September 04, 2012

Same Ol' Story... Hooray?


(Same Ol' Story is a great Cyndi Lauper song, although the chorus is actually Same Ol' F--cking Story, which makes it way more fun to sing along to. That was the original title of this post too but I edited as that seemed like asking for trouble. Oh, and obligatory copyright disclaimer below if you're an attorney with a mean streak.)

So labor day weekend has come and gone, summer is over, and for many people this may mean going back to old familiar routines.  The party's over!  After various adventures, vacations, celebrations, and a multitude of both reasonable and ridiculous excuses for doing things we might not "normally" do, it's time to get back to business.

I'm psyched! Anyone else?

Because as much as I believe that shaking up your routine every now and then is crucial to long-term health and happiness, it's equally crucial to have an awesome routine to shake up in the first place.

And this is not to say that I didn't have an absolutely fantastic summer.  Between travel and various festivities, I had a boatload of fun and a lot of fantastic excuses for consuming too much of the wrong things and exercising too little.

In fact I'm still buzzing from last night, where we attended the euphoric insanity that is the "Last Dance" at the Boatslip.  This is our preferred method for marking the end of the season, which we do in a most undignified fashion, packed like sweaty sardines on a dance floor shoulder to shoulder with other crazed revelers, jumping up and down, screaming, laughing, and having a grand ol' time.

Wanna see what I mean?   (Of course you don't give a crap, and I know that, but I'll post a minute and a half of last years "Last Dance" anyway to give you an idea--takes about 25 seconds for the nuttiness to ensue, and even though we were there you can't see us.  Ah, the tedious oblivious narcissism of bloggers with invisible readers!) 



Anyway, do you have some favorite healthy routines to go back to that make life easier?  Or do you find yourself making unsatisfying compromises and screwing around and being all inefficient or self-indulgent in ways that aren't even fun?

Here are a few thoughts and suggestions, all of them totally obvious 'cause that's how I roll, so I'm hoping some of you have some to ideas to share as well.


1. Build healthy routines gradually. Or not!

Basically, you have to find out what sort of transitions work for you.  Some people get all revved up when they start on a whole new lifestyle program, in which there is a whole new exciting set of rules, food choices, etc. and the sense of becoming a brand new healthy person.  Whether it's Weight Watchers or Crossfit or a looneytunes regimen of colonic cleanses and grapefruit/batshit/chia smoothies, the black and white clarity of a structured program can make things much simpler than a series of individual decisions and temptations.

Many guys, I notice, will often wait longer than women do to make lifestyle changes. But then for some reason they seem better able to leap in whole hog to a new diet or exercise regime and change everything up all at once. Or am I making that up?

But most people, and women in particular, have had enough ups and downs and ons and offs to have built up a lot of psychological baggage around making healthy lifestyle changes. The whole notion of "good" foods and "bad" foods and being "virtuous" about exercise or "terrible" about not exercising can make for fertile ground for rebellion, self-sabotage, and unconscious expectations of failure.

So if that's the case, build a healthy routine gradually by taking one healthy change at a time--if you can find one that actually sounds fun and not miserable, so much the better.

2. Be Like a Multinational Corporation.



Nah, I don't mean go in and out of bancruptcy ever few years and fire a bunch of people and pollute the earth and bribe congressmen and ruin people's lives. I mean, take advantage of economies of scale.

Some of my healthy routines have become less time-consuming, and thus easier to maintain, by figuring how to make meals in bulk, shop for a number of meals at once, stock the cupboards with an abundance of healthy staples and snacks, and generally try to take advantage of momentum when I'm actually in the store or the kitchen.  Then the day-to-day part of the routine is much easier when I have a lot of healthy stuff pre-made or readily available.

3. Build in Bliss and Savor Your Favorite Routines

One of the keys to maintaining long-term healthy habits, is building up a repertoire of activities, pursuits, meals, and reflective moments that you actually enjoy.  But what good are these if your brain is constantly preoccupied with whatever's next on the agenda?  It's easier to notice the novelty of new stuff, but chances are your day is packed with little pleasures already.  So don't forget to tell your brain to shut the hell up for once, and just enjoy that morning cup of coffee, that evening walk, that Thursday evening gossipfest with your stitch and bitch group, or those lazy Sunday mornings snuggled up in bed.

And heck, this is equally true of the unhealthy stuff.  If you're not going to quit smoking or scarfing up quarter pounders or downing way too many cosmopolitans, then at least enjoy them.  The whole furtive/guilty/apologetic thing, in the absence of any real intention to change your behavior, is a total waste of delicious wickedness. 

4. Keep Tweaking... but Don't Screw Around Too Much With What Works.

Over the years, as you find it easier and easier to make more healthy changes, you can become a bit delusional about the potential for optimizing and healthifying every f--cking thing in your life.  And then all of a sudden, pleasurable routines you used to heartily enjoy turn into bland imitations of the real thing.  Got a casserole so healthy you can barely force yourself through the first night, let alone look forward to the leftovers?  Did you used to enjoy running until you started getting too bossy with yourself about pace and frequency and distance and optimal form?  Then dial the health stuff back a bit and rediscover the joy!

