I fell in love with the Vibram Five Fingers the first time I saw them. Now that I have owned them for a few months and I have ran, jumped, lifted, walked, been on sand, mud and leaves with them, I have to say, I want more of them , and faster.
We've known for some time. Some of us say 'No' to the plastic bag in the supermarket and walk an unmeasurable distance to the recycle bins so they can securely place their hopes for the future, hoping that the paper box will turn into another paper box and then happily return years later to be recycled again. Some of us don't want Jeeps, we want Smart cars, Hybrids, bikes...
In Bulgaria, everyone says an individual is too small to change anything, ask the big companies, ask the government, but please let me drive my SUV and keep all the TVs on in my house, because I just made a hell lot of effort trying to secure my family the biggest screens ever made.
We are so caught up in surviving, that walking to work (which in my case would take an hour) is simply unthinkable. We are so late to pay bills that we end up buying cheap plastic cases instead of nice recycled ones, we are so busy with fashion, we spend our paycheck on fancy shoes, instead of investing in Simples.
We don't care because we are too busy, then asked if we care, we say, yes we do...but do we really?
We just watched the world premiere of Age of Stupid and before you say you are sick of green propaganda, please watch it, then shoot me an email and explain why it's all BS, but please at least care to back your inactivity with some valid reasoning.
If you weren't as lucky as us to witness the world premiere as well as witness the lack of local politicians in the audience, it's time to watch the movie and see what your part can be in making the world livable.
There are many things I loved about the way the world was portrayed, faceted, different and scarily validated for all the participants in its destruction.
Starting today, I am at least taking part in making our politicians sign the Copenhagen agreement in December. What are you doing? Maybe one of these things :)
On a more hopeful note, remember how things still are and how they could stay if everyone did their little part in saving the world.
Are the norm. Look at gym penetration rates, look in your park, ask your friends and coworkers. Then there are the ones who say they exercise, but the last time they did it was 4 weeks ago, and then there are the guys who can crank out 50 push ups, but alas, haven't done it since they did military service back in 1975.
So who are the exercisers? Those less than 10% of the population who exercise half as frequently as they brush their teeth? The ones who hike on the weekends? The ones who have less heart disease, rarely develop diabetes and enjoy wearing smaller size clothes than the rest of the population? They are the ones who actually enjoy being active.
I don't care what got you to exercise in the first place, whether it was because your parents showed you into the karate studio, whether it's because you lost weight for your prom, or because you married a marathon runner, what kept you in the gym, on the track, on the trail, or on a stationary bike in front of your TV was the fact that somehow you ended up enjoying exercise. You might enjoy the journey, or the end destination, but there is a feeling of happiness, fulfillment and enjoyment connected with it.
Of course, you'll say you know someone who hates exercising but does it because they have to. So how could they enjoy it? Well, they enjoy what they see in the mirror, or how productive they are after a workout, or how energized they feel, or how their backs don't ache anymore. Whatever the reason, they get some pleasure out of it.
So what have you found in exercise? Are you still using it for punishment after bigger meals? Are you still using it for anger management? Do you loathe going to the gym and what are you doing to change that into the simple joy of being able to move and create a healthier happier you? More about the active lifestyle, here:
I remember way back when I watched a John Berardi lecture, where he explained what a perfect day was. You wake up, you have your perfectly planned balanced breakfast, your post workout shake, your prepacked lunch, you afternoon snack in your car, then a great healthy perfectly acid base balanced dinner...and then you think oh I am having a perfect day, and another one, and another one, and then life happens.
Then you come home, starved, dehydrated, you've missed the last three meals, you are so stress ridden from traffic your hands are shaking, your back aches and you can barely remember waking up...was that even today? There are days, when you can't wait to get your veggies out of the fridge and cut them up, where all the meat looks bland, and the thought of an egg sounds like too much work to even start cracking on. If you were a normal person, you would have gone through the local drive through and enjoyed your local choice of fast food. А burger, or two, with fries, or not. Me...I'm a fast food snob, so I go by the store, pick up the best whole wheat bread with apples and cinnamon, a pack of the most delicious gourmet goat cheese, some fresh butter and I am off home, to make two pieces of toast with plenty of great tasting cheese and enjoy it with a glass of very well chilled Pinot Grigio. 100% satisfaction 0% crap 200% fast food.
