exercise

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I’m Not In The Shape I Should Be In

The summer is coming to an end and it’s time to get myself back into shape … and when I say shape, I’m not just talking about my physical shape, though that needs some work.

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Over the summer I have kind of abandoned several things that I really need to get in line again – things that will improve my physical shape and also help me do my job and generally be more at peace.

… Much like a student in junior high or high school who, over the summer, has slept in every day, has stayed up late, spent more time with friends and basically felt free. Now that school is starting, they have to turn themselves to the routines of life being in school.

I remember those high school days when I would stay up late at night. I’d stop off at Country Style Donuts after my evening job and eat a dozen donuts. I’m not talking about timbits or donut holes – I mean I would buy a dozen jelly-filled donuts and down them in one sitting! 

I remember one summer when it was really hot, I’d walk to the nearest convenience store and buy a dozen popsicles (about 10 cents each). I’d come home with a variety of flavours. I wouldn’t even put them in the freezer; I just ate them all before they melted.

I would also sleep in every morning until 11:30 and still feel groggy. 

That was life until school started again. Then it was time to get back to some routines of life.

Now there are two main areas I must attend to to get myself in shape for this coming fall and winter season. 

Discipline is one of them.

I haven’t been consistent with exercising, which in turn has not helped my physical shape. To add to that, I have not been very disciplined in what I’ve eaten.  

The thing is I’m not really happy with how I feel right now. I know as soon as I hit the ice, I will not be happy about how I feel playing hockey either.

But my discipline has to extend past exercise and food. I also need to be disciplined with my time … especially my bedtime.

Being disciplined with how much sleep I get will pay huge dividends when it comes to my overall mental and emotional shape. I don’t mean that I’m weeping at sappy, romantic movies that Lily tricks me into watching. I mean I can deal with and handle work and home with much more efficiency.

… Which brings me to the second thing I need: focus. 

Getting enough sleep helps my focus, but for a guy with ADD, I also need to employ a few tricks I’ve developed over the years to keep me focussed. 

These tricks involve doing the right things at the right time for the right amount of time and to have a plan of what I expect to accomplish.

That’s what I need to get myself back in shape. And I need to start today!

Here’s the thing: What will you do when you drift from God, or find yourself hit and miss with your time with Him, or if you’ve found that sin has crept into your daily life and lives there, or you have become distracted from the Lord by some other interest? What will bring you back is discipline and focus. Just start today and you will see amazing changes immediately.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to work on: more discipline or focus? Leave your comments and questions below.

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The Aches And Pains Of Old Age

I have been told that as you get older you have aches and pains that you can’t explain.

When you’re young, if you’re hurting, you know the cause of it – it’s because you fell off your bike, or tried to jump a fence, got caught on the top and landed funny.

When you’re young you have many questions that need answers, but why you’re hurting is not one of them.

When you’re older, however, you get some pains that are unexplainable; you just can’t come up with answers.

I sometimes have some pain in my shoulders. I don’t know why; I didn’t do anything to hurt them recently.

I have pain in my wrists sometimes too, and I can’t put my finger on a cause for that either.

I usually chock it all up to years of falling off my bike, or body abuse from years of hockey – you know, just old injuries that healed, but probably left some lasting side effects that will make their debut sometime after I turn 60 or 70.

Up until now I’ve experienced some minor phantom aches and pains in my body. But this past weekend I experienced a new one. This pain came out of nowhere, but left me thinking I needed a hip replacement.

It was like a switch got flicked and I went from being upright, like a fully-formed homosapien, to  being all hunched over, like a regressing neanderthal.

On a dime I turned into an old man who really needed a cane to get around. Trying to walk up a staircase was agony! … and I don’t mean agony just because of the pain; it was agony for anyone to watch me.

Every time I walked it felt like my bones were crashing and rubbing together, as if I was trying to start a fire with the friction.

It was quite concerning. But here is the crazy thing …

A few hours earlier I had been playing hockey, racing up and down the ice like a young man.

I never got hit, never crashed into the boards. When I got off the ice, I had no symptoms of restricted movement whatsoever.

