Dead On with Deadlines

I just almost met a deadline.  I almost meet deadlines a lot. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. You see, I almost meet a lot of deadlines because I set a lot of them.  I have deadlines for my business, for my triathlon training, even for things like spending time with family, friends and loved ones.  To have a lot of deadlines is just another way of saying you have a lot of goals and a plan to reach them.  When you almost meet a self-imposed deadline it draws you closer to your goal.  Accepting nearly hitting a goal as part of the process saves you from all or nothing thinking and its damaging discouragement.  If I have a project or event with a definite inflexible deadline I set up mini deadlines before it to ensure I'm making progress.

The deadline I almost met was having my website up today.  The website is for a product I've created called Exercising Values.  It's designed to help busy families spend quality time together and my plan is to bring it out in January.  Since I'm a personal trainer, of course, there will be some movement, okay, exercise involved.  If you'd like to take a look there is a free sample available at 12daysoffitness.com.  Hundreds of other great free gifts are there as well. In celebration of the holidays and as a way of giving back, over 250 of the world's leading health and fitness experts chose to share their knowledge, skills and abilities with the world for free. I signed up and wasn't disappointed.  There is no catch, nothing to buy.

Lots of people set deadlines for fitness goals when the new year rolls around.  I'm organizing a January transformation contest where I work and will be posting helpful training tips for the contestants here.  So feel free to follow their progress while working on your own.  The contestants will be aided by a team of students who are studying to become personal trainers. Other established personal trainers are advising them, so when you post a training question here you'll have access to a lot of combined knowledge. So set a deadline for submitting a question and I'll look forward to hearing from you.   

Strangers and Friends

What makes life bearable is the random acts of kindness from
strangers and the steady flow of love from friends. Today I
experienced both. The stranger that went more than the
extra mile to help my dog and the friends who offered the kindness of words and more than that. Knowing that a friend
truly understands how you feel doesn't really require words.
It's just the comfort of knowing someone understands.

Surrounding yourself with people with great character is so
important for your sanity and for your growth. Instilling these
values in our children is one of life's greatest challenges and
rewards. Teaching them to treat a stranger with the respect
and care of a friend is so important. Yet I clearly remember
the first time I taught my toddler to be a bit leery of strangers.
I felt so sad to have to do it-to change her perception of the
world. What a world we live in. You have to teach them to be
street smart without letting them turn cold, hard, and cynical.

Our fourteen month old grandson is cheering us up today the way
only the explosive laughter of a child can. Who knew bubble wrap
was so hilarious. I love to see his impact on my daughter who
said good-bye to her canine companion today. When we are most
powerless we realize the power of love, kindness, helpfulness, and
generosity. Thus motivated to pay it forward, we look at the next guy
with a little more sympathy, tolerance, and love. This is all because
someone else offered these things to us and we're grateful.
Little Daniel's face brightens with each person he meets. Oh, to have
a fraction of that energy giving response to people.

Today I met a man named Jason who skidded to a stop on the highway
when he saw another car hit my dog. He hoped to help him but
he had been killed instantly. He gently moved him from the road
and called my vet from the number on the collar. Later he made a
special trip on a Saturday to bring me that collar. He would have helped
me pick up his body. It takes time to help a stranger and he was
willing to do that.

I thought I'd have the ability to lift the dog myself but I couldn't. I felt
so helpless and oh so sad. Since I work with guys who work out every
day and have hearts of gold I knew who to call. A personal trainer,
Scott, came and carefully lifted Lance's broken body into my car. That's
not a job anyone wants and one I wanted to spare my sons. I'll always
be grateful for Scott's availability and kindness.

Earlier that morning I was scheduled to teach two cycle classes. I found
a sub for one but not for the other. I randomly pulled out a CD hoping
to just get through the class without crying. At the beginning of the CD
I had put a little sound bite from Forrest Gump. You know the one: "Life
is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."
It's my attempt at humor, the class never knows what kind of cycle
challenge they are going to get that day.

On this difficult day when I heard those words it made me think how
universal loss and struggle is. Some experience things more
devastating than we can comprehend. How easy it would be to be
depressed and hopeless. But it is at these times the universal experience
is what draws us close to each other and motivates us to give what we
can. Jason told me how hard it was to watch his daughter's grief when
she learned her cat, Angel, had passed.

To be an energy giver and not an energy taker is the way we hope to live.
So we take our "box of chocolates" and forge ahead with tempered hope
and calm resolve to try a little harder to look out for the other guy.

