Posts Tagged ‘exercise’

The Journey of One Thousand Miles in the Body God Designed

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

On June 15, EatingDisorderHope.com is giving away 10 copies of my book The Body God Designed. (To enter the drawing, click here.)  For a preview of what to expect, here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2….

Do you know that adage that says something like, “The journey of one thousand miles starts with a single step”? The basic premise is you can go a long way over time if you do small things today. I put it a different way. There’s a term I use that’s very helpful to me personally and to those I counsel with. It’s the term baby steps.

In therapy, baby steps are the small increments (steps) of simple, doable (baby) things that a person can do to get better. They are realistic and attainable. Not single steps of one thousand miles but but single steps toward on thousand miles. Baby steps are the way you change your habits and your life slowly and steadily.

The world says you have to take thousand-mile leaps in order to be successful. God knows better. He knows we learn incrementally and that understanding is a journey.

In Romans 12:2, Paul talks about this incremental change when he says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” He doesn’t say your mind will be transformed in one fell swoop. He says transformation is a process and renewal is a life journey.

After all, it was God who sent His people on a little journey for 40 years in the wilderness, truly a thousand-mile journey made up of single steps. Was all that wandering a waste of time? N0. During the journey the people of Israel learned about God, and they learned about themselves.

Similarly, in order to achieve your thousand-mile destination, your body designed by God, you need to accept that you’re on a journey. The journey itself is not a waste of time because along the way you’re going to learn about God, and you’re going to learn about yourself. Do not despise God because He’s asking you to take baby steps toward your destination instead of miraculously transporting you there in one fell swoop.

Too often we focus on the destination and not the journey. “One thousand miles!” you say. “That’s too much!” It’s not as much as you think. I run an average of 20 miles per week. At the end of the year, that’s just over one thousand miles. And how do I run those one thousand miles? One step at a time. It’s not my “goal” to run one thousand miles a year. Rather, my goal is to get outside, enjoy the day, and get some physical exercise. The one thousand miles is a result of something I enjoy doing. Your own journey of one thousand miles can also be the result of something you enjoy doing.

Wait. I know what some of you are going to say. “But I enjoy sitting and watching television.” True; so do I, but that’s not the only thing I enjoy doing. The good news is you can take those baby steps along your journey in a myriad of different ways. By praying and looking and accepting yourself, you can find the steps that you enjoy.

Not everyone likes to run. If you don’t, that’s okay; it’s not a requirement for good health. You’re not defective if you don’t like to run. You’re not going to fail to meet your goals if you’re not out there running 20 miles every week. The beauty of this body God designed for you is that it responds very well to everyday, moderate physical exercise.

Simply be physically active. Does it mean you have to go out tomorrow and run 20 miles? No. Does it mean you need to find ways in your daily life to increase your physical activity? Yes. You cannot achieve the health benefits you desire without physical activity and exercise. Remember, God designed your body to be physically active. And the beauty about God is that the more you study about this body He gave you in relation to physical exercise, the more benefits you’ll learn.

Please also know that it’s not too late – once a couch potato, not always a couch potato. You are not destined to grow roots out of your eyes. Just get up off the couch and move around.

One of the most heartening areas of research shows the benefits of physical exercise fore those who are sedentary. According to the American Heart Association’s Statement on Exercise: Benefits and Recommendations for Physical Activity Programs for All Americans, “The greatest potential for reduced mortality is in the sedentary who become moderately active.” If you get up off the couch, you will reap incredible health benefits, and doing it doesn’t involve running a marathon!

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When Exercise is Exorcise: Carla’s Story

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

We live in an anxious world, and one of our deepest needs is to be reassured in the midst of our anxiety. Paul, in Philippians, tells us we should quell our anxiety through prayer and petition. Instead, however, we have reached for everything from pills to pasta, working to workouts, pull tabs to Prozac — without any lasting reassurance.

In our anxious world, we cry out, “It’s not going to be okay!” as we come face-to-face with our fears, worries, and anxieties. In this world, we can feel vulnerable or at risk, often without being able to clearly identify why. We feel in danger, and the higher the sense of danger, the greater the need for reassurance.

Often, reassurance comes through an excessity. Is fear, worry, or anxiety at the root of any of your Gotta Have It! behaviors?

CARLA’S STORY

Carla could feel that tinge of panic starting. Because of an amazingly busy week, complicated by a persistent head cold, she had gone three days without exercising. She was starting to feel jumpy, irritable, like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. She needed to excercise; things weren’t right in the her world if she didn’t.

Exercise kept the monsters at bay.

Carla had lived intimately connected to the monster of low self-esteem, poor body image, and fear of fat for years. She relied on the feeling of pushing herself to the limit, giving herself an edge over those insecurities.

Exercising, for Carla, had become exorcising; when she exercised physically, she emotionally exorcised her emotions, her anxieties. Nothing else she did kept the panic under control. If she could just get back to exercising, everything would be fine — or at least back at status quo.