After hockey I attended a men’s breakfast where about a half dozen men from my church saw me walking just fine.

This hip issue came on a few hours later when I sat down to write a blog post.

I am a bit of a sloucher and I wrote the blog sprawled out on our couch. When I finished and tried to get up – wow! – I suddenly felt like 78 years old, on a waiting list to have my first of two hips replaced (if you need one, you know the other one is coming).

Fortunately, after an uncomfortable night’s sleep, I woke up to a hip that was much better. I still don’t know what happened or why … but I am over 60.

I do have hope that it will get better and soon I will be racing up and down the ice like a young man again.

Here’s the thing:  They say that when we get older we get wiser. But that doesn’t mean we have the answers to everything. We might fool ourselves into thinking we know, but when something unexplainable happens, we are left dumbfounded. There is never an age when we don’t need the wisdom and the help of God. In fact, there is not an age when we need God more. We always need more of him, so never stop seeking him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What unexplainable thing draws you to the all-knowing God? Leave your comments below.

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Exercising Every Day For a Month – Not Bad!

Going into my vacation, I was concerned about one thing – exercising.

You see, I had gone almost six months without missing a day of exercising at least thirty minutes per day. Who wants to break a streak like that?

When I’m at home, I have options. There are always outside activities that I can do like mountain biking, golf, or baseball. But I have a backup when I can’t do something outdoors. I have a home gym that I can work up a sweat in.

Being at the cottage for an extended period of time, I only had the outdoor option … and this summer’s weather had not given me much confidence in my ability to get thirty minutes of outside exercising in every day.

Looking back, it rained every few days. We would just be getting into a pattern of sunny, warm weather when the clouds would roll in and dampen everything – literally.

Somehow through all this I was able to exercise every day.

There were a couple of times my exercise took the form of a power walk, but walking along the beach really fast is not my idea of enjoyable exercise. If I’m going to walk the beach, I want it to be a little more like a slow stroll.

So mostly I rode my bike. When the mountain biking trail I ride was too wet and nasty, I was able to find time between the rain drops to get a half hour ride down to Sauble Falls and back.

I’ve never looked at my weather app as much as I did on this vacation. I’d get up in the morning, look outside, check my app and think, “Okay, if I get my ride in at 10 o’clock I’ll beat the sprinklers.”

… I remember playing golf years go, early in the morning or late in the evening, before they had underground watering systems.

There were hoses and sprinkler heads on the fairways, with water spraying in a circle like a ticking clock.

If your ball landed in one of the spray zones, you would wait for the spray to pass by and then quickly move in to take your shot before the sprinkler came around again.

You had to dodge the water system in those days.

That’s what I was doing on vacation – dodging the big water system in the sky … even down to the last day!

My plan was to get up and get in one last ride on the trails before I packed the car and left for home.

But no way; the rain started at 7 am. That meant exercising on my last day of vacation would have to happen at home. Well, at least it was there waiting for me, with no weather conditions to consider.

My biggest concern going into vacation was being able to somehow exercise every day outside, regardless of the weather.

I did it! I got wet a few times, I caught a few breaks, and even on those days I just didn’t feel like doing much of anything, I still got it done. Not bad at all.

Here’s the thing: In life there are challenges every day. You don’t know when or what form they will take so you can’t avoid them or even make contingency plans. You just have to deal with them as they come and figure out a way through them. When you know this is true, it only makes sense to seek God every day for His wisdom and direction through the challenges.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What challenge are you facing today? Leave your comments below.

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I Need An Alternate Routine

My routine has been working for me for a few months now, but all that is about to change.

Back in December I developed a new plan for eating (read here) and exercise (read here). It’s been working for me and I feel great. I have more energy, and physically I’m able to play my sports at an increased level.

I’ve really enjoyed this run; I don’t want to see it come to an end. But I need to make some changes and I have a week to figure it out.

I took a week of vacation and we opened up our cottage for the year. But in doing that, it took me away from some of the routines that I have made over the last few months – mainly my exercise routine.

I’ve been trying (successfully, I might add) to do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. I’ve been playing hockey two, sometimes three times a week and then on the days I don’t play hockey, I work out at home.

