Month: December 2016

Christmas Day and Eating

I don’t know about you, but around our house we never eat dinner at home on big holidays. On Easter and Thanksgiving our family as well as our extended family get together at my sister’s house. On Christmas we go to our family friends house (our extended family).

Dinner on these holidays consists of turkey, ham, lots of vegetables, stuffing, buns, and pie for dessert. Nothing like regular food around the house the other 360+ days of the year.

I uses to be terrible at these dinners for overeating, not anymore, but my little brother is terrible for still doing that. I think the big problem tends to be that we eat and have great conversArion and then eat again because the experience was so great.

I think almost everyone associates food with fun and celebrating and our family is no different.

At home the rest of the year my family will just eat fairly quietly and thoughtfully so it is much harder to overeat. Also at home we tend to have maybe rice or potato but we are eating even these less and less, and we eat a lot more vegetables and never gray.

I love the lack of balance that a day like today will have. It really is a celebration with family and friends. It feels great and I know that when I get back home tonight I will be tired and happy.

I hope you have a very merry Christmas as well.

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The Magic of Action – How To Get What You Want And Be Inspired Doing It

Post author By admin
Post date December 22, 2016
No Comments on The Magic of Action – How To Get What You Want And Be Inspired Doing It

I have talked about this many times before but I am sure it has not reached enough people yet. I watch TV, I read web pages, I follow movies and news but mostly I try to act.

There is an insatiable desire, a longing in all of us to do. The trouble is that most of the time we get caught watching or are paralyzed by indecision, you know that term paralysis by analysis?

Well I was in the gym today and it is sad to think that two or three times the number of people were there 30 days ago at the beginning of January, excited about changing their lives but something got in the way.

Most of the time people that do not act say “Those were my dreams and then life got in the way” Well there are a few things that can get in your way but life is not usually one of them, instead it is our inability to act.

I think I may have a book in me on this point but anyway…

I think that if you do the following 5 things you will stop watching and jump into the action. Try these and then come back next week or even tomorrow and tell us all how well or badly it worked.

5 Keys To Inspire Action

1. To act you need to know what you want. This is critical. If you are going to get involved you need to know what action you want to take.

Maybe you watch a lot of hockey or soccer, well you can easily find a pickup league or team that you can get involved with, heck I got drafted into coaching kids soccer last year without even asking.

2. You need to find your why. Why do you want to do that action? Is it to have fun? To get in shape?

To live a dream that you always wanted? I have said for years that I want to run a 10k, all that talk never got me close because there was a bunch of training involved and I only cared about the finish line of the run.

You need to know what will get you on the track, or in the class, or in the training field.

3. You have to make your schedule. If you do not make a schedule that is yours then TV or a boss, or a wife will fill your days and nights for you.

I watched Up In the Air with George Clooney last week and in the movie he would tell people that had just been fired that the greatest achievements that ever happened were by the people on that side of the table. If you have no one telling you what to do you can do what YOU want.

4. Don’t worry about the process, just the next step. If you wanted to play soccer for a team you don’t have to worry about what time the practices will be or the number of games in the season.

The only thing that matter in the beginning is your very next step, getting a soccer ball or calling to find out if there is a team in the area.

If you look too far ahead it becomes a giant mountain not a bunch of fun.

5. Start everyday with action. This has nothing to do with individual goals of what you want to achieve but instead is an overall way to live life.

You have probably seen these guys that have accomplished 5 or 10 completely different huge things in their life guys like John Glenn, or Richard Branson, or even Arnold Schwarzenegger have done.

You need to start every day with a few things that have to be done, have to be acted on and then no matter what you want you can eventually finish it.

So these are the keys. The biggest key of these is of course to act and get done what needs to be done right now today.

This next step process and the attitude that life is not very complete if you are just a spectator is one of the most important things and principles that I like to live by.

So figure out what you want and start today. This could be the first of many great days that will change your life.

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Pokemon Go Exercise Increases. Do They Stick?

Post author By admin
Post date December 19, 2016
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I remember last July and the launch of Pokemon Go. It was a big deal for my son and I and over the few weeks after it certainly got more popular in our house as my wife started playing as well.

A few month later though and the popularity has definitely waned. For my son and I the game is still fun, but while living in an area with very cold winters (Alberta, Canada), we do not walk nearly as much now.

A very interesting study came out related to exercise and Pokemon Go that I believe is a microcosm of any kind of exercise change.

How Pokemon Go Increased Exercise in 2016

When Pokemon Go was released the idea was that people from everywhere would increase their walking to go to Pokestops and to find Pokemon in the wild. In our house it initially led to walking, then to bike riding to cover more distance, and finally for my son and I we would go for walks in more urban areas like Calgary.

I suspect that for many people the game was initially exciting and then after a few weeks they reached a tougher level and just gave up the game.

A study has been done by researchers at BMJ, the British Medical Journal followed new Pokemon Go Players from 4 weeks before playing the game to six weeks after installing the game. The results were interesting to me, and maybe to you as well.

What the study found was that in the first week after installing the game the players daily steps (measured by iPhone tracking) increased by 995 steps from 4256 steps per day average to 5251 steps per day in the first week after getting the game.

Sadly, to me anyway, the steps gradually dropped back to the previous average by six weeks after the game install. I suspect that this is really probably the attention span of the game.

What I would hope to see, that did not show up in this large study is that people would get used to the idea of being out and about and would start going on walks just for the experience and all the physical and psychological benefits of walking. Sadly, this did not happen.

What Can We Learn About Society As a Whole From This Study

What we learn from this study is that people can be manipulated by a game, or a popular pop culture event like this but it will not stick. Really the people that are involved with game like Pokemon Go are the same in motivation as the average New Years resolution fitness person.

The fact is that after 6 weeks of waning interest after New Years Eve we find that gyms are back mostly to normal again.

So as a society there is little hope of changing this unless we all look at exercise as a very important part of our countries measure of success. I don’t see this as happening anytime soon as most people will say things like

“I know I should work out or “I know I should eat better”. So the knowledge is there but the follow through just is not.

For individuals though there is of course hope. Some people start making a change and it becomes ingrained in a changed lifestyle forever. Some people don’t drop Pokemon Go, my son and I as well as a few million others still play even if the majority quit.

What needs to happen is a recognition that the change is important to the individual. This is ingrained and is far more important than “I should exercise more” I find that for me as well as many others that I see at the gym (maybe I should ask), that there is a deeper need to exercise.

It is not simply to get in better shape or stay healthy but instead a fascination and quest to become a better person, to compete and improve ourselves. I will never win a Mr Olympia, I will never get in the NFL or likely even run a marathon, but I know that every day I am becoming a better and stronger version of my self, fulfilling my physical potential.

This is far from Pokemon Go but at the same time I think that we see hints all around us what people want to do and what people need to do for themselves.

Do you play Pokemon Go? Have you gotten that bug just like my son and I? I wish we could do more walking out but today is the warmest day in the last few weeks and it is still -15 with a strong wind creating an even greater windchill out, not nearly the nice weather for those long walks and talks that my son and I had all last Summer and Fall.

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