When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance. [Lee Ann Womack - I Hope You Dance*]

Yesterday, on my ‘experience’ wanderings (that’s what I like to call them) I happened into a bar where a few, maybe 30 or so, people were learning to salsa.  As a side line, at £5 a head, that is not a bad little pocket money enterprise.   Salsa is big in the UK and I think most major cities have at least one salsa night at some local establishment.  Dozy Wolverhampton apparently has three!  Members of my family have occasionally tried to tempt me into ‘trying’ it.  It got me thinking.

I do not believe there are bad dancers; I believe that most bad dancers are people dancing to music that is not them.   Dancing to me is like dreaming awake, the music takes you on a journey in your head and your body wants to go with the flow.  Your thoughts are your body’s teacher and the dance may change depending on the mood, depending on the music.  It has been said that music and by extension dance is something we are born with – that is why mothers sing to their babies – and every human culture has music and dance.  It is part of being human.

I don’t like salsa or other types of learned dancing, a fact my mother realised when she stopped trying to teach me to waltz and foxtrot and that other nonsense.  I am a thinking man, translating other people’s actions into my own takes time and when the motivation is not there, it tends not to happen.   Yet I dance all the time. With young people in my household, music is always a background noise and if I like a song, I might do a quick few steps or a few more at anytime, just like that, sometimes to the embarrassment of my children.

Seriously though, if you have been told you can’t dance, you can, find the right music and keep dancing.  If you don’t dance, start right now, it is like a breath of fresh air for all of those 3 minutes worth of song.  Do it alone, do it with others whatever you do take a little time to dance.  If you really must take some salsa lessons near you and you get to dance with lots of girls/boys….

And here’s a plus.  My dear 60 plus mother, no actual age given due to the danger of her spoiling her chances of finding me a new step-father, has used her love of dancing to lose weight and keep it off.  She has done fantastically well.  With over 300 songs on her MP3 player – she is hardly likely to get bored very soon and she spends just an hour a day dancing away in her own little piece of heaven.  Not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, you could use that for exercise instead of the tedious gym trips.  I plan to dig up some dance music later, time to follow my own advice.

May you find the balance.

*written by Mark D. Sanders and Tia Sillers

In exactly one month’s time, I will change my status once again from employed to self employed.  Since it has been a long time since I have took stock of where I am, now would seem to be an appropriate time to do so.  This is where I think I am currently…..

Note, I said self employed as opposed to unemployed even though it is hard to claim self employment with the current income outside my salary in the 10s as opposed to in the 1000s.  This employment status change, and the other change charging towards me stemming from it, comes with some heavy emotional baggage and I will not be telling the truth if I were not to admit that I am somewhat apprehensive, maybe a bit more like frightened.  After all, the recent change of UK Government does not bode well for the under and unemployed.  When you make a commitment to change, a chain reaction is set in motion. This may be the reason that many people find change scary.

Having said that, the anticipation of being able to pursue projects that have been on the back burner for some time now and the thrill of having the time to do so has my mind working overtime.  There is one thing that the unemployed and under employed are rich in, time.  I plan to make full use of my time to create an exciting new phase of my life.  Will to be successful?  Who knows?  I have I track record so far, after all, I’m still here am I not?

I do not forget that I can be thankful that I have this opportunity.  I truly appreciate the fact that many people, many, many people do not ever get the opportunity to try to achieve their plans and schemes.  I try to find the time early in the morning to contemplate both this fact and other things and to feel at one with the universe for a while.  This spiritual time has fallen victim to the racing mind lately though.

Physically, I have not been too brilliant.  Still too much drink, too much nasty fatty foods and too little exercise.  I know I need to do something to be healthier but currently I am not stressing too much about it.  Too much excitement and the knowledge that in just under a month, I will be able to set aside time for exercise.  Then I’ll have to work on the drink and food.  Like I said though I am not stressing too much which oddly enough has reduced the odd aches and pains that seem to plague me a few weeks ago.

Overall, I feel good and so I will enjoy for now.

May you find the balance.