Remembering Lance

Most years I ride my bike across Iowa on what is called Ragbrai.
Ragbrai is unique among bike rides. It is best summed up by a
friend of mine who observed it is so amazing to spend a week
with 20,000 happy people. If you just want a break from
everything I highly recommend this annual ride. With its
frequent stops for beer slides or pie anyone can do it.

Two years ago for the first time Lance Armstrong decided
to try Ragbrai instead of the Tour de France. When addressing
the crowd I remember him saying, "I just can't figure out
how you people can ride all day and drink all night." A
woman in the crowd shouted,"we train". And so it goes.

A lot of people kept to their regular Ragbrai rituals of farm-
fresh corn minutes from the field and homemade pie in
quantities you can't imagine. When I first heard about
Ragbrai from my veterinarian he told me it was the only
time you'll ever ride close to 500 miles and gain weight.
Iowan hospitality is phenomenal. Well, just try a pork
chop on a stick in the middle of an Iowa small town and
you'll know.

Like a lot of riders that year I hoped to see Lance during
the course of the week. As luck would have it I did. I
wanted a break from my bike shoes so I'd taken them off.
I was standing on a corner with five or six hundred other 
people milling about near by.

A guy with a cell phone and an all business demeanor
approached me to ask some questions about the town.
I think in my bare feet he took me for a towns person and
not a rider. Finding I knew very little about the town he
immediately got on his cell phone. You can guess who was
on the other end on the line. His handler said, "You'll be in
the town in a couple minutes. There's a bar on the corner
and we'll bring you in for a beer."

I glanced over my shoulder and there was the bar. In a
crowd of several hundred vaguely hoping to see him
ride by I knew exactly when he would arrive and
where he'd be headed. So I positioned myself accordingly
and the long and the short of it was I sort of had a beer with
Lance Armstrong. Okay, I watched him drink the beer
and the best part was his face was beaded with sweat.
You had to think, hey, we're riding the same route and
he has to work at it,too. So I got my photo and watched him
ride off with other fans in hot pursuit. I slipped back
to the normal Ragbrai routine of ride a little, eat a little,
drink a little, dance a little...

So when I returned from this week my kids were all excited
about the possibility of adding to our family. Besides
the six kids we also had a golden retriever named Laker.
We'd earlier also had a second golden retriever named
Celtic and so they were wishing to once again be a two
dog family.



The puppy they had in mind seemed to be all paws. It
was as though half his body was paws. He was
mischievous and loving and hated cold weather- a
bit of a hassle when you live in the midwest. He was an
immediate fit for our family and because of the previous
week I named him Lance.

We have a pool in the back yard and Lance and Laker
owned it. When he wasn't in the pool Lance was running
laps around it. If I could have taught him the bike I
finally would have had another family member join me
at triathlons.

He was an adjustment for our well-behaved golden
retriever who never thought to jump on a bed until
Lance arrived. With a wag of a tail he made it clear he
would curl up at the foot of my daughter's bed. All
of us loved that dog but she had a special bond with him.

So last night when we discovered that our normally secure
gate was mysteriously open and both dogs were gone we
began several hours of searching. We had three cars out as
well as some of the kids on foot. Happily, we found
our golden retriever. Without thinking through all the
possible answers she might hear I suggested my
daughter call our vet. It was late but I thought his
answering service could tell us if anyone had picked up
Lance.

The vet is the same one I had when I was a girl. Although
his office is clear across town we continue to use his
services. After all, between my family of origin and my
family now he has taken care of fifteen dogs if you include
the litter of puppies. He's the same vet that first told me
about Ragbrai and it was his answering service that told us
that indeed someone had called. But sadly Lance had been
hit by a car and had died.

I've lost both parents, two cousins ,most of my aunts and
uncles, several friends, had five miscarriages, and ofcourse
lost other pets. But that sudden unexpected loss never
gets easier. You hate to fall asleep because you know
when you wake up you'll have to remember. When I finally
did fall asleep it was curled up o the floor next to my
golden retriever who seemed just as sad as the rest of us.

What can you do but remember the joy they gave you. I can't
tell you how many times I'd come home exhausted from
long hours and find a quiet house. But those two would
always get so excited to see me. No queen was ever welcomed
home so thoroughly. It was something I could count on.
Something I will miss terribly.

Stress takes a toll on our nervous system and on all our
organs really. Of all the ways to relieve stress a wagging
tail and spunky chase is one of my favorites. Stress, left
unchecked, will age you faster than anything. At one
hundred years of age George Burns gave the advice to
avoid aging you need to avoid stress. I don't really
know how to do that. Stress follows me every day. But
then again so did my dog. He was always there to change
my mood and make me smile. That kind of devotion is
hard to find and oh so validating. Is there a person so non-
judgemental, so enthusiastic?

