Regular exercise isn’t enough

Recently I’ve FINALLY made big progress with my ankle injury. I started walking with a local group and have been doing some private fitness training with an emphasis on core strength. I went from not being able to walk more than 30 minutes without my ankle swelling and becoming painful to being able to do an hour more of intense exercising. Yay!

However, I noticed that at the same time I started new exercise activities,  my small walking and stretching routines disappeared. I thought, this isn’t good. I want to have added to my exercise not replaced it. Then there’s the article I read at Lifehacker.com on how bad sitting all day (which my work requires) is for you. I basically knew that sitting is bad for your body and have tried to make sure I get daily exercise. And more recently I read that “sedentary time is closely associated with health risk regardless of how much physical activity you perform on a daily basis. Further, it is entirely possible to meet current physical activity guidelines while still being incredibly sedentary.”

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Cancer language

It is amazing when you realize how much our language shapes our reality. My husband Neil recently reacted on Twitter (below) about the pressure from companies to buy products that “support cancer survivors.” It’s especially raw for him since losing his dad to cancer last December. I have the same type of reaction to the language that is used. With so many people we know being affected by it, we seem to talking about it more and more. I read in the book, Anticancer, A New Way of Life, New Edition that cancer is our natural healing process out of balance. If that is true then we aren’t really being invaded by something foreign that needs to be fought. I recently read that there has been a shift towards a “living with cancer” approach. I wonder what different types of treatment breakthroughs there could be with a different way of looking at cancer.

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Wellness Makeover: Breakfast

We were lucky to find a convenient healthy breakfast when traveling last year

Over the past few years, the wellness habits I had established have for the most part disintegrated. Since my husband Neil and I have been working at home, we have struggled with keeping a good routine and not letting work take over our lives. And unfortunately, his back injury put us on more equal ground when it comes to dealing with chronic pain and maintaining wellness. When you want to improve your sleep, diet and exercise routine, you find yourself in a chicken or the egg situation. Where to begin to stop the crazy train? We’ve decided to pick a few things to focus on: getting up earlier, breakfast, and morning exercise.

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Trusting that with loss, there is renewal

Since I’m having trouble posting regularly lately, I realized that I should occasionally share what I’m writing in my online class discussions. We recently discussed mourning as a spiritual process of “letting go” and this was my response: Much of my concept of “letting go” and grieving comes from the health crisis which ended my … Read more

Without Further Ado

What can ya say when you’ve been off the grid for a good four months! I just couldn’t let my birthday go by without a peep here. Yeah, after all that turning-40 hullabaloo last year, I nearly let 41 go by unmentioned. But really the silence speaks volumes. It’s been a significant year for me all around. I lost patience with the “not quite getting around” to the life I wanted. From August to January, I focused in on losing 30 lbs. I can’t tell you what a blessing it is to be able to walk for an hour without pain. I knew that I was stuck career-wise and until just recently was absolutely miserable despite significant efforts to find the right direction.

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Spirit of Generosity

I saw Christmas lights today and thought, “Already? It’s not even Thanksgiving!” Then of course there’s the folks getting ready to do their Christmas shopping. I’m so not in tune with it, but noticing a blog post reminded me that it might be a good idea for me to mention my favorite healing items for … Read more