“Don’t look at it as, ‘Here’s where I am,’” Lesley Richmond tells me. “Look at it as, ‘Here’s where I need to be.”
Lesley has had to quickly slip into fitness grief counselor mode after I’ve learned that I am a 175-pound weakling. After trying to squeeze the life out of a hand-held strength measurement device for 15 seconds, the device has laughed in my face (is that sand in my eyes?) and dubbed me “below average” when it comes to “muscular strength.”
“But I do strength training!” I plead in what even I recognize as a pathetic suggestion that the device can’t possibly be right. Even more pathetic: The hordes of other folks doing this five-point fitness assessment offered for free by Be Active North Carolina are taking far worse news with far more grace.
Be Active NC is a non-profit founded in 1991 by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Its goal: to get North Carolinians off the bench and into the game. It tries to reintroduce the concept of physical activity into the public schools with its Just Push Play and Energizers programs. It tries to get inactive adults moving with its Be Active Steps program, which encourages folks to walk the recommended minimum of 10,000 steps a day by giving them a pedometer and place to log their walks. It goes after seniors with its array of Be Active Aging programs. And it goes after everyone across the state with its Be Active Van, which goes everywhere from the Lexington Barbecue Festival to the North Carolina Pickle Festival to let people like me discover not where they are, but rather where they need to be.
The green 5, a “plan” and more
Assorted news from the research world to get your week kick started:
Green exercise? Really pressed for time? Is carving out 60 minutes a day to work out, as recommended by the National Institutes of Health, beyond the pale of your schedule? Even 30 minutes broken into bite-size 10-minute segments isn’t doable? According to a study in the current issue of the American Chemical Society’s “Environmental Science & Technology” journal, just five minutes of “green” exercise a day can improve your health — your mental health, at least. Study authors Jules Pretty and Jo Barton say 10 studies involving 1,252 people in the United Kingdom found that just five minutes of gardening, hiking or other pursuits in a green setting decreases your risk of mental illness and improves your sense of well-being. Read more here.
Taking the mystery out of a snake sighting
Wednesday, I was hiking along the North Prong of Shining Rock Creek, a lively mountain stream that plunges 2,200 feet in just three miles through a narrow, overgrown canyon. I was in a reveric trance, lulled in part by the rugged vegetation here in the Shining Rock Wilderness, in part by the cloudless, 70-degree spring afternoon, when —
Whoa!
I like snakes, but their sudden appearance four feet away causes me to stop in my tracks and say, “Whoa!” Such impromptu meetups are common this time of year, as we humans hit the trail more and rising temperatures activate these cold-blooded critters. Being in the sun rejuvenates our spirit, it jumpstarts their system.
After catching my breath, I scoped out the critter, taking a couple of pictures, jotting some notes, searching my increasingly porous memory for clues about what kind of snake it might be. Not that my database was brimming to begin with.
When it comes to snakes and birds, I don’t expend a lot of my remaining gray storage memorizing types and species. Two reasons: One, there are thousands of species to begin with, and two, the same critter can look completely different depending on various factors:
Rain delay
This post originally was to run Monday afternoon but because of my inability to keep track of my 1,527 passwords and user names when confronted with a backup computer, it appears now.
I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Black Mountain. I’m supposed to be on a bike about five miles from here, climbing the Blue Ridge Parkway up to Mount Mitchell. I’m not because of the weather.
Hot flash! Women of a certain age can stay fit
I wrote the following post originally for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer; It appeared in both papers yesterday, May 4. A related article, on where to find the classes mentioned, can be found here.
Hot flashes. Headaches. Hair growing where it shouldn’t and not where it should. A tummy that won’t go away no matter how many crunches you do. Just when women of a certain age thought it couldn’t get worse, a new study suggests it can.