She never felt she was really accomplishing anything by exercising, but at least she wasn’t losing ground to the monsters. After three days, she could feel that ground start to shift.

For Carla, exercise was an excessity, truly a Gotta Have It! activity. Exercise soothed her worry and panic. After she exercised, she felt reassured that the disaster she lived with every day, lurking on the sidelines, would not happen — at least not today.

Carla lived in fear of becoming fat. At the root of this fear was a tremendous insecurity about who she was a person. Carla worked very hard to keep her outside “perfect” becuase she felt so imperfect on the inside. If she ever became fat, then the worst would happen — her outside would mirror her inside, and she would no longer be able to hide. Carla lived in fear of exposure. Being thin was her defensive barrier and she was willing to do just about anything to shore up that defense.

Some of you can immediately identify with Carla. For the rest of you, however, before you autmoatically say, “Whew! That isn’t me,” I want you to take a moment to reconsider. Sometimes your Gotta Have It! behavior isn’t meat to usher in things that make you feel good, but rather that behavior is meant to keep out things that make you feel bad.

Fear worry, and anxiety can make you feel bad — and they can become all-consuming, fueling those particular excessities tied to them. If you want to defuse the power of your excessities, you need to determine what negative feelings are at the heart of any of them.

Source: Chapter 4, “Our Need for Reassurance” in Gotta Have It! by Dr. Gregory Jantz, founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources, Inc
 
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The Excessity of Exercise

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Some of you will look at this category and wonder how in the world it ever made it onto the list. Others of you will cringe and wish it could somehow disappear. The first group is made up of those for whom exercise is a foreign, distasteful concept. The latter group is made up of those for whom exercise is an excessity, an absolute way of life.

Please don’t misunderstand — I think regular exercise should be part of everyone’s lifestyle, in whatever form is appropriate for your current condition and situation. I know it is for me. I enjoy exercise, and it enhances my life and my health. There are also days when, honestly, it’s the last thing I really want to do.

Exercise becomes an excessity when its position on your priority scale is so high that you’ll forgo just about everything else in order to do it. You’ll exercise when sick or injured. You’ll exercise even if it interferes with other responsibilities, including family obligations. Exercise is an excessity when it becomes too tightly tied to your feelings of self-esteem, when you feel anxious, guilty, and irritable if you don’t exercise.

When exercise becomes a source of inordinate pride and self-identification, it’s a problem.

SOURCE: Chapter 2, “Examine Your Excess,” in Gotta Have It! by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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From Guilt Cycle to Bicycle: Lose the Rules & Just Exercise!

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

What are the first three words that come to your mind when you think “exercise?”

Many people would write words like, boring, time-consuming, expensive. But when it comes to exercise, the most important questions people ask are, “How can I make exercise fun? What can I do that is so enjoyable that I’ll look forward to doing it day after day, week after week, year after year?

Exercise must be fully compatible with you and your personality. If you hate to run, don’t run, because if you hate it, you won’t do it. If a sweaty, inconvenient five-day-a-week regimen in a local fitness club is not for you, don’t do it.Exercise is not about feeling guilty for what you can’t — or choose not to — do.

The guiltier you feel, the less exercise you will do, and the less exercise you do, the guiltier you will feel, and your guilt cycle will produce depression, confusion, and anger to the point where your entire system may simply close down. The solution: Do what is right for you.

Choose an activity that is fun. For many people, the best initial exercise program is simply to walk. Walking requires no expensive club dues, no unique clothing or special shoes, no time limits, no stop watches, no subscriptions to fitness magazines, no nothing. With walking there are also no excuses. If it’s hot, walk early. If it’s raining, wear a raincoat or carry an umbrella, then come home and take a hot shower. It’s one of the most invigorating feelings ever. Try it.

NO EXCUSES PLEASE

People who lose weight permanently are realistic, and they make their activity program work for them. Exercise is their slave, not their master. When they walk, they know it directs a hefty supply of oxygen to their lungs, gives them a chance to be away from their busy life for a few moments, helps them think about their progress toward permanent weight loss, gives them a few moments to listen to the birds, smell the flowers, and spend quality time with their spouse, a neighbor, or a friend as they take on the familiar and unfamiliar streets and lanes of their neighborhood.

An exercise you choose to do because it’s right for you makes you feel good. Before long you begin to experience a wonderful freedom from depression and guilt. The right kind of exercise — that you choose — can actually put joy back into your life, while diets — or expensive health clubs you join because you feel guilty for not working out — invariably rob you of your job.

Bottom line: There are no rules for exercise, absolutely none! Cliche as it sounds, just do it!

SOURCE: Chapter 5, “From Guilt Cycle to Bicycle,” in Losing Weight Permanently: Secrets of the 2 Percent Club by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Positive Self-Talk: An Exercise in Emotional Health

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Each of us has a set of messages that play over and over in our minds. This internal dialogue, or personal commentary, frames our reaction to life and its circumstances.

One of the ways to recognize, promote, and sustain optimism, hope, and joy is to intentionally fill our thoughts with positive self-talk.

