What we do for good health

Honestly, how many of us like lemon water, whole wheat bread, kale or brown rice? I heard lemon water is great for detox and digestive system; whole wheat bread and brown rice are healthier than white bread and white rice. Kale, high in fiber and vitamins, is a healthy food, (though I was told by a Safeway cashier kalr is out, water crest is in now). Most super foods are not tasty, but for the sake of health, we alter eating habits and compromise the tastes.

We also spend the little spare time we have to exercise, or sometime starve ourselves so we could keep our weights down. We drink lots of water because it's Important to stay hydrated, despite the annoyance of frequent bathroom visits. 

Living a healthy lifestyle is such a pain sometimes. 

The importance of counting

My Yoga Teacher Training was very fruitful. There were a few basic things I learned which were beneficial to my day-to-day life. Among them was learning how to integrate stretches with my work and life, to relief stiffness and relax the mind. Believe it or not, one of the keys of doing yoga on your own, other than accuracy of the poses and building the sequences, is knowing how to count. If you don't hold the pose long enough, you may not be able to feel the effect of the practice, and you may give up on the home practice too soon.

Yes, to me, stretches and Yoga only work if the pose is held for a certain amount of time. As for how long, it varies. In the gym aerobic or body sculpt group class, some teachers count to 8, others count to 12, some others count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, and then 3, 2, 1, just so you hold a little longer. For Yoga poses, you can hold 5 counts to begin with, then later on hold for 1 to 2 minutes. If you are worried about how to make sure the length of each count is equal, just remember on average, 10 to 12 breaths takes 1 minute. You can see a Yoga home practice will also build your patience, because your mind can be easily distracted while doing Yoga at home.

In addition, to develop a home practice, you must allocate time in the day for the practice; build a sequence which works for you, so you can always rely on it to achieve your goal of the practice. Initially you can "borrow" your teacher's sequences, if you can remember them, then you can modify them for your own needs.

Some people just do headstand before going to bed, others do a few restorative Yoga poses. Yet others do a full practice with warm up, Sun Salutations, main sequence and cool down. If you do a practice for more than 30 minutes, I learned that it is important to finish up with a short 2-5 minutes Savasana, otherwise you can feel dizzy or queazy when you are done. The length of the Yoga practice is not as important, as long as it works for you and that you can do it everyday. Actually, it's not important that you do it everyday, as long as you know what to do when it is needed. Remember, it is a tool that works for you and your lifestyle.

The more I think about it, the more I realized how important counting is in our lives.

We count down to the new year or other important dates.

I count the throws for Jake to make sure he has enough fetching exercise in a session. That is 10 times per session, 3 sessions per day for Jake.

The healthy tooth brushing is 30 seconds per quadrant, two minutes total.

Some people count calories.

One maybe instructed to take certain medicine or do a certain regiment 2 or 3 times a day. Have a facial once every 6 weeks, a hair cut every 6 - 8 weeks, etc.

If we can't fall asleep, we count sheep.

Can you think of other examples?

Literally the hardest workout in my life

I had the hardest workout in my life on Wednesday night.

I was a little bored with my normal workout regiment that night, and thought I gave the power circuit class a try. How hard could a gym class be, right? I guess I didn't understand what circuit training was, and boy I was in for a "treat"!

When I walked into the studio, there were only 2 other students and my personal trainer Juan, who was the class instructor. Juan was a friendly young fellow.

Juan prepared the studio by laying out exercise equipments around in a big circle: sets of weights next to a bosu, a high step with weights next to it, a pair of punching gloves and shields, a jumping rope, a set of swinging ropes, 4 hurdle hops, etc. There were totally 11 exercise stations. Meanwhile, another lady came in, so there were four of us in the class. I heard that normally there were six to seven people in the class.

Juan explained that we worked on a workout for 45 seconds, then took a quick break and move on to the next workout. When we were done with a circuit, we would start from the first workout again.

I started with bicep curl on a bosu. It was relatively easy, as I have done that before. The trick here was to be balanced on the bosu, and it was OK if I lost balance and stepped on the floor.

My next item was the hurdle hops. 4 innocent looking 1 foot high hurdles were placed in a straight line a few feet apart from each other. I hopped quite high and with my feet apart, so I saw myself looking funny in the mirror. Oh, after a couple of rounds my heart started pounding hard, and I could hardly catch my breath! I couldn't believe that it was just the beginning of the class and I was already worn out and wanted to quit.

Next, I did triceps extension, punching, shoulder press, jumping rope, swinging ropes, step up shoulder press, and crunches on a fitness ball. My heart was still pounding hard from the hurdle hop exercise, so everything became fifty times more challenging. At the end of the first circuit, I was already done, but it was only less than 10 minutes into the class. I was so depressed and thought I was going to eventually pass out. Juan was going around the room to give instructions:

"Feet together, jump, jump, jump."
"Come on, full extension."
"Give me a hard punch, you can do better than that."

I took every opportunity to slow down and take a break, when Juan was working on punches with someone else. I wish there were more people in the class, so he wouldn't focus so much on me.

I was huffing and puffing the rest of the class, and looking like totally out of shape. We did three more circuits. 20 minutes before the end of the class, Juan took pity on us and started the cool down early. I was more than a little relieved.  I wasn't sure if I would go back to the class again, but people reassured that the next class would be easier.

The next two days I stayed home and nurse myself. My neck hurt, my back hurt, my abs hurt, my torso hurt, my shoulders hurt, my arms hurt, my thighs hurt and my legs hurt. When I tried to get up from sitting, my thigh muscles gave in and my knees shake! When I laid down I didn't want to move, as my body felt so heavy, and any kind of movement brought pain and suffering.

The stiffness and painfulness started to subside on Sunday, and I could go back to the gym and happily resume my boring workouts.

Workout

Among the many benefits of exercising, a notable one to me is it gives me a peace of mind. 

Human being is not designed to be sitting at the desk for 8 hours a day, and then sitting some more to watch TV at night. Over a few years, one can develop stiff neck and back, carpal tunnel disease, premature slouching, or worse, weigh gain. So we were told that we should go and do some exercises at least 3 times a week, e.g. Swimming, running on a machine, or some stretching exercises such as yoga or Pilates, to stay in a reasonable health.

Jack and I had been trying to keep up with our every other day workout regiment, and we reward ourselves with a nice steam bath afterwards. Then we can sit to watch the all episodes of The Big Bang Theory in the right order without guilt or reservations.

It's going to go somewhere

I have this theory that, since Thanksgiving is the first feasting holiday in our holiday season, we tend to pour our hearts and souls into cooking, baking, feasting, and gatherings. And we are so happy doing so. This might be a known fact, and I just got so excited about this year's Thanksgiving that it became my new discovery.

Isn't it great to discover something on your own even though it is a known fact?

I became so spoiled these few days. I would eat a piece of apricot up-side-down cake for breakfast with my coffee, a piece of delightful gulab jamun after my lunch, and some home-made cookies & cream ice cream for dessert after dinner. That doesn't even cover all of the desserts we made this Thanksgiving. We also have pumpkin pies and sour cream cheese cake in the refrigerator that were untouched for a few days now.

Along with the delicious and decadent desserts, we are still feasting the left over Thanksgiving meal. The wholesome turkey soup still takes up most of the precious refrigerator space even though we had been eating it for lunches and dinners. Up to today we still have a big box of turkey leftover.

Instead of drinking water or tea, we are drinking Martinelli's and ginger beers. Hmm, life is good. 

So where is all the food going to go? Of course, it will be months of hard working at the elliptical machine or in the pool trying to get rid of the Thanksgiving meal, or not, but the truth is, we do it happily every year.