Tag Archives: Walking

January 3, 2011 · 8:53 pm

Treadmill

It is always there waiting for me...

Treadmill

I approach you, with your gleaming sides and surefooted surface,

Somewhat more confident than when I first met you.

Now, I know your conveniences: iPod plugs, headphone jacks, book rest and TV monitors lined up at attention just above eye level.

I can watch your “track” to monitor my progress, raise and lower speed and incline automatically

and walk,

rain or shine.

I’ve become comfortable with you

and enjoy your company.

I always feel better,

elated even,

after spending an hour walking,

and have taken to bringing

reading material

to allow for multi-tasking.

I listen to background music,

read,

walk.

I am on the road to 10,000 steps a day

And the treadmill is my new best friend.

Life has a lot in common with a treadmill.

It keeps moving and you just have to hop on and keep stride,

though you can set your own pace.

Sometimes it can be all uphill,

but you do get stronger for the effort.

Sometimes there are lovely distractions.

Most of the time, there are just your thoughts to keep you company.

Some may think a treadmill is pointless because you just stay in the same place and don’t go anywhere,

but it’s not true.

By taking the time to walk, I am getting somewhere I want to be.

The treadmill comes with certain guarantees:  availability, consistency, and options.  Just like life.

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January 1, 2011 · 9:38 pm

Create 2011

Dreams and a Plan 2011

My New Year’s Day tradition is to create a collage visualization of my hopes, dreams and plans for the New Year and so this afternoon I sat down at the kitchen table with my husband and youngest daughter (who is 19)  and spent a pleasant couple of hours scanning magazines for inspirational words and photos.  My 2011 collage has a theme:  Create.  That is also the word that popped into my head during a Winter Solstice meditation with Diana Lang two weeks ago.  I take it to mean that I can create the life I want, and it doubles as inspiration to create art and the written word.  My plan has three categories:

1.  Create health & peace of mind

2. Create and maintain relationships

3.  Create art

I will create a more healthy lifestyle by developing the habit of exercise at Equinox and Curves and integrating it into my daily life.  I have chosen the 10,000 Steps walking program and I have my spiffy new pedometer to track my daily steps.  I have realized that if I walk (either on the treadmill or an extended walk with Charlie, my dog) for an hour, I can rack up the steps fairly easily.  I am also committing to yoga at least twice a week.  This also helps with creating peace of mind, but is definitely a good strength training routine as well.  I will continue with resistance training to help build bone strength.  The big news is my recent re-acquaintance with Weight Watchers.  I am attending weekly meetings and making daily use of eTools to track my food. I have come to the conclusion that tracking creates the discipline I need to succeed.  I am proud to say that In the past month I have really become mindful of the food I eat and am excited with the 5 lb. weight loss!

Charlie, my walking buddy, on the way home from his bath. Note the cute scarf?

I will create peace of mind by tracking my spending and saving habits too, and will continue my money education and devotion to becoming money-wise.  By tracking my habits on mint.com I will have a realistic visual of where my money is going and how I can gain control even in these tough economic times, taking into account  furlough days and the cutbacks imposed on education by lack of State funding.

I am open to creating new friendships and devoted to maintaining those I have.  I will continue to nurture the friends and family I am blessed to have in my life presently and appreciate these relationships.  I am taking a positive path to relationships and plan to focus on positive aspects of relationships while attempting to eliminate gossip and other negative habits that are detrimental to honest friendships.  I will practice patience, support and giving.

I will create art by focusing on my writing through my classes in the UCLA Writers Program, this blog, a daily 2-minute journal and various writing experiences.  I will expand my creative experiences through any art form that becomes available and will be open to opportunities to  express myself through music, art and crafts.

This is my new nifty 2-minute timer.

2011 is a blank slate, a new beginning and a chance to “Embrace the art of living.”  My vision is clear and my plan is in place.  Feel free to share your plan for the New Year!  May it be a truly happy year for us all.

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June 27, 2010 · 7:18 pm

Day 6 & 7: It’s The Weekend!

Breakfast!

It’s the weekend!  Usually this means a drastic change in routine, but since it is summer, the fun just continues.  Saturday I started the day with muesli, mana bread with almond butter and coffee.  I went to Curves and then came home to start my CLEANING REGIME!  I am determined to sort through, clean, recycle, toss, and organize everything in my house.  I will get it condensed to a reasonable amount of “stuff” so that I am prepared for all possible outcomes to our housing nightmare.  This is why I need strength and control.

