Tag Archives: healthy living

Motivation versus Routines

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It’s definitely the holidays for me. The time is 10:19pm and I’m just starting my writing. I haven’t meditated yet, (and missed the last couple days), and haven’t worked out yet either. Why? I’m off of my routines and my morning habits are not getting done to start my day.

Although it was not a busy day, I did get some important errands done, and don’t feel like I wasted the day… but here I am feeling very little motivation to get a workout in. I will, but it feels like effort.

That’s the difference between good habits and routines versus motivation. When I have my routines set, writing just gets done. Workouts get done. Meditation gets done. Zero motivation needed.

But let my routines slip and suddenly everything gets harder to get started. And getting started is the hardest part. Some days I feel like crap and just go through the motions simply because that’s part of my routine. Some of those days continue to feel hard, but sometime the act of getting started is all I need to turn the day, or at least my mood, around.

Routines help me get started. No motivation required. And now it’s time to finish this and get started on my workout. I think I’ll do a walking meditation on my treadmill and that’s one less thing to have to motivate myself to do. The best thing I’ve ever done for my health and wellbeing has been the strict routines I’ve created to get my healthy living goals done. I just need to rethink how I maintain these routines over my holidays.

Recovery mode

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The semester is over and the holidays have begun. Got my walk in with my buddy this morning and then came home and slept for almost 3 hours. I don’t usually take 3 hour naps, but I guess my body needed it. I’m just glad I didn’t have a full crash and get sick, which often happens this time of year.

But I’m older and a bit wiser. I didn’t let my almost 60 hour work week stop me from my healthy living routines. I didn’t skip meals because I was too busy. I didn’t miss taking my vitamins. And I still talked regularly to friends. So many times in the past I would get busy and just drop my positive routines.

That said, rest is also an important routine and while long naps are not part of my routine, letting myself crash for a bit and recover today has me feeling great as I begin the holidays.

The long road

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Last night I got home after 8 pm. Today will be my early day home around 5:30. Wednesday I’ll get home after 8pm, and Thursday will be 10pm if I’m lucky.

While many people are counting the days until Christmas, I’m just looking forward to the end of the week. Some of the events keeping me late are fun for me, one (a dance) is great for the students. I am happy to participate in these events, but I can honestly say that I’m tired already, and it’s only Tuesday morning.

It’s weeks like this that I feel my age. I realize that younger me would have skipped through this week like it was a minor blip. Yesterday I got home and did absolutely nothing until falling asleep on the couch around 9:30. I went to bed soon after and my alarm woke me up just like it has for the past two weeks… whereas for the two weeks before that, I probably only heard it 2 or maybe 3 times, with me waking up before my alarm most days.

It’s Tuesday morning and I see a very long road ahead of me to get me to the holidays. I need to psych myself up to stay strong, and get my sleep in too. Because so often in my career I reach the first weekend of a break and I get sick. My body stays strong to make it through this final week of school and then when I can finally relax my physical health crashes. I’m determined for this to not happen (ever again). It really sucks when I finally get a break and my body ‘lets go’.

I’ll take my vitamins, maintain my healthy habits, get a lot of sleep, and slowly travel this long road to the holidays.

Routines vs rut-tines

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Ok, let me start by acknowledging that rut-tine is not a word. It’s a play on the word ‘rut’.

Rut: An uninspired routine or pattern of behavior that one continues unthinkingly or because change is difficult.

Routines are so important. When you routinize a habit the habit becomes easy. There is no need for motivation when your habit has become routine. Case-in-point: I will meditate and exercise as soon as I finish writing this. No effort required, this is my routine and that’s what I do next. Minimal effort required to start the process.

But just like it takes no effort to maintain my healthy habits, routines can serve bad habits just as easily. For example, I generally don’t snack after dinner Sunday to Thursday night. No treats, no beverages, just dinner and then bed without any other food. I developed the habit of not eating after dinner precisely because when I do, it’s almost never a healthy snack. However, I have a weakness for chocolate covered almonds and almost every night for the past couple weeks I’ve taken a handful of these delicious treats after dinner. And this has led me to other more unhealthy snacks as well.

