The Fitness River
January 8, 2009
I woke up last night, jolted awake by a random, shocking realization as is my typical fashion. This thought was actually a personal fear that the New Year’s Resolution message that I have been hammering into anyone’s brain who will listen to me might give some readers the impression that I
was on one shore of the fitness river, waving madly at all of the rest of you over on the distant other shore, over where discipline is a dirty word, where decrepitude reigns and slovenly habits rule.
I want to go on the record by saying that if I have given anyone the idea that I’ve got it all figured out and have achieved every goal I’ve ever set for myself, and then you are mistaken. I admit that I did manage to train myself to do one and a half pull-ups (really they were chin-ups, the homely, younger cousin to pull-ups) for about a week or so last year. But only because I blabbed about my desire to do a pull-up and because I spoke this intention out loud to my children who can guilt me into doing anything, including having one less glass of wine or getting off the phone, which up until now, no one else has been able to force me to do. But the pull-ups are gone now, just like many resolutions that we’ve all made in the past and still continue to want without actually being able to achieve.
Sigh.
The impression that you truly should have about my prostheletizing and me is that we are all in this together. I am no closer to contentment than any of the rest of you.
I like to think of it more like we are all out in the middle of the fitness river, having swum off of the shore of slovenly ways but not quite having the strength to dog paddle our way to those visible, yet distant resolutions awaiting on the far horizon.
I guess that my hope with all of my New Year’s cheerleading is that you will be inspired not by me, but along with me, to make some changes and to never give up.
After all, I still consume probably 80% of my calories standing up and I swing wildly between restrictive eating and eating like a horse, depending on what day of my cycle it is and this is despite my awareness that I’m still doin’ that thing I do!!
My parents, who are both now in their seventies have a twin-sweater set of matching age-related illnesses.
Mom with high blood pressure so acute she is blind in one eye along with cardiovascular disease and Pops with his diabetes and two artificial knees. Could all of these diseases been prevented by making some small daily changes decades ago like exercising regularly and eating lean proteins and tons of dark green leafy vegetables? Yes.
Why didn’t they? The very same reason we haven’t managed to make our own little changes. We are human. We are each struggling individually, but in a universal way, with those lifestyle issues we’ve always struggled with.
It comes down to HABITS.
Much of lifestyle is habit. Habits are just what we did yesterday and the day before that and the day before that.
So my hope is that we all, together, can examine what little things we do and see if just for this year 2009, if we can stick with a 21-day time span to get what Canyon Ranch calls the Butterfly Effect.
Little changes that we make on a daily basis-Do I order waffle fries or the plain baked potato? Do I sit down and watch Oprah or hop on the treadmill? Should I do five minutes of exercise or no minutes? – These decisions can have a profound effect on whether we live as long and stay as young as we hope.
So Happy New Year one more friggin’ time.
Hope to see you on, or near, the distant shore.
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