A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that of the exercises used to boost strength and speed, over 86 percent of runners performed stretches while more than 70 percent worked on core training. Nearly two-thirds take part in resistance training, while more than a third said they perform plyometric exercises, something that involves explosive movements like jumping.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to improve your speed and strength, these are some of the best reasons to do just that.

Indoor Punching Bag

One of the best activities you can perform to boost strength and speed can be performed on an indoor punching bag. Using it for speed bag workouts helps you become faster while improving punching power. A punching workout is a cardio exercise that improves aerobic fitness by involving various movements around the bag as you change positions.

Whether you use a heavy bag or a speed bag, staying on your toes carrying weight from one foot to the other as you punch the bag helps to strengthen your core. You’ll also be working numerous muscles, including the shoulders, arms, back, chest, and waist.

Of course, just like any exercise, the benefits of a punching bag only come with consistent, regular workouts. Consider using the method martial artists do by attacking the bag for a few minutes at a time and then resting for a minute in between rounds.

The Box Jump

Box jump training works all your leg muscles while strengthening your core using your own body weight. Performing this exercise will boost your endurance, improve your cardiovascular health and your speed. Plus, you’ll burn up to 1,000 calories an hour with explosive plyometric training.

To do this exercise you’ll face a weight bench, aerobic step, or a sturdy box, standing with your feet about hip-width apart. Go into a squat and then quickly jump up onto the box, landing softly. Stay in control, keeping both feet on the box and then step back down one foot at a time. Repeat, aiming to perform three sets of eight reps.

The Deadlift

A deadlift develops propulsive force in your hip extensors and glutes, which results in greater strength and speed in your push-off, particularly helpful for runners, boxers, and many other athletes.

Start by placing two dumbbells or a kettlebell on the floor in front of you, standing with your feet on either side of it. Hinge at your hips, keeping a slight bend in your knees while maintaining a flat back. Engage your core and drive your feet into the floor, then squeeze your glutes as you stand back up. Reverse the motion, lowering the weight back to the floor. Repeat for a total of two sets of eight reps.

Photo Credits

Boxer is from pixabay

Deadlift is from pixabay

I just turned 31 and have a family history of heart disease, my father died of a heart attack at 60 and his mother died of one at 52. It is something that runs in my family. When you hit 30 you really begin to look at your mortality. So one day while sitting at my work desk, I got hit with complete motivation to start eating better and exercising. I had always thought about it. I constantly worried about my weight the last 5 years and always told myself I was going to do something about it but never did. This time however, for whatever reason, I knew I meant business.

I remember learning about how important nutrition could be at the fantastic outpatient treatment I went to almost 5 years ago. It was stressed that eating better and exercising will naturally make you feel better. It really is common sense when you think about it. Two months ago I began counting calories and walking a couple of miles before work everyday. I did not want to overextend myself too quickly because I know how I work. If I go from 0-100 too quickly, I will burn out and quit. This is something I heavily recommend for anyone looking to lose weight or just be healthier. Set small achievable goals that will allow for a slow transition into a healthy lifestyle. Just starting to eat like a marathon runner in a day is not the way to approach this!

In two months I have lost almost 20 pounds, and that’s great, but the most important benefit is that I just feel more balanced. My mood is a lot more consistent and good, and my energy levels are very smooth. I just feel better. This journey is no different than my journey of getting sober either. I take it day by day. I don’t think too far into the future and I definitely don’t think I have this thing beat. I have days where I slip. It’s inevitable in my opinion, and I just dust myself off and get back into the swing of things instantly.

I’m sharing this because I know a lot of people who enter recovery from addiction or battle depression and as a result live an unhealthy lifestyle. It’s just easier to be unhealthy but it is also completely detrimental to your well-being. My best advice is to do this: Set an ultimate goal – for me, it was to lose 60 lbs. Now after you do that, set very small achievable goals. Some of mine included exercising 3 times a week, tracking my calories 4 days in a row and stepping on the scale every morning (that one was terrifying.) The power of achieving those small goals is immeasurable. Your body is your temple and you need to take good care of it in order to feel good. Make the decision to stop your unhealthy decisions today. The rewards last forever.

