Tag: winter

new year

I talk about this every year, and have managed to avoid it so far… but now it’s happening. September is the beginning of the year. At least it’s always felt like that, since the Edmonton Public School system set forward the notion that the fall; historically a season of death, is the beginning of the school year. That means July & August are essentially the end of the year in the same way that Saturday and Sunday are the end of the week.

So in the fall, it’s often time to start nesting; in that, we need to prepare for a harsh Canadian winter.

Obviously preparing for winter doesn’t mean what it once meant. Squirrels are gathering food for winter, Geese are flying south, and I am working on a new workout plan for the cold months that includes a Swimming, Cycling, Running, and lifting weights. I’m giving myself 6 days to play with because that’s what I’m currently doing, but I will need to ensure I get all my muscle groups covered in 5 days because I often have weekend obligations.

It goes beyond gym rat status, though.

I’m beginning to put the structure around another writing and composing project that will likely not see the light of day for a few years… but that’s fine. Doing the thing IS the reward, whereas completing the thing means having to find a new thing, the hunt for which can sometimes be stressful and sad.

There are songs to write and a car to work on, of course, but that’s where it gets sticky. If I pile too much on and struggle to get to all of it then I risk being disappointed with all the things I didn’t accomplish rather than focusing on what I did accomplish. That might sound insane to you… but the prairie winter is a hard and unforgiving bitch goddess that actively tries to kill us, and vitamin D deficiency is a real thing that messes with your brain. Season Affectiveness Disorder is a real thing, even when you’re on top of the world, there are still blue days.

So that’s what I’m muddling through as I try to soak up every ray of sunshine possible for the next handful of weeks.

I’ll likely be indoors by Halloween.
Thanksgiving if I’m lucky… the irony of which is not lost on me.

Anyway… it is beautiful out, and everything is dying around us.
Enjoy!

This evening I’m in Red Deer, Alberta, playing at D2 Bar & Stage with Forbidden Dimension and The Offsailors. Minors are welcome at this show.

perspective

Alan Watts, a popular American spiritualist who studied & taught eastern philosophy tells a story from time to time, as I’ve heard it repeated a time or two in the recordings of his speaking engagements, about a farmer.

A farmer’s horse got out of the stable and ran off.
His neighbors said “that’s bad.”
He answered “maybe.”
The horse returned a day later with 6 wild horses.
His neighbors said “that’s good.”
He answered “maybe.”
The farmer’s son was training one of the wild horses, and got kicked, and broke his leg.
His neighbors said “that’s bad.”
He answered “maybe.”
Later, a government man came around conscripting young men to go fight in a war, and the farmer’s son was left off the list because of his injury.
His neighbors said “that’s good.”
He answered “maybe.”

The story goes on like this, typically to illustrate the meaning of the yin & yeng, that no good can come without bad, and no object can be observed without the space around it to give it context.

This occurs to me from time to time when I’m in the thick of it, as I frequently am. When I’m busy, I want time to myself, and when I’ve got too much time to myself I start to look for things to occupy me.

The truth is, I need both. I need those crests and troughs because that’s what life is made of, and if you want to get really granular, that’s what everything is made of – our vision is refractions of light that are distinguishable because of the dark spaces between them. Sound waves are the same. Even we are an assemblance of molecules with space between them…

… but to zoom out a bit, most of us wouldn’t know what a good day was if we didn’t have a bad day to compare it to. Sunny, warm days are treasured because we know what rainy, cold days are, as we know summer from winter.

All day, every day, we are comparing what we have with what we had… you’d think gaining another perspective wouldn’t be so hard.

the fats you need and don’t need

“Most often, you’ll want to see between 25% and 33% of your daily calories come from fats… which if we’re sticking with the average 2000 kCal’s per day is around 50g total. Suddenly, that tablespoon of peanut butter just became more decadent.”

Hey all,

Since I’ve talked protein & carbs periodically over the past while, I might as well round this out a bit.

*** Dietary fats are essential to give your body energy and to support cell function. They also help protect your organs and help keep your body warm. Fats help your body absorb some nutrients and produce important hormones, too. ***

Now, as much as fats are a fuel source, fats are not the body’s preferred fuel source. That title is reserved for carbohydrates – which can be problematic for people opting to go on a ketogenic diet for an extended period of time. Issues with not being able to stay awake, or having brain fog are of definite concern, so if you’re ‘on the keto’ and experiencing this, I’d advocate trying something else.

A common misconception is that ‘fats make you fat’ which is woefully untrue even though 1 gram of fat = 9 calories so you are bound to find that something low in fat, like pineapple, is going to be much more plentiful and functional within your (average) 2000 kCal’s per day than something with a lot of fat, such as peanut butter. By comparison, a 25g tablespoon of peanut butter will net you roughly 150 kcals, compared to 300g of pineapple which will also net you 150 kcals – which is enough to fill a soup bowl. So with a bunch of fat in your diet, you’ll find it pretty hard to stay within the average 2000 kCal’s per day.

However, super low fat intake has it’s downsides as well – including dry & flaky skin, sensitivity to sunburn, moodiness. Most often, you’ll want to see between 25% and 33% of your daily calories come from fats… which if we’re sticking with the average 2000 kCal’s per day is around 50g total. Suddenly, that tablespoon of peanut butter just became more decadent.

This brings us to the Omega 3 Fatty Acids. They are an integral part of cell membranes throughout the body and affect the function of the cell receptors in these membranes. They provide the starting point for making hormones that regulate blood clotting, contraction and relaxation of artery walls, and inflammation. Obviously, these are essential, and not all fats are created equal, that is to say, not all fats are Omega 3’s.

