Major Life Changes: No April Fool’s Day Joke

Posted on 27 March 2016 | 5 comments

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I’ve gotten super fat again, and that I’ve been sick pretty much all winter long. Since some time in November, around Thanksgiving I’d say, I’ve been sick or not feeling 100% more than I’ve been well or even feeling 80% or better. A couple of days in January and a couple more in February I couldn’t even drag myself from the couch. I missed work more this winter than in the entire time I’ve been working combined.

In addition to being a coughing, sneezing, tired, achy mess, I’ve also been inordinately itchy, which I think is some sort of allergic response to something. If I forget to take my allergy pill in the morning, by the early evening, the itchiness is over the top to the point where I have bruised myself or bloodied myself with the fierceness of my scratching.

Because of the misery of labored breathing, aching joints, and constant itching, I’ve done very little aside from sitting on the couch, watching Netflix, and wishing my life was way more awesome than it has been. I mean I’ve hiked some and swam some, but I’ve really done no physical activity to write home about. Consequently, I’ve gotten really fat again. I can tolerate being fat, but super fat is where I draw the line. For my own comfort, super fat is not okay.

On April 1, 2016, I will usher in a life change. Again. I’m serious, though it’s April Fool’s Day.

I’m publishing this now because I’m hoping to leave behind a few things that get in my way of doing positive things for myself, or that get in the way of me getting out of the house on a more regular basis. I’m grabbing the reins of this horse, and turning her fat behind around. I’m leaving the social medias for the next 30 days, and hopefully for the next 365 days, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Don’t worry, I still have a phone, so you can call or message me.

To begin the diet changes I think are necessary to feel better, I’m doing a bit of a detox, and not the kind where I drink 8 million gallons of water and suck only on ripe lemons harvested by llamas on a beach in Brazil. I’m cutting out some things which I think may be harming my body or at the very least causing me discomfort in the way of itching and inflammation.

To make a long story short: sugar goes bye-bye, wheat goes bye-bye, and dairy goes bye-bye. If I am not mistaken, this is common practice when trying to find the allergen that is causing discomfort. So basically, I’ll be a gluten-free, sugar-free vegan. For at least the next 30 days. If I feel better, I’ll keep on. If I don’t, I’ll find an allergist up here to figure out what is going on. Don’t be sad if I don’t eat the food you offer to me. I’m not being rude; I’m simply trying to figure out why I am so achy and itchy, because I’m tired of feeling like yuck.

For the next 30 days, I am making a promise to myself that I will spend one hour outside moving about. If I take a walk, if I go for a hike, if I run, I will spend 60 minutes in nature moving. I would love it if this would grow to include some swimming and weightlifting, but, again, I am doing this more to feel better than for any weight-loss goal right now. I just need to stop itching and feel well.

I’m hoping these health changes will move me toward starting to run again, because I really miss it. I have just looked at some photos from about 6 or 7 years ago to find record of the fact that I could run 15 miles at a time. I was, at one time, running 3 or 4 miles in the morning, then some more in the evening. I’d be happy if I could just run a 5K without feeling like I might die. Maybe that day will return.

I hope to make this a 365-day-long experiment, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I hope to feel better by March 31 of next year, but I want to focus on the next 30 days instead.

I have heard that the answer is 42. I’ll be 42 this year, so maybe it’s my year.

 

EDIT: In the interest of full disclosure, I’m addicted to candy and sweets. I can’t control myself when I am around them, and I’ve been inspired by my friend over at Travels with Freckles to change my life.

I’ll use today for an example of food consumption. We went to Easter Brunch, which is a thing up here, at the Green Mill. I had a mimosa, salad, a donut, about a quarter of a pizza, some spinach dip and bread, some butter and bread, six little rice kripsy treat bird nests with icing and mini cadbury eggs, and probably some things I am forgetting.

