Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
Dr. Peter Attia is an expert in longevity and he talks about healthspan rather than just lifespan. Last summer I played water polo with a 73 year old, and I’ve met people a decade younger than him that struggle walking up a flight of stairs. It’s one thing to get old and yet another to live healthy for longer.
Have a listen to this podcast with Dr. Attia. If you aren’t interested in listening, here are two things to do for the rest of your life*:
1. Do cardio at least 3 times a week and one of those times get your heart rate up above 80% of your max for your age/health.
2. Do weight training 2-3 times a week and try to work at least one muscle to fatigue (hypertrophy).
Remind your body that you are young and you won’t just increase your lifespan, you’ll increase your healthspan.
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*I’m not a doctor and don’t play one on the internet. If you aren’t already healthy, please don’t start an exercise program without consulting health experts.
After 6 weeks holidays, I’m back to work today. While work creeped into these holidays a fair bit, it was the most ‘off’ I’ve been in years… and quite frankly I needed it. I spent over a month of this break away from home, and it’s nice to be back in my own bed.
I feel refreshed and ready for the new school year. The long hours don’t start until September, and so I can get acclimatized over the next couple weeks. This starts today with my writing, meditation, exercise, and stretching first thing in the morning.
I’m someone who both dislikes and requires good routines. I dislike them because they make the days seem a bit robotic, like I’m just going through the motions. I require (and even like) them because I can get a lot done and feel accomplished.
This holiday started really strong with maintaining my routines but my Toronto trip home was quite disruptive. I was stuck on Vancouver time, staying up until well after midnight in Toronto, but still waking up early. I moved a lot of boxes, but didn’t do any cardio, and I don’t think I meditated more than once in 11 days. I accomplished a lot helping my mom, but really broke my routine and ate too much.
But then again, I was on holidays, and had a wonderful time. I got to spend a lot of time with my wife, and a bit of time with my kids too. I think as school starts, I need to build time in with them as part of my routine as well. It’s easy to put in long hours and not make time for family… not on purpose, just by nature of the job.
Routines can help to regulate things that can normally be neglected. My morning routine lets me feel like I’ve accomplished something for myself before I start my job in the service of others. I think the next step is to routinize some quality time with family, or before I know it the school year is over and work was the only priority after my morning routine.
The views were spectacular and I connected with a friend whom I’ve mostly known online, in meetings, and at conferences. Yet every time we connect I feel like I’m with a lifelong friend. The one difference… each time we connect I learn something new about him.
We all have past experiences that are stories from another era in our lives. It’s easy to dismiss them as ancient, to share them as if they were ‘in a past life’. But these stories are the stories that made us. They are the stories that created the person we are today.
Sometimes people can get stuck on who they ‘used to be’ and I don’t think that’s healthy. But it’s also not healthy to reflect on those past experiences like they belong to someone else.
I’m no longer an athlete. Even when I was one, I was a hard working grunt, not a talented athlete… but I was still an athlete. I take care of myself now, but I’m no athlete, and honestly unlikely to be one ever again. But the skills I learned, the work ethic, the sportsmanship, the dedication to something I loved doing… those things I take with me to the edge of forever.
The scenery today was great, but learning more about my friend was even better.
We are at a resort and food is included as part of our package. Last night’s dinner was in a market-style restaurant with individual food court like restaurants. I started with a Thia chicken crepe, then had a couple small rolls of sushi, then a small spinach & shrimp salad. That was enough for me. I’ve never been big on dessert, and if I was the meal would have been too much.
It would be so easy to overeat in a place like this. It can be enjoyably gluttonous. The idea is to think in moderation when surrounded by abundance. Not an easy task. Convince yourself to enjoy and stop when full, rather than feel restricted. It’s not fun being in the land of plenty and forcing restraint… so the trick is to make delicious choices, just less of them.
