Tag Archives: lifestyle

What I need

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I’m going to be joining a gym. I feel that I need to.

Sure I have a pretty good home gym. Sure I have been disciplined, working out on average 6 days a week. Sure it’s convenient not to leave the house early in the morning, and not add 25 minutes in my car getting to and from the gym. These are all wonderful perks of working out at home, and they’ve served me well for almost 7 years… but I need something else.

I need the camaraderie of working out with a friend.

I need a facility that will provide me with machines that I can work my legs without putting pressure on my back.

I need a place where I’m motivated to do more than my one-muscle-group workouts I’ve been doing at home.

I need to be around other people working hard to make themselves feel better.

But above all that, what I also need is to rebalance my morning routine to include longer workouts and travel time. I’ve loved my morning routine. I’ve developed great habits where my motivation to get going sits at zero and I still get everything done… it’s robotic, finish one task, immediately head to the next. Stacked habits that just happen once I wake up in the morning.

This morning I went to the gym for the first time and I’m writing this when I’m usually getting out of the shower to go to work. I’ll be arriving at work later than usual today, not late for work, just later than the norm. I also haven’t done my morning meditation, which will need to be moved to the evening. So already I see that things will need to change. And with that change, the autopilot gets turned off.

So, I need to create new systems, a different stacking of my habits, such that it gets re-automated. I’m sure I’ll have to pump up my motivation until that happens, but I’m so ready for this change.

This is what I need right now.

Mantra: Avoid injury

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I know that ‘Avoid injury’ is not a great mantra because it’s a negative… a thing to steer clear of, rather than to head towards… but ‘staying safe’, or ‘being smart’ don’t get the same message across. So, ‘avoid injury’ is the thing I’m going to focus on in the gym, and in general, as I continue my healthy living journey.

I’ve been on a health kick since the start of 2019. Back then, I was the heaviest I’ve ever been, about 6-8 pounds heavier than I am now, and my belly was where I wore most of my excess. I dropped just over 25 pounds in less than 2 years, then I started putting some muscle on. I’ve put back on almost 20 pounds of muscle, at least half of which came in the last year and a half.

The biggest difference in the last year and a half has been my protein intake. I started having a protein shake for breakfast 4 years ago, but then instead of seeing that as enough, I started thinking of that as an insufficient base, which I supplemented daily. For example, adding a protein bar at work, and/or 2 hard boiled eggs as an extra boost in addition to my regular meals, and eating more protein at meal time.

This extra protein plus my efforts in the gym have really paid off. So much so that my wardrobe has needed an upgrade. I’ve still got quite a few things that used to fit me loosely, which now look like something I’m trying to show off in. The long sleeve sports shirt I’m in now used to fit over top of another shirt, now it’s tight on me without an undershirt.

My new goal has been to add 6-8 more pounds, reaching my all time high again, but with a totally transformed physique. Oddly enough, I think I’m at my ideal weight now, but I still have back issues and I’m always one stupid move away from a debilitating injury that will prevent me from working out for an extended period. So I work on strengthening my back, stretching, massages, and hot tubs to keep injury at bay. Because it is likely that some time in the next 10-15 years I could have an injury keep we away from the gym, and I could lose muscle then… never to get it back since it gets harder every year to add more muscle. I figure if I’m 6-10 pounds heavier in the next year, a bad injury scenario would set me back to this weight, rather than something less than ideal.

Thus my mantra, ‘avoid injury’. I like to lift heavy weights, but going too heavy could mean an injury. I like to play sports, but going too hard in a game like basketball could put me out of commission. I often have an ache in my back that makes me have to take it easy, pushing hard while my back hurts is a really bad idea that could leave me injured and out of the gym and off the treadmill for weeks or even months. Avoid injury.

This summer I was visiting a friend and we scootered to a pizza place for dinner. We had a couple beers with dinner and I told him we were going to Uber back. I don’t scooter much, we didn’t have helmets or any protective gear, and I wasn’t going to chance scootering home with my poor tolerance to alcohol these days. 10 years ago, there’s no way I would have made this decision, I would have scootered back to his place, but the wisdom of ‘avoid injury’ was on my mind.

The biggest issue with this mantra isn’t that it’s negative, it’s that it always has to be playing in my head: When I wake up feeling sore before a morning workout; when I go to do something as simple as tossing a ball or frisbee around; when I’m on a ladder; when I want to add weight to a set I’m doing in the gym…

The name of the game from this age on is staying healthy, staying strong, and keeping injuries at bay. Ultimately, avoiding injury is now a lifelong goal. I’m simply not going to bounce back from an injury like I did 20+ years ago, and so my mantra will keep me feeling as young as possible for as long as possible. Avoid injury!