To burn off the calories, we went for a four- to five-mile walk at Afton State Park. It was beautiful and amazing. But afterwards I needed some strawberry milk.And then I needed some jelly beans and marshmallow bunnies and chicks (think circus peanuts, but shaped like Easter things). And a three- or four-hour nap.

For dinner, when I woke up from sleeping, I had a bowl of popcorn, and some (okay, an entire bag of) Malt M&Ms.

Long story short: I need to get my shit together before I make myself diabetic, hypertensive, and at risk for heart-disease by eating so much crap. Not to mention that I can’t fit into any of my dress clothes, and Burris graduation is coming up in two months.

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Posted in Wellness

Break Me Off a Piece of That Kit Kat Bar

Posted on 16 February 2016 | Leave a comment

Give me a break. Give me a break.

I’m taking a break. I’ve been way too sick for way too many months this winter. I’m tired. My body isn’t cooperating. And I’m giving her the rest she desires.

There will be no previously set goals accomplished this year, nor anymore set. Possibly next year will be the year I run a 50K and swim a 5K. We’ll see. This year, though, will be set aside for leisurely walking and hiking, and I’ll be doing some occasional swimming and weightlifting.

I’m going to focus my energies on non-digital methods of creativity and communication, so I’ll not be posting here either. I am hoping to spend some of the many hours I spend in front of my computer in front of some art supplies and writing pages.

Here’s to a healthy 2017.

Until then: peace, grace, love, and joy.

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Posted in Grace, Health, Just for Fun, Lent, Rest, Wellness

Hope and Goals

Posted on 1 February 2016 | Leave a comment

Hope

I received a text from my wife earlier this week that simply said, “There is hope,” to which I responded, “Always.” There is always hope if nothing else, but hope is a funny, tricky thing.

St. Thomas Aquinas describes hope in this way: “a movement or stretching forth of the appetite towards an arduous good.” And I’ve read a lot about how hope is first and foremost predicated by our eternal desires, but I know people who don’t believe in any concept of eternity, who seem to have more hope than those who do have a sense of some eternal life.

My questions to myself this week, after that text, has been what do I believe that hope is? What do I feel when I feel hope? How does hope fit in with my four guiding principles: peace, grace, love, and joy?

What is hope? I’ve meditated on this for a bit of each day, as I rest, as I read, as I drive, as I work. For me, I think hope is a bit like St. Thomas describes it, but it’s more than just “stretching the appetite forward towards an arduous good.” Hope is visualizing that good and picturing yourself as a part of that good, as if it’s already happened.

For me, hope is a bit like competing in an endurance event. I visualize myself completing the course, putting myself through the imaginary rigors, and then finishing the test in an admirable way. I revel in the fictitious completion of the event, so I can then begin the event with hope that I will finish. I’ve already owned the success of it.

Hope is much the same. I have hope in a future event or a present moment, because I’ve already visualized the success of that event, not giving room for any other outcome. I hope good things into being by imagining them as such. My hope is not always related to my spiritual life, but also it is an integral part of my corporeal reality. My body and my mind need to feel hope to make it through each day. Many of my dark days have been comprised of a lack of hope, my inability to imagine an arduous good, to taste it, to see it, to imagine it into fruition.

What do I feel when I feel hope? Well, for me hope feels like standing in a field of yellow and purple wildflowers, near some pine trees, listening to the breeze come up over the hill, hearing birds sing and the bees buzz, and knowing that everything will work out for good.

The sun is warm on my skin, and hope burns my heart.

Hope feels like owning beauty and growth and goodness, even before they are completely mine. Hope is knowing and resting in the fact that whatever happens will be worked into some good, somewhere in the world.

How does hope fit in with peace, grace, love, and joy, as my four main guiding forces in my life? Hope is what ties them all together. Hope is what help me see peace where there isn’t any. Hope is what helps me gives grace and receive grace in difficult situations. Hope inspires love, and love is, ultimately, the arduous good that is hope’s appetite. Finally, hope breeds joy. How can I not be joyful or experience joy when hope is the visualization of an arduous good?