Too often the pattern of self-talk we’ve developed is negative. We remember the negative things we were told as children by parents, siblings, or teachers. We remember the negative reactions from other children that diminished how we felt about ourselves. Over the years these messages have replayed again and again in our minds, fueling our thoughts of anger, fear, guilt, and hopelessness.

One of the most critical avenues we use in therapy with those suffering from depression is to identify the source of those negative messages and then work with the person to intentionally “overwrite” them. If people learned as children that they were worthless, we show them how truly special they are. If while growing up they learned to expect crises and destructive events, we show them a better way to anticipate the future.

Try the following exercise.

1) Write down some of the negative messages that replay in your mind, ones that undermine your ability to overcome depression. Be specific whenever possible, and include anyone you remember who contributed to that message.

2) Now take a moment to intentionally counteract those negative messages with positive truths in your life. Don’t give up if you don’t find them quickly. For every negative message there is a positive truth that will override the weight of despair. These truths always exist — keep looking until you find them.

You may have a negative message that replays in your head every time you make a mistake. As a child you may have been told “you’ll never amount to anything,” or “you can’t do anything right.” When you make a mistake — and you will, because we all do — you can choose to overwrite that message with a positive one, such as “I choose to accept and grow from my mistake,” or “As I learn from my mistakes, I’m becoming a better person.”

During this exercise, mistakes become opportunities to replace negative views of yourself with positive options for personal advancement.

Positive self-talk is not self-deception. It is not mentally looking at circumstances with eyes that see only what y0u want to see. Rather, positive self-talk is about recognizing the truth in situations and in yourself. One of the fundamental truths is that you will make mistakes. To expect perfection in yourself or anyone else is unrealistic. To expect no difficulties in life, whether through your own actions or sheer circumstance, is also unrealistic.

When negative events or mistakes happen, positive self-talk seeks to find positive out of the negative in order to help you do better, go farther, or just keep moving forward. The practice of positive self-talk is often the process that allows you to discover the obscured optimism, hope, and joy in any given situation.

Are you depressed? Though no replacement for a formal diagnosis,  this survey can help you recognize the signs.

SOURCE: Chapter 2, “Emotional Equilibrium,” in Moving Beyond Depression by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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4 Ways To Keep Your Kids Healthy: What YOU Can Do

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Creating a healthy and balanced environment for your child to SOAR — emotionally, relationally, physically and spiritually — revolves around four interconnected elements that I touched upon in last Wednesday’s blog post and go into greater detail below. These are the key components to creating healthy habits for healthy kids when it comes to nutrition, exercise and other elements of whole-person health:

1) Support. Children are very sensitive to adult nuances. They interpret the moods and attitudes of the adults around them and make judgments based upon their own understanding. Sometimes those judgments are center-straight, and sometimes they are skewed by a child’s misperception. That you consistently convey a positive attitude of love, acceptance, and support for your child and for those healthy changes is therefore vitally important.

You must be your child’s greatest advocate. All of the good you are trying to do can be undone if your child perceives there is something wrong or unlovable about him or her which is necessitating these changes. He or she receives enough negative pressure from the culture and environment without feeling deficient at home. Please remember that living a healthy life benefits everyone and should not be portrayed as a punishment for being overweight, inactive, or unhealthy.

2) Optimism. You child strives to live up to your expectations. If those expectations aren’t very high, your child interprets the reason as your belief that he or she is not capable. While you don’t want to set the bar so high that no one could reach it, you don’t want to set it so low that nothing is accomplished. How do you maintain a balance for yourself between too high and too low of expectations? By consistently presenting opportunities for positive change while praising your child for every victory, no matter how small.

And remember, as you provide this environment for your child, you’re also providing it for yourself. Don’t be afraid to expect good things from you! As a family, you are all in it it together. As a parent, you are in the driver’s seat in so many ways. I encourage you to believe in yourself, believe in your child, and believe that God is with you.

3) Active achievement. One of the primary areas in which we need to encourage our child’s achievement is in the realm of physical activity. Your child needs to get out and play, move, exercise, and have fun physically. This is the only way he or she can acheive a healthy, active physical lifestyle. You’ll need to make adjustments to your own schedule and habits in order for this to happen. As much as possible, you need to spend active time with your children. As an active, vibrant person yourself, you can motivate your child to desire the same.

4) Responsibility. Children are the best judges of when they are hungry. They are not, however, the best judges of what to eat when they are hungry. High-calorie, high-fat, high-sugar food and drink sing out a siren song to today’s children.

As a responsible parent, your job is not to forbid certain types of food but rather to help your child understand healthy food and nutrition. From this basis, your child can make positive food choices whether you are present or not. And as you choose what you will have available and prepare for your child, you help create a palate that appreciates healthy food and is able to withstand the constant temptation of unhealthy choices. Taking responsibility in this area will provide a wonderful model for the other, nonfood areas of growing up.

SOURCE: Introduction to Healthy Habits, Healthy Kid: A Practical Plan to Help Your Family by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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