Tag: cycling

consistency

Spring is coming and I can feel it. I’ve done a very good job of staying consistent with training indoors through the summer months but I am very keen to get into the river valley and do some running and biking.

Before long I’ll have my summer tour schedule and I’ll know if & when I can race this summer. I might be too busy again this year but I guess we’ll see what shakes out. I do have a new album to promote and the summers are short and fraught with festivals in this part of the world.

I’ve been running between 45 and 60 minutes per day, 5 days per week – followed by a 30-45 minute weight session. Naturally that’ll have to change a bit once the snow melts and I’m back outside, but realistically it’ll be the May Long Weekend before I’m really digging into Edmonton’s river valley. It stays pretty cold and icy down there for a long time under the shade of all those trees, so realistically I have a quarter of the year to go before it really matters.

In the meantime… consistency is key. But progressive consistency…

My goals in the next few months are to extend my running intervals and shorten my walking intervals. Part of my desire to extend running intervals stems from a desire to get on the stationary bike more than I have been, as well as getting into the pool now for a bit before I find myself in the tattoo chair again, which pulls me out of the water for a while each time. With my weightlifting, I’m already going to failure on the final set of each exercise. The next step is progressive loading, which I am doing a bit of already as well.

I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself.

Often I will devise a new plan for the future, and then say “why wait” and dive into a new routine, but I’m really trying to ride this out so that when I do change, it’s an appropriate shock to my system. I aim to change my diet a bit once we’re into a season where food grows, as food that grows on trees and bushes is rather important when you’re vegan.

I’ve been learning that this fitness routine and priority is of great advantage to me in my newfound condition. Not that my condition is new, but the knowledge of it is rather new to me. I’ll be speaking on that more in the future, as I’m still just wrapping my head around it, but as it turns out – healthy diet and regular exercise remains very important for those who are fortunate enough to be able to do it.

Before you speculate on my condition, please know that I am happy to have it, as it’s part of who I am. The only thing new or startling about it is that I wasn’t aware of it before, but at this stage of my life where I’m implemented so much positive change, I’m ready to take on this new thing in a positive light. It’s certainly not as scary as it would have been 10 years ago.

… only a little scary.
More on that later.

Thanks for reading.

world vegan day

Today… it falls on a saturday this year, so I get to actually write about it in the present tense! Today is a day celebrated by somewhere around 1% of the population – World Vegan Day – where we can congratulate each other on our efforts and remind ourselves that there’s always something more we can do to minimize our negative impact on the planet and the other Earthlings we share it with.

I know not everyone reading this is vegan, and as someone who became vegan at the age of 38 and spent a good while resenting veganism and many of it’s supporters, I do get it. Not everyone is ready and equipped to take this step at this precise moment in time.

I understand that vegans are an easy bunch to hate on, but for us it’s a catch 22. We constantly see posts online stating that “vegans are preachy” and “Q: how do you know if someone’s vegan? A: you don’t have to ask, they’ll just tell you.” thereby making it IMPOSSIBLE for a chill vegan to say anything without becoming the stereotype, when the truth is, the number of meat-eater responses to vegan posts that are just “bacon” or some tone-deaf and uninformed meme being passed off as actual information is far more antagonizing than any vegan comment I’ve eve seen – and I’ve seen a lot.

Truth be told, I’ve filtered posts with the words ‘vegan’ and veganism’ from my facebook feed intentionally because these comments are irritating, the images of factory farmed animals and abused animals posted in invoke a sympathetic like or share are too intense for me.

I primarily go online to be entertained, and the further I get into middle age, the more I realize that I long for the days when we were given actual, objective news and then expected to form our own opinions on what was happening in our world. At this point, I’d estimate that 95% of the internet is opinions posted by attention seekers who are under-qualified to speak on anything, let alone the subject they’re speaking on.

And although we’re all out here confirming our own biases, I will say that what first led me to become vegan was not animal rights (though that does align with me now – it just wasn’t the first thing that attracted me).

It was a health journey.

I truly believe that; depending on your goals, a conscious, whole food, vegan diet with a balanced macronutrient intake is the best decision most of us can make for overall health and longevity. This is based in scientific study. No, I won’t cite sources, but I will recommend some documentaries below.

I won’t say that veganism is the only way to be healthy, but I will say that a macronutrient-balanced whole food diet is the best way to simultaneously be healthy and minimize your carbon footprint. A whole food Vegan lifestyle is ideal for recovery and prevention of heart attack, stroke, dementia, digestive problems, skin problems. All the natural antioxidant (cancer preventing) foods are plants. The easiest way to follow the alkaline diet is by being vegan.

I didn’t lose 166 lbs on a vegan diet.
I lost 151 lbs on an omnivorous (meat eater) diet.
THEN I lost 15 lbs on a vegan diet.
… Then ran an olympic length triathlon course, and a half marathon.

I kept the weight off, and maintained an active lifestyle for 5 years (so far).

I currently weight 210 lbs, I have a resting heart rate of 46 bpm, and my blood pressure is textbook. I regularly run between 10km and 14km, bike 25km of trail, and can swim 1500m, and lift weights regularly. People regularly forget that I am vegan because I (a) don’t preach about it much, and (b) don’t look like your stereotypical vegan.

You can do whatever you want… if you’re open to change.

Happy World Vegan Day.

VEGAN DOCUMENTARY RECOMMENDATIONS:
Forks Over Knives
The Game Changers
They’re Trying To Kill Us
What The Health
Seaspiracy
Cowspiracy
Christspiracy
… and if you can handle it, Earthlings.