Apparently Naomi Campbell goes on the maple syrup diet – syrup mixed with cayenne pepper, lemon juice and water – three times a year.  Beyoncé is said to have done that one as well adding laxative tea every night and a sea-salt water in the morning.  Jennifer Aniston is, allegedly, on a new baby food diet and Liz Hurley once  lived on a bowl of cabbage soup a day.  These tit-bits cam to me courtesy of Naomi Campbells maple madness and my favourite quote in the article is “The awful thing about these diets is the joylessness of them. The sheer, sapping unhappiness they must involve.”

Another ‘thing’ about these diets is that they tend to be short term, a quick bout of sacrifice a couple of times a year to keep the flab at bay.  Healthy? Many nutritionists will tell you certainly not. 

Whilst we cannot deny the growing rate of our overweight, all the attention to obesity has lead to a social stigma being attached to being overweight with regular insults of ‘fat sl*g’, ‘fat f**t’ etc becoming a sort of national insult.   Throw in the health issues the scientists and the press love to trumpet on a weekly basis and your well being is threatened by the fact that you’ve failed to lose any noticeable weight.

Chocolate Cereals

One thing that being on an Atkins like diet (low carbohydrate that is), is how there is an emphasis on a life style change.  It has to be because as soon as you finish your diet and revert back to ‘chocolate cereals’ (when did this happen?), your body will revert back to type and pile the pounds back and usually quicker than you lost it.  Trust me, I’ve been and still am there!

To stay the long term requires that the diet is sustainable.  Any diet that leaves you hungry, tired or irritable is not going to last. I enjoyed my diet but I think I lost my battle because I have a family who did not feel the need to join me in my low carb world and I could not keep up the hassle of trying to avoid foods that are so prevalent in our society from buying lunch to preparing separate dishes at home.  I admire those families where one or the other is a vegetarian and accommodate those different diets.  In most case I know of, anyway, the meat eater gets to eat meat outside the home.

I can’t say honestly that I am desperately unhappy with my weight but there are times when I worry that whenever I feel unwell, it may be because of the weight.  Also I avoid looking too long in the mirror without clothes on J.

I have slowly being pressuring myself to lose some weight and get some exercise because I know it will make me feel better, more content.  I will get round to it and you will have the fun of reading about it here.

In the meantime, avoid the hype.  If you want to diet, find the long term solution for you and recognise it may take time for the weight to go.  Most of all use common sense and maintain some sort of balance.

Related Post : Experts and Vested Interests

For the first time in Scotland a family who donated their dead relatives organs and the person that received one of them have met.  See BBC News – Mother meets girl who received sons liver.  This story made me feel good about the fact that I have chosen and made known that I wish to be an organ donor after I ‘kick the bucket’.  If you have thought about it and not done anything about it, now is the time – click here (UK only) and do it now.  Then add yourself to the ‘Wall of Life’ – my profile is here.

Just imagine that even if you do not do acheive anything of note in this world, you could be the reason that someone else or their decendants  may be a very special human being - saving lives, travelling to another universe, saving the planet.  Also it will make you feel good, which is not a bad thing!

May you find the balance.

It struck me very strongly this week that in the week that Auschwitz survivors mark Holocaust Memorial Day (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8482760.stm), I happen to be reading Viktor E Frankel’s “Man’s Search for Meaning“, Dr. Frankel was an Auschwitz survivor.  In the same week, news coming out of the disaster in Haiti cumulated with the story of a teenage girl who was pulled from the rubble of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, 15 days after the earthquake struck (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/americas/8484317.stm).

These events reminded me of a poem I wrote many years ago entitled ‘Lie Down and Die’ which I think I wrote around the time our TV screens, at least in Europe, where filled with images of Ethiopian children dying of starvation.  The poem questioned why someone why they just didn’t roll over and die when faced with some of the most horrible experiences that any being can bear.  Dr Frankel uses his experiences in the concentration camps to try and explain why people hold on and how that can help those who feel they can’t keep going.  I will probably return to this discussion in some future post as the first part of the book is fascinating reading.

I am not sure but somehow these events this week may have finally made me commit to registering as an organ donor (http://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/) and adding my picture and my 2 pence worth to the Wall of Life (www.walloflife.org.uk), after all I can’t take anything with me when the ‘deal is done’.  If anything, there will be at least one reason for my existence, my life and like I said on the wall, I can’t take it with me wherever I am going after this…..