There I have a treadmill, a bike on a trainer, and a rowing machine.

On my week away, however, I’m not playing hockey and I don’t have access to equipment other than my bike.

For the summer I can ride my bike, but there will be some rainy days. Because I ride dirt trails, if the trails are too wet from the day before, biking is then also out of the question.

So what am I going to do at the cottage to keep up my exercise?

I can walk, which would make Lily happy because she would love to go on more (or some) walks with me. But for that to be exercise I will have to walk at a fast pace, certainly not the way I walk around a mall.

Some people run, but I have bad knees so that’s not an option for me. I’m at a bit of a loss.

I feel like I need to be a MacGyver in this situation. You remember the TV show, don’t you? He could make things happen even when he didn’t have the proper materials or equipment. MacGyver would rig something up to get the job done.

I need to figure out something I can rig up for those rainy days, and as an alternative to biking every day of my time away.

There is one other thing I need to consider. When Lily and I went shopping to get groceries for the week, I had my eye on the candy aisle the whole time.

For me, vacations or being away is synonymous with snacking. It’s what I do!

I had a very difficult time not throwing a few chocolate bars and bags of candy in the grocery cart.

I can see that the only way forward, the only way that I will succeed, is to have a plan before I go and then to stick to it.

Here’s the thing: Planning is important for accomplishing your goals, but you also need a plan for when your plan doesn’t work. That is exactly the same when it comes to temptation. You need a plan to live right, but you need an alternative plan in place for when temptation comes. Make a plan today.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What alternative plan do you have for temptation? Leave your comments below.

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It’s Been A Month Of Exercise

In the past month I’ve only missed two days of exercise. For some people that might not be a big deal, but for me it’s huge.

This year so far I’ve been trying to complete the rings on my watch. I wrote a blog about it and you can read that one here.

The three rings represent calories burned while moving, standing for at least one minute for each of twelve hours in the day, and completing 30 minutes of exercise a day.

… That last ring needs some explaining: Exercise as recorded on my watch is any time my heart rate is elevated past a certain range for a minute or so.

Most days I will get a few minutes of exercise just doing what I do in a day. If I’ve walked somewhere fast or shovelled snow, I’ll get that ring to move a little.

There are some days – and in the last month there were two – that I completed that ring by doing everyday activities that elevated my heart rate for a total of 30 minutes in the day. But in the last 34 days, I’ve actually worked out 32 times.

… I haven’t been this active since I was in my early twenties and was always running, playing, and doing things every day!

Sometimes my workouts have been short, maybe twenty minutes on the bike or rowing machine; other days I’ve played hockey for 60 minutes or more.

There have been a few times that I’ve come home from work and felt too tired to exercise, but I’ve done it anyway.

Times that I couldn’t exercise between work and an evening meeting, even though it was 10:00 or 10:30 pm when I came home, I still put in time in the gym.

And that’s what’s helped me. I have a mini gym at home, one room in the house – my son’s old bedroom to be exact – where we have equipment and a TV.

The TV is critical because I don’t think I could keep working out without some kind of distraction.

I have three basic pieces of equipment that I use: a treadmill, my old bike on a trainer, and a rowing machine.

When I think about how well I’ve done exercising this past month, I also realize that it’s just a month. It’s too soon to say that I have a pattern or a way of life now that includes daily exercise.

And that is the important thing for me to remember. I’m not doing this to reach a goal, or to say that I completed something. I’m doing this to make a change to my life.

When I was young, I naturally got exercise every day. At my age and with my work, I have to build exercise into my routine because my days don’t naturally produce it.

I feel so good right now, maybe this is how I always felt when I was in my twenties … now I’m not taking it for granted.

Here’s the thing: I now have to work at something that I didn’t have to even think about 40 years ago. There was a time in your life when you didn’t think about changing or renewing yourself. But when you become a Christ-follower, you have to daily put on the new self, your Christ nature, by building the fruit of the Spirit into your life. Don’t neglect your new self.

That’s Life!

Paul

Galatians 5:22-23

Question: What are you doing to daily exercise your new nature?

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Oh, The Sweet Taste Of Victory

I can almost taste the victory – that’s the victory of completing the Apple watch fitness challenge.