The tricky thing about hope is exactly what St. Thomas points toward in describing the desire of hope as an “arduous good.” There is nothing worth hoping for that is easy to attain, since hope, in and of itself, implies that the object of that hope is something difficult to attain. Are peace, grace, love, and joy easy ideals to attain? If they were, each day would not be struggle to live out those values. There wouldn’t be whole volumes of spiritual and religious texts written about how to have hope, how to think positively of the future, how to live a “happy” life, how to prosper, who to not lose faith, and how to live with an eye toward the future. Even religions that focus on the present, like Buddhism, have sacred texts that refer to hope as a positive tool for life.

Today in my life I feel hope. For a better future. For loving others. For changing this tragic world. For giving grace. For my vocation. For living life forward.

Goals

Veganism This is not going so well, and, at the risk of sounding like I am making excuses, it’s because I love to have dinner with my wife. It’s incredibly difficult to cook food that suits us both, and since she cooks most of the time now, I find it rude to ask her to cook special food for me. We’re strictly vegetarian in the meals that we share, though she does eat bacon for breakfast.

Volunteerism I got an email from 360 Communities about being a sexual assault advocate , and I really want to do it, but this time around conflicts with work. I’m waiting until the next round of training in October. I am volunteering in March to help pack lunches for small children, so that will have to suffice for now.

Prayer and Meditation I am enjoying an increased level of quiet time to contemplate spiritual things. I am trying to make the St. Francis prayer a morning ritual, thereby working to commit the prayer to memory. In its entirety, the prayer goes like this:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Exercise I ran the Winter Trail Quarter Marathon again this year, and my time was awful, but I finished. I then proceeded to get sick again, and I have only run once since then. Apple’s Wellness Challenge begins tomorrow, and I don’t want to let my team down, so I’ll be exercising daily for the month of February, starting with an hour-long swim tomorrow morning.

Alcohol and Caffeine This one really isn’t difficult. I’ve had a couple of beer and a couple of coffees, but, to be honest, I’m not really even tempted by either one right now.

Do good. Do no harm. Stay in love with God.

 

 

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Posted in Abstinence, Coffee, Cooking, Ethics, Fat, Fat Runner, Fitness, Food, Goals, Grace, Hope, Joy, Meditation, Mental Health, Prayer, Public Servant, Religion, Running, Spirituality, Swimming, Vegetarian or Vegan, Weight Loss, Wellness, Workout

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Smooth Swimming

Posted on 7 January 2016 | Leave a comment

If you’re not a swimmer, you might not get this post. If you are a swimmer, you’ll have your own story to add.

I woke up this morning, got dressed, and headed to work. I ate a banana on my way to work, followed by some trail mix and decaf vanilla soy latte at work. The whole time I was making coffee for other people, I visualized my self-imposed 5K swim time trial.

I calculated how many laps I’d need to swim to do an even-ish 5K, which works out to 107, if you were interested, and even if you weren’t know you know.

I imagined my breathing and stroke pattern. I focused on my form, imagining that throughout the entire couple of hours, my form never wavered.

I counted my strokes from one end of the pool to the other end. My stroke count is uneven, which is nice since my semi-circular canals won’t allow me to do flip turns. I’ve learned that turning to the same side on each length makes that one arm sore form leveraging most of the turn.

I remembered my baptism and was grateful.

I even imagined how I might feel at the end of the swim. I imagined I’d feel accomplished, sore, and exhausted.

When I arrived at the pool, the water was a perfect chilly temperature (if the water’s too hot, swimming can be very uncomfortable), there was no one else in the water (sometimes the lanes are completely full), and I remembered to bring my counting coins. Counting 107 laps is a daunting task, so I broke it down into 500 repeats. For each 500, one pile of ten quarters shrank by one coin and a new pile grew by one. Getting change for tips sometimes comes in handy.