The point though is that your life, all our lives, has to be worthwhile. Live it, live it and at the same time try to be content, be happy, it only comes round once.  It is your duty to show to yourself and all those who look to you how to make life worthwhile and from that worth, hopefully, will come contentment and peace.

May you find the balance.

I am trying to get back in to my walk routine after my unintentional mini break and it has been a mixed bag.  Wednesday was very slow and I did feel a bit woozy on the last lap but I persevered and completed.  Yesterday, I felt so much better that my last lap was in the realms of my average lap speed.

Today is a worry.  On weekends, I tend to try and do four laps as opposed to the normal three as I have more time and it makes a nice round 6 km walk, excluding warm up and cool down stroll.   On the third lap I felt so woozy and light headed I bought an energy drink to boost me up.  Not much help, so I did a slow finish of the third lap and went home.  Shower, breakfast of a cheese and vegetable omelette and a two hour lie down does not seemed to have energised me at all.

I thought I would take the opportunity to do some investigation in this blog entry.  I may even need a chocolate bar after the effort!

Since I have had my cold, I have still been eating 3 times a day and even had fruit in between – and me not much of a fruit eater – but much smaller portions.  I rarely eat junk food as in chocolate bars and crisps and the such like since my last diet.  I am currently insisting in having my food being served in a dinner bowl rather than a plate.  If you lived in my house, you would understand why.  However, I will discount food intake for now.

Let’s take my drink intake prior to my flu/cold or whatever I have.  I was having some 6 to 8 drinks a day, so at 165 calories per 500ml (around 187 calories a pint), I was consuming some 990 to 1320 calories from lager a day.  Alcohol itself contains 7 calories per gram but most alcoholic drinks also contain carbohydrates. By my calculations, lager contains 12 grams of carbohydrates per 500ml.  This is where my calculations go a little wry, for according to Wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate) carbohydrate contains 3.75 kilocalories per gram which gives me 45 calories for 500ml.   In a 500ml can, 4% alcohol content would give me some 20 grams @ 7 calories per gram of alcohol making 140 calories, so in total 185 calories – some 20 more than what it says on the can!  The problem of labeling was covered in a recent New Scientist article http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327173.300-the-burning-truth-about-calories.html.

According to some calculations on the internet (http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm) I am only burning some 520 calories per walk leaving me with more than a 400 calories deficit!  By these calculations, I should have been putting on weight.  However, over the last 4 and half months, I have not put on weight though I have not lost any either hovering round the 113kg range all this time.

If I needed any proof of the fact that ‘calories are not all created equally’ (http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/02/25/the-science-of-fat-loss-why-a-calorie-isnt-always-a-calorie/), this is it.
Human body mechanism is such like that it processes, metabolises, alcohol before fats, proteins and carbohydrates. So, consumption of alcohol slows down the fat burning process, thereby slowing any weight loss program.

Alcohol is removed from the bloodstream by a combination of metabolism, excretion, and evaporation. Typically about 90 to 98% is metabolised and up to 10% can be excreted in urine.  It is removed from the bloodstream at a fairly constant rate but this varies between individuals. Experienced male drinkers with a high body mass may process up to 30 grams per hour, but typically the figure is 10 grams per hour (approximately 100 to 200 mg/kg of body weight per hour).  Women metabolise alcohol slower than men.  I suspect my process rate to be around the 18 grams per hour as I do not seem to be effected consuming a 500ml can every 40 minutes or so.  Any faster than that and I soon feel the effect of the alcohol.  By this token, however, by the time I take my morning walk, I had no more alcohol energy to give!

So it boils down to food, doesn’t it?  My evening meals were being stored, since alcohol was energy source of choice at the time.  I was trying to burn off that energy with my walk but I think I had got to stalemate, hence no weight loss.

Now, on the other hand, I am eating less and drinking considerably less.  My walk still requires its 520 calories (if I can believe this figure) some of which I appear unable to produce at the requisite time on the third lap of my walk resulting im my apparent weakness and light headedness?

