Uphill idealist

Image from chestofbooks.com Seeking wellness is a holistic journey. It causes an individual to look at all aspects of their life and ask the question - "Does this look and feel healthy?" This can be a very hard question to ask and an even harder one to ponder and then take action on. Some areas of health and fitness have been slipping recently due to two different foot injuries - one in August and one in October. Sad to say the scale has been sliding in the wrong direction since consistent cardio work has been off and on again for the last few months. I'm slowly getting back to it, but there is work - more than I'd like to think about and do - to be done. What are some ways you re-energize seeking wellness in your life? Are there any tools or encouragement that helped get your feet back on the road to seeking health without perfectionism and regret dogging you all the way? It will be a one step at a time journey - and I know that it's important to pay attention t...

Exercise, eating right and the spiritual discipline of prayer and scripture reading. Why is it so difficult to balance all three of these positive life assets? I can manage to juggle up to two of these things fairly well, but add a third and SPLAT - the whole effort can go down the tubes like dropping hand-tossed-over-ripe tomatoes! In the early spring of 2008 I came to the place were I knew I needed to make some changes in my life to allow for more physical activity or asthma was going to take my life over. At least that is the way I felt at the time. Over the last year and a half, I’ve managed to add exercise at first 3xs a week and now I’m up to about 5xs a week. In May of this year, I rethought how and what I'd been eating and have been relatively faithful in eating much better than I had been in the past. Yesterday as I jogged 2 miles without stopping, I remembered that day in late February 08 when it was all I could do to catch my breath after running only a few minutes to c...

After of working very diligently, minus some sweets every now and then, I've been on the wagon of exercise and eating "healthy" through June and into July and I'm doing rather well. I'm about 15 pounds down from where I was in spring thus far. To be honest, I've drank more fruit and veggie smoothies than I've had desserts - so it's not going too rough. I'm mixing up the cardo and weight training, even added spinning and on my third week with that now - and have a session with a trainer later this week to make the best of my time at the gym. I'm hoping all this work continues to pay off health-wise...in a few weeks I'm headed to New Orleans for a youth trip and will be away from my regular routine. I'm feeling a little nervous about that. Any suggestions on staying "on the health wagon" while on the road and out of the norm? Comment away!

I've made some serious efforts in the last several weeks to improve what I'm eating and avoiding the kettle chips (oh how I love them) and was wondering from if any fellow bloggers have to say concerning the puzzle of balance in cardio and weight training? There are so many schools of thought in how to approach this question, that the professionals quite honestly have me confused and perplexed. Since last April, I've been working on the cardio and have been able to achieve jogging 2-3 miles about three times a week. My motivation in adding the weigh training to my cardio (elliptical and jogging) is that I was told that by building muscle mass, I will burn more fat and actually be able to not have to spend so much time on cardio. My sample week of activity is something like this: M W F (2 to 3 of these days) - Jogging 2 miles or elliptical for 40 minutes. T TH - warm up on ellipitical 10-15 min. and 2-3 sets of 14 reps. upper and lower body weights work. Saturday I sometimes...

Starving by Suzanne Muna 2005 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved" (Acts 2:42-47 TNIV). The Acts 2 scripture is challenging and somewhat haunting for me. I remember it being a focus point for ministry and outreach in not one but two different occasions and locations in ministry. I feel the connectedness of the Acts 2 community is so much of what the church and people in common are also starving for today. People need relationships wi...