people are weird

Today, in addition to the usual complement of discarded soda cans, sports drink bottles, and plastic grocery bags wound determinedly around cacti, I came across some more unusual discarded items on my walk.  Namely, a seat belt from a car, various pieces of drywall, a lone sneaker, and a big piece of twisted sheet metal.  I left the sheet metal where it was, for lack of any better ideas.  


Why any of that wound up along a random trail, I'll never know.  People are weird. 


I also found two golf balls, and those I kept.  They'll be put to good use for self-foot-massagey-acupressure purposes.


In other news, it's an obnoxiously beautiful day today.  Happy Thursday!

things are looking up

I've been noticing recently that I tend to stare at the ground when walking.  It's a viable strategy when, say, navigating a river-rock path across boiling lava, but it seems a bit silly when walking down a nice and level office hallway.  It keeps me from seeing what's around me, messes with my posture, and I'm sure it contributes to an introverted, unapproachable demeanor.  So I have a new project: look up!

I applied this when going for my walk yesterday, in which I took the second half of lunch hour and took off along a random path.  I never really thought before about how fortunate I am that my workplace is kind of in the middle of nowhere, since it results in lots of dirt paths all over the place, mostly carved out by 4-wheelers.  Once I'd spent about 15 minutes walking and occasionally jogging, I took some time to really stretch (one of my favorite activities ever, as a dance nerd).  Being off by myself and surrounded only by plant life, I didn't have to worry about whether I looked silly or anything; scrub doesn't judge. 

Anyway, as I walked along I kept feeling my gaze pulled downward, and kept lifting it back up.  How much more pleasant it is to see the clear blue sky rather than the dirt at my feet!

when RSS attacks

As you may know, I'm sort of on a mission to be more active in general.  Leading a sedentary lifestyle is suboptimal, and I need to be creative to thwart that outcome of having a desk job.  When I was still in school I would bike everywhere, be in dance classes/rehearsals all the time, take martial arts, and walk a lot.  In short, I was a pretty active chica despite pursuing rather cerebral disciplines full-time and working part-time. 

Side note: when you're in college, you wistfully long for the day when you'll get to come home from work and not have homework hanging over you, so your free time will be genuinely free.  Think of all the things you can accomplish!  Write the next Great American Novel!  Become a trapeze artist!  Teach yourself to speak Russian!

It's a filthy lie.  As it turns out, there is a huge difference between spending your day darting between classes, taking breaks, going for walks, catching up with people between classes, and poking at your homework, and spending all day at work.  All day.  No random 1-hour breaks because that's how you schedule works out.  Nope.  It's more of a time suck than one would think.  Add on top of that a ridiculous commute time by living in the wrong city... it's suboptimal. 

Anyway, I went from being really quite active to getting some serious secretary spread.  I sit on my butt for my drive, then all day at work, and then in the evenings we'll eat dinner and watch an episode of something on Netflix or play a video game.  The other day my bottom was actually sore from all the sitting.  How can you have a more ridiculous first-world-problem than that?

I know that I have less energy now because I don't use it.  I know that I don't sleep well when I'm sedentary.  I know I'm not nearly as healthy as I should be.

However, change is hard.  And the perfect is the enemy of the good.  Oh sure, I'll get more active.  I just need to adjust my schedule, and wait for the weather to clear up, and wait until I actually feel like it, and organize the fridge first.  Nope, I'm not avoiding it or anything. 

Fortunately, Mr. Geek reads this, and for some reason he took me seriously.  He's been hauling out the DDR pads and we've been jumping around on 'em nearly every evening that's not already taken up by dance lessons.  Yay for kicking my butt and being more active!  But it still doesn't help my personal activation energy problem. 

I have a number of assorted blogs that show up on my RSS reader, most of them related to life improvement (plus a few sartorial-minded ones.  What?  I'm a girl).  When I get a chance and need a brief break from whatever I'm doing, I'll poke through some of the new entries. 

Yesterday, this showed up. 

Ouch.  Boy, does that one hit a nerve.  To my credit, I did have the thought that I should really act on that, and go do something right now. 

But I didn't.  I challenged myself, and the challenge fell flat. 

Fail. 

I'm tired of that blog.  It's a little too poignant.  Let's see what someone else has to say. 

Gah!  The universe is conspiring against my laziness inertia!

So I did it.  I got up from my computer, walked outside, and went for a walk.  I stretched my legs and rested my eyeballs by looking at plants and sky instead of a glowing screen for a bit.  There's a little dirt path that runs parallel to and a bit back from the road to my workplace, so I meandered along that, though I was annoyed at all the random detritus that had been discarded into the brush along the path.  I checked my watch, and simply walked for 8 minutes or so, and then turned around.  On the way back, I picked up some of the litter that I came across, and was fortunate to find a full-size potato chip bag that I then used to stuff other garbage into.  I have a habit of picking up trash I walk across.  A few years ago, Mr. Geek and I went on an epic hike in the mountains (it wound up being more epic than originally intended, admittedly; maps are good) and by the time we emerged, his backpack was stuffed to the brim with beer cans we'd found along the side of the otherwise beautiful trail.  People are disgusting sometimes. 

