was it to sustain us when we were hunting and gathering (yes, I would have been running to catch those ears of corn!)?

I don't know.  I just know sometimes I gotta run with my palms facing upward.  Sometimes my arms stretch out, too, and before I know it I am the crazy woman dancing and running at the same time.  In public. 

Somehow, last year, I forgot about this feeling.  It's good to be reconnected.  It is so freeing.  Our muscles and bones enjoy moving.  But the longer we get away from activity, I believe, the easier it is not to move them. 

I look forward to running now because it is one of the only times I get to listen to my music.  I am not complaining: it is just where our house is right now.  We listen to kids' songs a lot, or none at all if my daughter is doing math, or I just plain don't make time to put music on. 

It's great to get out there and reconnect with the music that makes me tick.  I think running to music is fun. Not always important, like don't DON'T run because you don't have the right music.  But definitely a plus.  I'll share with you my fave songs:

The Way by Jeremy Camp
Your Great Name by Natalie Grant
Revelation Song by Philips, Craig, & Dean
Opening Title (from HBO miniseries John Adams) by Rob Lane
Our God's Alive by Andy Cherry
White Flag (featuring Chris Tomlin) from Passion
Forever Reign (Radio Edit) by One Sonic Society

And after worshipping God for seven straight high energy songs, and feeling your legs correspondingly speed up, you will eventually need to cool down.  For this purpose, the following song rocks.  I think it does well to dovetail with the 10,000 steps I've just taken.... Also good to use when doing Praise Moves (Google it: it's an awesome alternative to yoga).

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) by Matt Redman

If you get into longer distances, the 100 songs or so you have on your iPod will sustain you well.  But thanks to technology, you can expand your repertoire with books now too.

Did you see the 2012 Summer Olympics commercial with endurance runner Ryan Hall listening to Moby Dick on his runs?  I think that is ingenious.  So I recently joined Audible.com and downloaded some books.  The free ones, of course, just until I figure out if I enjoy listening to books.  I am convinced it will work, though.  I can't put a book down!  So how will I stop running if the book is playing on my iPod?  I won't want to put my legs down! :)

It's gorgeous outside.  Gotta run.  Thanking God for everything, just everything.

Macro-Economics

It was payday this week.
On a military post, that means stay out of the grocery store.
It means stay out of the gas station too.
But - - what does it mean for you and exercise?  You've got some extra cash!  You ready to lay it on the table for something new?

There are so many options out there.  Exercise and weight loss plans and pills and liquids galore.

I cannot count any more the combinations of letters and numbers.  It makes me dizzy.  I applaud the developers of these exercise/lose weight plans because of two reasons.  First, they usually have a Z or an X in their name to make things associate with easy or extreme, which ironically both appeal to the masses.  And second, because they are a PLAN, which also appeals WIDELY (excuse the pun). 

It's overwhelming to me (but don't think I won't take a page from their book if I ever develop one).

I also believe they should be thoroughly researched before they are attempted.

Allow me to repeat: thoroughly research before you attempt.

My other guideline is to ensure you do not become dependent on them.  Use them, yes.  Depend on them, no. 

Use them for a kickstart, for a barometer, to shake up a routine.

Do not become dependent on any of them.  Don't start to believe that you have to have a marketed plan in order to start.  Not necessary.  You do not have to have a marketed plan so that you have something to say in public!   A plan helps keep you accountable, it helps to document what works, but that may not necessarily be in a pre-made one.

I am all for free exercise.  For my clients, I always ask what they ENJOY.  Don't put yourself in a box, whether it be someone else's well-marketed plan or someone's well-marketed machine.  What do you enjoy?  There are probably LOTS of things you enjoy.  Write them down!  They become part of YOUR PLAN (and if you enjoy pre-marketed workout plans, go for it).

Then you can name your plan :)  I have lots of fun with that!

Just make sure it's got an X or Z in it.

And Happy Pay Week.

Rewards

Two weeks ago, I wrote about something clicking in me to get off the couch and back to running.

Well, it's still sporadic.  I don't want you to think that it was just that easy.

I do believe, however, that there are many phases to motivation.  The ultimate is being motivated for the reward of exercise itself.

How do we get to that point?

We can force ourselves, or we can do it... stealthfully :)

"If I exercise today, I will eat ice cream when I get home." - paraphrased Jennifer (from my SLIMnasium Facebook page).

"If I exercise today, I will get my chocolate milk at the end." - paraphrased Bethany (also from my SLIMnasium Facebook page).

I love those ideas!!!  They totally work!!

Here is my dream:

"If I exercise today, I will buy myself a book." - paraphrased me, if I were ever rich.

