The Come Alive Project

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  • Energy bite 327 – Ride the Wave of Momentum

    “The key to any great project is momentum. To keep it moving.”
    – William Zeckendorf

    That quote by William Zeckendorf, the New York Real Estate developer who led the scene before Donald Trump arrived on the New York real estate stage, said it well. “Keep things moving”.  What he meant by that was that once you allow a project to slow down, once you allow an obstacle to block you from progress, your project tends to slow down and sometimes stop, making it extremely difficult to “build up steam” to get back on track.

    This is as true with exercise as it is with real estate development. Often you will reach a plateau and decide it’s not worth it to continue. You may decide just to stop for a while and “you’ll get back to it later”. That ugly word “inertia” sets in and it’s often nearly impossible to get the mental energy to get physically back to action.

    It’s a very common event and one needs to be fully aware of what happens when you decide to take a break. It’s hard to get back in the “flow” of movement and all too often, your physical development loses momentum and comes to a halt.

    Sometimes you lose momentum as a result of outside events. Right now gyms are closed, our minds are muddled, and you let those outside forces stop you from keeping up with your positive health and fitness habits. You have either adapted to other outlets for exercise (following videos, doing your own routines at home, etc), or have simply let loss of momentum take over.

    If you have been healthful eaters, perhaps some have let down your guard and let isolation and frustration cause you to “slack off” of your good eating habits.

    A body in motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by another force. That’s a mangled quote but it serves the purpose. Once you are moving physically, you will keep it up unless another force gets in the way. Right now, a “brick wall” has been erected and you can let it stop your momentum or you can adapt.

    And once you start slowing down, negative momentum tends to keep you slowing to a stop, both physically and mentally, until you tend to give up, often never to start again.

    How do you  keep it from slowing or stopping you? The first step is to recognize it.  Then it’s often a matter of choice. If your mental attitude says to allow momentum to take over, you will come to a slow, sad stop. If you recognize it in time and have the discipline to move through whatever blocks you, you will overcome it.

    So you can surf a wave of positive momentum during this episode by keeping your body in motion and your refrigerator closed, or you can “wipe-out” from letting the current virus crisis take away your “good ride”, and you have to start all over again, looking for a new wave of momentum to ride on.

    Keep your body in motion. Thank you for reading.

  • Energy Bite 326 – Discipline and The Flow of Life

    “Discipline: The root of all good qualities. The driver of daily execution. The core principle that overcomes laziness and lethargy and excuses. Discipline defeats the infinite excuses that say: Not today, not now, I need a rest, I will do it tomorrow.”
    — Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom

    Those words from Jocko Willink, former Navy SEAL Officer, author and podcaster, contain the real definition of discipline — self-discipline that is. While discipline is expected from elite military groups like the Navy Seals, Marine Corps Force Recon, and Army Special Forces, what about the average 55 year old and up Senior who wants to age as a healthy and fit man or woman, but can’t seem to find anything other than excuses to make it happen.

    I often write about Dick Van Dyke, the dancer/comedian who says, in his nineties, that his 40 minutes in the gym is the best part of his day. He continues to do soft shoe dancing and has continued to play roles in movies as recently as 2018 where he played a part in Mary Poppins Returns.

    I also write about the late Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of Cats and Phantom of the Opera,who was still active into her nineties. She died of pneumonia at age 92. She made an excellent exercise video while in her 80s and, like Dick Van Dyke, proclaimed her daily 45 minutes in the gym to be the best part of her day.

    These are noteworthy people who are/were committed to be healthy and fit as a way of life. These are seniors who discovered the Fountain of Youth within them and learned how to bask in the Flow of Life.

    They are among the many Seniors like you and me, who have learned that there are no shortcuts to a long, productive and active life. They have learned that the way to living long, productively and independently can be found in keeping their old bodies young and their minds productive.

    They are representative of those seniors who know that the key to the flow of life is physical movement and focused mental activity, coupled with a healthful overall lifestyle — and discipline! You can find them at the gym at 6:30 in the morning. You can find them briskly walking on the sidewalks or paths at the same time each day or even on the ski slopes in Winter. You see them in your own town or city, moving quickly through the stores and markets, and even heading to their doctor’s appointments, with their heads high, their postures erect with a gleam in their eye and a grin on their face.

    They understand the importance of discipline to their healthy lifestyle and they are discipline’s role models.

    As former Navy Seal Officer Jocko Willink says:

    “Curse the warmth of the bed.
    Curse the comfort of the pillow.
    Fight the temptation of weakness.

    Get up and go.

    Do it quickly, without thought.
    Do not reason with weakness. You cannot.

    You must only take action.

    Get up and GO.”
    — Jocko Willink from Discipline
    Equals Freedom

    Thank you for reading

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  • Energy Bite 325 – Keep Your Tubes Clear and Their Contents in Motion

    Circulation means movement. Air circulates. Fluids circulate. People circulate. My dictionary says it means:

    1. Move through a space, circuit or system, returning to a starting point or removal.

    2. Cause to be widely known.

    3. Cause to be distributed.

    The third definition is what happens when a newspaper is distributed. We often say that a newspaper or magazine has a “circulation of a certain number of people”, or “the newspaper has a wide circulation. That definition also applies to the distribution of these weekly “Energy Bite” articles.

    The second definition is sort of like social media. Your message circulates through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or whatever.

    It is the first and third definitions that relates to your physical body. Your body is a series of tubes, some self-contained, some with a beginning and an end.

    Your blood circulates through your blood vessels (tubes), powered by your heart and distributing nutrients to your cells. Air circulates through your body, inhaled through your mouth or nose and delivered to your lungs where it is absorbed by the bloodstream and carried to the cells. There, it is used, picked up by the blood again and returned to be exhaled as Carbon dioxide (CO2).

    As long as blood and air are in motion, we live. When they stop, we die. We cannot live without either. When we exercise, we tend to speed up the circulatory process. Our heart rate increases with exercise; our breathing increases with exercise — both providing fuel to provide energy for the body.

    Our digestive system fits that third definition. It’s how we take in fuel, distributing it to the body through the bloodstream, and eliminating the leftovers — all through a series of tubes which must be kept clear.

    Your Lymph system is a self contained system that eliminates wastes other than food waste.

    Movement of air and water provides a cleansing system in life outside the body as well. When air is moving, it is self-cleaning. I’ve read that a ceiling fan filters air better than the air filter in your furnace.  Wind helps clean the air in the atmosphere. I’ve read numerous accounts of how fast the air needs to move to clean it, but a ceiling fan or table top fan seems to fill the requirement for a room.

    Much the same is true of water. Before our municipal water purification were developed, water flowing over rocks was considered the most natural way to clean it. Stagnate water pools. It is self-polluting. Moving water acts as its own filter when flowing swiftly over rock and stone. Of course, it’s not nearly as clean as modern standards require.

    The point of all this is that circulation cleanses, nourishes, and purifies. Circulation is life! Stagnation allows an environment where disease and other problems can originate and fester. Keeping those tubes clear helps keep the circulation in motion. Clogged tubes shuts off the circulation and heart attacks, lung and respiratory diseases and digestive problems are the result. Exercise, deep breathing and sound eating habits keep the tubes clean.

    The more you move, the better the air and fluids circulate through your body. You are less susceptible to disease — not disease free, just less susceptible.

    Thank you for reading.