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1day1pose1year February 2020

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I achieved great consistency with my daily tadasana this past month. I missed one day mid-month. That’s it! Most days I did it either right before bed or while I was heating up my morning coffee. I’m finding that I do better when I associate a new habit with something else that I do daily.

I continue to struggle with basic aspects, beginning with balancing my weight evenly across my feet. High arches kind of suck. I have tendonosis in my Achilles. High arches predispose one to the condition. As does being middle aged. Nothing to do but work on it.

I also find myself closing my eyes a lot. This makes me aware of how difficult it is to stay in stillness. I sway slightly. Because high arches. I catch myself and then run through my litany of self-instructions: soften knees, solidify quads, pelvic tilt, shoulders back bringing scapula flat, arms relaxed, head pulled back and chin tucked.

Most days I barely get to 30 seconds before I get impatient. Some days a minute passes quickly. And on other days I get inspired and start doing tree pose and other stretches.  Let’s see how I do going forward through March.

Choosing challenges

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I love/hate fitness challenges. You know the kind. “Six weeks to washboard abs!”, “Twelve weeks to a beach body,””Holiday diet reset,” etc. etc.

Challenges have a place in wellness.  They’re “extrinsic” motivators and they can be a great way to jump start healthier habits. You see some progress and some changes in your health and body composition and you get to feel good about the reward. I have a problem with the safety and sustainability of the more extreme types of challenge.

I love certain types of challenges. I get super motivated by training for events for example. I’d do races when my body was young enough to be a runner. I spent months preparing for a strenuous backpacking trip with weights and longer walks carrying my pack wearing my boots. And I am compelled by six and eight week work out plans. One needs to switch up how one does strength training because the body adapts and needs variation to change and even to maintain body composition.

I hate the types of challenges that are extreme, especially when they involve diet. These are the “adhere to this food plan without deviation for three months” type. Or they’re the “do 60 workouts in 60 days” type. Doing x amount of workouts in x days can be a recipe for injury, especially if you’re new to regular exercise. I had a friend who pushed too hard and ended up in ICU with exertional rhabdomyolysis and came pretty close to kidney failure. On the dietary side, a lack of variety means you’re missing out on essential nutrients. You get bored and more likely to over eat “off plan.”

What do you do when the challenge is over? What’s left to get you out of the door or stick to an eating plan? The reason for your motivation is gone and needs replacement. Challenges are meant to be limited time only.  My “good” challenges are also limited time. The difference is that one can repeat those challenges – after a rest. You raced your event? Awesome. Now you can train for the next one. The not-so-good challenges are hard on the body. I know people who do the bootcamp type workout with prescribed eating plans. They do great! Lose inches and pounds and feel physical improvements in measures like blood pressure, blood sugar, etc.

As soon as they stop, the pounds pile back on. Energy output is reduced from scaling back exercise and energy input increases as you resume regular eating. Yo-yo dieting messes up your metabolism and leads to greater weight gain over time. You can resume after a break, just like with the better-type of challenge. The thing is, you’re once again going full-bore without enough rest and/or nutrients. You may not end up with rhabdo as you do gain strength and endurance. You do need to take care with form because more working out = more repetitive movements that might lead to chronic conditions. Especially as you age.

I’m not against doing challenges. I encourage you to think about what comes after the challenge before making the decision to take one on. I also encourage you to make rest and variety within your challenge. In the end, consistency beats volume.

 

1day1pose1year January 2020

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It’s been six-ish weeks since I promised myself I’d do tadasana every day for a year. I was sporadic about it during December. I count that as a win because of the holidays. It’s difficult enough to keep up with regular habits during those times.

Starting a new habit is generally not the thing to do when you’re in the midst of not-the-usual stressors. Then again, I tell my clients “there’s never a good time.” I’m not a fan of resolutions and waiting for some special moment to make a change.