Essentially I fell into a rut-tine, an unintentional routine that is less than ideal. I don’t even realize I’m doing it until I’m sitting on the couch with a handful of chocolate almonds or a bowl of chips. But this is a minor thing, I’ll run out of chocolate almonds and I’ll soon return to my disciplined routine of not snacking 5 days a week.

However this got me thinking… What routines and habits of mind do I have that are more rut-tine than routine? How many little mental scripts do I have that I would be better off not having? How have I routinized bad habits that are either mentally or physically unhealthy or unhelpful?

Because it’s easy to stay in a rut once that rut is part of what we do daily. And we need to recognize that we are in a rut or the rut-tine just takes over and we say rutted. We need to identify the difference between a good routine and a rut-tine, and then change the latter into the former.

New adjustable weights

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I’ve had adjustable weights for over 15 years and I have been using them extremely consistently for the past 6. Those weights can adjust from 5 to 50 lbs, in 5 lb increments, with the twist of the handle. Yesterday I got my new updated weights. These require twisting a dial on each side of the dumbbell, but they can adjust from 10 to 90 lbs, in 5 lb increments.

The reality is that I’m not going to be using the full 90lbs much, but I’m excited to be able to extend my home workouts beyond a 50 lb limit. To be able to have access to such a variety of weights in my tiny home gym is amazing. I know that I’m going to see some positive gains.

The one challenge is not getting too excited about the new weight possibilities, and pushing myself too hard. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone, and I think I’ve matured in my thinking enough not to try something stupid and hurt myself. Now I just need to prove this rather than just saying it.

Hard to let go

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I had a very long and busy week last week, and that flowed into a long and busy weekend. I ended up with an empty tank, both physically and emotionally. I woke up Monday morning feeling awful and took the day off. My back ached, I felt like crap and I slept most of the day.

What I didn’t do was check my emails. I legitimately took a day off. Usually that means working from home, but I didn’t even open my laptop yesterday, and my phone stayed on ‘Do Not Disturb’. This morning I continued to feel bad and so I ended up taking a second day off (rare beyond a full back spasm or bad cold). Again, I stayed away from work much of the day, but I did put in a couple hours this morning to get some important communication out that was promised. And throughout the day I had a few things pull me into work mode via Teams and text messages.

And so I just looked at my email and I have 133 unread messages. That would have been higher without what I did today. This is the challenge of taking sick time… the work still comes your way. It’s like you take a sick day only when you absolutely need it, then you come back to so much work that you feel punished for taking care of yourself.

I’ve been working on this, trying to find balance. I will stay later at work and not look at email when I get home. I will add things to my ‘to do’ list at the end of the day and actually get home in time to make dinner. I will prioritize Teams, where my staff connect with me first and not look at email to start the day.

Still, it’s hard to let go. It’s hard to not sneak work in when I’m home. It’s hard to think, ‘I can deal with this tomorrow.’ But this morning I could feel it in me, ‘Take the day today and you won’t need another one before Christmas break… go back too soon and your battery is going to drain again, you aren’t healthy enough.’

So I did the unusual thing and listened to my own advice. Usually I don’t let go, I push through. I’m realizing that’s not just hard on my physical health but my mental health as well.

Do I have a lot of emails to get through? Yes. Does that add to my stress? Yes. But tomorrow I’ll attend to people first and email later… and I’ll catch up. The important thing is that I gave my body and mind the rest it needed and I’m 95% sure I’ll be back at work tomorrow.

Down speed, up incline

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A little nerdy workout reflection:

When I walk on a treadmill I usually go at 4 to 4.2 MPH, (I don’t bother clicking to km, miles is the default on my treadmill). For the past couple months I’ve been walking at 3.8 with a 34lb weight vest, and increasing the incline. But every time I increase to 7.5 or higher, I end up holding the handrails for most of the time I’m on those increased inclines.

Today I forgot to increase my speed from my 2 minute warmup at 3.6 and was able to do most of my walk at a 7.5° incline. I also did 4 minutes at 12.5°, but did hold the handrails then (actually the front rail so I’m not pushing down as much as levelling myself). Still the increase in my ability to maintain the 7.5 incline, for most of the 30 minute workout, and mostly without assistance, was impressive after feeling stuck trying to do this for so long.