From the moment I kicked off the wall, I knew this was going to be a golden swim. Everything just felt right. My stroke was on, my breathing was on, my turns were as on as they can be in this pool, my goggles didn’t fog or slip at all, and I hauled ass for the first 2850 yards.

The swim was beautiful. I might even say glorious. Magical. Perfect.

While the last 2500 yards wasn’t as pretty or as painless as the first part, my body still felt sleek in the water, and my ego was boosted by the fact that I was swimming nearly the same speed as two younger, thinner, potentially more fit men, who hopped in when I was halfway through. I was also able to slow down just a bit to keep my focus on my form, which I think still looked somewhat passable even on the very last lap.

Each of my last 500s gained a minute on the one before, but I didn’t care. I finished 5350 yards solid, in good form, and without having to stop for longer than a minute between any repeat.

Apparently, visualization is the key to success for me, because I was elated with the way the swim felt. My goal of finishing was met, and my time wasn’t even awful, like I had imagined it might be.

I’m sure I will sleep long and hard tonight. Just after I eat everything in the house.

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Posted in Fat, Fitness, Goals, Grace, Health, Swimming, Triathlon, Wellness, Workout

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The Real New Year; Epiphany

Posted on 6 January 2016 | Leave a comment

Generally, I mark my time through the Christian calendar, starting my year at Advent and progressing through the days in celebration, mourning, centemplation, or whatever mood the the liturgical calendar calls for, or at least I am cognizant of the expected mood of the season.

This year, the first Sunday of Advent came with me doing exactly what I’d been doing all year long, so it didn’t feel much like a New Year celebration to me.  Thanks, Retail.

Then New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day came along, and I still didn’t feel that rejuventaing new-year feeling that I love, because it signals a new beginning where I get to shed my old, dry skin and grow a new, pliable, vulnerable skin for the clean new-year slate ahead of me.

This year, I guess, I was holding out for Epiphany, the holiday we celebrate in most Western churches as the day when the Wisemen appear bearing gifts for the baby Jesus (though most Biblical historians agree that the baby Jesus was already two-ish by the time they found him).

But more specifically, I was holding out for Epiphany, because I celebrate a more Eastern Christian understanding of this day, as the day when Jesus began his adult ministry by being baptized at the hands of John the Baptist. I need this yearly reminder that I am, in fact, the Church no matter where I go; I am a priest at all times with my words, and more importantly with my actions.

Maybe this year I was holding out for the sky to rupture and for me to feel like I was God’s beloved child in whom [They] are well pleased.

As I was running today, with my lungs burning with ashthmatic wheezes and my eyes watering against the cold, dry air, I was reminded, yet again, that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I was reminded that I asked for this, for time away from teaching, for time to rediscover the things I love, for time to get back to well.

And I am getting there. I have fewer bouts with depression, and they are shorter and further apart, so I can recover from them in a healthy way, instead of just sweeping them under the carpet, like I did for too long.

In this regard, my New Year this year, 2016, starts today, January 6, on Epiphany, while I celebrate the beginning of new year of ministry, a new year of peace, grace, love, and joy, and a new year of being well. It’s only fitting that I spend a bit of time considering those goals I set for myself before the new year rolled around. It’s been a month, so here’s a fair judgment of how I”ve been doing with this.

Veganism- passable, still needs some work, but things are going fairly well
Volunteerism- this one will have to be put on a back burner for a bit, at least until we sell our house, because I’m picking up some extra hours at Caribou to help make ends meet
Prayer and meditation- passable, still needs some work, and I’ve been able to work in some meditation while running, but I still need more focus on quiet time
Exercise- passable, but I need to be more consistent, so I can make my two big goals for this year
Alcohol and caffiene- passable, the caffiene is really easy to give up, but the alcohol is a bit harder, because I find it really nice to have a beer with dinner, so I guess I should get used to having kool-aid with dinner instead

Do good.

Do no harm.

Stay in love with God.

Practice peace, grace, love, and joy.

 

 

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Posted in Abstinence, Christianity, Fat Runner, Goals, Health, Wellness

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