The Black Dot, Being Useful, and Bad Workouts

I’m hoping it was a blessed Thanksgiving for each of you. A new 3-2-1 for your holiday season.

3 Ideas

1. What if we actually did the basics? What if we actually

- Drank ½ our body weight in water each day

- Moved daily

- Ate meals with lots of veggies, a quality protein, a healthy fat, and a smart carb

- Ate slowly and stopped when we were 80% full

- Slept 7-9 hours each night

Those don’t seem so hard. What if we actually did them consistently? How much

healthier would we be in a month? A year? A decade? Let’s get the basics right before

we consider much else.

2. French physical educator, Georges Hébert coined the term “Fit to be useful.” What an incredible mindset shift. Not fit to look better in the mirror, fit to impress others, not even fit to be healthy. Fit to be useful. How could being fitter help you to be more useful? Playing with your kids or grandkids? Having the energy to serve the world? Fit to be useful. Yes!

3. Focus on the white - There is a great story about a professor who shows his students a white piece of paper with a black dot in the center. He asks them to describe what they notice. Across the board they describe the black dot. It’s position, shape, etc. Not a single mention of the massive amount of white space around the dot.

As it is in our lives. We are drawn to the small amounts of negative in our lives. Instead, focus on what you are doing well. What you are doing right. Do more of that. If you’re taking your dog for a walk twice a week, celebrate that. Do it 4 times a week. If you stopped at 2 cookies when you normally would have had 5, celebrate that, and eat just 1 next time. Focus on your awesomeness more than your faults and you will have more success. You probably know that beating yourself up doesn’t work. Why not try encouraging yourself instead?

2 Quotes

“The “bad” workouts are often the most important ones. It's easy to train when you feel good, but it’s crucial to show up when you don’t feel like it—even if you do less than you hope. Going to the gym for 5 minutes might not transform your body, but it does reaffirm your identity.”

-James Clear

"The human person is not merely a soul housed in a body. Our bodies and souls are unified. If our bodies suffer, so do our souls. We cannot neglect the body in pursuit of spiritual growth. In fact, neglecting our bodies necessarily impedes our spiritual growth. Everything we do in our lives, including the practices of spiritual formation, we do in and with our bodies. If our bodies are not sufficiently rested our energies will be diminished and our ability to pray, read the Bible, enter solitude, or memorize scripture will be minimized."

-James Bryan Smith in The Good and Beautiful God

1 Question

If you ate less than optimally during Thanksgiving, do you need to wait until New Years to make a change?

If you want someone to help you get back on track, encourage you, and help you achieve your health goals, contact me about becoming a coaching client.

If you are new to the blog, I want to encourage you to go back and check out my previous posts, as they serve as the foundation for what we talk about each week.

Here's to the best version of you!