Tag Archives: healthy living

Wacky weather

I’m back in Vancouver and went for my 8am walk with my buddy, Dave, up the Coquitlam Crunch this morning. It was slushy midway up and snowing at the top. Later in the day it snowed at my house.

Now, at shortly after 5pm, it’s gorgeous, sunny, and warm. It’s a beautiful spring day. That’s what you get in the Pacific North West near the mountains.

There are days when I’m scraping the frost off of my car in the morning, windshield wipers are going full speed at lunch due to rain, and I’ve got the air conditioner on or windows down in the late afternoon. I’m don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this wacky weather, it’s like experiencing completely different days within one day. It’s just wacky!

Pain and perspective

Over 25 years ago my back was in bad shape. I was so compressed that I lost almost two inches of height, and I was in pain every day… for 9 months. An amazing Physio changed my life in two sessions. I still remember the day I woke up without pain, two days after my second Physio appointment. I was in the shower trying to figure out what was wrong, and it was only when I was brushing my hair later that I realized what was ‘wrong’ was that my back wasn’t hurting.

For the past week and a half I’ve been feeling a dull but constant ache in my back and neck. It has affected my sleep, and almost every waking moment. Just having a conversation can be mental gymnastics as I try to pay attention to the subject matter and not be distracted by the ache of my back… an ever present dull roar that steals my attention away.

While I’m feeling a bit better tonight, and actually fell asleep for a few hours without interruption from the pain, I am reminded of the respect I have for people who live with pain daily. I know that while I feel this way now, I will have a time in the next week where my back issue will be resolved and this dull roar will go away.

For some people pain is a permanent part of their daily lives. Dealing with this constant ache reminds my to be more thoughtful and caring for those who suffer daily without the possibility of pending relief. Between my stint of 9 months in pain mentioned above and a later 6-month bout of chronic fatigue, I’ve had 2 moments in my life where I’ve thought, “Is this what my life is going to be like for the rest of my life?” In both cases the answer was ‘No’, but how different my life would be if that wasn’t the case. I’m reminded of this for a third time now, even though the pain I’m experiencing now has only been around for less than 2 weeks.

For anyone who lives with daily pain, I truly empathize. And for those who live the luxury of a mostly pain-free life, remember to be kinder and more thoughtful towards those that do suffer. Chronic pain is a horrible master, and we aren’t built to be servants to it. So when we are faced with daily pain, it takes a lot of energy to live a happy and fulfilled life. It’s challenging to stay positive and to have gratitude. Pain management is challenging with long term pain in a way that is hard to understand by someone who has only experienced short term pain. This past week and a half has humbled me and reminded me of this.

Realistic targets

Whenever I see people get on diets or start jumping into crazy workout schedules I think about how long they will last? Is this a lifestyle change or a temporary change? And often the ones that are temporary are focused on unrealistic targets that they are very unlikely to get to.

Have a listen to James Smith’s TikTok about ‘Optimal’ targets (oh, and be prepared for some f-bombs and colourful language):

I wrote a post recently about optimization rather than maximization, and it was somewhat similar, but this really hits the nail on the head.

Good habits, optimizing small patterns of behaviour, and living a good life without ridiculous sacrifices or hours upon hours of relentless dedication. Not 3 hour a day workouts, but at least 45 minutes five days a week. Not broccoli and chicken every day, but being thoughtful about junk food and making smart choices.

Not unachievable targets, but realistic goals over long periods of time where you’ve maintained good habits for eating, sleeping, and working out. Fit for life, not looking fit for my holiday bathing suit. Healthy living, not perfect diets and workouts. Because when the bar is set too high, when you believe the fitness magazines that tell you how to get a 6-pack in 6 weeks, you are not seeing thé tremendous sacrifices those abs require. We need to set a realistic destination, then enjoy the journey.

Pain and discomfort

For the past couple years my back has been pretty good. By pretty good I mean that I’m often feeling discomfort, but I’m not feeling pain. I exercise, stretch, get deep massages, and visit my hot tub to keep my back as healthy as possible. But sometimes I trigger some pain and it builds.

Yesterday was rough. My mid back felt like I was constantly flexing and all the muscles around it tightened to protect my back from crashing. Sitting or standing, I felt no relief. On the pain scale, I was only at about a 3/10, but on the discomfort scale it was a full 9/10. And while the discomfort scale can be more tolerable than the pain scale, I haven’t had this level of discomfort in a long time and it wore me down.

After work I had a chance to go out with some of my favourite people for dinner, and I went home after appetizers. I couldn’t even hang out with awesome people. Instead I went home to take pain relief and sit in my hot tub.