Purpose, meaning, and intelligent robots

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Yesterday I wrote Civilization and Evolution, and said, “We have built ‘advanced’ cages and put ourselves in zoos that are nothing like the environment we are supposed to live in.”

I’m now thinking about how AI is going to change this? When most jobs are done by robots, who are more efficient and cost effective than humans, what happens to the workforce? What happens to work? What do we do with ourselves when work isn’t the thing we do for most of our adult lives?

If intelligent robots can do most of the work that humans have been doing, then what will humans do? Where will people find their purpose? How will we construct meaning in our day? What will our new ‘even-more-advanced’ cages look like?

Will we be designing better zoos for ourselves or will we set ourselves free?

Phone Presence

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I’m writing this on my phone. My laptop is only 20 feet away from me and I’d definitely write faster on it, yet here I am on the couch tapping away with one finger at about 1/4 the pace of typing on a real keyboard. I could use voice to text but I find that I am not as reflective when I speak rather that type my thoughts. If I was writing more than a few hundred words, I’d probably head to my laptop, but I’ve gotten very used to writing my blog on my phone and will continue to do so most days.

Phones have become an essential part of our environment that we kind of live in as well as on. We’ve developed a sort of autopoiesis – a kind of a living system that allows it to maintain and renew itself by regulating its own composition and maintaining its own boundaries. It’s sort of a symbiotic relationship where we feed the phone with time and energy, and it self-perpetuates by giving us information, connections, entertainment and other functions.

Our phones help dictate how we interact with our environment and how the environment interacts with us. Phones have become ‘our environment’ that pulls us away from being present in the world beyond our phones. Case in point, there is a very high probability that you are choosing to read this on your phone.

I, for one, spend too much time on my phone. I am slowly learning to change that. I’m not checking email into the night, and I actually have all email notifications turned off. I am going to start keeping my phone on the counter instead of in my pocket for periods of time in the evening. And I’m going to continue to keep my phone on ‘Do not Disturb’ for most of the day, with my family and a handful of closest friends having the ability to ping me when it’s on this mode.

If I’m honest, I will still live in my ‘phone environment’ a fair bit, but I want more choice about when and how much time I live in its presence.

I’m back

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Just spent a week at my sister’s house visiting her family and my mom. I managed to get 4 nice hilly walks in, and a casual bike ride, but by far this was the longest I’ve gone without really working out in years. I’ll count the walks as exercise days, but now I’m home and about to hit the treadmill and weights for a nighttime workout session.

Usually I find ways to do way more exercise on holidays. I did do some pushups and leg dips one day, but if I’m honest, I had the time to do that or other body weight workouts on more of the days than I did… I just didn’t do it.

This isn’t me beating myself up for taking most of the week off. Rather it’s recognition that it can be easy to let things slide if I don’t pay attention. At home, my routines make things easy. I wake up, I get a workout done. It’s that simple. On holidays I need to either: build in a routine or make a conscious effort to workout. Or if it’s a week or less, give myself permission to have an easy week.

That said, I’m back home and my basement gym is calling me.

Habits and motivation

I’ve got my weight vest on. However, I don’t want to get on the treadmill, which is why I’m wearing the vest. I want to crawl under my blankets and not think about having to shovel the driveway later.

But yesterday was a rest day and I refuse to be someone who misses two days in a row. My habit of regular exercise is part of my identity. Am I motivated right now? Hell no! Am I going to work out immediately after writing this? Absolutely!

Make your habits about who you are and not what you do… and you don’t need motivation… you just get it done.

Create experiences

This is something I’ve thought a bit about over the years. As time passes, and I’m looking ahead at retirement, I think about the time I have left with family and friends. I wonder how do I create experiences rather than just reminiscing? When we meet up, are we doing something together or are we reflecting and sharing stories of the past?

This isn’t to say reminiscing isn’t enjoyable, but simply identifying that this shouldn’t be what we do every time we get together. Are we doing something active? Are we doing something novel? Are we creating opportunities to experience something new? Are we designing our time together or just letting time pass.?

It’s easy to live a life of ‘rinse and repeat’, going through the day-to-day routine and taking both people and time for granted… ‘they will always be there’… ‘there will always be more time’. There is comfort in those beliefs, but also caution. Are we just going through the motions of life with little emotion? Or are we creating experiences that will give us future reasons to reminisce the next time we meet?

The Grind 2024

My buddy Dave does the Grouse Grind once every year, close to his birthday. I did it with him a couple years ago, and back then we did it in just over an hour.