Photo Credit

Photo from pixabay – creative commons

Guest Author Bio
Daniel Wittler

Daniel Wittler is a writer in recovery from South Florida. Daniel believes that absolutely anyone can get sober provided they are ready to take action.

But it isn’t always that simple. Everybody from our doctors to the media tries to encourage us by talking about goals, weight loss, and healthy habits, but when it comes down to it, these aren’t the things that make us stick to our workout routines. For me, the factors that turned fitness into a permanent lifestyle were a little less obvious. Here’s what worked:

Convenience

I got into working out in college. Bicycle racing was big where I lived, and I knew it was great exercise, but it seemed out of reach. I didn’t know where to go, I was nervous about riding in traffic, and I was overwhelmed by all the gear I’d have to buy—first and foremost, a bicycle. There were just so many inconveniences that when I thought about it, I got overwhelmed.

But then a friend who worked for a sportswear company gave me a pair of running shoes. That was the only gear I needed to start running. I went out my front door and ran up the sidewalk. Since I didn’t need any equipment or knowledge, and I didn’t have to go to a particular place, it was super easy, and I started running in my neighborhood three times a week.

The Social Factor

Eventually, I did buy a bike and started cycling too. What made me do it, despite the inconvenience? In a word, friends. All of my coolest friends raced bikes, and I wanted to break into that world. It didn’t hurt that there were a lot of cute guys riding bikes too!

When I decided to start riding seriously, I joined a bike racing team. The team ended up being an amazing group of friends, with whom I remained close even after we stopped riding together. Saturday morning group rides were the highlight of my week—I loved getting to spend time with such fun people. Plus, I learned a lot about how to train and get faster from hanging out with them.

Short-Term Benefits

When you’re working out to lose weight, it can become incredibly frustrating because it often takes a long time to see results, if you see them at all; our bodies tend to want to stay at a constant weight. But focusing instead on the immediate benefits of exercise that are easier to see can remind us that it’s worth the effort. For me, this means mental health benefits. I feel so much calmer and happier even after one workout. Once I noticed this, I stopped making excuses to skip runs or rides. I wanted to keep feeling good.

Joy

Ultimately though, I never got that far with bicycling. Moving at high speeds near unpredictable motorists and pedestrians never stopped making me nervous, and sitting on a little saddle for hours at a time was uncomfortable no matter how many different ones I tried.

But I always came back to running. I loved its simplicity and how I could get a great workout in just half an hour. I noticed that as I got in better shape, it stopped feeling like work. Instead of gritting my teeth through the miles because I knew I’d feel better afterward, I found myself enjoying it from start to finish. This is when I realized that instead of slogging through the bare minimum, I was choosing to run longer routes and seeking out tougher terrain. I didn’t have to motivate myself anymore because I just loved to do it.

At the same time, I’ve noticed that I have to make the intensity something I can keep doing week in and week out. If I drown myself in a pool of sweat every day—even doing something I love, like running—I’ll inevitably burn myself out or get injured.

These days, I try to vary the intensity of my workouts, going at max effort a couple times a week and then varying between moderate and easy days the rest of the time. I look forward to the easy days because they’re a relief, but I look forward to the tough days too, because that’s when I can challenge myself.

Bottom line: if you truly enjoy the exercise you’re doing, you’ll naturally want to stick with it rather than having to force yourself into it. Finding something you love to do, whether it’s running, yoga, or dance walking, is the key to making exercise a lasting habit.

Time

Behavior change doesn’t happen overnight. The widely used transtheoretical model of behavior change breaks it down into several stages, from realizing you want to make a change, to thinking about how you’re going to do it, to beginning to integrate the new behavior into your life. There’s actually a specific stage, Preparation, that’s characterized by talking about your intentions to change but not actually getting around to doing it yet. It helps me to keep this in mind when I hear my friends talk about working out but not make it to the gym. They’re not procrastinating, they’re preparing!

It takes time to go through the stages of behavior change, and we all do it at our own pace. While I was highly motivated and jumped into fitness pretty quickly once I found the right sport, I also fell off the wagon a few times and changed sports before I found the drive to stick with it for good.

