Lane 8.org

Do you know your stroke risk?  Do you even care?

Click here to check your stroke risk.

Lunch in Finland

When do we think about our long term outcomes – from the food choices we make this week?

Um, well, uh, like never.   Right?

Most of us can’t or don’t want to see that far, because it’s too much work. Or, we won’t give up today’s pleasure and convenience for tomorrow’s payoff – good digestive health.

Our son told me last Friday on the drive home from school that he had a “confession”. He doesn’t really like the bread (double fiber) we use to make his lunch sandwiches.

Grateful for the truth, but now what?

So last night on the way home from a doctor’s visit, I stopped to get some food items, including a different kind of bread, but with the same digestive goal – high fiber.

Blogging about health enhances accountability and increases motivation. Are you working on that too?

If not you, who?  If not today, when?  Seriously. Enjoy your lunch.

You Can Do It

There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-million blogs on the Internet, and growing daily.

There are 221-million results if you Google “Health Blogs”.

What are all these health-blog people trying to say? Please let me summarize for you:

1. Dream Big
2. Get There
3. Stay There

If your goal isn’t impossible, you’re not reaching high enough.

PS. Do your excuses make you stop or make you sick? Mine made me sick. Sick to think that I’m the only one responsible for my actions and I wasn’t doing anything about it, except making excuses.

Excuses be damned.

Hayward Field Inspires Impossible Goals

Lane 8 is the worst lane.  The slowest competitor is placed there. You know this already.

There is an art to being in Lane 8.

Huh?  Exactly.

Although it doesn’t seem so, striving for (metaphorically) Lane 8 is really impossible.

Getting healthy and staying healthy, until we die, is really quite impossible too.

Or is it?  There is an art to not quitting, not giving up, no matter what.

Eat More Cheesecake?

Anyone out there disagree that diet and exercise are a good way to control and maintain decent health?

Anyone not heard of the Food Pyramid?

Okay, so these things are well-known common knowledge, right?

What’s at the base, the foundation, of the the food pyramid?

Then explain to me please, why is it that people will pick apart a sandwich and eat the meat and discard the bread?

Not trying to make anyone feel bad, I’m seriously trying to understand this. It confusing and bewildering.

Do these people know something that the rest of the scientific nutritional world is clueless to?

Difficulty Lasts A Lifetime

Who is going to motivate you to reach your goals?

We really have to give serious attention to this question.

It’s what’s known as a non-negotiable question.

You must have an answer or you will fail.

Period.

Why must we have an answer?

Because things will get difficult.

And difficulty will happen repeatedly.

Over and over again.  Until we die.

The antidote?

Find a million ways.

Dream Big. Get Started. Never Stop.

Haven’t run in five (5) days.

How is that possible?

Mister “you have to find a way” or your doomed, Mr. Internet five-a-day blogger, Mr practice what you preach, Mr. self-appointed wellness expert.

Yeah, tell us why you have “failed” this week.

First of all, who am I to be calling myself such names, with that stern tone?

Ease up already mister.

There is an inherent challenge with an impossible goal.

It is, well, quite literally, impossible.

To think that we could consistently get regular exercise for the rest of our lives is preposterous.

Rubbish.

It can happen.  It will happen.  It is happening.

Went to the gym for strength and core training last night.  And, after a few commitments this morning (I’m Off today), I’ll go for a run.

Dream big.  Get started.  Never stop.

Which One Set A New World Record?

Let’s shake it up a little bit today. You good with that?  Good. Let’s go back to this past summer.

Here’s the scene.  Early August, 2009.  Sunny, clear, 70 degrees.

Finland.

Master’s Track & Field 2009 World Championships. Men’s 400 meters, 70-74 year old age group.

Enter a German man.

Click here to see the secret this “old man” reveals about getting and staying healthy.

PS. If you are too busy to follow this and invest two more minutes, please go look in the mirror and say something like, “I really do want to get healthy and stay healthy, but I just really don’t want to work very hard at it.”

Frozen, Hardened

Are you ready to fight for your life?

Then, and only then, will you start to see the changes you’ve always dreamed of.

May I introduce your opponent?

It’s you.  You are the challenge. You are the problem. You are the opportunity.

It’s time to kick your own butt.  Seriously, it is.

If not you, who?  if not now, when?

Ps.  I’m dead serious about this.

Jack In Lane 8, In Finland

If you promise not to call me names, I’ll tell you my true confession. Promise?

Since August 2009, I’ve gained nearly ten pounds.

New readers may not know that after ten years of focused effort to bring my health metrics in line, I had the honor of representing the United States in the 2009 Master’s Track and Field World Championships, in Finland.

So now that the big goal – the motivational carrot – is no longer in front of me, I’ve digressed.

This happens to everyone.

The gift from all of this?  It has increased (if that’s even possible) my conviction that an impossible goal is the only one that will work.

Have you ever thought about that? I mean the impossible goal part?

Then perhaps we can journey and endeavor together, to make 2010 a great and healthy year. Who’s in?