So, yeah, a new season begins and I'm happily getting back to old routines (including at least sporadic blogging). And I'm looking forward to some new challenges and projects as well, which I will be sure to bore you about soon.

Anyone else fired up about "going back to the grind," or do have any great suggestions, or bitter complaints about how the summer went by WAY to fast?  It's all good!

Copyright disclaimer for Cyndi Lauper photo: Source: Epic Records, who owns the rights. This is a low resolution image not used in such a way that a reader would be confused into believing that the article is written or authorized by the owner of the logo. Unless that reader was really, really stupid. Please don't sue me, Epic. Pollution photo by Peter Grima

32 comments:

  1. Well, Crabby, I got nothin'. The summer zipped by, as they do, and I got into a bike-riding routine. Some days I skipped it due to weather, other times simply because I felt like it. I agree, one needs a routine before one can shake it up.
    Glad you're home and back to blogging.

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    1. You always strike me as one with a lot of healthy, happy routines Leah!

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  2. Since my health routines are built around allergies, I don't tend to "go back" to them. If I hope to feel well I don't leave them. I haven't changed anything in so many decades I can't remember what starting a new routine was like. I know for the first dozen years I did yoga I had no luck doing regular practice at home between weekly classes, (especially when I was trying to do it in the morning as is recommended) and then, suddenly, it just clicked, and I've been doing daily practice for more than twenty years unless life gets really snarled up, which with all this moving house stuff, it has lately.

    Bribing congresspersons? Since voting appears not to work too well, I might try that: "Hey, you, elected representative who hasn't voted my way in thirty years, How$ Much$ would it take to change your vote on SB#n?"

    Consolation for moving to the city: fast internet connection let me watch the video without going off to do something else while it loaded, and without jerky buffer pauses. So was some lucky human running lights, or was it all pre-programmed?

    Mary Anne in Kentucky

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    1. Wow, you've been doing yoga 20 years? You are a motivational superstar!

      And that's great that you have fast internet now! Hope its the first of many things that turn out to be great about the move.

      And funny, I never thought about the lighting... too busy dancing like an idiot to notice how all the shiny stuff happens!

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    2. No, I've been doing yoga since 1983. [Look! I'm healthy! /smug] It took me nearly a dozen years to start doing it at home daily, instead of sporadically. Weekly in class was the easy part.

      Once I can move around the house without sidling between stacks of boxes, I'll probably find more things to like about the move.

      If I had been as healthy and energetic in 1975 as I am now, I'd have gotten an MFA in technical theatre and been a lighting designer, so I notice things like that.

      Mary Anne in Kentucky

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    3. Hmm, can a blog have a lighting designer? I'd hire you! :)

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    4. Only if it's a vlog, I suppose. Can't be done long distance, though.

      Mary Anne in Kentucky, not bicoastal

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  3. This summer was HOT! Which doesn't bode well for us on the east coast for Winter, the leaves are already turning and it obviously hasn't been that long ago it was August. I suspect lots of snow this winter and bitter cold.

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    1. Ooh, sorry about that! I skipped town for the really hot bits, and will be in San Diego for the bitter part. We are total weather wimps! But fingers crossed it ends up being mellow and mild.

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  4. My son is proof of #1 - he's jumped into fitness and weight loss and has put my 18 month journey (to fit!)(lol) to shame with only 7 weeks. Damn kids.

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    1. Good for him! But damn, wish we could all have the metabolisms of young guys, sometimes it just ain't fair!

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  5. Right on, Crabby! Let's get back to it! My role model this fall is Goofy. The cartoon character. The OLD one - not the new fangled pseudo Disney version.

    He was forever trying to get back on track with some old/new routine: get fit! lift weights! lose weight! quit smoking! think positively! eat right! get up early!

    And - always, always overdoing it; never, ever able to assemble or properly the fitness equipment; standing in front of the mirror admiring his sucked in gut only to have it fall right back out; getting the heavy-sweaty heebie-jeebies from trying to quit some bad habit or another... Now THERE is someone I can relate to :)

    I am probably one of the few who has injured herself putting away the "easy to stow" Total Gym. I mean - just look at the infomercial! They show petite little model types folding it up with two fingers and simply sliding it under the bed! Me? Not so much...... So - Goofy, it is. Oh - and Popeye: for two reasons 1) he was SO right about spinach and 2) because of his personal credo "I am who I am". How great is that?

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    1. Goofy as role model, I love it!

      And I think you should sue the Total Gym for not only your physical injuries but the associated emotional distress, and then use those funds to start your own series of Goofy-inspired videos, which the rest of us will be quite eager to purchase.