Studies have shown that touching a pet will lower heart rate
and blood pressure and decrease anxiety. They really are our
best friends. So I hope this finds you with your pet and family
in good health. One of my friends is going to a wake for a
sixteen year old girl killed in a car crash this week. I know
there are hearts more broken than mine. We can only let
each loss remind us to show a bit more love to those we
can still touch, to enjoy the moment, and to remember those
we've lost fondly and forever.

For the Children

Did you have to be in your own yard when the street
lights came on? Well, I did. It was that almost forgotten
era when instead of being driven to practice like my own
children were and still are; we would simply slip away
from the dinner table and take over a corner of the
neighborhood. Maybe twenty or so kids of all ages would
play kick the can or hide and go seek until the street
light sent us home and to bed tired and happy.

These days children are involved in organized sports at
a younger and younger age. One of my daughters is a
gymnastics coach. She entered the sport when she was
only three. When we moved her to a gym that has
trained some Olympians she was considered lucky to make
the team at nine, an age that is usually considered too
old. Her older sister, then twelve, had to settle for a
recreational team.

So on the one hand we have these super-serious young
athletes and on the other hand we have an alarming rise
in childhood obesity. About thirteen percent of children
and adolescents are obese or overweight. Projects are
springing up all over to determine the causes and hopefully
offer some solutions.

So the average parent who loves their children dearly has a
lot of tough choices to make. They have to prioritize feeding
their children healthy food when demanding schedules scream
fast food. They have to teach good habits and model them as
well. Maybe they choose to put them in organized sports and
maybe they do their own version of low-key back yard play. But
sometimes even the best intentions are thwarted by the demands
of life. Sometimes helping their children keep a healthy weight
doesn't get the attention it should.

As a personal trainer who is very interested in helping families
I'd love to have your thoughts on what is and isn't working in
your family. Would it help to have some quick workouts you could
do with your children at home? As always I welcome your insights.

Changing Country, Changing Lives

I seldom give billboards any conscience thought but one did recently catch my attention. It said the top ten jobs in 2015 don’t exist today. Usually the thought of such significant change in so short a time period would have more of an impact. But today with the economic turmoil and an historic election on the horizon change is the norm. I’m not an expert on economics or politics but I have opinions like everyone else. Joe the plumber/Pam the trainer. We’re thinking, weighing the impact of world events on our immediate lives.

On a different level my profession is all about change. Take someone overweight and help them get lean. Take someone injured and help them get stronger. Slow to fast, stiff to limber…you get the idea. After working with over a thousand clients over the years I recognize what a huge leap of courage and faith it is to decide to change and to enlist some help.

The final push that causes my clients to transform is often a major life change: divorce, illness, new baby, wedding, death in the family, etc. Sometimes something will jar us into realizing that if we continue to do things the way we always have we won’t get the results we dream of. Whether the impetus is happy or devastating it has empowered us to at least take the first step in a new direction.

Resistance to change is a classic sign of the aging temperament. A sound mind must simultaneously hold to some truths that don’t change while being open to new ideas and new directions. Identifying these unchangeables is part of the challenge. Letting go of what no longer serves us or the greater good is an art.

We face fundamental questions about our country’s future and about the way we choose to live our own lives. What will we fight to keep, hate to lose, be relieved to be done with? As always I hope you’ll share your thoughts.

the parents made me do it

I taught two fitness classes in the early am today. As I'm shuffling myself from a cycle to yoga it begins to pour. At that moment I notice that my seat belt isn't fastened and as always I think of my mother who didn't believe in seat belts and refused to wear them during my impressionable years no less. Yes, my mom has been dead for almost ten years now but when I neglect my own safety there is a part of my
mind that is blaming my mother. Then I sigh because I am a mother and I wonder what I'll be on the hook for years from now.

It's not rational or charitable to blame her I realize but there it is. She had a fear that she'd be trapped in a car after an accident and be unable to get her seat belt open. She was also part of that last generation where it was more common for women not to drive and she never did. During the car pool years when my sister, who also has six children, and I would get together and commiserate about our packed schedules we wondered if instead of being a coward maybe mom was a genius.

Is anything more unproductive than blame? I have a triathlon this weekend. Sometimes I catch the blame for a potential bad race spinning around in the back of my mind. Nothing compelling, just the usual list of work, injuries, global warming... you know. The list is on standby just in case. In every rational moment, of course, I know I am solely responsible for the outcome of that race just like I'm responsible to remember to fasten my seat belt.