Assuming my diagnosis is correct, I now have some choices to be made.  I otherwise increase my intake of quick energy – i.e. simple carbohydrates or I need to switch to getting some fat burning going on by following a ‘low carb’ or ’slow carb’ diet.

Choices, choices.

Some links to follow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_weight

http://walking.about.com/cs/fitnesswalking/l/blmileskm.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking

May you find the balance.

It is quite amazing just how many people take expert advice at face value, even the Government does it. When I mention that I was walking as exercise, people look at me like I have lost it. And yet, walking is good exercise and a few keep fit sites do have articles on this form of exercise though usually aimed at the ‘oldies’.  The playing down of walking as exercise is very much about vested interests of the fitness industry, after all, who will pay to walk?

It reminds of the furor over the ‘Atkins’ diet and the overhyping of incidents of stupid people who could not follow instructions to feed the hesteria.  Who made the most noise then? The potato and wheat/flour industries, of course.  They are happy not to come out against any diet as long as it does not preach against eating their products.  Go on a water and bread diet for 6 months and the wheat industry will say just enough to be seen as being responsible. 

Diets are a massive industry and Atkins obviously had a vested interest in defending their ‘formula’.  The debate sparked so much controversy that I bet thousands of people put of losing weight from the confusion when most ‘honest’ experts will agree that ‘losing the weight’ is much more preferred course of action than doing nothing.  The manner of losing that weight, low fat, low carb, low whatever, becomes less important when you compare the dangers of being grossly overweight.  Later, when you are in a safer zone, you can balance your diet working out what actually works of you!

I lost a lot of weight on a ‘low carb’ diet.  I actually enjoyed the diet and not once did I suffer the dreaded ‘hunger pangs’ of other diets.  I did not follow a particular brand of diet but like everything else, it had to become a habit and a life style change.  You cannot revert back to bad eating habits having lost weight and expect that your body will react to that food differently than the first time when you piled on the pounds.  As Einstein is reputed to have said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The vested interest didn’t do my case too good because the rest of the family did want to follow the diet and as time went by, the special cooking arrangements slowly eroded away.  With the stop smoking and the increased drinking, the pounds came piling back on.

So we have experts telling us what we should eat, how much of it and when.  And occasionally, a brave scientist will raise their head above the pulpit at the risk of getting their head shot off to present another view.   And how many times have we been told wine is good for you, not good for you and good for you again?  How
many times has old good advise turned out to be bad advise and now causes cancer?  Experts have to be paid and who pays them.  A lot of them are employed by the very same vested interests that they advocate?  Are they always telling us the truth – think the cigarette scientists here?

Take the current ‘five a day’ bandwagon.  Just about all the supermarkets and manufacturers of fruit juice and vegetable extract of some sort or another are telling you how their product makes up part of your ‘five a day’.  And yet, are all fruits the same.  Do some of them not have enough sugar (fructose) in them to raise your blood sugar levels – which in turn leads to fat?  What about vegetables?  Are they all equally good after all even potatoes are poisonous when not cooked adequately?

My wife swears she believes, she is yet to practice though, the theory of eating for you blood group.  I am skeptical about the blood group but I more inclined to think in terms of genetic makeup.  The Chinese are renown for their alcohol intolerance and many, many cultures are lactose intolerant.  Milk may be good for some of us but it is not good for everyone!

My brand of ‘low carb’ was based on a lot of ‘expert’ advice from many sources including the Atkins diet and the excellent UK produced The Carbwiser Plan (http://www.carbwiser.co.uk/) by Dave Mills.  I learnt enough about how we get fat and what sorts of things make you fat and then worked with what I got (some products are harder to find) and try to fit in with the family.  I, for example, did not stop drinking during the whole period (talk about flexibility!!!)

Where am I going with this post?  Well I did touch on a subject that will be close to my heart or should I say, beer belly. The point is that you need to take everything with a pinch of salt especially perceived wisdom of the day.  Use your mind, your education, listen to you body and add a dash of skepticism to determine what is really good for you.  Blindly following a Bedouin diet because it is flavour of the day is likely to be a dangerous path to follow. 

Blindly following anything, not only diets, is bound not to be good for your balance.

May you find the balance.