Speaking of control, I am finding that I very much enjoy the structure and control of exercise when SOMEONE ELSE IS TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!  I have figured out that that is why I like the peaceful bliss of yoga (my teacher tells me what to do pose by pose), Curves (the recording tells me when to change stations in the large oval circuit, and Couch To 5k which tells me when to run and walk.  I have far too much on my mind to add exercise directions, but I am a willing participant.

I continued the rest of my Saturday with a lunch of salad with grilled chicken, a snack of almonds and a special dinner out.  We met my cousins in Santa Monica at Real Food Daily where I had the yummy Pizza ya can Eat-za, which is a cornmeal crust with sun-dried tomato pesto, tomatoes, spinach, soy mozzarella cheese, basil served with kale and cannelini beans.  This place is great when on the detox cleanse because everything on the menu is basically OK.  There are a few sugary items and I admit to having a couple of bites of soy ice cream-while not sweetened with sugar, was sweetened with molasses bits, I believe.  I really didn’t desire more than a bite, which is very unusual for me.  I had water with lemon and Egyptian Mint Green Tea after eating.  Success!

"Pizza ya can eat-za" from Read Food Daily

Today I started with scrambled egg and onions, berries and mana bread.  I then went for a great hike with a friend Jill, in Red Rock Canyon.  This was a little more than 2 miles, and Charlie came along.  He was pretty pooped by the end of the hike and happy to get back to Jill’s.  Jill treated me to a lunch/snack of fruit and a cottage cheese/flax oil blend which we had like a spread/dip with rice cake.  This was a very sustaining snack.  At home I had a little evening snack of left over “pizza” from last night and a few almonds.  Dinner will be light.

I have completed the first week!  What have I learned?

1.  Be prepared.

2.  Keep great food in the house.

3.  Eat small portions.

4.  Drink your water!

5. Keep busy and exercise.

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May 14, 2010 · 9:48 pm

Pray

Finding a way to pray by looking within.

Where have I been?  It has been almost 3 weeks since I have taken this time for myself to write!  My days have become filled with reading the writing of others, so my praying, for today’s word that hopefully will not fail me, is once again to find the balance in my life.  My balance scale constantly fluctuates between reading and writing, learning and reflecting and of course, walking and reading somehow squeezes in there too.

I live through my cravings and use that as a determiner for how to spend my time.  There are days when I just crave rushing home to grab my latest book and sit on my favorite couch to languish in  words.  Then other days I must move, walk or practice yoga.  Today is a day when I am finding the balance having rushed home to read, settled in a comfy chair in my lovely spring yard, an hour later heading off to the gym for a treadmill walk followed by a great yoga class, returning home for a quick check of the email and here I am!  Writing!  If only that was the beginning of my day instead of the end of it, darn that work!

Praying is a practice that can take many forms.  I am far removed from the traditional religious connotation of praying and am finding a lot of satisfaction in meditation, when looking for answers.  I do, however, find myself talking to my mother (who passed away a year and a half ago) a lot lately and hoping she will visit my dreams to give me some much-needed advice. I do pray for that connection-to that other place that my mother now inhabits.  I do pray for messages of wisdom to reach me, and for the ability to recognize the answers to my questions, when they are given to me.  We pray as a way of connecting to our inner wisdom because when we are able to reach that place, we realize that the answer has been there all along.

This is today’s challenge:  to find a way to reach your own “gut feeling” by balancing the chatter and the quiet, the looking out and the looking in.  The reward is a sense of knowing, a sense of peace and hopefully a few answers.


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April 11, 2010 · 10:19 am

Change

Change can be empowering, frightening, enlightening, depressing, difficult or exciting.  Often change is all of these emotions at the same time, which is possibly why so many of us are hesitant to voluntarily take change on.  Usually change happens “to” us, or we are forced to change against our will.

I have always been emotional during life-stage changes such as children growing up and entering new phases of their lives, weddings, births, deaths, and moving on, either to a new home, new job, new place in my life.  Change does not come easily because it places us in an uncomfortable unknown place and we crave the familiar.

At some point though, we begin to crave change.  We look in the mirror and say “enough!” Or we see an opportunity to grow intellectually, spiritually or to improve our health or our surroundings and we say “yes.”  We initiate the change, and that is a huge step to insuring its success.  Change embraced is change most likely to be effective.

