Core Value: Fitness

This is where I've been running the past few weeks.

The last month or so, I've been really focusing on my core value of health and fitness. The more I dig in and explore this, the more I believe that a foundation of health and fitness is the key to building a platform that will allow me to achieve many of the other goals in my life. I really want to be able to help others, but without the physical capacity to work hard and be in good health, I just can't give others the energy and interest they really deserve. In poor health I end up turned inward, hurting and just trying to limp by.

So that said, I have as I have written about before, some very lofty goals, and one of those is to run an IronMan in the next 4 years. Where am I at now. I can run about 3 minutes. Yup, that's it. So one might say that this will by my journey of couch to ironman. I'm going to document some of that journey here. I'm not sure how regular the checkins on this will be, but I'm really trying to keep all my efforts and food on myfitnesspal, which so far, plugged in with my DigiFit account has been the best tracking app I've found yet, and I've tried quite a few. Here is the link to my diary if you feel any sort of inclination to check it out. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/paigetech

So right now I'm working on the Couch to 5k running plan, 8 weeks to running a 5k. I'm focusing a lot on form and cadence trying to learn to run "right" while I'm training my body to move. I'm also following a body weight regimin on my off running days. I'm planing to add in some biking in the next week or so to help build my fitness with less impact on my legs, since I had knee surgery three times before I was 21 and have been suffering with the consequences of never getting back in shape ever since. 

So that's part of my journey. Healthy. Wealthy. Wise.

Gaming

Short thought:
We like to play games because it is imminently clear what is required of us.

The rest of life is much more ambiguos. Even in most jobs, it's not 100% clear what we are supposed to do all the time. There are no DPS meters to read in real life. There is not "Win Senario" where we know that we have made it, we have gotten to the end, we have done what was required of us.

This feeling extends to sport, to racing else where man has created all the rules and has agreed on them together. In those moments, we are in control, masters of our destiny by in large. There is always the demon of chance, the rolling of the dice, the root on the path that you didn't see and cost you the race. But in the end, you know in broad strokes if you have beaten the final boss, if you have completed the race.

I think this is why the idea of gamification is becoming so popular. The more clearly we can reward people for specific things, the more they will know how to perform.

How are you making your life a game?

On Contentment

Contentment, which I believe is the most true form of happiness, can only be found from within. It is a foundation of contentment that allows us to experience the almost external or more euphoric versions of happiness. On the outside is this happiness that is common, and is what people talk about, and which is often faked. You can usually see this happiness on others. I say on, not in because I believe that it is the last layer or the whole package of happiness, the frosting if you will, and like frosting it is wonderfully sweet and it is so tempting to lick it all off and be on your cupcakey way. Well at least it is if you are me, because I have kind of a thing for frosting. Anyhow, if that's the outside happiness, what is the inside, the core. I think it's contentment, and like so may things in life, it's the foundation that is the hardest to get right, the easiest to ignore in favor of the flashy frosting layer.

Lately, I've been running again. Well, running may be a string word, more like shuffling and gasping interspersed with walking. I've been down this path before, usually I get myself to the point where I can actually run a mile before injury takes over or my will power runs out. This time though, I'm doing it differently, this time I'm working on the core of running, I'm drilling he skills of proper foot fall, learning good cadence and building a solid foundation to run from. And you know, this time feels very differ, it feels like I am takin running into myself in a way I never have before. It's like taking the time to retrain my brain and body has also opened up a different part of my spirit to the running. Like the core of me is beginning. To understand that this is valuable to me and that I can do it with this foundation.

So if the foundation of something as seemingly simple as running is complex and need thought and training, how much more so must happiness need it? So how do you build contentment. I think it may be different for everyone, but let me suggest this, I think you build contentment by choosing actions in your life that most closely align with your values and ideals. And I don't mean your external ideas like six pack abs or a 110k retirement account by 30, I mean the ideals that make you tear up inside, like making beautiful things or serving others or honoring the natural world. The values make the core of us and I think that stepping in line with them builds the most lasting contentment to the point where even this inner foundation of happiness begins to shine through to the outside and you wear the glow of the truly happy, the content.

Whither Hence

"Life is just a habit, so get working" - Brett Sutton

This year I've embarked on a remarkably unremarkable journey. At least that's what it feels like from the inside. I have set off in a 24' Motor Home and am spending my year working online from all diffrent parts of the country. I normaly call New England home, so the first step in the journey was to run screaming from the cold winter down to Florida, where I have now spent 2 months in the sun, walking trails by the canal, spending some time with The Mouse, and generally soaking up Florida. In the next few weeks I'll be heading north through the heart land and stopping into a few places for long overdue visits.