I feel better this morning. Today I will stretch for a long time, and hopefully my back won’t seize up again. It can affect my capacity to deal with things at work and at home. It wears me down when I’m in constant discomfort or pain. And although I separate the two, I think constant discomfort can be as bad as constant pain. It isn’t as acute, but it wears me down just the same. It’s just semantics really, discomfort and pain are both miserable scales when you have to deal with them.

Sometimes a push is needed

I’m not a fan of the cold. I share this fact openly. I’ve also shared that I do a weekly walk with my buddy Dave called the Coquitlam Crunch. Well here is my text conversation with Dave last night:

I’m going to be totally honest, I was fishing for the opportunity to skip the Crunch. But here’s the thing… it was fine! I dressed warmly, we had ‘clamp-ons’ to put over our shoes to grip the snow, and I’m really glad that we did it. That was crunch number 92 since we started back in January 2021.

It’s good to have friends that don’t let us have the easy out. So often our anticipation and avoidance is actually worse than doing the thing we need to do. And when we don’t want to do it, friends can either help us step up, or they can keep us in the ‘easy zone’. Easy to do and good for us are seldom the same path.

The right friend knows when to push… and that friend is far better than the one letting you off the hook, or worse yet, talking you out of the better path.

Dreams and goals

A few years back I had hoped to learn how to do an unassisted handstand for at least 30 seconds. But after a while I stopped training for it. I know I have the strength for it now, but I simply haven’t put the time in practicing the necessary skills. I could tell you all kinds of reasons why I never followed through, but the reality is that anything I share would be an excuse I could have avoided or worked around. So what’s the real reason? It was a dream but not a goal.

I like the idea of it, I’m just not willing to do the work. In the time since then I’m fitter, stronger, healthier, and I’d even say more capable. But I didn’t give it the time it needed. I didn’t put in the required work. Maybe one day I will, but not right now.

Sometimes it’s hard to admit to yourself that a dream was just that, a lofty idea about something that might happen, and not an actual goal. But admitting this is quite comforting in a way. I have hit a lot of health-related targets in the past few years, I’m happy with my progress. Sure I could beat myself up about failing to achieve a dream… or I could realize that not every dream is something I have to strive for.

This isn’t trying to make the point to give up your dreams, or to strive. On the contrary, it’s to recognize that when you have too many things you are dreaming about and trying to bring into reality the less likely you are to achieve any of them. I think the questions to ask are:

Do I really want this?

How hard am I willing to work for it?

What’s the next step?

And,

What’s the plan?

Because a dream won’t become an achievable goal until you can answer these questions, implement a plan, and develop the habits that dedicate time to your dream. Some things are better left as dreams, while others should get the time they deserve. But that shouldn’t stop you from dreaming… just know the difference.

Disengaged

It’s apparent in schools, it’s apparent in the workforce… there are students and young adults who are disengaged with societal norms and constructs around school and work. They are questioning why they need to conform? Why they need to participate? There is a dissatisfaction with complying with expectations that schools is necessary, or that a ‘9-5’ job is somehow meaningful.

Some will buck the norm, find innovative alternatives, and create their own niches in the world. Others, many others, will struggle, wallow in unhappiness, and fight mental health demons that will leave them feeling defeated, or riddled with anxiety, or fully disengaged with a world they feel they don’t fit in. Some will escape this, some will find pharmaceutical ways to reduce or enhance their disconnect. Some of these will be doctor prescribed, others will be legally or illegally self-prescribed.

The fully immersive worlds of addictive, time-sucking on-demand television series, first-person online games, and glamorous, ‘living my best life’, ‘you will never be as happy as me’ illusions on social media certainly don’t help. Neither does unlimited access to porn, violence, and anti-Karen social justice warriors dishing out revenge and hate in the name of justice. The choices are fully immersed, unhappily jealous, or infuriatingly angry… and disengaged with the world. Real life is not as interesting, and not as engaging as experiences that our technological tools can provide. School is hard, a full day at work is boring, and it’s easier to disengage than participate.

The question is, will this disengaged group find their way? Or will they find themselves in their 30’s living in their parent’s basements or subsisting on minimal income, working only enough to survive, and never enough to thrive?

School and work can’t compete with the sheer entertainment value this group gets from disengaging, so what’s the path forward? We can’t make them buy in if they refuse, and we can’t let school-aged students wallow in a school-less escapes from an engaged and full life. I don’t have any solutions, but I have genuine concerns for a growing number of disengaged young adults who seem dissatisfied with living in a world they don’t feel they can participate meaningfully in.

What does the future hold for those who disengage by choice?

