Run, Resolutions and a Reset

"You don't surrender your dreams, you surrender the one thing that you never had and never will - control."

Peaceful warrior Dan Millman said that while it's important to set goals, it is dangerous to impose time constraints on them simply because you don't know what life will throw your way at any given moment. Millman trained four hours a day, seven days per week, for 52 weeks out of the year with the goal of qualifying for a particular gymnastics event (the Olympics, I believe) and while he ultimately got there, a terrible motorcycle accident delayed the process by several years. He spiralled into depression when he didn't meet his goal on his schedule and soon realized the problem wasn't the goal, it was his arbitrary timeline.

I heard this a few days after I set my resolutions and thought, "Greeeeat". Running 100km in one month, fasting 24 hours on Tuesdays, etc, etc - I had set up my first month of resolutions in a manner that was exactly contrary to what Millman advised. Maybe due to the fact that I was now focusing on this, life fulfilled the prophecy. "Run 100km in a month, you say? How's about we reintroduce that knee injury," - I chipped my knee cap about six years ago and have been paying for it since - "Fasting on Tuesdays? How about an infection so bad that you have to take nasty antibiotics for the first time in four years which, of course, must be taken with food every few hours?!" Thanks life!

As I saw it, I had two options - throw in the towel and sulk away, deeming my project a failure after just a week OR learn from the situation and reset. Through some tiny grace of wisdom, I chose the latter. I'll run as much as I can, and when it hurts, I'll walk. When I reach 100km, whether it's at the end of August or sometime in December, I will celebrate the accomplishment. I may not be able to fast for a few more days, but I can be very, very conscious of what I put in my mouth, especially since my body needs to heal. Interestingly enough, by not resisting what life threw at me for once, I learned a great lesson about happiness. Happiness depends, in great part, on one's ability to accommodate, to be malleable to whatever obstacles may come your way. This is not the same as acquiescing; it's far stronger. As opposed to bowing down and given in, you can choose to change your behaviour so to preserve your values and integrity, however challenged they may be.

And so, while the first week was nothing like I expected it to be, today I am smiling from ear to ear for no particular reason. Week one of my happy, healthy year was a big success.

Thanks loads for stopping by. I hope you all have a fantastic long weekend! :)

mxo

day one...

"There is no start, stop or try. There is only do."

One that note, here we go folks! The happiness project officially begins today. :) On the agenda this week:

• Lots of running.
• 24 straight hours of fasting - yikes!
• Less TV, internet, gossip, etc.
• Lots of tidying up.
• And whatever else the week may throw my way.

Stayed tuned for an update soon!

mxo

Blue Zones Top 10

Morning!

It's a cloudy, hot and humid day in Toronto today. After a gruelling hot power yoga class, I am now sitting with my honey, listening to him play guitar to whatever's playing in the background (currently, Arcade Fire's newest record, "The Suburbs" - superb!), drinking my organic coffee with soy milk and agave - yes, life is good. :)

... but back to the happiness project!

One of my ultimate favourite books on health and vitality is Dan Buettner's The Blue Zones. I highly, highly recommend this book. Dan, a national geographic reporter, spent some time surveying the world's oldest populations to see what characteristics and behaviours have helped them live to 100 and well over in some cases. The book really needs to be read in full but Dan has kindly summarized all 200 plus pages into a top ten (because Oprah likes sound bites). So here are the Blue Zones Top Ten (for TV):

1. De-convenience your home – lose the remote, buy a light garage door and lift it yourself, use a shovel instead of a snowblower
2. Eat Nuts – Have a can of nuts around your office or home, eat a handful daily
3. Drink Sardinian wine – Sardinian canonau wine has the world's highest levels of antioxidants. Drink a glass or two a day
4. Play with your children – this is excellent low intensity exercise and will strenthen a family. Both associated with longer life expectancy
5. Grow a Garden – This proven stress reducer will put your body through the range of motion and yield fresh vegtables
6. Hour of Power – Downshift daily with a nap, meditation, prayer or a quiet walk--destressing is a proven way to slow aging
7. Eat Tofu – Arguably the world's most perfect food, eaten by the world's longest lived women. Contains a plant estrogen that makes skin look younger
8. Get a Tan – Doctors are rethinking the notion of slathering yourself with sunscreen. Up to half of Americans are Vitamin D deficient--a condition that can double your chance of dying in any given year. A tan not only looks healthy, it is.
9. Donate your large dinner plates – eat off 9 inch plates as the Okinawans do and reduce calorie consumption at dinner by 20-30%
10. Write Down your Personal Mission – Know and putting into practice your sense of purpose can give you up to a decade of good life.

