Health: The Most Important Prep

Health is the single most important prep, ever. Doing what we have to do to improve our health as much as reasonably possible is the most important prep we can do.

We All Know What We Need To Do For Our Health

Know what I’m betting? I’m betting a sense of conviction is starting to fill the hearts and minds of a lot of people who are reading this. 

Well, you are in my company. I’m feeling that I’ve really let my health fitness slip during my convalescence and recovery. Instead of my normal 40 minutes a day, at least 5 days of week doing cardio, I’ve been very limited in what I can do, for a while. 

I’m sure everybody else has reasons, too. The purpose of this article is to challenge both you and me to get back on track if we have fallen off of it.

Now if you are one of those good people who are in the Spice zone (a fitness freak who had never slacked off for anything) I’ll express my admiration and encourage you to just press on.

Paying The Price For Health

Spice got up early this morning, got dressed, went outside and fed Soc (named Soc because she’s “Sort Of Our Cat”), a neighborhood stray we have built a warm, insulated house for and feed daily. Soc is our outdoor rodent control system. 

While she was wandering the house, feeding Soc and getting ready for the gym, I sat in my chair and ran through my morning leg exercises for my broken ankle, setting aside the discomfort pain and pressing on.

I’m recovering from a broken leg, and am working towards transitioning fully onto a single walking cane away from much more supportive measures. I’m dealing with A LOT of swelling and pain, but that’s all expected and a part of the whole broken bone/torn ligaments recovery. 

After Spice fed Soc, she came back in and assisted me in putting on my walking boot.

She headed out to her walk to the gym for a much-hated “heavy” weightlifting session, as I contemplated my plans for the day.

Right now, as I write this, Spice is paying the price for her health. Me? That comes a bit later today.

The Gym

We have no excuse, we live less than two blocks from an outstanding, 5 year old community gym. It has a walking track, every machine a gym could reasonably be expected to have (recumbent & spin style bicycles, treadmills, ellipticals, stair climbers, weight stations, all the specialty lift machines like leg presses, plus a huge free weight section).

Spice is there, as I type this, doing her “heavy lift” of the week. In a future article, we’ll get her to outline what it is she does and why she does it specifically. Her regime is designed for peak health in a 50+ year old female, and there is a method to her madness. 

This time of year we both spend 5-6 days a week with a trip to the gym. We do, however, avoid it when we can…. not by skipping and cheating our health, but rather by doing something at least equally effective and much more fun.

Bicycling, skating, paddling, hiking intentionally, for fitness

If we have one overall fitness activity that has kept us healthy and active, it’s cycling. Both of us really enjoy riding the bicycle, although we ride totally differently. Spice is much more of the “cross country” cyclist, while I like to stay closer to civilization and do laps. She goes faster that I do (always has) so we don’t ride together. Often we will wave as we go past each other in opposite directions. 

For cardio, I pretty much stick with cycling, whereas Spice loves to skate. She likes quads & blades both, whether just fitness skating and skill development skating or playing full contact sports like (for example) hockey. She also refs sports on skates.

Spice also likes to kayak, which is perhaps more of a shoulder and core exercise than cardio, and she’s also a hiker.

When she hikes, even around town, she puts health & fitness prepping above comfort, that’s for sure. (Spice’s note: It’s a hike if I wear my pack, a walk if I don’t. Once I told a few people how I was getting ready for a hiking vacation, word got around and I no longer get much of the ‘you’re weird’ looks. Small town.)

My Price Is Rehab Right Now

I’m switching over to one cane from the more substantial support measures I’ve been using, and I’m only supposed to put a percentage of my weight on my foot until January.

The price if I overdo it? Swelling. Lot of swelling. 

So that’s where I am, but that’s not where I am going to stay.

My plans for later today include going to a store and walking around through the isles pushing a cart. Why, are we desperate for supplies? No, because like in previous recoveries, I found that I can put my weight on a shopping cart and use that as kind of a big mobile recovery tool. 

No, the inside of a store isn’t very interesting, but it’s dry, not icy and better than any other alternative I can think of that’s available in a county of less than 5,000 population.

We Think The Key Is To Find Ways To Get Moving That Are As Pleasant As Possible

Instead of just ducking our health responsibilities, we try to find the most pleasant way we can to do what we need to do.

For example, riding our bicycles outside when the weather is safe (i.e. no ice) and relatively comfortable is a great way to increase our overall health. We will often do a “ride and skate” when we want to be together, because my riding speed is fairly close to Spice’s skating speed, so I will ride my bike on a lovely river trail while she skates around.

Right now, Spice got back from the gym, walked past me in a blur and opened the door. I asked her where she was going, and she said to Dollar General to pick up a couple of things. “You just want to go for a walk, right?” I asked. “Mostly” was her reply. It’s 35 degrees outside, but the sun is shining and the sky is blue.

Yesterday, I drove her over to Quincy so she could skate at Scotties Fun Spot (highly recommended family place, if you are in the area) and I went to Sam’s Club and Hy-Vee and pushed a cart around some. We did this because she needed her cardio, and I needed my PT, plus we needed groceries and this was much more interesting to do than staying here in town and doing our usual things. It also gave us the chance to get a few podcasts recorded.

This Health Post Is A Lot More Personal Than Most. Why? 

Health is personal. Health comes to us one at a time. We all choose to do what we do when it comes to our health and physical fitness. In my case right now recovery and rehab. 

My goal is for this to be more of a “friendly reminder” if you need one that we need to get on about the business of improving and maintaining our health. 

Spice’s addendum: Real Change Is Possible

It’s not actually true that I’ve never slacked off of fitness. I spent the entire decade of my twenties being pretty much a couch potato, in fact. What changed? I was teaching physiology, and the hypocrisy got to me. I couldn’t continue telling those people the flat truths about how exercise was the single most important and frequently ignored health prescription, and not doing it. So I started doing it.

For several months it was just a chore; I did the minimum I calculated necessary and stopped. Then I started finding more activities I liked. More importantly, I started really liking how I was feeling better: more energy, better sleep, less stressed, and my weight stopped its upward creep.

Now I am pretty hardcore about not stopping, because being over fifty, I find that I need those benefits to feel really well; and they evaporate quickly if I quit doing the work. And when needs come up (hucking wheelchairs into cars, going on cool hiking vacations, shoveling snow), I like the fact that I’m capable of doing what I need or want to do.

My point? Change is very possible. I was never what I would call ‘an athlete’ till after I was 30. You don’t have to be a natural.