If you’ve been waffling about getting active, think about whether any of these factors are holding you back, and what changes you can make. Is there a gym or yoga studio closer to your house or job? Are there people you know who you’d want to play sports with? What kind of activity makes you feel great? And perhaps the most important question: Are you ready to make a change?

Making the prospect of exercise more attractive, and being patient with the process of change, are important pieces in the exercise puzzle. Once you find them, everything clicks into place.

Photo Credits

Running Shoes – Creative Commons from Pixabay

Group Ride – Creative Commons from Pixabay

Guest Author Bio
Shauna Gold

Shauna Gold is a writer based in Boise, Idaho. Her work has appeared in various venues: photocopied zines in the ‘90s, magazine journalism in the ‘00s, and online in the ‘10s. While avenues for writing change and disappear, the compulsion to do it also changes, but does not disappear. Gold continues to seek out new ways to be a part of the cultural conversation.

You can read her work on Medium and follow her on Twitter.

On a very cold and snowy Saturday, the 26th of March 2017, I was the much-celebrated and over-photographed Product Demonstrator at the Hydropool Hot Tubs showroom at 335 Superior Blvd in Mississauga, and everyone was really nice and totally professional.

Hydropool’s factory showroom is huge; there’s a dozen or more hot tubs and two huge swim spas on display and the whole place echoes with the sound of bubbling water. It’s like a mini waterpark, and on that cold day in March their sales department was out full force to demonstrate these units in action and shoot set-ups in every one of their unique products. While that was happening, I was paid double my rate to hang out and demo the tubs for customers.

Saturdays are busy at the showroom, and despite the nasty weather outside lots of people came to the Hydropool store that day. Once people saw me in the tub and saw the cameraman taking pictures of me they felt comfortable getting out their own phones and snapping pictures. People were joking and asking if they could join me, I said sure, to see their reaction and share the spotlight with someone else, but they never did. The guys just hung around the water’s edge, adding to the spectacle of this unusual photo shoot.

Joel Levy got me the gig, and that afternoon I think he resented the crowds too, but only because they messed up his backgrounds and prevented him from making perfect catalog pictures. I doubt he gave me any thought at all because that was my deal. I dunked and swam and relaxed on cue as per every setting in these modern hot tub’s programs.

For this shoot, I dropped the ball when I brought only swimwear, a shawl and a pair of flip flops. I totally forgot to bring a towel or gym shorts or any extra clothes. Big mistake. In my defense, I’d imagined they’d have a towel and a robe for me to wear at the store, and they didn’t. So instead of walking about and mingling with customers and staff between set-ups, I would just jump from pool to pool and get my whole body under the warm water when the front door of the store was open for any length of time.

Because the event was happening in the Hydropool factory showroom, there wasn’t a proper change room or showers or a table filled with drinks or craft service of any kind. So in truth there was really no need to ever leave the water anyway.

Consoles with sophisticated settings to improve relaxation are just one of the ways Hydropool separates itself from competitors, and although staff members tried to show me all the settings, they were too complicated for me to remember so I mostly enjoyed the combination testing out the different modes.

The hot tubs can be adjusted in just about every way imaginable, yet they’re nothing compared to the complexity of the swim spa units. These giant tubs have current and buoyancy jets. They are more like swimming pools with programmable consoles, with exercise regimes that can track and measure a swimmer’s performance.

Lots of people were showing interest in seeing all the different programs in the swim spa I happened to be demonstrating, and so I went to work in every exercise setting.

First it was the marathon swim against a stiff current and then I did an extended workout with aquatic barbells while Joel the photographer snapped shots, secretly loving it I’m sure.

And finally, I fetched glowing pucks from the bottom of the pool to delight small children that had thrown the objects (at me?) amid shrieks and wild howls of delight.

When it was over I felt strange, like a fish out of water.

Photo Credits

All photos by Joel Levy – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio
Marie Flo

Marie Flo is the Director of Operations at Untitled and Co in Toronto where she models and reviews technology and lifestyle products for media publications.