I was coming home from a late dinner tonight and driving, I saw a guy on a bike, going pretty fast. He was wearing jeans and sneakers and t-shirt, no helmet or protection. He proceeded to ride in front of me, took a turn around my building and went to the playground they built for skating, biking and rollerblading. Picture the extreme competition type platforms.
As I was walking home from my car, I was listening to him do jumps and turns and flips...with no protection, in the middle of the night.
What drove him there? The midnight cool air. The lack of other kids. The feeling of being alone under the light with no one to watch. No one to watch him mess up. Yet no one to watch him do his best flip. Maybe he just had a fight with his friends and needs to be left alone. Maybe he's celebrating his new bike, or the start of summer break. Whatever he's doing, he can do that thing alone. I silently admire that. I have the same admiration for the 7 a.m. guy that I see in the gym, and the busy mom who ran for her appointment with me in her lunch break. Hats off to all these people for staying in touch with their bodies.
Too bad that Guido and Luigi no longer exists as a comic strip. Neither does Unfit. Those were very cool.
Little did I know that comic strip worthy people existed in the 24 hour gym that we go to, here in wonderful and crazy fit California.
I usually wear my headphones and don't hear much of what people say and while I have written about what some people do in the past, I have never heard what are best described as gym gems :)
Last night might as well have been a comic strip, featuring the following characters:
100 rep cable crunch PT
" Yeah man, I love this personal training job, before that I worked in a bar for a while, before that in real estate, but nothing is this good man, my client just lost 24 lbs in 3 weeks and I am like wow dude, the best next thing to this is being a doctor. Love the job, man..."
Formerly 236 lbs bodybuilder guy
"I lost so much weight last week, was very sick, couldn't eat man, so I am down to 225 lbs like a week later and everybody is saying man you look so huge...and I am like so much lighter. What's wrong with these guys?"
Manga hair wifebeater guy
" It's all about the protein, bro. You need to maintain your weight, this is at least 150 grams of protein and this is just to m-a-i-n-t-a-i-n. And alcohol dude, that stuff is catabolic. That means it eats your muscle, so if you drink it cancels all the muscle you made that week. And you must eat eggs, like egg whites and remove the yellows."
Spanish Diva
" So this is how you do this for your legs and they look great"
As she proceeds to do a romanian deadlift all wrong, even though her legs do look great.
This is a small dessert spoon. It's sitting on top of my coffee cup. The small dent in it is all I ate of that artificial tasting cube of jello, one of the desserts at a Sunday buffet. There wasn't really much choice, brownies, ice cream, strawberry mousse, muffins, apples and oranges.
There were all sorts of people at the buffet: families with macaroni and cheese eating kids, moms with lettuce laden plates, dads with two bowls of chili each...and then there were the really really large people next to our booth.
We were starved and exhausted from working out when we got there, so each of us got salad with plenty of cheese, soups with the most meat and some corn bread. We splurged on a piece of bread each, and I had two slices of orange for desert, while my partner had some ice cream. I did want to try the jello and you can tell how great it was from the picture of the leftover of my first and only serving of it. As I was trying to take that photo, I noticed that the girl from large couple sitting next to us was enjoying another serving of dessert, after ice cream. She was having 10 of these same jello things that I had just tried. They were the most nutritionally empty choice she could have made, given there were apples, ice cream and cottage cheese...so I wondered is it that people have no choice. I will admit that I love watching heavier people eat and shop because it gives me an insight into their choices and the power they have to choose what's good for them and what's not. This girl had already chosen a pink sugar drink, baked potato with chili and sour cream and cheese and now was digging into a second desert. Given the metabolic and mental complications most bigger people have to deal with, I can imagine those choices didn't help.
We can argue until tomorrow on the health and genetic origins of being heavier and having a hard time losing weight, but when you watch a couple engaging in the same behavior you can't ignore the strong relationship. Could we be the larger couple? Sure. We would just have to choose to not exercise and eat at much as we want at the buffets we go to. Oh, and I might need to learn to like jello.
Posts