"If I exercise today, I will feel so much better." - even better if it were me.

"If I exercise today, I will have exercised."  BRILLIANT!  My goal again.  And to me, the ultimate motivation.  Self-sustaining, cheap, and almost addictive.

They say the benefits of exercise are extensive, but you will never know unless you try. 

For example, the body will benefit from increased oxygen flow, your skin as well, and therefore the aging process, I am convinced (not so much if you forget the sunscreen :)).  But there are so many benefits to it, you will develop your own list - and one of those reasons will keep you going. 

What is it for you?

 

Exercise Under the Radar

Last night, my husband texted he would be late coming home from work AND that his mom was making dinner for everyone.  That meant - - - STEALTH TIME!  I gained an hour where previously there was none.

You know, it takes 23 minutes for us to get out the door.  Shoes (oh the shoes!), water, sweaters, stroller, scooter, and bike - - wow.  But every time I get discouraged about that (it's just NOT EFFICIENT!) I have to exhale, LOUDLY, and start to breathe normally again. 

It IS worth it.

Stealth exercise lesson number one: every minute counts.

Last night my kids and I exercised for 18 minutes and 42 seconds.  This is the net total, not including stops and starts, because my watch is cool like that - autopausing when I have to retie a child's shoelace, or when we have stopped all together at the curb to look both ways.  Brilliant, this Garmin device.  More importantly, we all got some fresh air, relearned some survival tips, and for some moments were alone with our sense of freedom.

Unfortunately, there are some habits that are better-established than this one.  This is what I seek to overturn, flip-flop if you will.  Since I've become a mom of aware children, I've found it somehow acceptable to sneak ice cream when the girls aren't watching.  I usually don't think of it as a bad thing.  A treat is just that - a treat.  In fact I used to grab some and share.

But when it turns into a habit...

I suppose I knew it had become a habit, which is why I had to hide it.  I did not want to give my kids ice cream more than once a day (actually, my viewpoint on that is much more Puritan than I am letting on: not more than once a week!  But I really don't want to turn you off too fast, so I keep that initially to myself).  So because I didn't want to feed it to them, I didn't want to show that I was eating it. 

But the real point is, this mom should not feed herself something regularly that might interfere with her energy.

Boom!

What increases energy?  Stealth exercise, not stealth eating. 

What if, instead of sneaking a treat when no one is looking, I could do some push ups when no one is looking?

The flipped mindset working.  Yesterday, on my way into my bedroom, I did about 10 seconds of holds from my pull-up bar, three times (3x10s).  And if my baby boy was watching, I actually tried to pull up.  For some reason, that action puts him in stitches!

And when I lost some motivation making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (really?), I decided to do some wall sits.  Because ANYTHING is better than wall sits!  I did two sets of 20 seconds (2x20s).  And I couldn't WAIT to get back to those sticky knives.  "Lunch, coming RIGHT up!!!  Yay!!!"  I even threw in some CUT UP apples for the girls.  They loved that.  To dip in yet more sticky peanut butter...

I'm also going stealth on my own body.  Fooling it gradually so it doesn't know what's happening (I've never been a big fan of shock).  So, from 2.5 spoons of sugar in each cup of coffee to 2, and now down to 1.5 today!  Yippee! 

I just want to make my very wise, very slender grandmother proud: she always told me, "My mom always said, 'Learn to take your coffee without cream and sugar.  So that you can have more.'"  She could just have well have said, "So that you have more, without a muffin consequence."  Haha!  YES, Maw Maw!  I strive for that, indeed. 

I cut out milk/cream last year.  I also, in effect, only went "out" for coffee a couple of times (to avoid purchasing a sugared coffee drink, my favorite, irresistible one being the mocha).  Now I am cutting down the number of cups, so that in effect the number of spoons of sugar goes down... while also cutting down the number of spoons of sugar per cup.  And I have gotten to the point where if I feel I need another cup, I make decaf (pumpkin spice, from Phoenix Community Coffee, PLUG, to support a pal who's adopting two kids from India.  Very cool! http://thehartfamily.greatcoffeegreatcause.com/ ).

Like I said, I am not one for shock.  The suggestion of detoxing, or cleansing, blah blah, freaks the heck out of me.  I have read many different articles from my personal trainer organization (American Council on Exercise) and you can truly find studies representing both sides of the argument.  The downside I can't get over is the danger of many essential nutrients being washed away.  So instead, I enjoy my method.

Stealth.

Three Cheers for Progress

I guess you could say I have been in stealth mode.

If you didn't see my previous posts all last week, they are perfectly camouflaged, and my plan worked.  Just kidding :)

There is something to say about being stealth; keeping a goal to yourself is so much easier than declaring to the world you have one, and then inviting them to track you!  Holy moly.