In desperation, his boss gave him a two week ultimatum to produce an indoor, athletic distraction that would dissipate the excess energies of his surly students, but in a manner that would prevent injuries, e.g. by limiting body contact.

One way to accomplish this was to put the goal too high for anyone to guard. This was neatly accomplished by having Mr. Stubbins, the school custodian, mount bottomless peach baskets 10 feet high on the railing of the gym gallery. Thirteen basic rules were posted on the bulletin board (though the one about not tackling didn’t catch on at first). Soccer balls were chosen for game-play, since they were the right size and the least likely to cause injury. At first, dribbling was not a part of the sport, and players simply threw the ball up and down over their heads.

Though not quite in the form that it is now played today, basketball thus became the only major sport that was custom-designed by a future physician!

By 1892, the sport was the campus rage and by 1893 it was being promulgated internationally by the YMCA movement. Naismith modestly refused to allow the sport to be named ‘Naismith Ball’ (probably just as well – somehow a team named the “Harlem Naismithball Trotters” doesn’t really work). He didn’t dally in Springfield for long, however, abandoning his presumably no-longer-cranky students to playing the new sport of ‘basketball’ in pursuit of a medical degree in Denver.

In 1898, Naismith, moved west to join the University of Kansas, oddly as its basketball coach, not in a medical capacity. Ironically, he coached the team to the only losing season in its history, which may be why he was subsequently “promoted” to Professor and University Physician in 1909. He must have been forgiven by the world for this gaffe, because he was voted into numerous sports halls of fame.

From 1914 to 1917, Naismith served as a captain and chaplain for the First Kansas Infantry and from 1917 to 1919, he was a lecturer on Moral Conditions and Sex Education in France. He rejoined the University of Kansas as Athletic Director, a position he held from 1919 until his retirement in 1937. In November 1939, Dr. Naismith passed away from a massive stroke shortly after his 78th birthday. It must have given him great satisfaction to have lived long enough to see his game become an official sport of the 1936 Olympics.

Thank you, Dr. Naismith, for basketball. 

Photo Credits

Photos from Wikipedia Commons – Public Domain

Embarking on a new relationship is a form of change but so, too, is going to the cinema to watch a film with no prequel from which to draw prior knowledge, starring actors and actresses about whom you may know nothing. Now, the likelihood is that facing one of these changes is going to involve a lot more commitment than the other; more time, concentration, introspection and perhaps some repairing of one’s fraught emotions as they bleed from one’s every pore at different moments, with different meanings, the path ahead forever unclear.

Indeed, going to the cinema can be a volatile experience.

But what about the changes in our lives that shudder toward us like bullet trains? The track-switcher is broken, swaying its metal arms in the wind like a drunken scarecrow, and we are tied to the rails. These changes charge – no, surge – toward us, and the consequences are for us to deal with. Pause. Take a look around. Maybe have a read of your diary, or the news; check your phone. What fresh tragedy unfolds, bereft of an explanation? What new law marches through your streets, its dust swirling before your eyes, blurring your vision? Do the sounds of today’s world translate into your life?  

Two years ago, a man in Manchester, England, suffering constant pain in his left leg, was anaesthetized. He was a man who enjoyed driving, who had navigated gargantuan coaches across Europe, the roads becoming an intricate map in his mind no less memorable than the lines of his palms. He was a goalkeeper near-unbeatable at five-a-side football (soccer); he was a man who played badminton until the sweat of his determination dripped not just from him but from his racket and shuttlecock; a man with a love of geography and an uncanny ability to remember capital cities. When he came to, in a tragic trick of the light, his left thigh slept numb and scarred. But this was no trick. Perhaps looking upon it was like looking upon the hilt of a broken sword – the blade snapped and lost with just a small, jagged shard jutting from the crossguard.

Perhaps, in the moment of his awakening, the word ‘change’ became another kind of sword. This time the blade was long, edged, sharp – stabbing into his mind. The wounds inflicted were psychological. What happens next? How long will I be here? Will I be able to work again? Why can I feel a limb I no longer have? Was I right to finally agree to this?

