Technology Wellness and Health??

I have to admit that the motivation from this week's lesson comes from my own experiences. Most of the lessons in Learn are about what is going on in the outside world, this one comes from the inside.

I participated in the annual Health and Wellness festival at OCLS about three months after I started working there. I thought I knew what my health issues were. I knew that I needed more exercise and needed to loose maybe a pound or three. I was SHOCKED when the results indicated that I had high blood sugar. There is no family history diabetes so I was floored. My doctor confirmed the results as pre-diabetes and suggested aerobic exercises to loose weight. Not my cup of tea! I had not run since I was in the military and it was not fun then! I had always enjoyed strength training and did a lot of it as a younger man, so I went back to the gym. I worked out for a year and lost a little weight. When I went back to my Dr, guess what - no change. I had reacted to my situation by doing what I knew how to do. The Managers that were part of my study group have heard me say that when presented with a new challenging situation, humans typically fall back on their experiences or training and do not step forward into a new situation. I did exactly that and got the usual results. Being human, it took a while for that to come into focus. I realized that if I wanted different results, I had to do something different. If I wanted major changes in myself, I had to do something major.....that is how this module came to be.

None of this "awakening" changed the fact that aerobic workouts were not fun to me. For me ( and you may be different) it was a stepping stone process to begin to appreciate aerobic activity. After researching the technology tools in this module, I bought some of them and used them. I wear a heart monitor every time I work out. For me, it is a speedometer. Regardless of how far I am going or what I am doing, I always keep an eye on my heart's "speed". I use a handheld GPS when I am changing my running distance or riding my bike. After listening to Cardio Coach on their website, I bought it and both my wife and I have used it for the last six months. Our elliptical trainer was like some type of mental black hole in that it would suck all of your thoughts out and leave you in a catatonic state of boredom! I HATED IT!!! Cardio Coach has made it something that I like to do. One of the really cool tools is Nutrition Data. Everyone plateaus when they workout. Nutrition let me analyze and create menu models that let me tune my diet to my needs. Once you see what it is you eat, it is easy to make changes that get you through your plateau.

Believe it or not, I don't use my MP3 player when I run. I have found that running has a mental benefit too and I use that time to sort out things while I run. I actually had the idea for this blog and "wrote" this blog article during two different runs. The mental/mood benefits of running are becoming just as important as the cardio benefits.

So what does this all mean, or mean to you? The statistic not in the course is that 66% of all Americans are over weight. Do you really want to be part of the majority? If the meaning of life is Love, and you can't take your money with you when you go, doesn't it make sense to invest a little in yourself so you can enjoy both while you are here?