To return to the topic at hand, it felt good!  15 minutes of walking, and I could feel my lungs working better, my eyes relaxing, and that curious popping sensation in my thigh muscles that says I've worked them.  I returned to my desk, and the rest of the day went much more quickly than usual.  That evening, I had much more energy than I would have expected, and stayed up a bit later due to simply not being exhausted. 

A tiny change, but a big result.  I think I like this. 

Have you had to overcome your own activation energy to reach a goal?  Did baby steps help on the way?  I'd love to hear about it.

objects in motion

Breaking news!  Exercise is good for you!  Who knew?

More specifically, researchers at the University of Texas recently put out a rather interesting study regarding exercise and cellular autophagy.  The study, carried out with mice, seems fairly well put together and suggests that one of the beneficial effects of exercis is to increase the body's rate of autophagy, the process by which cells clear out all the `junk' (malformed proteins, cellular respiration byproducts, invasive bugs) that accumulates.

Mice aren't a perfect analog for human anatomy, but hey, human studies are difficult and all findings should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt anyway.

So in addition to helping your metabolism operate well, keeping your muscles engaged and effective, and helping you sleep better, moving around likely increases your body's ability to clean house, cellularly speaking.  This notion is nothing that health nuts and hippies hadn't already assumed, but to see it somewhat justified in a real study is interesting.

Breaking news!  Sitting on your butt all day is bad for you!  Who knew?

This one came out a little while ago, and caused quite a stir.  However, it's not at all surprising.  Since I unfortunately kind of have to be sedentary for much of the day (as explained in a little more detail below), it does hit close to home.

This is all pretty compelling stuff.  Why, then, do I coninue to sit on my butt all day like a good little American?  Sure, I work a stare-at-a-computer-screen-all-day job and have a 1.5 hour commute each way, but surely there's something I can do.  I tried converting my desk into a standing workstation once and loved it for some reasons, but the furniture just isn't
well suited for it and my kluge-tastic adaptation attempts left much to be desired.  Also, I recently got a new (huge and gorgeous) monitor that definitely won't fit on the upper shelf.  What was I going to do, say no to the new beautiful monitor?  Hopefully someday I'll manage to get together a real standing workstation.

I've never believed too much in exercise for its own sake, but instead just stayed active by doing useful things.  When I lived in a small town I biked everywhere as a means of getting around, and participated in martial arts and dance because I was interested in those things.  Those final rehearsals before a show can really be exhausting!  I've always relied on my interests to keep me fit.  Now, unfortunately, my situation is such that I don't particularly have time for these things that I love, so I need to find other solutions to the sedentary issue.  I'm not sleeping well, feel tired all the time, and have a general lack of energy that really must be corrected.

When we first got our dog, we would take turns getting up extra-early to take him for a quick run before commencing our morning routines.  What happened to this?  We got too `busy,' or too attached to sleeping for an extra 15 minutes to take the time to do this simple activity that benefits both us and the pooch.

Additionally, I forget where I've read it, but as I recall many sources have pointed out that as little as 20 minutes of moving around per day has a huge effect on health, especially in short bursts of really intense activity. There seem to be diminishing returns after 20 minutes or so, so that initial getting-off-the-damn-couch move is really the most important one.

I took an unintentional hiatus from my monthly resolution thing for February, but it's time to get back on track.  For March, I will bite the bullet and actually get off my bottom at least twice a week and do some meaningful amount of exercise.  It might be a run around the block with the dog, a half hour spent playing DDR (my jumping-around-like-a-fool video game addiction), or taking a walk outside during my lunch break.

Okay, so it's not technically March yet, but leap day is pretty weird so I'm posting this anyway.  It's my blog and I can do what I want.

This is probably the single best thing I can do for myself right now, since my current zero-level of exercise is most assuredly the limiting factor in becoming healthier.  The science says so, after all!

inertia

Ever since getting swept up in the last-minute stress of wedding planning, all the good exercise habits we'd built up had been inactive. I know, intellectually, that I should work out more, I should go running, I should get up off my behind and actually do something. I even have plenty of empirical evidence that it means I'll feel better, sleep more soundly, and have much more energy.

Getting out of this lethargy slump is an extremely good idea, by all accounts and by my own personal dataset. Does that make it an easy choice to make in the moment?

Nope.

Inertia is an extremely powerful aspect of life. 'Oh sure, I'll definitely start working out again,' I'll tell myself, 'starting tomorrow.'

We always have two alarms set; one is to let us know it's morning-time, and the second one happens 15 minutes later and is designed to actually get our butts out of bed. Last night I declared that instead of lazing around for those 15 minutes I would get up at the first alarm, bundle up (winter has come with a surprising amount of vigor!), and take the dog for a run around the block.

'Beeeeeeeeeeep!'

Then the inner monologue starts.

'I said I'd go running. Do I really want to? It's cold out there. Maybe just a minute more in bed. I can't see the clock from here, so I'll assume I don't have time. I'll go running tomorrow.'

Tomorrow. It's always tomorrow.

Once I get going I know it'll be good for me and I'll feel better. But overcoming the initial activation energy is going to be a challenge.

My resolution, right now, is that I shall actually go for that 10 minute run tomorrow (see what I did there?) morning. Wish me luck.