Another way to break bad habits, dependencies and addictions is with a little help from your friends. Whereas alcohol dependency is likely to be hidden, nicotine addiction is usually more open and people around you are more willing to accept its very addictive nature.

I stopped smoking just over 2 years ago and will not have used nicotine for 2 years at the end of December. The fight against cigarettes happened with the help and support of two other nicotine addicted friends who also around the same time decided to give it up. My wife had tried the NHS stop smoking service over the previous months and it is the usual stuff, doubt it would work for hard core smokers.

That is the issue with nicotine. It seems to have different levels of addiction. My wife who smokes less that 10 a day, fails despite trying often to give up. I know lots of people who take up and give up smoking on a frequent basis without suffering any sort of withdrawal symptoms and then there are the social smokers, the envy of smokers everywhere. It is only particular cigarettes that are enjoyed and social ones are included, otherwise all other smokes are maintenance of nicotine levels!

One of my friends could not be considered a heavy smoker – less that 20 a day decided to go with patches. He was the first official ‘non- smoker’ and having never seriously tried to give up before, his determination was so strong that he stopped using the patches before he finished the recommended course. He kept forgetting to put them on so gave up trying to remember in the end.

My other friend had long given up on cigarettes and was smoking roll ups (tobacco). This is one of the reasons why the government’s blind increase of tobacco tax is unadvisable. In the last few years, the increase of people using tobacco especially amongst young people is quite noticeable. Arguments abound as to whether it more healthy, with some people believing that the cigarettes companies’ carcinogenic pyrolytic ‘enhancements’ for cigarettes are not applied to their tobacco products. I have my doubts, I think a filter might help but few people add filters to their roll-ups. This friend’s fingers were constantly yellowed from his fairly heavy smoking habit. He also had the dreaded ‘morning’ cough.

Despite having smoked for about 4 decades, he decided to go cold turkey. He claims that he has previously ‘given up smoking many times before which normally lasted a couple of hours!’ He also had a new motivation, his only child, his one year old son that he wanted to be around for as long as possible and the morning cough served as a warning that at 50 years old, one needs to take a little more care. He ‘back slid’ for one day some 4 or 5 days into the change and then never looked back. He chewed gum, he ate much more, kept busy and did not smoke. Two years on and still glad to have given it up.

As for me, I was near a 60 a day especially with the drinking and, on late nights, another 20 did not go amiss. I did not go anywhere without a spare pack in the jacket pocket. Cigarettes are bad, I have been running around in a taxi at 3 in the morning, looking for cigarettes. My last £10 has been spilt between milk for the baby and a ten pack and that is why I had given up twice before. First real try was cold turkey and lasted a few months. The second time I did, I started cold turkey, used the nicotine lozenges and when I finally stopped, I was using the inhalator. There was a lot of praying going on as well as major back-up. That smoke free period lasted about eight months and ended at about the same time as I became a confirmed atheist!

Both smoke free periods ended with the demon, drink. Drunk, in a smoke filled pub or club was where the slippery slope back started. However, I am convinced that if it were not for the stupid advise ‘if you smoke, then you start again’. Who came up with that stuff? I am convinced I would not have continued smoking the second time if I was not convinced that I had undone all the 8 months of non-smoking. I notice that current advice is fairly silent on the matter.

Another think that stuck in my mind was the warnings on the ‘cigarette replacement’ (not really nicotine replacement, is it?) products about ‘mixing’ products and overdoses which just makes you wish you did not need to use this ‘dangerous’ stuff to stop smoking. I have also notice the toning down of those messages especially the mixing the use of different products.

I did not know that though but I was prepared to use my own brains this time. If I am craving, then I cannot have overdosed. Since I smoked 60 a day, it will take quite a lot of patches to overdose. The chances that any one product will maintain nicotine levels at a point that I do not want a cigarette are slim so I will have two.

I purchased the strongest patches and the inhalator. On my first morning, I smoked in the morning as usual. Then just before I went to work, I had my last cigarette and stuck a patch on which maintained my nicotine level for the rest of the day. Over the next few weeks I followed the patch program – keeping it on overnight – but always had my inhalator as backup. Anytime, I felt the urge to smoke, I took the inhalator until the urge went away. It was god sent, I could use it in the pubs – which thankfully were now smoke free – and I even managed to continue to use it even when terribly drunk.

