Fitocracy

After talking about what motivates us to make changes in our health, I thought I'd share a fun motivational tool for exercise I found a few months ago.

Fitocracy is a social game where you track your exercise to get points. You must get a certain number of points to move on to the next level. The higher you get, the more points you need to level up again.

There are quests to undertake such as "The Squat isn't so Scary" where you must complete one barbell squat and "Stiff as a Board, Light as a Feather" where you must perform 300 seconds of planks and a set of wide grip pull ups.

There are also Achievements which are for performing the same activity multiple times such as "I lift things up and put them down" (the creators have a sense of humour!) for deadlifting 1.4x your body weight or "I seem to be lost" for running 20 miles (32.2km) in your lifetime.

Overall, I've found it a fun place to track exercise and motivate myself to try new things (I like to see that completed quests number go up!)

I have 9 invites, so I'll put up the link here if anyone wants to try it out. Those 9 could then share their invites as well so that everyone can give it a go if they'd like.

Happy exercising!

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I have invites to Fitocracy, the social game you play to improve your fitness. Snag one here! http://ftcy.co/niFBSM (via @fitocracy)

Fauja Singh

This inspiring man broke a world record while running the Toronto Marathon last weekend by being the oldest person to complete a marathon. He's 100 years old.

Here he is, talking about the things that have kept him healthy: Being kind to others, walking, and eating less.

Relating School and Life

(Blurry blackberry photo of a card that's been on my bulletin board for years)

Dental hygiene education was intense. I spent three years of my life immersed in early morning classes, late night clinics and rubrics for every little project. Perhaps it's because I was so used to having every assignment, clinical task and exam laid out in little boxes in rubric form that I find graduate studies to be a very difficult concept to wrap my brain around. As many sources as I need? As many pages as it takes? These are foreign concepts to me. 

Also foreign is truly applying the theories and discussions to real life practice and using them to hopefully foster real change in my life. Yes, I learned clinical skills in my undergrad that I apply daily in my life, but actually understanding how the social determinants of health come into play in my clinical practice? Definitely different now. (I'm embarrassed to admit that I spent a lot of time attempting to sleep with my eyes open during the public health classes on the social determinants in my 2nd year of university!)

I thought the active living journal part about social determinants and life course would be challenging or that I would feel as if I needed to come up with something extremely profound (and probably not relevant to my daily life). Thankfully, through our class discussions, reading other classmates' blogs, and amazingly even the social determinants text book, I'm finding that I'm relating the social determinants to my daily life. I'm not seeing them as something that effects only the marginalized members of society. I'm seeing how it's effecting me and my daily pursuit at being a healthy, active woman. 

Last week I pretty much failed at active living. Being sick, it was all I could do to get out of bed in the morning. Without my support network (thank god for my husband!) the dog wouldn't have been walked, I wouldn't have clean scrubs to wear, and I probably wouldn't have nutritious dinners to eat. I used to believe that since running was a 'free' (not really because you still do need to purchase things like shoes!) activity, everyone could run within their ability. This week I saw that even those relatively blessed in the social determinants department can still be side-railed in their healthy living pursuits without the critical component of a support network. 

Here's to making more links between class and life! What a novel concept! :)

Active Living in Moderation?

I always have a hard time doing things in moderation. I tend to jump head first into everything in life which can be a blessing and a curse. When it comes to active living pursuits, it tends to mean that I decide to run a half-ironman or sign up for a half-marathon or join an inner tube waterpolo team (so much fun!)

Unfortunately, being so intense with my athletic endeavours makes me burn out really quickly. After I've completed the designated race or injured myself in pursuit, I sit on the couch for a while and get very lazy. My active living journal is trying to help me focus on moderation. Something small every day.

No matter what sport or activity I've done, I always come back to running. It's where I get to spend time with myself and the outdoors. Time to sort through all the dilemmas running through my brain. Time for silence and peace and occasionally time for chatting with a friend. My goal for this semester of active living (and hopefully the rest of my life, but I'm trying to remember moderation here!) is to get out and run short distances 3-4 times a week.

Last week went really well. I was outside running 4 times (Gus, my corgi-shephard cross does NOT have the legs for running I've learned) and felt invigorated and energized. I was so pleased with my progress, running a little bit longer each time.

This week, I've got this terrible cold. I'm sneezing and wheezing and using up boxes of tissue. I am learning that sometimes I can't run and that shouldn't kill my motivation to continue. Today, I'm walking with the dog instead.