I’m not sure if Apple thought that we weren’t using their watches to succeed at keeping up with our fitness goals or routines … maybe they just wanted to help us all be a little more motivated to get exercising at the beginning of the new year.

At any rate, they put out a challenge to Apple watch owners to complete their fitness rings every day for a week in January.

There are three fitness rings that the watch measures. One is standing. You complete this ring by standing a minimum of one minute per hour for 12 hours a day.

This sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? But if you work at a desk or sit in a car, or do both, those hours can easily tick away without you standing in every hour.

You have to be conscious of it and get out of your seat for at least a little bit each hour.

Then there is the move ring. This measures the calories you burn simply by moving about in your day. You don’t have to put out much effort at all to get this ring swirling, but it won’t budge if you are sitting down most of the day.

And then there is the exercise ring. This ring measures when your heart rate is elevated – not like in a stress-filled meeting, but by exerting yourself physically.

These three simple rings wind around my watch face, and this week I’ve completed all three rings for six days.

Tomorrow is the last day and I know I will be able to do it.

I haven’t set the bar too high, but it did require me most days to do specific workouts for at least 20 minutes. For me, it’s either I play hockey, or use my stationary bike and rowing machine to get my exercise in.

It wasn’t a cinch but it also wasn’t hard for me to accomplish. The trick was to be aware of what I needed and make sure the day didn’t slip away without me getting in those necessary, needed elements.

For example, I knew on Thursday that I had an evening meeting in which I would just be sitting. During that day I was mostly sitting as well.

But I did have a midday meeting outside the office and so I decided to also spend a half hour on my bike and rower to ensure I completed my exercise ring before my evening meeting.

So what’s the prize for all this? Do I win a new Apple watch or get a discount on a new Mac computer?

… It would be nice to win some free software or something.

Unfortunately, none of the above. All I get is an achievement award that shows up in an app on my phone.

It’s not much; it’s sort of like the online course I took at the end of the year. When I completed the work, I got to print out a completion certificate with my name on it.

Wow … it probably won’t get framed or put on the wall.

But along with the satisfaction of completing the challenge, there is the knowledge that a healthier body will enable me to live longer and with more energy. … Sweet victory!

Here’s the thing: Though there may not be any big wow’s for daily living for God, you do experience God working through you and you get to spend eternity with God in heaven. … Sweet victory!

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you find satisfaction in? Leave your comments below.

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This Watch Really Has Changed Everything

You know how you can get something new and think to yourself, “Hey, this changes everything”?

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Well, maybe you haven’t ever thought that, but Apple thought of it. In a recent advertising campaign, that was the slogan they used: “This changes everything”.

Well, about five months ago as a gift, I got an Apple watch. Since then it really has changed everything. Besides the fact that it will do everything short of cooking my breakfast in the morning, it really has changed my life.

It’s changed how I think through my day. I used to go through my day without a thought for my body. Then I got a step counter and I consciously considered how many steps I take in a day.

But that’s nothing! Since I got my watch, I’m thinking of how many calories I’m burning in a day, how often I’m standing during the day, and how much exercise I’m getting each day.

I used to feel good if I played hockey a couple of times a week. Now I’m trying to get thirty minutes of exercise in each day.

It would be nice, however, if the watch could shut my mouth in the evenings to liquorice or chocolate. But I’m figuring out that there’s a part that I have to play that’s more than just wearing the watch on my wrist.

Some people would call it deficiency; I call it first generation Apple watch … they’ll figure that out in future editions.

My watch has also changed how I use the stuff in my pockets. I don’t haul out my wallet or phone nearly as much anymore.

I answer texts by speaking into my watch (like I’m an FBI agent speaking into his hand). I get my points for purchases right from my watch; no more swiping a card. I even answer my phone like Dick Tracy used to do in the cartoons when I was a kid.

My watch has got me to be conscious of how much water I drink in a day. Now I know when I need to take a sip. As a result, there have been a few times where I’ve had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

They say we are 96% water … I may be approaching 97% on those nights. I think I’m a little waterlogged!