Eventually, I completed the patch program, in the last week, forgetting the patch two or three times and I had not used the inhalator in days. It was a few days before Christmas so I kept the inhalator which I think I used infrequently until New Year ’s Eve when I threw it away.

Over the whole period, we kept asking each other, talking about the withdrawl effects and generally encouraging each other to stay stop smoking.

Each of us chose our own way and went for it and I think that it the answer. It has to be right for you, I used science and another used motivation and the other sheer brute determination! Sometimes, the experts try and prescribe, assuming most people just want to be told, when all we want is enough to make an informed decision about what will work for us. What will work for me?

May you find the balance.

I have also up walking in the morning -except having missed 10 or so days now due to injured leg and the cold/flu.  Walking replaced the gym with a few weeks of inactivity in the middle.  The gym had to go on two counts, firstly I did not enjoy the experience and two, it was difficult to fit into my normal routine especially since the train companies decided to change their timetables at a very crucial time when I needed to create the habit.

Walking is derided by many people as ‘old people’ exercise and maybe I’ll agree to a that it is not as physical as jogging or running but if you are overweight, running and jogging is not going to do you ankles or your knees any good!  Walking also allows you to kill 2 birds with one stone!  You can also use your walking time as your ‘me’ time.  ‘Me’ time – the recommended stress killer.  This is the time you can listen to your morning ‘motivational’ music, podcast, audio books or whatever.  Or if you are like me, just use it as thinking time, I just let my mind wonder wherever it wants.  The human body is so magnificent that you will be surprised how alert you are to surroundings even with your mind elsewhere at walking pace.

Brain Rules

Walking is natural exercise.  In the book ‘Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School‘, it has been estimated that the human body is built to do about 12 miles a day of walking – many of us are nowhere close!  You are more unlikely to cause yourself damage from walking than from many other forms of sports.  Oh don’t get me wrong, if you are into something more strenuous, knock yourself  out but I put it to you that the vast majority of us are not motivated enough to keep up the long term commitment required to ‘lose the weight’, ‘get fitter’ or any other reason.

The gym, I am convinced, appeals to a certain type of person.  The more extrovert you are, the more you like the experience and the more you prance about the gym showing of pecks and tight buttocks – if you should be so lucky.  Holding up equipment so that they can get their 14 reps in is not past many of these people!  For the rest of us, it is uncomfortable and mostly embarrassing.  I will never be repeating the experience, thank you very much, I’d rather waddle around!  Apparently, most gym applicants stop going after a few visits, I wonder why and I accuse the industry of not doing anything to address it instead happily taking – nicely covered by contract – subscriptions from people who are no longer attending.

I must admit I have always liked walking, not strolling, walking. As a teenager I walked miles instead of spending hours waiting and catching what passed for public transport in our little part of Africa.  And in the Seychelles, walking just seemed the natural way of getting round.  My friend and I walked round Mahé, the main island, in some 5 or 6 hours when we were only 13 years olds!

I chose a 1.5km route, ten minutes stroll (warm up & cool down) from my house, which does not require me to cross any major junctions and I try and keep my time under 14 minutes per lap!  Under that time, I am starting to stroll! I tend to do 3 laps on weekdays and 4 on weekends with a break on Monday and Friday mornings, note that I tend to stay up later on the nights before.  I walk in the morning before the family wake up and because I go to bed early enough, I naturally get up early enough to fit it into my routine.

That for me is the reason why people stick to good intentions or not, if it does not fit into your routines – or you cannot adjust to a new routine that includes you new gaols, you are doomed to fail.  Chop and change until it fits then do it 21 times!  21 times is the number to make it a habit apparently.

I have been walking since May averaging 60% (equiv of 4 times a week).  Have I lost weight?  Not much.  Am I fitter?  Not that I can definitely agree but my average lap times are falling.  I do feel good after my walk, it sets me up for the day, it lets me vent my angers, day-dream for a while and I miss it when I don’t do it.  Reasons enough to keep doing it.  And as Mr Jim Rohn keeps reminding as ‘a little accomplished each day and soon enough you are on a upward spiral’.  The weight loss will come and so will the fitness, it is only a matter of getting the balance right.

