I was clueless a few months ago when my son, Chris, asked me if I wanted to ruck. He and his family were quarantining with us at the lake during the early days of COVID-19 and he had decided to take advantage of his new work-from-home arrangement to adopt a healthier lifestyle. He was starting to see results from his improved diet and wanted to focus more on his workouts. That’s where this rucking idea surfaced.
Chris explained that rucking was a cardio workout with military roots: you simply load up a backpack (aka rucksack) with weight and walk. Continue reading “Wanna Ruck?”
My skepticism kicked in as soon as I heard Beachbody’s latest super trainer, Chris Downing, promise I’d get leaner, faster and stronger in three weeks. But as he rambled through his spiel, his enthusiasm seemed refreshingly genuine and once he flashed that infectious smile my resistance softened. I was in. Now that I’ve finished Shift Shop, I’ll admit this trainer and his breakthrough “ramp-up” method was worth my time. I say that even though my performance tanked on day fifteen, of the 21-day program. Reflecting on my experience objectively, I can see the problem wasn’t so much with the program, at least not technically; it was that this old lady simply needed a longer ramp. 
I rolled over and looked at the clock: 3:52 a.m. The grumpy stomach and foggy brain that awakened me Monday morning was unmistakable; it’s a hangover. . . a food hangover. It doesn’t take long to realize going back to sleep is not an option; my head is throbbing but it’s mostly because I’m pissed at myself for ruining the start to what I expect to be a very special week. 
“You give me the next three weeks, and I’ll give you the body you’ve always wanted,” promises the twig of a fitness instructor leading the upper body workout I’m streaming this morning. In sixty-one years, I’ve never had the body I’ve always wanted, so I have serious doubts anything this video Barbie is going to throw at me in the next 21 days will get me there. 
For most of 2016 I ignored the pesky ten pounds I’d put on when I stopped my long-established routine of stepping onto the bathroom scale every morning. I can’t remember exactly why or when I abandoned the one weight-management habit that seemed to work; but I’m guessing the extra pounds were payback for the smug attitude I had developed when the same number flashed up at me every morning for years. 
I don’t consider my relationship with ice cream to technically be an addiction; after all, I just went ten weeks without it. But it is most certainly the biggest challenge my willpower faces, with other favorites like chocolate, Egg McMuffins and wine far easier for me to resist. Now that I’m easing up on the strict diet I embraced earlier this year, my occasional over-the-top love for ice cream might present the only real glitch in the otherwise smooth transition to a more moderate approach to healthy eating.
Like most relationships gone bad, we had our good times. Abby – yes, my Fitbit has a name – and I go way back; she’s been my trusted ally in my quest to stay fit for years. It’s no secret I’ve struggled to maintain the consistency I’d like in my exercise routine, so it made sense that daily monitoring of my activity level was a good strategy to keep me on track. And the added accountability to my “Fitbit friends” was even more incentive to get moving and hit my daily step goal.
A healthy lifestyle is an important cornerstone of my next chapter for one simple reason: good health provides the freedom to live life on my own terms. That said, staying fit and maintaining a healthy weight has challenged me for most of my life. When it’s my focus I do pretty well, but all too often I’ve let other people or things become my priority and have found myself out of shape and overweight. So, while I accept it as a key element of the life I envision for myself, I know from experience sustaining it is easier said than done.