Imagine one of those red, welt-like cuts that we have all suffered, the ones that are so red that they don’t even bleed. Imagine his wound was bloodless. Because to bleed would have been to answer his own questions, in catharsis and encouragement. Perhaps the realization would finally strike home that his basic joys – playing football (soccer), badminton, driving – were all under threat of becoming images he would only be able to call upon in memory.

A few weeks, hundreds of medicinal pills and endless painful winces drawled passed. For Paul Ledward, the early aftermath of his amputation was…use your own adjective. Tough? Long? Tormented? Exhausting? With friends around him, he was able to continue as part of a Thursday evening quiz team. Collected by one and driven home by another, he was able to continue to flaunt his geographical erudition. Yet the badminton was gone, the football seemingly lost too.

The driving, however, returned like a shooting star in the darkness, a golden shimmer trailing its own positivity. With his right leg still fully-functioning, an automatic car was granted; the Volvo V40 replete with small, disability-friendly gadgets to enhance the quality of his driving experience. It seemed oddly fitting, too, that this Volvo blazed a vibrant copper colour everywhere it went. Go stand outside and count how many vibrant copper cars you witness passing by; you’re likely to see more ghosts.

Whether or not the loss of a limb can ever be adjusted to remains to be seen. But with a tailored car, a wheelchair, ostensible pain relief and a ramp installed at home, steps were being made in an attempt to repair Paul’s quality of life. The next step came in the guise of sport. Namely, sitting volleyball.

For those of you unfamiliar with sitting volleyball, it is a Paralympic sport. It was first exhibited at the 1976 Games in Toronto as a demonstration before becoming a medal-winning sport in all of the Paralympic Games thereafter. It has become a game of skirmish and impact, with teams allotted only three touches to devise their strategy before the ball must cross the ‘no man’s land’ net that divides the court’s centre. Net touches are penalized, and for a hand to ‘invade’ the enemy’s side is its own transgression. During net confrontations, big hitters swing mallet hands that hammer the ball, only to be met by a two-person, arm-raised wall. In a resounding crack! of leather against flesh, the ball bounces away like debris or shrapnel. Or, a player might opt for a delicate lob over the net player, caressing the ball like a newborn, sending the opposition sprawling backwards, reaching for a prize forever beyond their reach.

At London 2012, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s men lifted gold, while the Republic of China’s women sat at the summit of their sport. The United Kingdom’s governing body, Volleyball England, coordinates both a league and a cup competition. The league’s scores are accumulated over five Sundays of round-robin matches and the Sitting Volleyball Cup then takes place entirely on its own day. Six weekends for teams to progress, rivalries to blossom and for the quality of the game to improve.

A year ago, in July 2014, these competitions were blurs in a dream for Paul; shapes he couldn’t comprehend, might never witness. His first encounter with the sport was in a blustery town named Wigan, situated in the Greater Manchester region. He partook in a series of sessions catered by the Wigan Seahawks Volleyball Club – Paul, his niece Chloe and the coach were the only players. For a sport requiring twelve players on the court, three was…discouraging. The sports hall echoed its sympathy in silence.

“Set up your own club”, Volleyball England representatives suggested. “Funding will be made available”. Paul was put in touch with Howard Ainsworth, the coach of the Manchester Marvels Volleyball Club. After some discussion and the tossing back and forth of ideas, ball-like, Manchester Marvels Sitting Volleyball sparked free. All Paul needed now was more players.

While the sport at Paralympic level is exclusive to people with classified disabilities such as amputations, spinal cord and nerve damage and cerebral palsy, the national level immediately below that accommodates players who are able-bodied. This, in addition to Volleyball England’s encouragement of teams to be mixed-gendered, enabled Paul to broaden his search; to flash his light in all directions. Friends and acquaintances attended the first training session, although for some, the experience was momentary.

Of course, for most people, sitting volleyball was a brand new experience, and still is. It’s rarely televised and not replicated by children in the street like football, American football, rugby, baseball, cricket and hockey. Only a handful of websites ever mention, never mind devote resources to, the sport.