But, the muffin top is stealth.  It has creeped up on me.  That means I will not be so low as to greet it at its own level, which is underground, where it haunts me.  Oh no, war has been declared - - and not only declared, but, impossibly, declared WITH Congress's approval - yeah, take THAT!!!!!!!

I chatted with someone today I have not seen in a month.  She glowed, like she had just transported herself from a humid clime.  She declared she had lost a certain number of pounds since December, and I cheered, mightily, for her.  What a huge achievement. 

She called it her Christmas present to herself.  Well done, pal!  Well done. 

I additionally cheered her because she did it ONE MONTH BEFORE most of us will - - now that is overachievement.  It's good to get a leg up on things, isn't it?

What I was really fascinated by is her total change required major overhauls.  She worked really hard to do research on how to eat without processed foods, and how to eat clean.  Her changes are solely hers, and obviously they worked.  Mine are completely different.  But in much analysis over the past week, number crunching, chips crunching (whoops! wasn't supposed to tell you I eat chips), the causes have been Identified for Elimination.

Sabotage for me consisted of purchasing a bag of candy.  Peppermint candy. Okay, to be specific, peppermint Hershey's kisses.  They were for my visiting family over Christmas.  Except then I found my grandma's crystal candy dish (gorgeous, and HUGE), and they looked so pretty sitting in there, waiting for when my parents would arrive... I ended up eating half of them before my family got here!  Duly noted, not buying them again. 

The other mistake was eating my husband's ice cream.

What kind of wife eats her husband's ice cream!??!  He works his tush off to provide for us, and is a blessing when he gets home.  And yet, I eat up what he has purchased as his treat.  Yup. 

But you see, when he is gone, I don't purchase ice cream.  So when he returns, I am out of the habit.  That is supposed to save me... but I just got so tickled pink to see ice cream in the freezer again I felt like I had to reacquaint myself with how it tasted.  At his expense.

Poor guy had to buy three tubs of Reese's ice cream before he finally got a bite.  I concluded, then, that lesson two is to start having compassion.

Avoid peppermint candies and have compassion.  It's not usually a recipe to treat your body right, but in my case, it is the truth. 

Hmmm.  I am almost certain I have never read an article on these two lessons in "Health," or "Self," or "Airbrushed Models with Too Much Time and Rockin Workout Gear" magazines.

Just something else that proves we are all different and have different triggers.

Tomorrow I'll tell you how I am combatting The Muffin with exercise. 

And not only exercise, but stealth exercise.

New Year, Shmoo Year

Resolution, shmesolution.

Exercise was not going to be part of 2013's, no matter what.

Two very verbal blessings - aka, my daughters - and a new baby who requires most of my attention had equaled - I'll be honest - a very welcome break from exercising in the year 2012.

I have been pumping my heart like mad since high school.  I was never a star athlete, but I have always been an athlete who has enjoyed working out!  I had the heart, if not the stats, to last forever.  Finding running my senior year of high school helped that. 

Running, I found, was a lifelong sport.

Running is an inclusive sport.  Everyone wants you to do better!  Everyone wants yout o get your best time!  You push hard, I push hard, we both win!  Loved it.

So it was natural to turn this hobby into something I could share.  So went the launch of SLIMnasium in 2006, and it took off in 2011.  I have many wonderful co-trainees to thank for that!

In the meantime, I learned that being a wife, then a mom, then a mom of two, now a mom of three, would be a lifelong process.  Such as learning how to cook and clean.  Like, regularly, not just when I felt like it!  People depend on me now?!  That in itself was rough.

But 2012 really whooped my tail.

I enjoyed making muffins... running? Not so much.  Muffin top won.

Enter the weirdest feeling ever.  Being comfortable on the couch.  Frightening!  And all year long!

And then, miraculously, after the clock hit 4 pm on New Year's Day, an even greater feeling: the itch to run again.

I thought, "I could record this.  Or not.  Okay, I will."

I won't share specific numbers.  The premise of SLIMnasium has always been, and always will be, God made you in His perfect image, but I can help you find out who that is under any extra layers you have acquired over the years... And we are all made differently, so my numbers should never equal your numbers. 

I might share percentages, though.  You know, you have to have a way to judge progress!!

So come with me.  This is set to be a great year.  I am free to enjoy life, free to raise children, free to be a wife, and free to train others as they need me.  Mostly, I am freed from my place on the couch, to run again. 

But I know, each part of me - the home-based mom, the personal trainer, and their muffin top - will slug it the whole way.  It will not be easy.  And it shouldn't be!  You can track it here, all year long.

I hope I can find joy in the struggle.