      But yeah, there's something about the end of summer that makes a return to healthy routines suddenly seem appealing!

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  6. Well... you know me well & that I really have not even veered off the path. ;-) BUT I love your advice!!!!

    I have built my healthy lifestyle on consistency & patience as much as I can cause I am an impatient person, ;-), but even more now from always learning & always a work in progress. That last one is not meant to be bad - NOT saying you are never able to get there but just that life & the bod & I change so I always try to change with it & learn from it & what works for me at that point in time. Mixing it up is good! Don't overwhelm yourself - you have plenty of time to get there.... as you said, patience & keep moving forward...

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    1. It's funny, I am so often an advocate for mixing it up (even though I'm not all that good at it myself) that it occurred to me that sometimes I forget to appreciate all the "regular" routine stuff that works so well. You seem like someone who has consciously created an awesome lifestyle, but never stops growing and tweaking... no wonder you're such a great role model for healthy living (and an enviable physique!)

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  7. Making the move to a healthy way of life has been a gradual progression for me. I like your idea of building in bliss and savoring my favorite routines. One of my favorite things to do in the fall is drink a cup of cocoa at night.

    I still have yet to get into a fitness routine, per say, but I actually like being a little sporadic and spontaneous in this area of my life.

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    1. Cocoa and spontaneity are both wonderful healthy lifestyle additions! Perhaps you don't need a routine at all if you've got healthy instincts and intuitions.

      (And holy crap, I tried 7 times to spell spontaneity properly and kept getting wriggly red lines and finally had to look it up. Anyone else totally lost the ability to spell since the invention of the internet?)

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  8. ONE BIG REASON I LOVE TEXAS?
    Im not sad when the summer is done.
    it's too flipping hot.
    Im ready for fall.
    When I lived in PA. I dreaded summers end.

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    1. That's a great "glass half full" take on Texas summers! I'm a weather wimp myself so not sure I could manage it... though Austin rocks!

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  9. Over last winter I got in the habit of going to Zumba classes a couple times a week and doing less at home. Then the schedule changed for the summer and the classes I like were not as convenient, and I was out of the habit of working out at home. Or tired of the workouts I had been doing. Let's just say I've had a very leisurely summer when it comes to fitness. But I am ready to get back on board.

    I am taking baby steps to get back into a routine and reminding myself that the best strategy for me has always been flexibility. Remembering that I can enjoy fitness if I do things I like is also a big help.

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    1. Baby steps are definitely the way to go! And though it seems obvious to go for stuff you like for fitness, it's amazing how many of us find ourselves slogging through workouts we don't even enjoy because they're slightly more convenient. Thanks!

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  10. Summer ends? When did that happen?

    I can still apply your excellent advice however, because where I live we say it is the end of the no football season :-)

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    1. Ah yes, you Floridians have fewer seasonal cues. But I somehow doubt you ever veer too far from healthy habits no matter what the weather Dr. J!

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  11. We try to get back to the grind, then get a hurricane. (insert eye roll here)

    The problem with getting back to routine, really, is that there is so much that is different going on each month. Just when i get a routine going, bam! something like a holiday or friend's visit happens.

    Still, trying to maintain routine during all of that sure beats the alternatives, either a rut, or never having good habits to fall back on.

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    1. Hurricanes do put a damper on regular routines! Both the weather kind and the kind you get in New Orleans that come in a 16oz glass and knock you on your ass.

      Good for you for always heading back to your good habits!

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  12. Summer always goes by too quickly for me but it also gets me started in better routines - some of which might last into October! ;) Nice nod to Donna Summer with that Last Dance.

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  13. Hey, I say if you make it into October you're doing better than 99% of the rest of folks! And yeah Donna Summer's memory lived on that evening, with all the Bad Girls (and Bad Boys) shaking their Hot Stuff up until the very Last Dance.

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  14. Summer's over? Crap.(Can't tell by the weather here right now - it's gorgeous. 'Course, that won't last too much longer, so I'm going day by day and enjoying it, pretending it will last forever.)
    Routine? I'm supposed to have a routine? Crap. Guess I need to work on that.

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    1. Well I think summer is more a state of mind than a date on the calendar, and your summer doesn't have to end until you're good and damn ready! P.S. you need to start an apple pie baking empire if those blog pics are any indication. Mmmm.....

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  15. Those are such great ideas. And a good reminder for those of us (NO NO NO NOT ME OF COURSE) who may or may not have had tsunami sized summer shakeups where none of her favorite routines for healthy living got any form of center stage.

    I like to sing Last Dance and then transition into MacArthur Park. Mostly for the cake visuals. But with your pointers - maybe I will have that recipe for healthy living again.

    Groan.

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    1. Hooray, she's back!!!!! Hope the surgery recovery is miraculous and that all is back to normal soon.

      And, re: MacArthur Park (love that song)... I always think that even if someone DID leave the cake out in the rain, I'd still eat it. Cake is cake!

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