Run like the wind – Don’t grasp for it

Aug

16

2009

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Aug

16

2009

I discovered a very upsetting thing the other day. I went to the spa and weighed on their state of the art balance scales and noticed that the cheesy electronic scales at my home are wrong. I actually weighed five pounds more than I had previously thought. I was wearing a swim suit and immediately sought out a mirror and was aghast as I noticed the disgusting paunch that had formed in my abdomen area. Where did that come from?

I also noticed what some people refer to as love handles on my sides directly above my waist. I do not know who came up with that nomenclature, but I do not “love” them. I think they are disgusting slabs of fat and I “hate” them.

I would rather sew my lips shut than be fat and I decided right then and there that vacation or no vacation I was going to do something about it. I started feverishly working out each morning to address the problem and “nip it in the bud”. I began weighing myself each day and much to my chagrin, instead of losing weight, I gained approximately two pounds a day for the first three days of my exercise program.

Huh?

I logically deduced that if I was exercising hard but still losing ground, I just might have to alter my eating habits too. (Do you think?) So I quit eating buttered pecan ice cream and key lime pie after every meal including breakfast and started eating healthier meals in addition to my exercise program. I am happy to report that I have finally begun to turn it around and have begun dropping some pounds now and I am slowly but surely beating myself back into shape.

I was feeling pretty good about things yesterday. When I started my program I was only doing one mile on the tread mill and struggling to obtain that. Now I am making it three miles fairly easily, and this in addition to all of the walking around I do every day at the resort admiring the scenery.

I always do my anaerobic exercises with weights first, and then I switch to aerobic and do the tread mill and sometimes stair climber or bike. Yesterday morning while working out with weights, I happened to notice a young girl in her twenties running as fast as the wind on the tread mill.

When I finished up with weights and went to my tread mill she was still running with reckless abandon. I didn’t pay much attention to her as I got on and adjusted the speed to a fast walk. After about two miles I was in my zone and was feeling really good about myself. Just then I happened to glance over at the girl and she was now running “backwards” on the tread mill.

Good grief! She was on the treadmill facing the opposite way and running backwards faster than I was going frontwards and this after running forward all out for at least an hour!

Somehow my accomplishments seemed insignificant now. I would glance at her going faster and faster and my legs began to feel like lead. I stuck it out somehow for the entire three miles and finally decided that I had enough about the same time she finished up. I remarked to her, “That was pretty amazing, running backwards like that”.

She just smiled and said, “It is really good for you to walk or run backwards. It is actually very easy. All you need to do is adjust the speed of the tread mill to a very low setting, somewhere around three, and just take it slow and easy”.

I set the darned thing just one setting higher on four for my MAXIMUM.

“Thanks”, I weakly smiled back at her.

I remember a verse in Proverbs Chapter 14:30 that states, “A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones”. What I have found in life is that there is always someone out there who can run a little faster, has more money, is better looking, has a nicer house, can outshoot you in pool, has a nicer tan, scores higher on the SAT, and can snap your arm in two pieces arm wrestling.

Being envious is sheer folly and like the Bible states, just makes you rotten to the bone. The important thing is the soundness of “your” heart I came away from this enigma with the attitude that I should just keep right on walking as fast as I can walk on that tread mill, don’t be jealous, don’t ever quit and watch for my heart to get sound and provide a better life to my body and my innermost soul

Eccl. 4:4
Again I saw that for all toil and
every skillful work a man is envied
by his neighbor. This also is vanity
and grasping for the wind.

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