6.22
What I have grown to appreciate about living a wellness lifestyle, is how it keeps me out of trouble. I have a fitness regime that now spans 7 days a week. None of it is too grueling, but it is certainly demanding, and I'm disciplined enough to be consistent.
Investing in wellness grows us in ways we often don't anticipate. In the Spartan Race world they call it obstacle immunity and resiliency. What I would also call it is resistance to vices and illicit habits. Who has time or need for booze and philandering when you're healthy, well-adjusted, and physically beat at the end of the day? And knowing that tomorrow morning brings the next recovery run or endurance workout (not to mention family, work, and community engagement), sleep becomes precious.
Signing up for regular races will also bring you an opportunity to thrive. I eat very cleanly the last 10 days to 2 weeks prior to a race. No inflammatory foods, coffee, chocolate dairy, etc. And what's great about that is how healthy I feel and the energy I have. And no aches or pains beyond simple muscle exertion. That's a great place to be...
What supports a wellness lifestyle like this? Some conviction...Some basic nutritional knowledge...A deep and growing understanding of our own body and how it responds to foods and movement... A tribe to journey with... (including support from spouse and kids, and those close to you...)
Then we simply journey on. We invest in a great wellness day today, and string those together into a healthy wellness week, which becomes a successful wellness month. Pretty soon we have lived a thriving wellness year.
So, if you haven't tuned into your pantry recently, give it a once-over and see what's in it. Make some healthy substitutions. Find your tribe, and get moving. Set a great goal, and better yet, a growing vision for your wellness lifestyle. Then go live and grow and thrive.
By the Way
Yesterday I ran my 9th Spartan race. This one was with a team from work, and it was a blast! This year Spartan reformatted their stadium races into the 'Stadion' format. Different than other Spartan Races, the Stadion mixes in gym exercise movements (box jumps and ball slams, the assault bike and weighted burpees) to keep it interesting. It was a beautiful day at Citizen Bank Park in Philly, and we finished together, and really enjoyed the race.
6.21
Soon enough it will be the holidays, and we'll be treated to the joys and foods that make holiday celebrations so memorable. With all the festivities come calories and loads of inflammatory foods that our bodies would do better without. But there are some simple disciplines we can put in place to help.
The reality is, our body weight comes down to basic calories-in-calories-out calculations. Our caloric needs change as we age, and it is different for men and women, but to maintain our current weight, our nutritional food intake needs to yield a zero-sum with our activity. If we favor food, we gain weight; if we favor activity, we lose weight.
Try out this great calorie calculator from Mayo Clinic - it shows the estimated calories you need to maintain the weight you are, based on current height, weight, age and activity level.
Click here for the calorie calculator
My Garmin tells me I burn about 2700 calories a day, mainly because I do 40 minutes of functional training on weekdays, and 1-2 hour workout-run sessions on Saturdays and Sundays. On a heavy workout day when I'm also cutting the lawn, that might be a 3500+ calorie day...
The point is, we only need to get our bodies moving to burn some calories. Walking is a great, low-impact activity to burn calories. So it swimming. So are burpees! Burpees are one of the best all-body exercises (arms, core, legs, plus coordination, and aerobic stamina.)
Spartan did a great article a few weeks ago about how many burpees are needed to overcome our less-than-healthy food choices. Check out the article here.
This is a great time of the year to incorporate simple activity disciplines with our healthy eating choices. The foundation we build now will serve us well a few months from now when holiday festivities are everywhere, and that foundation will serve us well for a lifetime.
By the Way
There are innumerable activity calculators that show calories burned with certain activities. Try out one today to see how much activity will get you some good burn. Here's one from www.healthyeater.com - click here for the calculator.
6.17
We have incredible volumes of information available to us, and can benefit far beyond what was possible just a few years ago. For years, I have gleaned professional and worthwhile guidance from YouTube, Google searches, and the Internet in general. This part of my wellness journey has afforded me numerous vicarious tribes that I feel really connected to, even though they are virtual.
I've mentioned these in Power Pantry before, but here is a list of some of these tribes, and the guidance I seek from them:
Pantry choices and fitness:
Dr. Josh Axe - Dr. Axe-Food is Medicine
Mark Sission - Mark's Daily Apple & Primal Blueprint
Spartan Race - US Spartan website
Darebee
Fitness and sustainable health:
Crossfit
You can also find great guidance at the YMCA, a local Rec center and various fitness clubs (like running clubs, biking clubs and hiking clubs.) The point is to tune in, and realize that the information each of these sources presents is always improving. So visit your vicarious tribes often - find their blogs, podcasts and articles, and glean the best of what's new.
Every journey is best lived out with others, and the hope is that our vicarious tribes turn into real-life tribes we can journey with. Take someone along today, and grow and learn together for accountability and improved results.
By the Way
I visited with one of my tribes yesterday, at the Spartan Super in Palmerton, PA. It was a great day to tackle the 8.1 mile course, up and down the ski slopes of the resort. We logged 29 obstacles, and I pretty much crushed it, only doing penalty burpees on 2 obstacles. Lots of grip strength and core obstacles to challenge racer's endurance and resilience throughout the course. It was an awesome day.
6.15
We're almost half way through 2019, can you believe it? I have realized in the last several weeks, since I ran the Spartan Ultra in April, that I need a new goal. I had my race calendar lined up for 2019, I thought, and then things changed.
Originally, I was going to do a couple of Spartan team events (they call them Hurricane Heats), but circumstances for our summer schedule have ebbed and flowed, and now those events may or may not work. Even with all that up in the air, I'm still training hard. I decided to roll with it.
I've realized after years of having a fitness habit, that it's best to keep in shape and keep things going. If I pull back and don't have a daily and weekly investment in my fitness, it is harder and harder to get back into the groove. In the next couple of weeks I'm going to look at the summer and fall schedules and see what will fit, and I'm confident that the final plan will likely be way better than the initial plan.
How about your fitness and wellness this year? There is plenty of time to make 2019 your best year yet, with a few PRs and some traveling adventures, and maybe some new wellness habits in your pantry. Recommit today to your health, to creating and living out great habits, and to taking someone along on your journey.
By the Way
Even when you don't have a well-designed workout or race plan, regular and consistent fitness will keep you ready for when the right opportunity arises. Keep your head in the game!
