Okay, health is an ongoing concern. It is ongoing because our goals change over time and, more to the point (corner), our bodies change. The demands we place on our physical, psychological and spiritual beings change, too, and, hopefully, with time and the experience of well-observed time we may learn a little more about ourselves and the world that impacts our concept and therefore goal for health and fitness.
Quitting regular outside employment two and a half years ago was more difficult than I thought it would be. For years I'd actually been moving towards this change but when I did finally take the plunge (okay, I'm switching metaphors from home interiors to sea) the repercussions were greater than I thought they would be. Now, why did I think I knew about this change before actually implementing it? Didn't I just write that time and the observation of what transpires in time are necessary ingredients to growing and learning?
One of the concomittants of the decision I took was the loss of the very structure that motivated me to make the change in the first place. Constructing a new structure to take the place of the old is in itself a process. It's again not a project we can fully anticipate and work out ahead of time. I guess there is a kind of genius to the whole process. If we can learn without experiencing i.e. living and observing what happens in time what's the point of living? Okay, this is not correct logic.We live because we are living. Introjecting meaning into living is something else and not the raison d'etre for living itself. If learning is not the reason for living, it does give meaning to it. That's just one of the ways we can look at living, of course. For others, living is loving. Or, for others, living is for finding what they call God. For me, living is just living but slathered all over the cake (another metaphor change) are the various icings we concoct to make what is essentially joy itself feel joyful. And that is what I mean by the genius of mindful living.
Back to the title of this piece (more of the preceding in subsequent written-out thinking). This is what seems to have worked for me just in the past two weeks.
Regular aerobic exercise, at least five times a week, daily being better still, starts the day best in terms of waking up energy for creative activity. Since I'd gained 10 lbs. in the past year, resuming a regular walking regimen felt harder than in the past when I'd slack off and start over again. I should know. I've been working out an exercise program that works for me for some 25 years. (I remember that first day I stepped out of the apartment to go walking for the first time. The body was heavier than the world on Atlas's shoulders! My! It got better over the years and I've been more often on a program than not. Then again I'd not weighed as much in the past as I do now!
My goal two years ago was to bring my weight down to 168 lbs. That would make my BMI accord with recommendations for my age, reduce my sugar to well below the maximum healthy pre-prandial concentration, and tune down my bad cholesterol. (Other than these, my physical health couldn't be better!) Instead, I gained 10 more pounds!
Through trial and error, with lots of help from my physician/friend, Kevin, I've found out that taking a mouthful of raisins, wheat bran and grouts, and raw or dry-roasted almonds with 500 mg L-carnitine gives me the energy boost to take my morning walk to cardiovascular levels again. My capacity still has ways to go but it's now up to where it was last year when I was walking five to eight miles a day on the Monon. That was insane. It was taking too much time—2 or more hours a day—and my feet and legs were taking a punishing they didn't like!
Now I just do 2 to 3 miles a day, occasionally spurt to 5 or 6 miles, and my feet feel fine. I've been doing interval running which counterintuitively seems to be helping my lower back. What really proves the point to me is the slow, steadier weight loss. It's not much but unlike before when my weight fluctuates all over the map (the final metaphor change), now it stays closer to the range. And I can feel my belly again.
Frankly I wanted to lose the weight to have more energy and flexibility again. That belly gets in the way of some of the things I used to enjoy doing, like some yoga asanas. Then again I didn't use to have to deal with deteriorating cartilages but this is why formulas for fitness, for happiness, for joy don't stand still. We change, they change. Without change, how do we know time? And without time, can we know we're alive?