May you find the balance.

The 5th of January I wrote and said things where going back to normal.  How I lied!  If anything Christmas time is the worst time for making you break habits you have tried to hard to maintain.  The few days of not following routines are fatal to anything that requires a bit of effort on your part.

Now I know that the New Year is supposed to be when we introduce new changes to out lives, changes that we know or have been convinced we must make, to be happier.  – eat less fat, drink less, have safe sex, exercise, clean up more, give all to your work/career etc, etc, etc.  If you were already trying to do those things – the New Year has probably broken the routine and today is the day we are rumoured to feel the depression of the bitter taste of failure on our tongues – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7836941.stm – the time when the realisation that those big plans require a massive investment of time and effort.

Now, let’s face it – some things require too much effort and too much time and too much misery – the only reason we want to change is that we are being told by so called experts, we must do, to live longer, to get the girl/boy, to be successful and/or to be happier.  Well, the other hand says, what use is it to live longer if it requires so much unhappiness? How can you be happy when your belly is grumbling constantly on some stupid diet?  How can you be stress free when you as artist sort of person, has to spend your precious time sweating (yurk!) hours at the treadmill?  I put it to you, that it is a matter of balance – with a slant to those things that make you content.  I further argue that if you balance the physical with the mental with the emotional and the spiritual (yes I said it), you must be able to find contentment along the way.

You have to use your mind and your knowledge of you to balance those things that will give you satisfaction and make you content. Be honest with yourself.  Yes, some things may be uncomfortable at the start, some things will feel daft but open your heart to experiences and mind to ideas from around you, let the energy of the universe like the love of those who care for  you – touch you.  For just as we are all different, we will all have different formulas to make us content.  Just take the experts (many have vested interests) with a pinch of salt and work to the betterment of self.

I intend to try, join me in the journey if you want here on this blog.  In any case, forget the blues and may you find the right balance.

Well this is it, 2009 before we could even catch our breaths, everything’s back to normal.

Have you made any resolutions?  I have, but not because I think that one year turning into another will make it any different, just that it does provide a good excuse to try harder at those things you promised yourself over the last year you would try to do.  Some of those I did, but many others kept being put off and off again.

Many people will recognise that true change is usually forced upon us human beings.  We are creatures of habit and breaking them can be very hard to do.  We create and maintain habits of those things that come easy to us even when things around us change.  For example, I have now been in my ‘new’ house for nearly a year.  Some of the habits I had in my old house have naturally followed me to my new house, stuff I wanted to change but now have become ingrained again. 

According to many scientists, it takes 21 days to break a habit, yes, only 21 days!  But if you need to keep something up every day for 21 days, you will know just how difficult it is to do this unless…. there is some sort of reward.  Another example, during the winter months, I have a high temperature and high pressure shower.  However, my young son follows me into the shower in the mornings and the first day I switched over, I worried that he may step into the shower without checking the settings.  Automatically after taking a shower, I revert the settings.  This change I did immediately and now nearly four weeks later – even with a one week break in between – I do this without thinking.  My motivation, a natural instinct, is ensuring that my son is safe.

So what is worth spending time making yourself miserable for?  Normally change that is good for you hurts – see my gym related posts!  What could be worth all this trouble, after all, we are all going to die sooner or later, why worry?  Well, what is comfortable does not necessarily make you happy.  Smoking, overweight and addiction as well as many others are habits that are easy to maintain but do nothing for your well being.

My ‘new year’ resolutions are about fixing those things that need to be to achieve some semblance of balance in the four aspects of human contentment – the physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual.  Because if I can’t be content, why else am I here?

Ahem.  Went to the gym this evening and must say I struggled to be motivated to get there and to stay there once I got there.  Put myself under some pressure to make the effort today since I had not been since Saturday and when I weighed myself this morning, I found I have actually put on weight.  This on top of the weight I had put on the last time I checked, not really that bl***dy motivating, is it?  I know, I know some people will have me believe that muscle weights more than fat but believe you me, I see no blasted muscle anywhere.