This watch has even changed how I play hockey. The other day I was on the ice, playing defence. The puck was at the other end of the rink when I suddenly remembered I wasn’t recording my on-ice exercise.

I took off my glove to set it, but as I looked down at my watch, I saw the puck go through my legs and heard some heavy breathing. I fumbled with my stick and dropped it. I had to control the puck with my feet, move it to a corner and then kick it over to a teammate.

I wasn’t that successful, but they didn’t score. When the puck cleared again, I hit the start button on my watch and everything was good.

Here’s the thing: Christ changed everything over 2000 years ago when He died on the cross for our sins. What we need to consider now is how have we changed our lives because of Him? He changed everything, but it really only changes everything for us when we accept the changes and implement them in our lives. Give yourself completely to Christ’s change.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When you look at your life, how has Christ changed everything for you? Leave  your comment below.

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The Difficulty of Maintaining Discipline

Have you ever noticed that there is a chain reaction when it comes to discipline? When you are disciplined in doing one thing, you find it easy to be disciplined with other things as well.

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However, the opposite is also true: a lack of discipline in one area leads to a rash of indiscipline in one’s life.

I experienced this on vacation this year. I know, vacation is the time when you’re supposed to throw discipline out the window and just enjoy life as it comes.

What I’ve discovered is life isn’t much unless you make it something, and that takes some discipline.

Before my vacation, I was in a routine of exercising thirty minutes or more a day. I could do that because I have a gym set up in my basement. If I couldn’t go biking, I could row or ride my stationary bike for half an hour.

While on vacation, I didn’t have the gym option. But I had time – lots of it – to fit in a bike ride or a brisk walk, or swimming each day.

But with so much time available, the tendency is to not be so disciplined in organizing it. After all, I was on vacation! You tend to not make decisions, to just relax and get to things later.

What happens is, all of a sudden, later is gone or something comes up that keeps you from making a decision to, for instance, go for a bike ride.

Once that happens, it can set you up in a pattern. Pretty soon you’re not making wise decisions on when you go to bed at night, so you sleep in and don’t get a good start to the next day. You become less motivated to make a decision to exercise or take that day trip, and you do what you’re supposed to do on vacation – relax, take it easy.

But doing that makes you a little lethargic. You sit down to read or watch TV and easily fall asleep. You spend some of the best part of the day sleeping and when you wake up, you feel like you’ve lost something, and you don’t feel rested.

So you stay up late, have a few snacks and this becomes the pattern of your vacation.

Instead of the dream of your vacation being filled with biking, golf, beach time, and day trips around the region, you end up with days in a row where you don’t feel like you did anything. They feel wasted.

Even on vacation you still want to accomplish something, even if it’s just having some fun.

Well I’m not going to let this vacation get away from me. I’ve seen what the undisciplined life leads to and I’m changing it now.

I’m going biking before lunch today and then spending some time at the beach. I also think a walk down by the water at sunset is in order … that might only cost me a small raspberry gelato.

Here’s the thing: When you are on vacation or on a business or family trip somewhere, it’s easy to get out of your regular routine. Being out of your routine will lead to being undisciplined with God, not spending time with Him, or following His lead in your life. So when you are out of your regular routine, discipline yourself to a new routine, and keep yourself close to God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When do you find it hard to stay disciplined? Leave your comment below.

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From Bad News To Work Out Room

I wrote earlier this fall about some bad news I got from my doctor. I had had a blood test, waited about three weeks, and thought I was in the clear, only to have my doctor pull me aside one day and tell me my cholesterol was high.

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I cringed, of course, but I kind of knew it – I had been pretty liberal with my snacking in the last while.

Since then I started to change my eating patterns. I wrote about this in a September blog called, “Difficult Choice” (your can read it here).

In that time, I’ve lost about 10 or so pounds. I say “or so” because on a given day I can go up or down as much as three and a half pounds.

It’s kind of crazy – I’m not sure if it’s my scale that’s lying to me or whether the pizza I had the other night really did put 3 pounds on me!

The thing is, I’ve been doing this for about three months and I think I’ve kind of hit a wall. I don’t seem to be able to get past the 10 or so pounds and go lower to reach my goal.