A buffet breakfast can be a delicious omelette, bacon, and some fresh fruit. What about sausages? Pancakes? Dessert? Those are the wrong questions. How was the omelette? Delicious! Sometimes less is more. More healthy, more friendly to your heart and your waste line. Moderation is easier with the right mindset… I’m not restricting myself, I’m eating wonderful meals that aren’t so big that I’m going to feel awful later, either physically or emotionally.
It’s not about all I can eat, it’s about making delicious choices. They don’t all have to be healthy choices, as long as I’m not stuffing my face and my belly… and I’m not intentionally undermining myself with bad choices. Moderation doesn’t need to be a dirty word, it’s a smart word, a word that allows choices and freedom, free from gluttony.
Four years. Not 3 or 6 months, not even 1 year, four. I started my fitness journey with a calendar on January 1, 2019. This was my reflection after a year. The path has been a tiny bit bumpy, but overall extremely consistent and without any significant injury as a result of my fitness regimen.
So often people (including me in the past) go on fitness binges and/or eating diets. It’s a race to see results. And while results can come from these brief attempts to improve, unrealistic fitness plans and unsustainable diets eventually lead to a point where they can’t be sustained.
I’m not trying to run ultra marathons or have a bodybuilder physique. I’m actually going to let myself let loose and eat a bit more gluttonous while on vacation. But I’m also going to find time to exercise, I’m going to return home and be more thoughtful about my diet after my vacation. I’m going to keep playing the long game and not worry about minor fluctuations in my schedule. Because while there will be fluctuations, I’m going to keep a schedule of writing, meditation, and exercise. I’m not looking for quick gains, I’m just working on staying on a healthy path, knowing positive results are still to come… in time. Perseverance and the long game are the path I’m on.
I’ve had some physical challenges this year, and still have a long path of recovery, but on reflection I really haven’t been playing the long game I spoke about in December. This year I decided I didn’t need my tracking calendar any longer.
I tracked 4 goals with this calendar for 4 years, 2019-2022, and saw small improvements every year. This year I stopped. I believed the patterns were built. I thought I would maintain my commitments without needing a tracker.
I was wrong.
So I will start again this weekend. I’ll pick up a calendar and track the last 6 months of the year. My 4 positive habits this year will be 3 oldies:
1. Workouts: 20 min. cardio, stretching, and strength training for at least one muscle group.
2. Meditation: 10 min. minimum, and a second sticker if I exceed 20 minutes.
3. Daily writing here on Daily-Ink.
And I’m going to add something new this year.
4. At least 20 min. of writing that isn’t for my blog.
For this last goal, I’m going to shoot for 26 days, or one day a week for the rest of the year… An admittedly low bar, but still 26 more times that I will have written beyond blogging without this goal! I know that while I watch almost no TV and no sports, I still waste time watching a screen (my phone), and I think like the other goals, tracking will inspire me to build and maintain the habit. I want to write more, I haven’t been writing… let’s see if I can develop the habit.
I realize that in playing the long game, gains are slow. I don’t see quick results and I’m not rewarded explicitly for good behaviour and good habits. I need my calendar to keep me honest. I need it to motivate me when I just don’t feel like working out, and to prevent me from skipping days and building bad habits.
I know the calendar motivates me. I know it shows me when I need to metaphorically ‘pull up my socks’ and avoid ‘no dot’, and ‘one dot days‘. And so starting today my calendar shall be resurrected. It’s time to resume effectively playing the long game.
I know it’s going to take time. I know I have to go slow. My herniated disc no longer hurts and I’ve been completely off meds for a week and a half. But I can tell that the pinched nerve in my neck is still an issue. My left arm is still very weak, and I get an annoying tingling sensation in my forearm that feels like a bug landed on me. It happens in the same spot every time and I still slap it like it’s a bug every time I feel it.
I’m back to doing my cardio. I’m stretching every day. But I was on a great path physically that was completely disrupted. I regretfully redistributed some weight that took me 2.5 years to get in the right places, and with my careful path forward it will probably be a year to year and a half to put it back where it belongs.