The motivation for some attendees quickly dissolved. This was, ultimately, understandable. The most successful sports have teams and players whose accomplishments extend to thousands of fans. In Manchester, the two football giants, Manchester United and new heavy-spenders Manchester City, are sporting constructs creating (as it’s preferred) friendly rivalries, family banter and role models for children. The hope is that they’ll walk in the shadows and try to reproduce a new skill or even add a new backheel or nutmeg (a pass through an opponent’s legs) into the formula. For Paul and his cohorts, not only was the game new, but so too was the game’s language. It was change. Pass became volley, assist became set, and shot became spike. And of course, in keeping with its name, the sport was played sitting down. With many players at Paralympic level (often amputees), the game needed to facilitate sport at an exciting pace without a person’s legs being essential (the cynics were quick to immediately doubt the game’s speed). Suddenly the arms and core muscles were under greater scrutiny. In this way, the sport could even prove challenging for able-bodied players of indoor and beach volleyball, who themselves continuously use their legs to sprint around the court, jumping to spike and block.

Shuffling and bottom-sliding can be a tough sell; this was not a turn-up-and-play routine. There was a new language to learn, new techniques to master. For families and other entrenched interests, the commitment the sport asked for often proved unappealing; however, for some, the new challenge has now been embraced. And of those people, I shall say more in part two. For now, why not visit our website for more information and some great photos. There’s encouragement at the end of this tale, I promise.

Photo Credits

Photos by Shaun Carter – all rights reserved

Prior to me getting this instrument of torture and torment I used to do all of my running outside. No matter the weather, no matter the day, no matter the circumstance. Whether it was blazing heat, icy winds, soggy grounds, or balmy skies I would tie up my laces and hit the great outdoors running. I splashed, I followed trails which I knew had kilometers of shade, I squinted at blurry shapes which morphed into moose, I threw rocks at bears, and hollered at coyotes. My running partner Wendy and I would wade through waist-deep snows, scale the sides of mountains, splash through creeks and rivers, run on hot dusty highways, all the while thinking that we were having fun. Eventually Wendy quit running, so I was left to run with my dogs.

Then came the sad day when the winter’s ground was no longer safe for aging legs and weak ankles; that is when Matilda came into my life. Matilda and her tread belt of doom. She is a mean and unrelenting taskmaster. But when the roads are ice-covered, or so deep with mud that the runners would be sucked  right off my feet, I plug her in and turn her on. Over the years I have run hundreds of kilometers on her but have never been able to leave her behind. I complain, I pant, I sweat so much that her tread belt looks as if it’s been whirling around in a shower. She doesn’t care, she just spins, and spins, and spins. She never talks to me, never tells me that we are having fun, and doesn’t ever get tired. Bitch.

The other day during a snowstorm I was running along, going nowhere at a steady pace. The music was blaring, my window was wide open in the hope that it would cool some of the sweat running off of me in sheets. I was watching snow-devils twirl across the lake as the icy winds scraped the birds right out of the sky, and was grateful for my treadmill of doom.

Image Credit

“dog on treadmill” by normanack. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.

1) Set the right goals

A Resolution can really only work if it has a specific, quantifiable result that you’re aiming for. Just saying “I want to get in shape” isn’t enough. The goal needs to be something like “I want to lose 15 pounds and be able to run 10km without stopping”. The goal also has to be realistic. If you haven’t picked up your guitar in ten years and you set a goal of winning a national musician contest in September, you might be aiming a tad high, and thus setting yourself up for failure. If in doubt, set the bar a little low – it’s a lot more fun to surpass a goal than to fall short. That said…

2) Winning isn’t everything – it’s the effort that matters

A clear Resolution can be scary because it holds us accountable. Some of us hate to lose or fail so much that we’ll avoid even setting a goal for fear that we might fall short. This can be a huge deterrent to making a difference in our lives. “If I don’t even try, I won’t feel bad about failing.” Unfortunately, this mental trap ignores the fact that we already feel bad about something in our lives, and any improvement on that will probably make us happy.

For example, I could say that I failed in my Health goals in 2012. I set a goal of losing 25 pounds and I lost 23. I set a goal of limiting my alcohol intake to 149 drinks and I slid in at 151. I set a goal of 160 workouts and I only managed 156.