The thing is, writing it here, it sounds special, even to me. Yet, here in the middle of it, it feels dull. It's not the amazing adventure I'd made it out to be in my head. I'm not out fighting off bears or diving into deep all night chats with people over amazing local cuisine. I think a lot of life is really like this. No matter how much crazyness and adventure your life has in it, going through things we tend to almost instantly adjust to them as "normal". My life of sparkling canal water and cresting dolphins is status quo. Tell that to anyone back home who is still waiting for the soil to thaw and they will shoot me.

In many ways I feel like this is the trapping of the human mind. It has in its vast set of powers, the ability to make anything bearable, anything normal, and as I have said for several years, the most dangerous place to be is a comfortable one. When we are comfortable, there is no reason to grow, no reason to change, and even if your ideals are much higher than your current state of being, there is no stress there to create that change. I believe that in many ways, the mind is just a muscle, it can grow and change, but like a muscle, you need to work it out, to cause some sort of breakage in the fibers of it's structure for it to need to grow.

So this experience and this philosophy stand some what at logger heads. It offers me the question, whither hence? Where do I go from here? How do I challenge my mind to grow if it possesses a nearly limitless capability to both find and encourage a state of normalcy in even the strangest most complicated situations? I think for me this is about habit and positioning. I have a great ability to find comfort in all situations, my mind seems primed for it. With that, I seem to be able to reach a platue with anything quickly and my brain starts screaming at me "See, we did some, isn't that great? Isn't that enough?" but my heart wants more. My heart and my ideals want more from myself, more fitness, more success, more serving. So I will stand on my platues for a moment, enjoy the views and then slog onwards. I'm going to spend this year putting myself in those uncomfortable situations that will help forge me into the person I want to be.

Right now, I know I want to get out and meet people, learn how I can help those around me, serve my fellow man and leave a legacy of at least one life better because of my presence here on earth. Yet inspite of that deeply held beliefe, that need in my soul, I have been unfriendly, shy and at some moments down right standoffish on this trip. So here in the middle of forging a new body and honing my mind, I also want to open my self up to those around me, to work on putting that kind of stress on my mind till it is no longer a place of effort, but a natural comfort. I will put myself in positions of mental and social strain. I want to abuse the minds power to find status quo while being aware that it is happening. This I think is how we use our natural abilities to reach our unnatural feeling goals.

Treats and Finding the Path of Acceptable Resistance

There seems to be no shortage of information on how the chemicals in "diet" or "sugar free" products are bad for you. Personally, having cleaned up a lot of the rest of my diet to be whole and healthy foods, I swear I can actually feel it when I get a bunch of nutra-sweet in my system, it's almost like it starts to coat my taste buds.

Now that said, I'm not out on a crusade to stop drinking diet soda and making some sugar free treats. I've tried to give it up in the past. Several times I've gone a few months with no soda, but the will power it takes to get there seems to open up all these other holes in my armor and I end up with candy bar in hand not too far into the experiment.

So what I'm trying to find is this path of acceptable resistance. Meaning for me, that there are things I need to change, but there is a hierarchy for them and I need to find out which ones I can push through together while still having over all progress. Right now for me that means eating whole foods and low carb but getting to have sugar free "treats" occasionally and drinking diet sodas. This concession allows me to really attack the carbs and also to have the will power to be out exercising and also working on coding.

So in that vein, I give to you my idea of the week: Jell-o Sugar Free Pudding made with Coconut Milk. This is delicious! I made it with coconut milk because I've found that dairy seems to both interfere with my weight loss and it's a gate way drug for me, I just can't stop eating things like cheese, ice cream and cream once I start. So here is the quick instruction I threw into MyFitnessPal which I'm using to track things lately (and loving by the way, it links with Digifit which I use on my iPhone when I run and has the best food database I've seen yet, and I've worked with quite a few)

Sugar Free Jello Mix


Refrigerate coconut milk till cold.
Shake the can vigorously to blend the coconut milk.
Measure 2 cups of coconut milk into mixing bowl.
Add Jell-o Pudding mix. (cheese cake is my favorite so far)
Whisk or beat with fork for two minutes.
Separate into containers and chill for 2 hours. (Takes a bit longer to set than milk in my experience.)

Makes 4 serving, 165kc per serving or there abouts.