The need for sleep

The last few months I’ve needed more sleep than usual. It’s not a surprise, between covid in November and an awful cough to start the year, I have mostly been in recovery mode for a few months now. I can usually get between 6 and 7 hours of sleep a night and consistently feel refreshed. That’s not enough right now and I’m letting myself sleep longer. This is a good thing… I know how important sleep is and I don’t think I get enough of it.

Back when I started my career I used to live on even less sleep. I’d go 3-4 days with 5 hours or less sleep, then catch up with 6-7 hours, and do it all over again. One very tired day when I was running on too little sleep my buddy Mark said to me, “Dave, you’re burning your candle on both ends, you are killing yourself… you’re going to die 10 years younger if you keep doing this to yourself.” The following night I sent him an email at about 1:30 in the morning, it read, “Yeah, I might die 10 years younger but I did the math and if you live to 80 and I only live to 70, I’ll have been awake longer than you.”

While the math was correct, and it’s kind of funny, there is a lot of research around the importance of sleep and I don’t tend to get as much as I should even now. I used to wear ‘I don’t need a lot of sleep’ like some sort of badge of honour. But sleep is essential, and I’m hoping that I can figure out a way to get more without feeling like I’m taking away from my day.

I don’t think I’ll ever be someone who sleeps 8-9 hours a night, and in fact I start to develop a headache when I’m in bed that long, but I hope to make 7-8 hours the norm with only an occasional 6-7 hour night. That would be dreamy. 😜

Consistently showing up

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’ve listened to it twice and have white-boarded some ideas I hope to share with students as soon as things settle down a bit.

So when I saw that James was a recent guest on the Tim Ferriss podcast, I had to start listening.

Yesterday morning after waking up a bit later than usual, and taking a little longer than usual to write, I wasn’t sure if I had time for my workout. But rather than skip it, I decided to do a 10 minute row instead of 20 minute stationary bike, and then do 3 quick sets of tricep pull downs with elastic bands rather than weights… Less than the usual plan, but a workout nonetheless!

As I was rowing, I was listening to the podcast and came across this gem of a quote:

Here it is in-text quote:

The first thing is I give myself permission to reduce the scope but stick to the schedule. So if my typical workout takes 45 minutes, but I only have 15 that day, it’s easy to get into the story where you’re like, ‘Ah, I don’t have time to do it all, like why bother?’ But instead, I try to remind myself to reduce the scope and stick to the schedule, and there’s been a lot of days where all I have time for is to go in and do a couple sets of squats, but I’m glad that I did that rather than doing nothing, and it counts for a lot to, like, not throw a zero up for another day. In a sense, in the long run I almost feel like the bad days matter more than a good days, because if you showing up on the bad days, even if it’s less than what you had hoped for you maintain the habit. And if you maintain that habit, then all you need a time, so it counts for a lot. You also prove to yourself, you know, you can look yourself in the mirror at the end the night, and be like, ‘You know what, circumstances weren’t ideal, situation wasn’t perfect, but I still found a way to show up and, you know, like get some reps in today.’

It was so timely for me to hear this. I was on the row machine on a morning where I had reduced the scope but stuck to the schedule. I couldn’t do what was ideal, but I didn’t skip the workout. I showed up. And hearing this I went from feeling kind of guilty that I was cutting my routine short to realizing that I stuck with it. I did it anyway. I didn’t have a zero workout day. Because in the end consistency really matters, and a lighter, faster workout is still a workout.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to get on my exercise bike and put a bit more time into my workout today.

Incrementally better

I’ve had a cough for 18 days now. The first week was really rough, then I started to feel a bit better. Each day has been slightly better than the day before. Each night has been a slightly better night, with less coughing and waking up… but it has been really slow progress.

This is a challenge with ‘getting better’ in general, not just from recovering from this nasty flu. When we are trying to work out and get stronger, when we are looking for gains in our fitness, we often see them pretty quick in the beginning, but then we get on a slow path of small gains that are hard to notice.

We want to see great gains. We want to be instantly rewarded for our hard work. But the gains are incremental and sometimes unnoticeable for long periods of time. The personal best achievements don’t come every day. And we don’t always notice the gains when we want to. We quickly notice the setbacks, but not always the gains.

Recovering so slowly has made me see improvements I usually ignore… because I’m looking for them, and I’m appreciative of any improvement. But working out I don’t pay attention to tiny gains in pursuit of bigger ones.

I’m going to be a bit more appreciative of the tiny gains in my fitness from now on. I’ll look for them, and know that I’m getting incrementally better. Who knows, these small moments of appreciation might even make me incrementally happier. 😁