It’s time to start phase two of my plan. However, phase two requires Lily’s help.

No, I’m not asking her to make certain foods for me, or spot me when I lift weights, I need her to agree to let me purchase a rowing machine. I’ve wanted one for two years now since I took a  cardiac rehab course.

At the clinic they had a rowing machine and I really got hooked on that piece of equipment.  However, they are not cheap. I’ve wanted one but no one has sprung the cash to get me one for my birthday or anything.

Well that is until now. Somehow, without any real arm-twisting on my part, Lil thought we could make it a Christmas present to each other.

It’s really going to cut down on gift wrap this year, and Christmas morning we’re not going to have much to open because we ordered it and it’s already arrived!

My son had been telling people for ages that he no longer had a bedroom at our house, that we had turned it into a workout room. But all I had previously done was stick a weightlifting bench in the middle of all his stuff.

Now Mike has a real case for telling people he has no bedroom at home. I’ve taken his old room, cleared out most of the debris, set up my mountain bike on a trainer, put a weight bench in the room … and now have a brand new rowing machine as well!

My new gym room is nicer than many hotel workout rooms. And I’m counting on it to help me get past the 10 pound barrier and on to my goal.

Here’s the thing: To ensure I stay physically healthy, I’ve had to take some significant measures. What I was doing wasn’t getting me to where I needed to be. Your spiritual life is the same. You can’t just keep the same devotional time with God that you began with. To get where God wants you to be, you need to take measures to make your time with God more impacting on your life. You have to up your commitment level to spiritual growth.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you started that you realize you need to up your commitment level to? Leave your comment below.

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Evaluate and Make A Plan

Recently, I made a plan to exercise more regularly. I looked back over the past spring and summer and noticed that I have biked only half as much as I did the previous year.

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I’m not sure whether it was because of the weather or me just being a slug. Whatever the reason, I turned into a slug regardless.

Now I’m trying to work my way back to a regular exercise routine, so I’m looking for a little cooperation from several sources: weather, schedule, and equipment.

I’ve taken a little time to evaluate and research the top contributing obstacles to my regular exercise.

Weather is a big one for me, especially in the spring, summer and early fall, because all my exercise is geared for outdoor activity. I mountain bike and play golf, and though golf is not a high level of exercise, it does keep my step count up.

And I depend on consecutive days of dry weather, because the day after a rain the trails are sloppy, slippery and generally a mess. This year it seemed like we couldn’t get more than a couple of days in a row of good weather, which leads me to my next obstacle.

My schedule this year didn’t provide me with the freedom I needed to get out there and make a difference with my health.

I regularly bike on Mondays, Wednesday evenings and Saturdays and it seemed this year that there was a meeting or I was out of town or some other responsibility kept me from hitting the trails.

Other times that I found myself free to go, I ran into the weather problem – it was raining or it had rained hard the day before.

What I really need is an option that gives me freedom to exercise regardless of the weather and my schedule – something I can do indoors and can fit between finishing at the office and an evening meeting.

And that is where my third obstacle comes into play: equipment. I don’t have the equipment I need at home to make that work. Getting a gym membership doesn’t work for when I don’t have much time.

I need equipment at home ready to go. Something like a rowing machine.

When I did rehab after my heart attack, they had me use a rowing machine as part of my exercise routine. I really enjoyed that piece of equipment.

They had me on other equipment too, but it was the rowing that I enjoyed the most. The treadmill was boring and the elliptical, well I had to be careful not to get out of rhythm with it and fall off the thing.

I really didn’t like the movement, maybe because I can’t dance.

No. A rowing machine is what I need. I’ve done the research. Of course, they’re expensive, but I have narrowed it down to one or two possible makes.

Now all I have to do is convince my wife. How’d I do, Lil?

Here’s the thing: After making a decision to do something, evaluation and planning are what come next. And it is true with your relationship with God as well. If you feel convinced that God is asking something of you, or you feel convicted to do something for God, evaluate your life, determine the obstacles and plan a method of overcoming them. Then follow through.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What obstacles are in your way of following what God is asking you to do?  Leave your comment below.