I am embracing change.  I have three areas that I will focus on:  health, spirituality, and responsibility.  I will change my health habits to protect my body and to assure my health by exercising daily walking, with yoga, strength training, pilates and Qigong (my new-found exercise area of interest.

I will focus on spirituality through meditation (One Moment Meditation), connecting with people I care about, and those I want to help and self-reflection.

I will focus on responsibility by taking responsibility to educate myself about the things I need to take care of myself and live the life I want to live.  Those include financial responsibility, staying connected to those I care about, performing my best at my job, challenging my intellect and being there, emotionally and physically, for my friends and family.

Change is not something that comes easily to me, it is an area that I chose to work on.  My life is not stagnant and my self-initiated changes are more likely to have a positive impact on my life.

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March 25, 2010 · 10:06 pm

Finding Time

Where does the time go?

I am searching for time.  Recently I seem to be dwelling in an abyss of obligations, commitments and sleep deprivation.  Time eludes me and when I do find it, it travels swiftly through the hourglass, reminding me of that old soap opera, The Days of Our Lives.  How can I accomplish what I need to and what I want to?  I am convinced I have to restructure time and set new boundaries for myself.

1.  Limit time on the computer, specifically on social media.  Computers are time suckers.  They seem so efficient and helpful but in reality they are magnets that attract you and then hold you fast.  There is no such thing as “quickly checking your e-mail.”  To attempt to quickly do anything is to enter the labyrinth of the cyber world.  Exiting is a tricky task.

2.  Walk every day.  Walking allows for time to think, plan, wonder, imagine and enjoy the world.  Walking may seem like a time-consuming activity, but the benefits outweigh the time commitment.  The benefit of good health, improved attitude and clarity come along with the obvious benefit of the exercise itself.

3.  Learn to say “no.”  Saying “no” in order to stick to your own plan and your own schedule is different from saying “no” just because you are selfish, or self-involved.   You can help people, and do favors, but just learn to put yourself first and take care of your needs.

Three new rules are enough.  They provide the structure I need and if there were more rules, it would just take too much time anyway.



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March 8, 2010 · 10:26 pm

Right to Write

Time to hop back on the treadmill.

Well, so much time has passed and I have very little in the way of an excuse for my lack of writing.  It is true I had the cold from hell for 2 weeks, and yes I was finishing up the last couple of weeks of Six Weeks in a Cast, but it seems that I have been spending a lot of time doing everything but writing.  I have been reading many blogs written by others, finding old and new friends on Facebook, keeping up with my book club reading, attending social events and getting much-needed sleep.  As Gretchen Rubin dictates in The Happiness Project, it is time to Aim Higher.  I take that as a challenge, and being the Type A person that I am, I must have a continuous challenge, meaning there must always be something new to entice me.
I am getting my walking legs back and have joined a couple of women at my school in the Couch to 5k program, starting today. It is actually a great motivator and the best part is that there is an iPhone App. for the program.  Basically you just select the music from your iPod to insert into the program, select the day and week of the program, i.e. today I was on Week 1, Day 1 and the program tells you what to do.  I love it!  It says, “Warm Up.  Brisk walking” and then the timer counts down from 5 minutes.  This continues through walking and running intervals and then a cool-down.  The music plays in between voice commands.  I actually RAN!  That in itself is amazing.  I did my workout, hit a few of the strength training machines and came home to eat my healthy dinner, take my Melaleuca vitamins and drink my water.  Life is good.

The Wellness Company I now represent!

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January 17, 2010 · 6:55 pm

Slowing Down-Six Weeks in a Cast

There is a saying that things often happen for a reason and while I usually believe it, I don’t always need such a blatant reminder to slow down and appreciate the more mellow side of life.  Yet, that is what I know must do, thanks to DWP and a faulty, sunken water meter.

As I walked my dog Charlie, a slow walking dog of 10 years, around my neighborhood, quasi-training for the Avon Breast Cancer Walk I will be completing in September, My foot twisted painfully as I stepped on what I thought was level sidewalk, but was instead a 3″ drop.

The Evil Water Meter

So, as I lay on the ground, Charlie staring at me quizzically, I pondered my choices and decided I had none but to limp the 30 minutes home.  My, that tennis shoe was tight by the time I got home!  I was sure it was just a sprain, so I wrapped it tightly and continues with my usual active life.

