Tag: Brothers

Health values

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about health values and decision making in health and wellness.

I recently heard Dr. Anthony Balduzzi as a guest on the Primal Blueprint Podcast. Dr. Balduzzi is a naturopathic medical doctor who runs the Fit Father Project, a website and fitness program geared towards helping busy fathers get and stay fit and healthy.

Speedy and El Duderino’s first camping trip

This is a goal that is as admirable as it is enormous, especially considering the myriad of health issues that plague most Americans. What stuck with me more than any of the specifics of Dr. Balduzzi’s health and fitness recommendations, was his take on the use of goal setting.

There is plenty of research and technique on goal setting, how to do it effectively, the benefits it has on outcomes, etc… What Dr. Balduzzi does with his clients, mostly father’s, is get them to link their goals to everyday health and wellness choices.

Getting used to the sleeping bag and the tree tent

While individual daily habits are easy to overlook, if those same habits tie in to your overarching goals they will be easier to maintain.

Want to be able to play with your kids, a morning mobility practice will lubricate muscles and joints and help prevent injury.

Want to go on that family hiking trip, eating a healthy diet and losing a few pounds makes climbing the mountain that much easier.

The best hiking destinations have playground at the end

Want to live long enough to be a part of your grandkid’s lives, a regular exercise routine promotes longevity.

And while it’s sometimes hard to see how reaching for pecans and berries instead of Ben and Jerry’s makes you a better father. If you’re goal is to be able to keep up with your kids on adventures well past your 60’s one of those choices is supporting your goals while the other isn’t.

The boys in their new backyard fun zone

SerenityThroughSweat is paradoxically both a selfish and at the same time selfless pursuit. The mental and emotional reprieve, the hormonal release, and the physical benefits of SerenityThroughSweat are ones that I alone enjoy. At the same time, being a healthier, stronger, calmer, father and partner is something that pays dividends to the whole family.

Aligning your health and wellness choices with your overarching goals means you need to first identify those. These can be as specific or as broad as they need to be based on your own situation.

Two zwift rides with 3400′ of climbing. Happy to feel back in the saddle with team TriGoodBeer

Maybe you want to be able to plan that family hiking/biking trip, or maybe you just want to dance at your child’s wedding. For me, I never want my health or fitness to be a reason I turn down an opportunity, especially one for a family experience.

While that isn’t always the driving motivation of my health and wellness choices, (that selfish part of SerenityThroughSweat) it is a guiding principle along the journey.

Stroller running El Duderino to the neighboring playground

What are your goals and are your current health, wellness, and lifestyle practices supporting them?

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Mountains

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I have spent a lot of the last week (and the last nine months) snuggling a sleeping Speedy. I’ve tried to be productive with that time while also enjoying and appreciating the one on one time in his first year.

Productivity, with a sleeping infant strapped to your chest, and a rambunctious toddler in the other room who has a new found habit of screeching like an underfed seagull, is a relative term.

My comatose reading buddy

It mostly involves trying to stay away from social media or news feeds, and reading books, blogs, or otherwise useful forms of information. My most recent literary journey is Frank Herbert’s Sci-fi classic DUNE.

Published in 1965 Herbert transports you to a political and economic struggle between great houses on a desert planet called Arrakis. As the major players in the realm jockey for power, Herbert weaves in some unconventional wisdom that retains relevance decades past publishing.

Projectile therapy, making progress

“Any road followed precisely to it’s end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain you cannot see the mountain”

This cold open quote at the beginning of a chapter brought to mind so much of what the last nine months has been like. A road to nowhere, inability to see the mountain we’ve been climbing, and it made me think about being a father in the time of a pandemic.

The runs this week all nasal breathing. It’s not natural yet, but it is starting to get easier.

I have been very blessed to be able to spend much of this time with my family. Watching my boys grow and learn, day in and day out is a privilege that many fathers forfeit in the name of financial responsibilities. Day in and day out growth and change is a bit like the mountain, you can appreciate other peaks and valleys from the top but not really the mountain itself. It is only from the starting point and during the ascent that you can really see the mountain.

Speedy was born at home at the beginning of all of the Covid craziness. Now, nine months later, he is crawling across the house and starting to pull himself up on low surfaces, despite his precarious lack of balance. He babbles loudly and often enough to make himself heard in an already loud family, and much to his mother’s chagrin, has become quite adept at using the few teeth he has cut.

Starting to pull himself up

I’ve watched El Duderino grow into his role as a big brother in a way that is as tragically humorous as it is inevitable, mimicking the relationship I had with my younger brother at that age. I’m sure my mother warned me about this, something or other about karma, I was too busy practicing wrestling moves on my brother to pay close attention.

El Duderino flips effortlessly between roles as his brother’s keeper and a toddler adjusting to sharing. He can be heard screaming “no he’ll choke on that”, snatching up small toys out of his brothers grasp, and also “stop that man!” As Speedy crawls towards him, eyes filled with a curiosity and wonder only seen in a newly mobile child.

My brother’s keeper

Looking back across nine months, the mountain is tall, and the climb has been as exhilerating as it has been arduous. That perspective only applies when thinking back to the beginning. Each day examined on its own, seems more like a comedic rerun of the last, rather than an integral part of the mountain trail.

I hope I can maintain mindfulness and appreciation for the many mountains I will climb alongside my family. I hope that I can instill the importance of that perspective into my sons’ young minds. I hope that we all acknowledge the view from the top without forgetting to recognize the trials and triumphs of the climb.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.