According to the website, “The Grouse Grind® is a 2.5-kilometre trail up the face of Grouse Mountain, commonly referred to as “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster”.”

Well, thanks to Dave pushing me, I just broke the 1 hour mark this year.

Dave did a bit faster than me. We took a 3 minute water break for my sake at the 1/2 way point and I had to slow down at the 3/4 mark. When I saw at this point that we were at 45 minutes in, I told Dave not to wait for me because I didn’t want to be the reason he didn’t break an hour.

So I finished at 59:52 and Dave made it to the top in 58:00. This climb is almost the same distance as our Coquitlam Crunch we do weekly but it’s 3 times the elevation, and takes us more than twice as long to the peak.

I’m not going to lie, nothing about this hour climb is fun. It’s gruelling from the time your heart rate spikes near the bottom and it is a push all the way to the top. But it feels great to know that we can still push ourselves to this level, and to actually do it faster than last time is an accomplishment.

That said, I’m happy to put off doing it again for another year. We’ll squeeze in another 40 Crunch climbs in before then.

Thanks for the push Dave, I expect the same next year.

The right to disconnect

I’ve already shared my vampire rule for email:

“After 6 PM staff only get emails from me if the email is invited in. In other words, if they have asked me a question and want an answer, then a response has been invited. But if that invitation for a response isn’t there, I delay email delivery until the next morning.

So like a vampire at the front door, I can’t enter (with email) if I have something to share that is not initiated (and therefore invited in) by my staff. New topics are set to be delivered early the next morning.”

Yesterday a parent wanted me to contact one of my online teachers, who is on her last week of summer holidays, to get her son started in a course. I said no. I told the parent that I would send a scheduled message to the teacher the first day back (and I did), but that I was not interrupting my teacher’s holidays.

The Australia government just protected employees “right to disconnect”. According to a CNN report, “As of Monday, people won’t have to answer out of hours calls, texts, or emails.”

Laws are one way to ensure it, but I don’t think we need laws to be thoughtful and respectful about work/life boundaries. I think we can choose thoughtfulness over convenience, and be respectful of people’s time and attention. Like I mentioned to the parent (who was very understanding), if I interrupt a teacher’s holiday for this, there is no specific line I can draw to respect the teacher’s rights to a holiday.

We can all probably draw better boundaries between work and the rest of our lives, but what’s more important is that no matter where we draw our own lines does not allow us to choose for others too. Regardless of where our lines are, we need to be respectful of other people’s rights to unplug and disconnect from work when they are away from work.

Somatic Recovery

Yesterday I tweaked my back. It was not a full crash, but the pain was intense and my mid left back was giving me both pain and warning signals that told me I was in for a world of discomfort in the coming days. However, I have house guests, and Servaas Mes is a somatics expert.

What is somatics?

Somatics is studying the body from a first person perspective. Medicine is from the third person. It is about mobilizing awareness: both movement and emotions.

It is about moving from movement without awareness (somatic amnesia) to movement you are aware of. Somatic movements are based on innate movement patterns evolved when we were young.

Injuries, surgeries, stress, trauma, or habituated movements, are examples of things that create somatic amnesia in our bodies. So the process of mobilizing awareness is to recalibrate our authentic movement patterns. This is foundational for healthy aging.

But for me at this moment is was about injury recovery. Servaas put me through several gentle exercises to get me both moving fluidly and thinking about my movements as I did them. I’m used to deep muscle manipulation and focusing on individual muscles, but these movements were about using muscles in combination, and stopping myself from using my muscles in isolation.

I had a session yesterday and went from pain and limited mobility to discomfort and greater range. After a session today I was pain free. I won’t pretend I didn’t feel my back a few times during the day. I won’t tell you that I’m ‘fixed’, but I’m on a path to recovery that would usually take 1-2 weeks and it’s the day after I triggered my back crash.

Now it’s up to me to continue with the exercises. The hard part for me is twofold. First I need to connect physically, even emotionally, to the exercises, recognizing how my body wants to cheat and avoid full range of motion. I need to stay aware of how my body wants to move versus how it should move, and I tend to struggle with this kind of awareness.

Secondly I need to wrap my head around the gentleness of the movements. I feel like I’m not doing enough, or that these subtle movements aren’t worth doing because the effort is more intellectual than strenuous. Yet, I can distinctly see how one side of my body moves so much easier than the other during these stretches.

I am aware that I’m on a journey to move better; to improve not just my flexibility, but my ability to use my body more freely, more childlike, and less like an old man who can trigger a back spasm by taking a large breath. This is a somatic journey, and one I’ve only just started.