Change is there for you any day and life is short. If you can practice even when it’s difficult, you’ve got it made. The trick is finding the balance between every-day difficulties and more difficult difficulties. You’ll pick the right time to start when you’re in what experts call the “pre-contemplation” stage of habit change.

I did 22/31 days of January. Seventy percent. Hmm. Not bad. My longest stretch was 14 days during the last half of the month. It was three days on, a day or so off, then four days off, then a few days off. This is completely normal.

Sometimes one can beat one-selves up for not being perfectly consistent every day. That’s all-or-nothing thinking which is a slippery slope to quitting from discouragement. The perfect becomes the enemy of the good.

One needs to give credit to one’s self whenever credit is due. Thoughts become feelings so good thoughts are needed. Especially, when it’s true that you picked yourself up and kept going. Quitting is the 100% way to not making change. Carrying on with carrying on is victory! You’re tenacious. You’re doing it. Doesn’t matter how long you took a break. Here you are! Feel good about yourself for it.

I always say consistency is better than volume when it comes to habits – that’s why they’re called habits 🙂 . The 80/20 principle applies. If you can do something 80% of the time one will be successful in sticking with it. February is shorter, so I have less days to get my 80%. Lucky it’s a leap year? I haven’t been the best at tweeting about details every day. Daily updating isn’t the point though. Accountability is key. I can do better this month. Onward!

Yoga tadasana asana #1pose1day1year

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I have made a commitment to do one yoga pose, each day (six days per week), for one year. Holding myself accountable by writing about it on  my twitter feed (@smarton_health, #1pose1day1year). I need to work on flexibility and balance. One loses balance/flexibility with every decade of aging. Lack of balance contributes to falls in old age. Definitely a concern especially if one lives alone. Let’s not use that life alert button shall we? Yoga seems to be the ticket for working on these things.

I’m drawn to Ashtanga because it’s vigorous movement and gives you great cardio. Sadly, it’s contraindicated for me. I’m fragile and tend to get injured. A lot. Iyengar style with its emphasis on precision and correctness and holding poses to build strength is probably what I need. All that and there are remedial variations for those of us with issues.

I’ve practiced yoga intermittently and half-assedly for almost two decades. I’m 48. The earlier I get consistent, the better I’ll be when I’m (with luck) in my 90s. I think consistency is better than volume when it comes to adding a new habit into my life. So I challenged myself last fall to doing one single sun salutation six days per week for a year. I did pretty well in 2019. Many months with consistent runs of 4 times per week or more. Quite a few stretches of 6 times per week. I never hit perfection on my goals. That’s ok. It’s called practice for a reason.  I track stuff to keep myself honest. A sticky note on a calendar for each day I do a thing motivates me. I can give myself credit whenever I practice a habit. Looking back on a calendar full of gold stars feels awesome. I’m such a first grader.

This year I have chosen tadasana — mountain pose — for my daily practice. My posture absolutely sucks. I have some serious structural imbalances. Changing how you hold yourself after a lifetime of keeping your body in a certain position will likely take the rest of your life. And it means some poses will be extra challenging and uncomfortable, perhaps painful. One should never hold oneself in pain! The FBI calls it a clue that you should be doing a remedial pose or an easier variation.

Asanas (Sanskrit for pose) are also a form of spiritual work. I recall reading some guru who said that an entire yoga practice can be contained in tadasana. There is pranayama (breathing practice) involved as well as meditation while holding the pose. The guru meant the “entire practice” in a physical sense. The pose works on every muscle.

Today I did the work. I held it for a full minute. I’m impatient and want to get on with it so I can get my tick on the tracker and move on to starting work for the day. Launching the coaching practices is constantly in my thoughts and my resistant mind provides excuses like “you should be working on priorities” and “this is boring I have better and more exciting things to do.”

But my aches and pains remind me that yoga is necessary and non-negotiable in my day. We’ll see how successful I am in keeping that commitment to self-care in 2020.