So did I fail? Absolutely not! I lost 23 pounds last year; I completely changed my consumptions habits for the better and I got into shape. Who wouldn’t be happy about that?

My point here is that no-one should avoid making a goal for fear of not reaching it. If the goal is precise and realistic, it becomes a target to shoot for. Even if you don’t make it, you’ll be in a much better place than you would have been if you’d not tried at all.

3) It gets easier with time

Changing any sort of lifestyle or habit is hard: there’s a reason we fall into those less-than-ideal patterns in the first place – they’re easy. Trying to break a habit can be extremely hard: at first. 

The good news is it only takes a couple of weeks before the amount of difficulty starts to drop off tremendously. Those first few, critical weeks are when you’re forcing your body or mind to do something new but once you’ve pushed through that transition period your body or mind starts to create a new habit and doesn’t fight you nearly as much.

Late January is hell for Resolution-keepers. It’s right about now that you’ve been suffering for three weeks and you dread taking on whatever your goal is. But just keep going a few more days: it is going to start getting easier. Don’t give up now.

So, did I make any New Year’s Resolutions for 2013? You bet. And in order to be accountable to more than just myself, I’m going to declare them publicly:

a) I resolve to lose 6 more pounds this year
b) I resolve to keep my “treat” consumption (alcohol, desserts, etc) below 260 this year
c) I resolve to do at least 240 workouts this year
d) I resolve to spend at least 180 hours of quality time with God
e) I resolve to go on at least 25 date nights with my wife

I’ll report back at the beginning of 2014. Have a great year, and work hard to make yourself a better person in whichever way you want.

Photo Credits

All photos courtesy of the author – all rights reserved

Great – now what?

In my previous article I talked about the importance of setting a goal for your resolution which is both clear and realistic. In my case I said that I wanted to lose 25 pounds (just over 11 kilos) in 2012. In addition I described how successful it was when I set monthly milestones to keep track of my progress on a regular basis.

But as many of us know, it isn’t very helpful to make a resolution to lose weight and leave it at that. If only losing weight was as simple as just stating a goal! Losing weight requires effort and determination, and very likely requires some significant changes to our habits. This is where supporting goals come in – goals that are means to an end. In my case, my ultimate goal for 2012 was to lose 25 pounds, but I had to set two other goals to direct my activities in support of that end.

In its simplest form, weight loss is generally controlled by two things, and two things only: exercise (how many calories we burn) and diet (how many calories we consume). I set a single goal in support of each of these: for exercise I set a goal of doing 10 workouts a month, rising eventually to 15 workouts a month; for diet I decided to keep it really simple and set a goal of keeping my alcohol consumption below 10 drinks a month. This is very important for supporting goals: they have to be something you can directly control, entirely through your own efforts.

With exercise, it’s important to recognize the reality of your current age and condition. I played varsity soccer at university, for example, and I’ve run marathons and half-marathons. But I needed to remember that I did all those things in my twenties and very early thirties – approaching 39 as I was, I couldn’t expect my body to be able to keep up with what my mind thought it could do. This point was made crystal clear to me when, on a rainy January morning, I went for a 20-minute jog – and was so exhausted I actually had to have a nap that afternoon (I kid you not). So be realistic in your early expectations, and don’t be discouraged when you can’t do what you used to do. Setting the bar low also allows you to make significant gains in performance early on, which can be very rewarding and help you build the crucial new habit of exercising.

How did I define a “workout”? Since the workout was the unit I was measuring for my goal, I needed to be very clear on what this was. Everyone has to set their own definition, but here’s what I set for myself: one workout was either 30 minutes of intense activity (in my case a run or a workout on my punching bag) or 60 minutes of moderate activity (a quick walk or some intensive housework). I also allowed for a half-workout, which was a 30-minute quick walk, since I realized that I had lots of opportunities to do this, either on my lunch break at work or while I was waiting for the ferry. These half-workouts were extremely valuable, not so much for the additional units they contributed toward my monthly goals, but instead because they encouraged me to try and get some sort of exercise every single day – this shift in mentality was a huge boost toward changing my habit and getting me moving more easily.