Maybe it's best to not even acknowledge those half formed thoughts that we'd never speak out loud unless of course we're blogging. But I suspect they affect us more than we'll ever know. So for today I'll fasten that seat belt, prepare for the race, think fondly of my mother, and try not to give my own children too much material for the back of their minds. By the way they do all wear their seat belts so there's hope their children won't place any blame at all. But I doubt it.

Priorities

Oswald Chambers is one of my favorite authors. Put me on an island with the proverbial two books and My Utmost for His Highest would be one of them. I even like the word utmost. It implies draining every bit of energy you have for a worthy goal. In our society many, many people are draining every bit of their energy but sometimes I question the goal that compels them to do so. Stephen Covey made the notion of being sure you are leaning your ladder against the right wall a commonly understood concept. But understanding it and practicing it are really two different things.

I’ve recently had a shift in the amount of time I spend working and the amount of time I spend with my family. I know getting that equation right has kept many a mom and dad up at night. But knowing it’s a common problem really doesn’t help because these are my children, my life, and my choices and as Truman said “the buck stops here”.

I know I digress here but being able to quote Truman just reminded me of disturbing moments at work. One occurred when a co-worker referenced the fact that “we all learned power point in high school.” Really? I think I saw my first computer in college and I think it was larger than my automobile. The other came on Sept. 11 when in conversation with a co-worker who was my age I said that 9/11 is to today’s generation what Kennedy’s assassination was to past generations in that people will ask you “Do you remember where you were when the twin towers fell? Indeed, my pastor posed that question to the congregation just this week. But a younger co-worker overheard our conversation and exclaimed “the Kennedy assassination!” You’d have thought I’d said Lincoln.

So maybe I don’t digress as much as I thought because when the hour glass is emptying we are even more likely to second guess our choices. I guess as a blogger that qualifies me as a continual talker but nonetheless I really appreciate these words that Chambers wrote: “The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and ‘the lilies of the field’-simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us.”

So here’s hoping we both spend our day doing something worthwhile, something that serves others, something that we truly enjoy, and something that will have eternal value. Failing that here’s hoping at least one person’s life is better today because we share the planet with them. Here’s hoping that maybe that person is a child.

Holiday Fitness Challenge

I think Halloween was announced in the stores sometime in July. Seems the holidays are upon us and with them challenges to staying active and lean. Sometimes setting a fitness goal within the parameters of a time limit helps people stay consistent. The most common attempt is the New Year’s resolution. But why not go against the stream? We’re sitting about eleven weeks out from New Year's when everyone else will start to focus on weight loss and fitness goals. Wouldn’t it be great to have already reached your goals by New Year’s Eve?

Consider having a holiday fitness challenge. Pick two holidays and see what you can accomplish between them. Last year we made such a contest available at Blue Springs Fitness where I work between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day. About sixty people became involved and logged their workouts for those ten weeks. We rewarded participation to help people establish new habits and to navigate their way through the typical holiday eating frenzy. Every day people eagerly checked the leader board to see where they stood compared to the other gym members.

It was fun to do that with a big group but you don’t have to have an entire gym to do something similar. When my oldest children were still very small we started a tradition that we still do today. This is despite the fact that four of my six children are now old enough to vote. Since our family loves to follow the Olympics and I knew that that would involve a lot of sitting around watching T.V. I wanted a way to balance that with activity. So we instituted the Olympic Challenge.

Every Olympics from the time the torch is lit at the opening ceremony until it is extinguished at the closing ceremony our family competes to see who can do the most push-ups, jumps with a jump rope, and some agreed upon abdominal exercise. Some years as they have grown older we have also added miles run. We award gold, silver, and bronze in these individual events as well as an all-around award. We post our daily progress on the refrigerator so you always know where you stand. Those standings have motivated many a late night push-up that otherwise would never have occurred. Often I was the one doing them trying to keep up with a seven year old or a teenager.

So the take home message is fitness with a group is fun. A little friendly competition is motivating, and the time to do it is now. You don’t have to wait for New Years. Find your own excuse for a fitness celebration. With a little help from your family and friends you may need a different resolution this New Year because your fitness dreams may have already come true.

What Do You Think?

What Do You Think

“As a man thinks in his heart so is he.”

Crum et al (2007) showed that this Biblical principle applies
to weight loss and fitness. Eight-four women who clean hotel                                                   rooms for a living were divided into two groups. One served                                                            as the control group while the other was told (falsely) that their                                        occupation fulfilled the Surgeon General’s standard for an active                                                 life. Behaviors did not change between the two groups but the latter                                    were given examples of how their work was the equivalent to significant                           exercise.  These women began to believe that they were now athletic. Their bodies         responded by losing weight, lowering body fat, lowering blood pressure, and                decreasing their body mass index and waist to hip ratio! Again no change in actual         behavior had occurred.

