What should I do?

This is a question that is often finished with “to lose weight”, “to get bigger” or insert your health related phrase here? Recently whilst on Reddit which I do frequent from time to time I responded to a post asking “I want to lose weight but I hate the gym. What can I do?” Now I could have posted a link to thousands of articles written by myself and many other very experienced and intelligent people. But instead I posted “The Question is not what we recommend, the question is what do you like?”

This is really the crucial question for everyone. I could go on and on about recommendations and science and some may take the advice at least for a little while. But the only things the keeps anyone and everyone coming back is finding something that they enjoy rather than doing something they think they should. You don`t need to do any research to know that people will more likely do what they enjoy rather then what they don’t enjoy. This poster hit the nail on the head “I hate the gym”. I find that so often with patients and people I speak with. They don`t like the gym and think exercise requires mandatory gym attendance. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) defines aerobic exercise as "any activity that uses large muscle groups, can be maintained continuously, and is rhythmic in nature." Most people often equate exercise to the above definition and think boring running or walking on a treadmill for ages. It certainly bores me thinking about it. But the thing to note about that definition is that it is very broad. This gives you and I a lot of room to play and be creative. 

I want to let you in on little secret often in education and motivational interviewing the teacher or interviewer will ask open ended questions and may do this “what do you think the answer is?”  We do this when interviewing someone for lifestyle changes and it works. The aim of this questioning is to force the person to give themselves answers and convince themselves of the change. Sales people will do it, they ask “on a scale of one to ten how much do you want this product?” The interviewer will then follow it up with “why wasn`t it a lower number?” They use it to get to the core of any problems and get you to convince yourself that you need this product. Have you ever had this happen? We use this to expose ambivalence. Now you may begin to see the connection to the previous paragraph. The definition of physical activity might be very broad but encompasses a lot of easy to do activities that most don’t consider. Like for example increasing your N.E.A.T (non exercise activity time) I recommend it in my weight loss activity checklist. For instance walking further to work or climbing extra stairs instead of taking the lift. Kicking the footy with friends, doing gardening all ways to improve your N.E.A.T. 

When asking “what should I do to achieve something?” often it is best to ask yourself first. You may not know what you need to do but you do know what you like. That first and biggest step to taking responsibility to find what YOU like. This will increase the likelihood of adhering to your goal.  

Now as a little addition you may have read this article and said I hate any physical activity. Really? Do you like video games? They can be used to create physical activity. Find out what you really like and use it to get physical, there is always something. The one thing I have found through all ages is that exercise that`s disguised as a game and is fun will turn everyone into an exercise lover without them knowing it.

Life`s a garden dig it.

               On this blog I often talk about aspects of fitness and health. Eating is included in these broad categories. Do you know where your food comes from? I mean really have any idea? I have been worried when I hear children answer the question of “where does milk come from?” with “a carton”. People don`t know remotely where their food is coming from. Now to be fair I wouldn`t expect most people to know with absolute detail where all of their food comes from. But one sure fire way to at least build an appreciation for farming, food and get a little bit of exercise is to grow your own fruits, vegetables, herbs. Now I know that not everyone lives on some form of land with soil and space easily accessible. That though is no excuse, many options are available from pots/window gardens, community gardens or just using the ground that you live on.

                Gardening has a variety of benefits and yes the possibility of saving money is one of them. For my partner and I we like to get to grass roots in many different ways and gardening is one of them. We try to grow a variety of our own vegetables. For some reason growing your own food just seems to taste better and no I don`t mean the organic vs non organic debate. The reason the produce tastes better is the X factor flavour, I think that flavour should be called satisfaction. It is more satisfying to put in the work and have even a moderate payoff. Gardening also seems to be good for mental wellbeing and I think it relates to satisfaction of seeing something you have put the work into giving you something back.

                Gardening though isn`t all sunshine and butterfly`s it takes a bit of work. Working in the garden especially if you choose to use limited machines and chemicals can be a bit of hard work. I think though it is important to note many of the cultures of the planet that live the longest farm with some methods from the past. They still get out there and pull up their sleeves. As you will see below the picture is of our garden, not huge but it`s ours. You can see the before we have left it to over grow a little bit.

                The during shot is after I have taken a shovel and turned the soil to aerate it a little bit after pulling out all the old plants. I have also raked up the weeds and spread the soil a bit more even.

The final shot is after I have seeded the garden with peas and alfalfa. I have done this because both return nitrogen and other nutrients back to the soil. I will turn them into the soil again after the peas and alfalfa has grown. I then added horse manure and raked that evenly and then added sugarcane mulch to help protect the soil/seeds and slow weeds growing. This took me about 90 minutes in the rain. The important thing to remember is the preparation pays off with better harvests. Quality soils lead to quality produce. So get to it start a garden you will appreciate farmers and where your food comes from much more.