There you go, the secret to centenarian vitality in 10 simple steps. To quote a flick I saw yesterday, "knowledge is knowing how to clean the windshield; wisdom is doing it". Time to be wise!

Happy Saturday!

mxo

breaking up with energy squashers

Everyone has them - those people you see, the things you do, and the foods you eat that all make you feel worse than before they came. Their lure is strong, so tempting and attractive, it's hard not to indulge time and time again. Sometimes their bite isn't that bad, it's subtle even, but it's always, always the same: you're left drained and far less energetic than before it all began. Everyone has energy squashers (I'd like to believe I just coined a term!)

My energy squashers are many and come in various shapes and sizes. They are human, inanimate, physiological and edible. They are big, they are small, sometimes they are even made up. If I had to pick the top five however, they would most definitely be, in order:

1. TV.
2. Junk food.
3. Gossip.
4. Clutter.
5. The Interweb.

TV and the Internet:

TV has become a habit. I get home, I'm tired, I make dinner and clean up. Then I'm even more tired, so I plunk myself in front of the tube, often with a glass of wine, and watch something (the PVR ensures it not just anything). An hour or two later, I'm more tired. I crash and repeat it all the next day. I watch TV because I'm tired; TV makes me more tired. It's a vicious circle, really. I'm lumping the Internet into this category because the dynamic is exactly the same: when I'm tired, I site surf aimlessly, facebook, etc. Then I'm more tired.... and repeat.

Junk Food:

Then there's junk food. I've covered my feelings on junk food a post or two ago so I'll keep this brief. Junk food = bloated, unhappy belly = all energy is used to aid belly (and agonize about another poor decision) = tired, unhappy, unhealthy Maya = bad.

Gossip:

Gossip is a bit more interesting. Its effects run deeper than TV and junk food. Put simply, gossip makes me feel rotten, and I do it a lot. I try to keep the conversations positive, pointing out people's good qualities and highlighting their achievements, but even that is draining (and let's be honest, the positivity doesn't always happen). Talking about people with other people, whatever the content, is gossip and 95% of the time, it's unnecessary. Through all of tenth grade Spanish, I had to stare at the following quote day in and day out: Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. It has haunted me every since.

Clutter:

My hubby-to-be likes to refer to me as a clean freak and it's true, I do like a clean house, but it goes beyond wanting my house to be presentable, cozy and inviting. Clutter stresses me out. Too much stimuli of any sort just doesn't sit well. The cycle is again the same - clutter makes me tired, then I'm too tired to deal with the clutter. Clutter builds and I collapse in heaps of exhaustion (Matt also says I have a flare for the dramatic). ;)

SOOOOOOOoooo...... during this month of focusing on vitality, it is essential that I part ways with the things that strip me of my energy. Loosely, during vitality month, I resolve to:

• Watch no more than three hours of TV per week. I don't want to cut it out completely because I'd miss out on weekend movie dates with my honey.
• No more than 30 minutes of site surfing per day. End of story.
• As little junk food as absolutely possible (for me, this means sugar, dairy, anything processed, and obviously, anything artificial).
• Spend 10 minutes every evening de-cluttering.

I suspect this will be my hardest challenge given how engrained a lot of these things are in my daily routine... but when have breakups ever been easy?! ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

mxo

eat stop eat

Over my quarter of a century on this planet, I have learned that what you put in your mouth plays a huge part in how you feel. If you eat only junk, eventually you will feel like junk. If you eat well, you'll be fitter, healthier and, I'd argue, much happier.

For the most part, I eat really well. I am a recent vegetarian (eight months and counting). Whenever possible, I try to read labels, buy organic, and support my local farmers. But I also go through periods of self-sabotage. Some days, when I'm feeling particularly in the pits (usually after a night of too much bubbly), my sole mission becomes to stuff my face with the worst possible junk. Chips, processed cheese, frappacinos and chocolate galore. I wouldn't feel so guilty about it if my body didn't play a cruel game of payback. Junk is almost immediately followed by headaches, indigestion, bad skin and remorse. Every. Single. Time.