That’s a bit of a hard realization, although I know it’s the smart thing to do. Younger me would have been determined to speed that up. Younger me would probably have re-injured my disc in the attempt to ‘recover’ faster. The challenge now is to stay the course, keep my positive habits, and stay motivated even when the improvements are too small to see.
I am the tortoise not the hare. The road ahead is long and slow. And there isn’t a finish line as much as there is a healthy and hopefully pain free lifestyle to enjoy along the way.
I enjoy being in the sun. I feel energized by it. But my days of spending hours in the sun are over. This is magnified by the fact that I really hate wearing sunscreen. Maybe it’s because I grew up on a tropical island and used very little of it. Maybe it’s just the oily feel of it, but I just don’t like putting it on and having it on my skin all day.
So, I sit in the sun for 15-20 minutes with no protection, then I move to the shade. I get a nice dose of Vitamin D but I don’t overdo it, and I don’t need to layer on the sunscreen. Sun exposure has become one of many places where I practice the idea of ‘everything in moderation’.
Everything in moderation works so well on many fronts. Food and alcohol are other great examples. I eat very little treats and don’t eat a lot of sugary items in general. I don’t stuff myself even with my favourite foods. I usually only have one cup of coffee in a day, but if I’m at a breakfast meeting I might splurge and have 3. I rarely have 3 alcoholic drinks in a night and very seldom have a drink two nights in a row. In fact I can go a week or two without alcohol without realizing it or missing it.
Still, an occasional drink is nice to have, and so is a piece of chocolate cake, or some well seasoned potato chips. Moderation takes a lot less discipline than hard restrictions and I think generally leads to a more balanced and happier life. I think that’s why many diets don’t work, because they are about forced abstinence from foods you love and this is hard to continue over any extended time.
The way I cut down my sugar intake years ago was to try time restricted eating. I realized that I never ate anything healthy after dinner do I simply stopped having anything to eat after dinner, and would break-(my)-fast with something healthy in the morning… usually a protein shake with berries (natural sugars) in it. Delicious and enjoyable as well as healthy.
All this to say that it’s easy to find balance when balance is important to you. It feels healthy and enjoyable to moderate when moderation doesn’t feel like a hard restriction. I could spend longer in the sun but I then need to put sunscreen on or feel the pain of a sunburn. I could have a third drink in a night, but then I feel the pain of a hangover (because that’s all it takes to make me feel like crap).
Even exercising is something I do in moderation. Sure, I try to be active every day, but a full cardio work out for me is 20 minutes, and only ever an hour when I go for walks with my wife or a friend… not runs, walks. And recovering from a herniated disc, which I think might have been initiated from shovelling snow, not from working out, has led me to moderate my strength workouts even more. I have no desire to put myself back into pain under the guise of getting stronger.
Everything in moderation seems like such a good way to balance living a healthy life, and still enjoying life.
I spent 5 weeks taking pain killers that clouded my mind. Now I’m on the mend, and I’ve only been taking the meds at night since last Saturday. I have had a few conversations in the past couple days that lasted more than a couple minutes and I could actually stick with the conversation.
I look back at those fully medicated weeks and realize I barely remember them. What I do remember is feeling slowly better. Feeling gradually less pain. But it wasn’t fun making the choice between pain and a cloudy mind.
Now I can write without many edits. I don’t get lost for words. I remember the point I’m trying to make. It feels good. I’m not 100% yet, but I’m feeling so much better, so much clearer.
My goal now is not to push too hard. To continue to heal, and to get completely off the meds. The hardest part is not rushing, not doing too much. A younger me would have struggled with the slow pace, and probably headed straight into a setback, then started suffering all over again. I can’t guarantee that won’t happen, but I can do my part by taking things slow.
A younger, dumber me would probably still be trying to muscle through the pain. I guess clarity comes with age.