Fat sources for Omegas include nuts, seeds, and avocados, and as much as I wouldn’t personally advocate the consumption of fish (for both ethical reason and for the high levels of mercury and microplastics we’ve put in the ocean) or eggs (for ethics as well, and the extremely high cholesterol content has caused researchers to compare it to smoking cigarettes) you CAN get Omega-3’s this way. Of the top 12 foods to get your Omega-3’s from, the top 8 are fish sources, followed by ground flax seeds, chia seeds, walnuts, and soybeans.

I will say that between the Fats, Proteins, and Carbohydrates, you can lead a healthy life by implementing a good cross section of all the plant foods you can get. Generally… everything else falls into place.

Training this week has been bittersweet. I’m fairly sure I just had what was my last bicycle commute of the year. The +2 celcius mornings I can ultimately contend with, but with the leaves falling and turning into a slick, frosty pulp makes my personal safety a little uncertain, and banging-up my precious guitar fingers just isn’t an option for me.

Lu and I are formulating our plan to move indoors, including mapping out an ideal swimming and cross-training schedule between endurance sessions. I’ll make that all available before too long, for those of you following along at home. For the time being I’m increasing my frequency of going to the gym in the mornings – something I didn’t do for the first half of the week, but I did have some time-sensitive things to tend following the long weekend.

Over the past while, I’ve had several – a dozen or so – people reach out with stories about how they’ve felt inspired by this blog. Without patting myself on the back (since I didn’t do that – they did!) I hope they see fit to be open about their experiences and inspire people around them.

what if it kills you

“Most; if not all of us, have an ‘Everest’ – a goal we’d like to conquer in our lifetime. For most in the western world, financial goals or career platitudes come to mind, but there are outliers who are much less concerned with those sorts of feats and are more inclined toward physical, mental, and emotional challenges.”

I was recently listening to a podcast that broached the subject of climbing K2, which is very slightly shorter than Mount Everest, but the path to the summit is much more treacherous than what Mount Everest has to offer. The discussion mentioned that summitting K2 during the winter has never been done until only last year, and there’s no shortage of mountain climbers who’ve tried, and not even come close.

It got me thinking: How would you know when to bail? Pursing victory to the point of injury is not an option, because you still have to climb down the mountain in these cases. There’s no question that the desire to reach the summit is strong, but with a healthy and clear mind – in mid-climb – one would have to determine that to go on would be a fool’s errand.

It got me thinking, on a more metaphorical level, most; if not all of us, have an ‘Everest’ – a goal we’d like to conquer in our lifetime. For most in the western world, financial goals or career platitudes come to mind, but there are outliers who are much less concerned with those sorts of feats and are more inclined toward physical, mental, and emotional challenges.

When do we pull the ripcord?

I don’t have an answer – not a tangible one, anyway – other than to conclude that you’d have to trust your gut to tell you when it’s time to pack up and go home – to fight another day. And you would have to ensure that your gut was trustworthy. It goes without saying that out there on the mountain these decisions are life & death, and it’s quite possible that a persistent enough individual would die up there in pursuit of their goal. It happens pretty frequently.

Personally, I don’t know where the top of ‘my Everest’ is as far as career trajectory goes any better than I know what the limits of my physical training will be. I’m one of those people who’s been pretty good at pretty much everything he’s tried (like, REALLY tried – I’ve half-assed a few things that didn’t pan out the way I would have liked) but I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t lose my life in any of my current endeavors, no matter how hard-headed I became (or… already am).

I know that if I invested a large sum of money into something that didn’t work out, I’d be okay since I have the means to make more money and recover from the loss. Similarly, my body has the ability to recover from most things that can happen along the running trail or any other physical challenge. I can write more songs, I can work more hours, I can replace damaged equipment – these are the benefits of living moment to moment, really, because even valuable stuff is still just stuff, and there’s more money coming. I’m in no danger of damaging the relationships I’ve maintained because my integrity remains intact, and I can’t see an occasion where I would hurt someone on purpose.

… so where’s the line?

Again, I don’t have an answer so I’ll have to leave this topic as rhetoric – just some food for thought. It seems most likely that you’d have to; as mentioned, trust your gut in the moment – in which case I’d have to advocate maintaining your gut health as best you can, because that’s a lot of responsibility to be handled by a single abdomen.

Training this week is bittersweet. It’s truly a magical time to be meeting my fitness regimen outdoors in our river valley here in Edmonton as the leaves are beginning to turn funny colors, but it’s ominous warning that the snow is coming and I’ll be chased indoors before long is palpable. The urge to soak up every ray of sunshine, inhale every stray histamine that floats on the wind, and push every one of my limits, but there are times when my brain flashes forward to the dearth and dread that winter can bring. I MUST worry about that when it’s happening, and maintain living in THIS moment, Here & NOW.

I won’t lie to you… the bicycle commute to work in the morning is pretty chilly, but the rides home in the early evening are wonderful. I’m optimistic that I can keep going into October, but to what end? Thanksgiving? Halloween? Truthfully, right now it feels like riding into October means being on borrowed time, but every ride is a gift… and a slight reprieve from those chilly temperatures is not out of the question so I’ll cross my fingers for that. My girlfriend has ridden into November in previous years, but it’s a shorter (and slightly later) commute.

I dunno… I’ll digress a bit. This level of cold is not unreasonable – but rain this time of year is a deal breaker for me. There’s no merit in subjecting myself to temperatures around the freezing mark while wet – especially when it means missing future training sessions as a result of illness.

The slow transition back to the gym is in sight, but I’m holding out for the time being.