Besides my back and forth with food, nutrition is also my passion. I am happiest when I am learning more about food and its magical healing powers, and when I can pass that knowledge on. So, it is only appropriate that I spend some time focusing on the junk I put in my truck as part of this happiness project.

For the month of August, I want to test out Brad Pilon's theories in his book, Eat Stop Eat. My soon-to-be hubby went to university with Brad years ago, after which Brad went on to do several super smarty-pants degrees in science and nutrition. He then spent several years working in the sports supplement industry, and ultimately put all of that knowledge into Eat Stop Eat. His main argument: regular caloric restriction is the way to go. Brad argues that one 24-hour fasting period each and every week is the, "single and best way to eat and to live" not just for weight loss, but also for general health. He admits almost on the very first page that his theories do not fit into today's popular nutritional rhetoric, but his research is impressive and his argument makes a lot of sense. Considering how messy the divide is between politics, industry and conventional nutritional "wisdom", I'll put my money on sound research any day.

Dan Buettner makes the same argument. In Blue Zones, which studies the world's most condensed areas of centenarians to establish a de facto formula of longevity, Buettner reveals that one of the characteristics that is common to almost all centenarians is caloric restriction. Whether by choice, or due to economics, the finding is the same: less calories = less weight = healthier, longer lives.

The research is enough to convince me to give this eat, stop, eat program a try. I'm not looking to lose weight, just to be healthy and more conscious of what I'm eating, so I'm only going to fast once a week (Brad suggests two, non-consecutive periods weekly for those looking to lose weight). Every Tuesday from 2pm to Wednesday at 2pm, there will be no food for this here chickie. I get to drink, but only non-caloric beverages (water, herbal tea, black coffee, etc).

I'm not very pleasant when I'm hungry, so this so be interesting. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

mxo

august - VITALITY!

Here we go, folks!

I'm giving myself a two week warm-up for my first month (August) of my happy, healthy year.... honestly, I just can't wait two more weeks to start! :)

I want to dedicate my first month to one of the most important pillars of a happy, healthy life: vitality. The goal for August is to get myself to the point where I have enough energy to tackle whatever may come in the next year - because, let's face it, it's impossible to be happy when you're struggling to get out of bed.

So, here's what I'm committing to:

• eat stop eat
• 100km cumulative run
• early morning dates with Jillian
• breakup with energy squashers
• act more energetic

Details and resolution charts to follow.

Thanks for stopping by!

mxo

just do it...

This is me, Maya Z. (The human one).

I am 25 (26 in exactly one month). I live in Toronto with my fiance and our cat, Charlie, in our lovely little semi. I'm pretty much your standard gal - done school, working a job that has nothing to do with my liberal arts degree, socializing at night to balance it all out, etc.

While life is generally fantastic, I know it could be better - to clarify, I could be better. I could be happier, I should be happier, especially given how lucky I am. The truth is though, most of the time I feel, well, overwhelmed and like I can't keep up with it all. Some days I think, "is this really it?.... guess so, and there it goes". It's not that I'm unhappy, it's just there are things I know I can work on and that's why, when I stumbled upon The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, something hit home.

"One April day," Rubin writes, "on a morning just like every other morning, I had a sudden realization: I was in danger of wasting my life. As I stared out the rain-spattered window of a city bus, I saw that the years were slipping by. 'What do I want from life, anyway?' I asked myself. 'Well... I want to be happy.' But I had never thought about what made me happy or how I might be happier." Bingo. Rubin nailed it. "I grasped two things: I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change. In that single moment, with that realization, I decided to dedicate a year to trying to happier."

Inspiration came from those first few pages. Without reading even one chapter more (although I did read it all, twice), I knew that I needed to finally embark on my own happiness project.

This blog will be dedicated to just that: one year of me working on being happier and healthier (this is key because I am not happy unless I am healthy) - you know, the 'mind, body, soul, run a marathon, conquer a fear or two' type of thing. I'm going to keep to her format (roughly), dedicating each month to a new area of my life. It's not going to be easy, but I suspect it's going to be fun and perhaps, as in Rubin's case, even rewarding.

Welcome aboard - comments, suggestions, general musings about life are more than welcome! :)

mxo