What about my diet? First of all, I didn’t do a “diet” at all. No crazy foods, no shakes, no gluten/dairy/meat/grain/egg/protein/carb/fat-free regimes. I didn’t do anything extreme, simply because my intention was to change my lifestyle for the long-term, so whatever I did had to be sustainable. Forever. And I like food a lot, so cutting out entire groups of it didn’t appeal. I have done Weight Watchers in the past (where you can eat anything you want but everything is worth a number of points that you have to track) and it was very effective for me, but with my busy lifestyle I just didn’t want the bother of having to track and calculate every single thing I ate. As always, when you set your goals you have to make them as easy as possible to implement, even if the final target is challenging. Tracking food and calculating points was just too much trouble, I knew, and trying to go something-free would just be impossible, especially since I travel overseas so much with my job.

So instead, I looked at my consumption habits and spotted a clear source of calories that wasn’t in any way part of my nutritional needs: alcohol. My wife and I are long past the partying days, but we both like wine and enjoy having a relaxing drink together in the evenings. A single glass of wine here and there may not sound like much, but when I actually started to track it as part of my 2012 goal I was astonished at how quickly the numbers added up. Travelling, likewise, offered a horrific number of opportunities for free alcohol (aircraft, hotel happy hours, business dinners). So I made the goal very simple: eat normally, and cut down on the alcohol.

Your weakness might be chocolate, potato chips, sugary soda or fast food: whatever it is, take a good, honest look at your eating/drinking habits and pick the worst offender to your health. If you want to set a goal to reduce more than one thing that’s great, but in the beginning at least I recommend just choosing one item because it will be very easy to control and it will build your confidence that you can control it. Interestingly, I don’t have a sweet tooth and I didn’t think to track my dessert consumption because that had never been a big deal for me. However, as the months went on and my alcohol consumption stayed low, I found myself reaching for a donut or a cookie far more often, just to get that “little something” I craved. Interestingly, at the same time my sister-in-law was cutting down on sweets – and she noticed that she was drinking more alcohol! So as you cut back on your main consumption vice, be very mindful of any increases in other naughty foods, since you may not be technically tracking them.

One final bit of advice on annual weight-loss goals: don’t include December. I’m not saying go hog-wild in that final month, but I discovered that, no matter how hard I tried, with all the pre-Christmas and Christmas/New Year’s festivities it’s completely unrealistic to expect to actually lose weight in December. My suggestion is to aim simply to maintain your weight through this month: just gaining nothing is a triumph. Don’t give up on your practical goals (I still did my workouts and tracked my alcohol) but realistically allow some latitude in this most gluttonous of months. It would be a shame to work so hard all year and then feel disappointed with a perceived failure at the end.

My next article will look at a different kind of health that I made resolutions about in 2012.

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of the author

The first thing that strikes you is the happiness – the genuine “I’m so glad to be here doing this!” look on everyone’s faces. Are some people staring in disbelief? Absolutely. Are the people participating really caring about that? Absolutely not. How many times have we decided not to use a certain gym or partake in a certain activity because someone might watch and we think they’d be judging us for not being able to use the treadmill at more than 4km/hour, or mentally point and laugh at how we look in our swimsuit?

Now, thanks to that first, wonderful, happy man and the reporter who saw something worthy, an idea has been set on fire. It has been spreading around the world because not only is it not “exercise,” it is an embrace to all that is fun, silly and social. You are supposed to laugh, you are supposed to make other people laugh… *with* you.

Dance Walk like everybody’s watching. And love it.

Photo Credit

Feature And Thumbnail  Images – Screen Cap From Video

Guest Author Bio

Jodie Gastel
Jodie Gastel lives and plays in Victoria, BC and is frequently followed around by noises that usually sound like “What is she up to now?” Not content with sitting still, Jodie has taken part of life’s smorgasbord and has experienced as much as possible including traveling around France, running business libraries, getting a mohawk, owning businesses, writing books, doing things interesting enough to be written about in magazines, becoming a mother and donning steel-toed boots while learning to drive a Bobcat.

Currently she is planning the next adventure. Preferably one that involves Yurt building.

Blog / Website: Dance Walking Victoria BC 

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