I had this thought before and I had it again pedalling away on the bike in the packed gym last night.  All around me are people spending blasted hours on treadmills, cross-trainers and the like, pushing weights of several tons or bending themselves into all sorts and I realised that the vast majority of us – even some of the really fit ones – are either too fat or too thin.  How much time is wasted in these places, for God’s sake?  If I do not lose weight, the gym is losing my subscription, simple as that.  Being there is a chore and it better have some effect on my sorry behind!  What I really need is a gym mate, preferably female, quite fit, pretty and willing to go gently on me 8).  Which man would not make the supreme effort in those circumstances?

Thinking like that obviously shows how we have become, expecting results in short periods of time which is not reality.  Patience is not the virtue of the modern man, explaining our need for fast everything – fast food to fast women.    The lack of patience is also the reason we give up to early on those things we want to do in our lives.  Building your contentment, building a new life style all requires time and work and it won’t happen overnight.

So reconsidering, first I have to get to go to the gym regularly – fit it into my routine – 3 times a week for six weeks.  If nothing happens then I cancel the direct debit.  Fair?   Maybe eight weeks.  I also need to think of the gym in a positive light, with the right frame of mind, after all I am going there for a perfectly good reason – I am too fat and so unfit!  You don’t want to be near me when I come of that cross-trainer, I’m telling you 8(.

Well here goes.

May you find the balance.

Well I’m doing very well with updating this blog am I?  I can’t believe my last post was on the 6th, time has flown by so quickly.  I have a number of drafts saved but I have been posting more (other stuff) to my other blog.

I have been fighting the old habits – I still haven’t got the hang of getting to the gym three times a week despite telling myself that its only an hour and a half each time I go – a mere 4 and a half hours a week!   Truthfully I found it easier  to do this sort of stuff in the morning when I last did it.  I am not a physical person, walking being the highest form of excersie for me so it takes some incentive to get to the gym.  The thing is, I know I have to do something physical because despite the struggle to make it a habit, I feel it has contributed to my emotional stability and attitude in trhe last few weeks.   I feel very calm and collectected emotionally until……………  today.  All day I have tried to up my spirits but I’ve crashed and burned.  Just want to eat and go to  bed and get the day done and dusted.  Reason, I have no idea but if I had convinced myself to get down the gym I may have fixed this mood.

I was supposed to do the second part of the self stock-take and, for sure,there are a number of things I recognise I need to do and sort but it just feels like life is moving fast and time keeps slipping away.  No more in me tonight, just need to keep the chin up.  Will aim to post tomorrow though I have some long travelling hours.

The problem with the self stock-check is that one is in danger of discovering lots of things that require changing.  And some time the list can be quite intimidating.  But you have to be hash with what needs changing, too much and the changes are never going to happen, too little and advancement is slow. 

My personal stock take covers the four aspects of a human being’s well being. See About page for more information.

 Well, emotionally, I have not felt so relaxed as I have recently.  I know why though.  I have changed my attitude to some things that have been stressing me over the past few months.  I have accepted that there are some things, I cannot change YET.  Yes, I shouted.   All I have to accept is that I will change these things at a later stage when I am more prepared to deal with the consequences.  Note the language, most change is not comfortable, usually us humans need to be forced to change.  Being able to change easily is a trait I would love to have.  I know the change must happen and by occasionally stock taking, it will stay on the ‘to do’ list. I though that I would find the most pleasure looking at the physical aspects.  I stopped smoking over a year ago, I am going to the gym and have been for over 6 weeks  – not as regularly as I would like – and I am trying to keep an eye on the stuff I put through my mouth – could do better with the lager – and I am still too heavy.  In fact I have put on weight!  I know that just the steps that I have taken in this area could be contributing to my emotional well being but I know more work is required.  We shall see.

Can you imagine the female happiness across the Western world at this story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7386405.stm.  Millions of men like myself feel vinidicated by the fact that they always known that behind every healthy woman is a big bootie!!   I will no longer feel guilty lusting them shaking lovelies on MTV, KISS, VH1 etc etc.  They’re healthy….. don’t you know and any red blooded male cannot help but love it. Yeessssssssssss.