Balancing fitness and happiness

@postaday 96; #postaday2011

Late last year my friend and colleague Kimberly Click and I decided to see if we could work out everyday. Just do something, even if it were a walk. Most days for me it meant a butt-crack of dawn workout at 24-Hour Fitness Hawaii Kai for 65 minutes on the elliptical and weekends logging miles on the bicycle. At about day 50 or so it all came crashing down when an upper respiratory infection afflicted me for five weeks. I’m pretty certain mine was the germ that partied through half the 11th floor here at the HMSA Mothership. At least we won’t have to deal with that bug any more. We also got our flu shots last fall!

Maybe because of that people think I’m a crazy fitness exercise demon. Not a bad reputation, however, certainly not true. I’m a lazy butt, I really am. This week I haven’t shown said butt at 24HF YET. I’ll go Thursday and Friday. Possibly Saturday, too, if I don’t feel like riding my bicycle before Sunday’s metric century in Haleiwa.

My long-time friend Jack Ryan sent me a message on Facebook with a link to a story on the Science Daily website that compares high-intensity to moderate-intensity workouts. A few weeks ago while I was doing the aforementioned workout, Jack sends me some updates on Facebook pretty much telling me what a kook I am for working my ass out so hard. Men. They have it so easy. Don’t like what  you see in the mirror? Get one that just shows what’s going on from the chest up. LOL. Me? I’m like thinking OMG what is my ass doing back there.

So I do my hamster wheel routine. For looks. For health. For feeling good. For flexibility. All of these areas are getting frayed around the edges. I want to avoid surgery to look good. After the biopsy episode, I want to avoid surgery forever!

Speaking of which, and maybe it’s my own personal observation, but, remember when a lot of women were getting plastic surgery to fix their faces, necks, arms, boobs, butts? I used to think that if I could get the fat sucked off of my body, if my boobs could be a little higher, my face smoother and less droopy, that I’d be OK with that. I used to think that if I had the spare money, I’d look into those age-reversing procedures.

But then I started seeing women who were my age and older all skinny with big boobs and permanent expressions of surprise. No matter how long and dark their hair was, when they turned around and you saw the face on top of that body it was always startlingly disturbing. Rather than being envious of the ability to make such an investment in their bodies, I thought how crumbly their personae must be to think that was all they had to do to be hot and sexy.

Rethinking that hot and sexy thing. Agreed, sleeping is as vital as water and workouts. Loving oneself as she is, that’s important, too. Exercising to keep your cardio pumping healthily, another part of the package. It’s no mystery. We’re not talking jigsaw puzzle. We’re talking having all the pieces and knowing the right things to do.

At work we have a fitness center. We have a goal to have the healthiest employees in Hawaii, in the world! It’s fun and amazing to be with people who have taken the policy to heart and have managed to work in workouts during their busy days. I think it would be naive to think that no one in the fitness center or out on a run doesn’t ask another a question about something going on within their projects or committees. So I think the goal of having healthy employees also results in getting more work done. Drops in absentees included.

Body. Mind. Soul. Balance.