I remember teaching Grade 6/7’s about Nigerian fables. One of them was about a greedy animal during hard times. All the animals had collected food and stored it in a clearing to share, but each night some of the food went missing. To catch the culprit they put tar around the food and the thief got caught in it. The next day after an apology the other animals started trying to pull the animal out. He was extremely stuck and they yanked so hard that they stretched this animal and ripped of its legs.
The fable is about not being greedy, but the title is something like, “How snakes came to be.” I love when the moral is not explicit in the storytelling.
I got thinking about this for a totally different reason, one I’m far more explicit about in my title… the idea of getting unstuck. Sometimes we absolutely have to step out of our current experience in order to see what’s possible beyond where we currently are.
The saying, ‘No matter where you go, there you are,’ has come up a few times recently in conversation. This is only true if you let it happen, if you stay inside of the tiny box you put around yourself. There are people who travel all around the world and they look forward to seeing a Macdonald’s, Burger King, or Starbucks. They look to keep their world the same. But travel can give you so much more than that. There are people who keep friends that aren’t nice to them, who dismiss an entire genre of music, who stick to a plan and never take side adventures. None of these people might see themselves as stuck but they are.
For me personally, I’ve been stuck in pain and/or drowsiness for a couple months and while I’m slowly recovering, I am also stuck in the way my days go. I’m not following any healthy routines to consistently workout or meditate. I can still ride a stationary bicycle without causing any harm to the bulged disc in my neck. Meditation would actually be great right now and I’ve let my daily habit slip.
I’m going through slow (admittedly often dizzy) motions of the day waiting for moments of clarity, but when they come I don’t necessarily take advantage of them. I need to see beyond my current condition. I need to see what I what to accomplish in the future and I need to do things now to support that. I need first to have goals that I want to achieve beyond where I am now, then I need to move towards those goals.
Sometimes it only takes baby steps, sometimes it takes a massive leap. But you don’t get unstuck thinking ‘No matter where you go, there you are’. The issue with this is not about geography, it’s about moving who you are to who you want to be.
Yes, I went back home to my parents house after my father’s death, and spent no time alone except sleep and going to the bathroom.
Yes, I’m dealing with a herniated disc and choosing between feeling loopy on drugs or in pain.
Yes, I also fell and it took weeks for my knee to heal because the wound would re-open every time I bent my knee.
Yes, I’ve missed a few days posting here in the last few weeks. I’ve also had the least amount of exercise since I started tracking in January 2019. I’ve also missed more meditations than I have in that same time.
Yes, I’ve missed more work in the past month than I’ve missed in any 10 years of working combined.
Yes, I’m further behind in email than I ever have been… (I’m smart enough not to try to be on email when loopy or in pain).
Yes, I’m really hard on myself when I can’t do the things I think I should be doing.
But I also know how important these routines are for my mental health. It’s 10:45am and I’m finally out of bed and the loopy feeling of the drugs have worn off enough that while I’m not in pain, I feel that I can sit here and write this. I also feel like it’s not safe to walk on a treadmill, like I did for the first time in weeks last night before taking my meds for bed. Sitting in bed this morning I realized that I can lie on the floor and do some stretching. I can definitely meditate. I can listen to my body and go for walks outside, rather than navigating a treadmill.
I can’t rebuild the routines I had before all this just yet, but I can build new routines that keep me thinking positively rather than lying on my back with a pillow below my knees for most of the day. Well, actually that might still be a big part of my coming week, but at least I can (re)build i some routines that make me feel better both physically and mentally.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I have tremendous sympathy for anyone who lives with chronic pain. It inspires me to see people who deal with daily or constant pain and still live out their daily lives. For now, I just need to build in some routines that make me feel more human.
I need to un-break my break in routines… not trying to do what I did before… not trying to do too much and setting myself back. Just trying to build a new routine that lets me feel good. On that note, my neck and shoulder have told me that this is enough sitting and typing for a few hours, if not the rest of the day. I’m going to go lay on the floor, listen to some music, stretch and meditate. The best time to start a new habit is right now!
