Unforeseen benefits of having a go!

Do you ever feel that you need to step outside your comfort zone but feel totally unprepared for it?

I had the same apprehensive feeling when I arrived at Toastmasters last night to suddenly find myself in a 'Speakers Evaluation' Contest along with 4 other brave souls.

I was totally unprepared, feeling very flat after a hard weekend of training & not mentally ready for anything new..but what the heck I entered the competition all the same after heaps of encouragement....guess who drew the card to go first...moi.........just to add a bit more pressure..[more on that later].

So we listen attentively to an entertaining 5-7 minute speech from Anita about home DIY male antics & how things went wrong...and then we had 5 minutes to complete our evaluation of her speech using a set format.

After frantically collecting my thoughts, writing a few key points & getting ready to present my evaluation it gave me an adrenalin rush & got me going...

As it turned out, going first was a huge benefit as it gave me an opportunity to compare & assess my performance against the others...it was really obvious to me who was the clear winner on the night..Ms Stacey F who gave a very polished performance.

My result: a really surprising Bronze Medal...3rd place..I was stunned but delighted.

The moral of the story..have a go, what have I got to loose? As it turned out, I gained a lot, learned a lot & got a certificate to prove it...so when in doubt.........feel the fear and do it anyway.

Cheers

Rossco

Getting better and wiser each day.

The power of 30

Decisions, decisions, decisions: to blog or exercise.

I could go for a 60 minute bike ride on a beautiful day or sit and punch out 200 words on exercise and do an intense 30 minute Tabata workout..so I made a choice as I wanted to do both and proves I can do both if I am flexible and apply lateral thinking.

What an amazing effect 30 minutes invested in moderate to vigourous activity can have on your entire day, week, life for that matter. Exercise stimulates the brain, fires up the immune system (good for this cold weather), improves blood sugar levels, reduces blood pressure, cholesterol, stress, depresssion and helps reduce weight...all seem fairly beneficial outcomes to me.

Moving has always been part of our evolution....we evolved to be 'mover's' (and some of us 'shaker's as well) constantly on the look-out for food..for 200,000 plus years we have evolved to 'move'. The amazing recent BBC series called The Origins of Us clearly pointed described our evolutionary path and How to Green a Planet saw us 'stand up and grow tall'.

It seems back in the day we were walking 20 kms per day hunting and gathering, looking for prey & also avoiding being prey for other animals (hence our amazing 'lizard brain' that protects us from danger but that is another blog topic)..but these days it seems we have lost the desire to move and consequently lost all the positive benefits it brings us...worse it seems we have become a whole lot heavier which adds to the disincentive to move..........

So in 60 years we have managed to now have more 'overnourished' people in the world than under-nourished'...quite a feat if you excuse the pun but our feet have suffered and become less used as a result...more cars, less walking, more food, less chewing....all manifesting as chronic lifestyle diseases including the rapid escalation to the totally preventable type II diabetes.

So how much exercise is needed?

Any is better than none..good.

5 x 30 minute sessions  per week is great & can be broken down into 3 x 10 if you are so time poor not to be able to find a 30 minute block 5 times a week. Mix it up..walk in different places, find other tribal members to move with, do some interval walks between the light poles, get the heart rate up...just move it..for your body's sake.

PS Pushing a shopping trolley around the local supermarket doesn't count as being a hunter and gatherer as far as exercise goes according to my way of thinking..but I could be wrong. 

So my 30 minute blog time is up..time for 30 minutes of Tabata training. Let me know if you want me to design Tabata programs for you..you only need yourself.