Finally, Tuesday, my husband suggested quietly that I might want to see a doctor-since my foot was quite purple.  The doctor thought it was most likely a spain, but she would call the next day if the x-rays showed more.  At noon the next day, while eating lunch in the staff lunchroom, my phone rang and I was requested to show up at the orthopedic doctor the next morning.  After 2 hours I left with a lovely bright pink cast.

The lovely cast covered by a "sock" because my toes are freezing! I have a walking boot too!

I can no longer hop up and down multitasking, turn on a dime, maneuver effortlessly through my kindergarten classroom or sadly, walk Charlie.  My training for the Avon Walk is on hold, as is yoga class.  What is left?  I can plow through that ominous stack of books, write, balance my budget and take control of my finances, sit sipping green tea and work on my Happiness Project. It actually is possible to slow down.

When they say that everything happens for a reason, I guess my reason is to take the time to stop and appreciate things because after all, it is hard to focus on things when you move so quickly that life is a blur.

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January 2, 2010 · 8:15 pm

Walking

Well, today was a beautiful Southern California day.  70 degrees. After spending the morning moving furniture from storage into our spare rooms, I longed to walk outdoors, anywhere, but there were other plans in store for me which included Costco, the market, and…The Mall.  While I did get in 4527 steps in so far today (not my more inspiring 7000 at the gym while on the treadmill) I did spend quality time with two out of three daughters and it set the tone for a lovely evening of togetherness making our traditional taco dinner with rice and beans and generally hanging out.  In a few minutes we will begin our collages and then have a cozy night on the couch watching a movie.

These times are fleeting as our youngest leaves to go back to college tomorrow and our middle one off to college on Monday morning.  We appreciate our time together and my legs are actually tired from all that Mall walking.  The good news is that our new guest room is waiting for our oldest daughter and her boyfriend to come on down for a visit and stay is style and comfort.

The New Year brings change and challenges, but coming along for the ride are cozy, comfortable times and traditions.  Home.


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December 31, 2009 · 11:14 pm

Collaging The New Year

Simple New Year’s traditions are habitual for me.  I relish creating goals, lists and most recently, collages-visual representations of my hopes for the new year ahead.  I drag my family into this activity, but secretly I think they love the creative, artistic escape of sitting around the big kitchen table with piles of magazines torn apart in the search for the perfect picture or word.  This mellow time of sharing, hunting together and putting our hopes and dreams for the future out on the table, stuck to small boards with white glue, is one of the few rare times we all sit engaged in a common activity that doesn’t require electricity.  I often yearn for a technology-free day of time spent sharing an activity that requires personal interaction and the time we spend creating our New Year’s collages is a close as I get.

Before I can create my collage I have to consider what I want to visualize for the new year and that can be inspired by magazine images or ideas I’ve had floating around for a while.  Setting goals is organized ambition and my inspiration after reading my daughter’s blog is to think of three goals and bring them to life with visual images that will inspire me during the year.  I usually put my collage in a prominent place where I see it first thing in the morning and remind myself to be cognizant of my actions.  So here goes,  this year’s goals are:

1.  To Write-I want to write blogs, journals, poems, stories, comments, and articles.  I want to improve and grow as a writer.  I will read, a lot, to be inspired, to learn, to be entertained, to relax and to escape.  I think that reading and writing go hand in hand and surrounding myself in the literary world will help me create a place for myself in that world.  It also is much nicer than watching mindless TV, although at times, mindless TV comes in handy too.

2.  To Walk-I want to keep my commitment to walk an hour each day both as a great health goal, and as training for the Avon Breast Cancer Walk I will be participating in next September.  Walking provides time to think, to listen to music or motivating walking CDs, or to watch a little of that mindless TV if I am on the treadmill at the gym.  Walking connects me to the world, my neighborhood or places of nature and I feel better after walking thanks to increased endorphins.

3.  To Move Forward-I am ready, more than ready, to move forward and away from 2008-2009 and towards a decade of increased awareness, a plan leading to goals, a life that is more in line with what is important to me:  family, friends, health, and personal creativity.  I am ready to accept help in getting started on my yellow brick road from any good fairy willing to help, and I do know that I have the power within me to make the changes, and start the walk down that road leading to my own version of Oz.

This was the quote from Creative Catalyst today:

“The masters at the art of living make little distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their minds and their bodies, their information, their recreation,their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which. They simply pursue their vision of excellence at whatever they do – leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing.”

~James Michener

With that in mind, here’s to a year of playing!  Happy 2010!



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