So shall we just think ourselves thin, strong, fast,….? If you try it and it works please                let me and the world know. My recommendation is simply to recognize that your           thoughts are a critical element to your success or failure. It might be a good idea to      inventory the thoughts you have about your athletic or weight loss goals.  I don’t               expect you to jot down every one of your 50,000-100,000  daily thoughts but do try                  to note recurring themes such as “I’ll never lose weight,  my entire family is               overweight” or “I always choke in races” or “I’m too slow, too old,  too lazy to ever               win.” Also note self-messages like “that was a great workout, you are really on                    track” or  I’m getting faster and I feel so good!” You probably already know  which type           of self-talk you are experiencing. You just may not realize how much it is impacting your achievements.

Negative self-talk produces momentary stress relief by making it seem that there is          nothing to be done. In the long run it will hamper performance. It is not unlike the            dieter who eats a chocolate bar for the temporary happiness it brings even though the consequences of doing so repeatedly is the antithesis of what will help reach weight-              loss goals. Owning up to the fact that you are getting something by being negative will   actually help you change the habit. It feels good to have an excuse. It feels better to         succeed.

In the weeks ahead I’ll mostly be writing on the sound body part of the equation but               I’m counting on you to avoid futility and hopelessness in your thoughts. Choose to            believe  that as you apply sound fitness principles that they will work for you.  Trying to improve is stressful and this stress won’t disappear. But you will be better  equipped to    handle it when you give a little thought to your thoughts.

Taking Responsibility

Sometimes taking responsibility means that you choose to do what’s best for you and sometimes it means choosing to look out for the best interests of someone else. It can even mean giving care to an animal. One of the classic ways a parent tries to instill responsibility in a child is to give them some of the responsibility for the care of a pet. Along the lines of caring for something helpless, I thought you might enjoy this blog that follows the story of the rescue of a baby coyote.

Today I head to Arkansas for my son’s gymnastic meet. When did I realize that I’d be making this ten-hour round trip? Yesterday. This is my sixth child and he has the wondrous belief that there are always people looking after him, keeping track of schedules and events, and that just generally have his back. When my oldest daughter was his age and there were five equally busy siblings below her she quickly figured out that if she wasn’t going to be late for an event, have all her forms turned in on time, etc. that she would have to take some of the responsibility. If this had been her meet there would have been reminders on the refrigerator and sticky notes everywhere.

Research shows that oldest children are high achievers becoming astronauts and curing cancer. Parents of more than one child have a pretty good idea how they got that way. They were helping us. It’s that simple.

I realize that some of you may be alarmed to find that I can forget things like school picture day and I admit that I would never be making such a confession if I didn't know the basics were covered. Inspite of never shellacking fruit for a centerpiece ala Martha Stewart, my children all at least eat their fruits and vegetables (and that may be as far as I can go on that list since three are vegetarians). But my point is I adore my children and more importantly even as teenagers and as they become adults I respect them.

I think I got some of the big jobs done like: instilling values, teaching responsibility, giving them confidence, teaching respect for others, and giving them freedom to be different from me and to follow their own dreams. As to the details, let me point out that both my husband and I are youngest children so… yep, we can use all the help we can get (and secretly expect).

You may attack your fitness goals like a firstborn attacks their problems. You have a list of goals, you've checked out the credentials of the personal trainers, know the class schedule by heart and you keep a fitness journal. Forgive my stereotypes, but you may be more like the happy-go-lucky youngest who thinks he’ll buy a gym membership and then someone will see to it that he first has goals and then succeeds at them. Middle children who love approval and comraderie are often everybody’s buddy in the gym and in the classes.

Whatever your strengths and weaknesses you’ll find there is a place for you at a local gym, on a runner's or bike club, at a local tennis tournament or any other group you aspire to join. Other people will assist you, inspire you, and make you work harder than you would alone. Fitness buddies become like family. We really do need each other.

Serving Others through Fitness

I hope this inspirational true story will help you reflect on how you can serve others through fitness. Maybe you'll want to consider coaching a youth sport or assisting at a fitness program at a shelter for abused women. Maybe you just want to play catch with your son or daughter. The possibilities are endless.

First Things First

DO NOT SWALLOW YOUR CHEWING-GUM !

See what happens ?

Welcome

Thank you for visiting Sound, a blog dedicated to the pursuit of a sound mind and body. In the coming weeks you will find simple suggestions to improve your mental and physical health. Subjects will consist of the latest research as well as my own observations as a personal trainer, triathlete, youth sports coach, group exercise instructor and life coach. I would like to welcome you and invite your comments.