I’ll do this a few more times then try at 3.7, then shortly after back to 3.8 MPH. But that’s still to come. For right now I am just surprised that this little adjustment made such a difference. It’s so important to mix things up a bit when you want to see gains in workouts.

A rest day

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One of the best parts of getting older is that unlike when I was half my age, I actually listen to my body. Four days ago I did my Norwegian Protocol cardio workout and really pushed hard. I also did a bicep workout. Three days ago I did a hard incline walk with a 34lb weighted vest. Then I did pull-ups and step ups with the vest still on.

Two days ago I did a really challenging leg workout out then had some knee aches through the day. Yesterday I did a light 20 minute stationary bike ride to get the blood flow to my legs and hopefully reduce the lactic acid buildup from the leg workout. Then I did a hard chest workout.

Today I know I need a break. Sure I spread out my workouts and don’t overdo any one area, except maybe going a bit too hard on legs. Sure I have areas like my back or abs that I could focus on today while giving my other muscles a rest. But I can tell I need a rest day… my body is telling me so.

Younger me would have felt guilty taking the day off. Younger me would have pushed through, not realizing that my very healthy knees almost never bother me and maybe a rest day is in order. Younger me would probably have worked out today and dealt with any pain as a result, as if it’s nothing to worry about, until it was too painful to continue.

But not today. Today I rest. It’s a wonderful rest day! And I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

Rest Day

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I’ve been on a really positive tear recently in the gym. Both my cardio and weight training has seen positive gains.

And today I rest.

This has been an amazing year for consistency of workouts. Most weeks have been 6 or 7 days of working out at some level… 20-30 minutes of cardio, 5 minutes stretching, and then working a single muscle to fatigue. Or the 50+ minute Coquitlam Crunch walk, or a workout with my buddy at his gym.

Sometimes this year I’ve had weeks where I really didn’t take a break. That’s not hard to do when I’m only working one muscle strenuously besides doing my cardio. I can give my muscles a full rest before pushing them again, without having to take a day off. But my cardio always involves legs and when they get tight, my back gets tight.

This morning my body is telling me to take a break. I’m about to meditate and do a longer than usual stretch, and that’s it. It’s weird, I know how important rest is, but I usually plan my rest days before I get up in the morning and I can’t help but feel a little guilty skipping my workout today.

It’s a mental game I play with myself. It’s a fear of developing a bad pattern, of breaking the habit. So rather than just feeling good about my rest day, I sit with slightly guilty pangs. This is silly, of course, since what I’m doing is listening to my body. But part of me fears that an unplanned rest day like this is an excuse to have another one soon.

I should see my rest metaphorically as the space between musical notes, as the gaps that make the music. But instead I see my rest as a sign that I’m slipping, that my age is showing, that I’m getting soft. I’m not sure why I do this to myself? It’s a head game of rationalizations, rather than just letting go and enjoying the break. But maybe it’s also that I truly enjoy the way working out makes me feel, the sense of accomplishment before I even leave the house.

Still, I need to listen to my body, take the rest day… and feel good about it!

Sugar sugar

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The next time you buy yogurt, take a look at how much sugar it has in it. Do the same when you are buying ‘healthy’ cereals like the ones high in fibre. If you don’t normally pay attention to labels, you will be shocked.

It takes a tremendous amount of effort to eat healthy these days. Almost every packaged item has more sugar than you’d expect. I remember being at a roadside grocery while on holidays a few summers ago. I was thirsty and ended up choosing a lemonade rather than a can of pop. I thought I’d avoid a sugary soda. I got back to my car and that’s when I looked at the label. My lemonade had over 30 grams of sugar, (about 10 times more than a can of Coca Cola).

I don’t mind indulging in a sugary, tasty treat every now and then, but I make a concerted effort not to eat a lot of sugar as part of my regular diet… and it’s hard. It shouldn’t be, but so much food in our grocery stores have high doses of sugar.

I try to get most of my sugars in fruit. I will occasionally order a sugar free Diet Coke when I’m having fast food. And I read labels and make smart choices at the grocery store. But it’s not easy, it seems like there is sugar and more sugar everywhere I look.