Exercise

How To Avoid A Midlife Crisis – 3 Drops of Preventative Medicine

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

So we decided to take surfing lessons in our summer holidays this year.

I had never tried surfing on the ocean before, but as you know, I tried surfing for the first time behind a surf boat on a lake this summer.

As I was putting on my wetsuit for my first ocean surfing lesson yesterday, I was surprised that our group consisted of about two dozen teenagers, with my husband and me. We have kids their age. There were three parents nearby.

“I’m glad at least there are a few parents,” I whispered to my husband.

He nodded appreciatively. The parents didn’t suit up. They were there to watch.

“Should we be concerned about that?” my huband and I asked each other silently.

I wasn’t quite sure of the wisdom of this whole surfing gig, even without the fact that this seemed to be a teen activity. As you know, I spent a month this fall in bed with a back problem. Was this really wise?

I felt God whisper to try, to do less of the lesson, but to give it a go.

Also, the pain specialist said that often, people get stuck and won’t do anything new after their injury. Their backs freeze up, and they get stuck in cycles of every-more-limited mobility.

I don’t want to be constrained by fear.

The surfing lesson was super fun! Except I did have to ask one of the teens to help me carry my surfboard down to the beach because it was too heavy for me, and I didn’t want to explain about having a sore back last fall lest one of them ask, “Lady, what the heck are you doing in a surf lesson then???” But apart from the minor hiccups, it was great fun!

My husband said we should continue to do this kind of stuff, meaning that we should push ourselves outside of the limits that we set for ourselves, i.e. as non-surfers. I agree with his philosophy. Before the trip, he said, “This will be a great trip because we have aspirin!”

But this got me thinking about midlife crises.

The teen instructor asked us, “What made you want to get into surfing?”

“Trying to avoid a midlife crisis?” I offered.

But there may be some truth in expanding our horizons a little bit and in allowing ourselves some room to grow to avoid a midlife crisis.

So here are some thoughts on avoiding a midlife crisis:

  1. Here’s a picture of me surfing. I didn’t stand up on the thing, but it can’t be that much harder to stand when you’re surfing, can it? And then it’s not much of a jump to imagine myself as a surfer person with a few more (billion) hours at the beach under my belt. Sometimes, stretching our identities and ideas of who we are takes a bit of a physical challenge.
  2. I think many of us get fat in middle age because we obsess about constantly seeking comfort. Our lives of comfort become boring. For example, do you ever notice yourself dreaming about lunch right after breakfast? Or thinking about your afternoon sugar snack right after lunch? This could signify that our lives need a little spicing up instead of our menus.
  3. If we’re open to adventure, God has something new, friend, and exciting for each one of us. If we open our spiritual eyes and are willing be honest, thirsty and surrendered.

Why be satisfied with our old identities and a boring turkey sandwich when God offers us His world to soar into, friend?

Ready yet for adventure?

How To Exercise When You Are A Busy Homeschooling Parent!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

How do we become the kind of homeschooling parent with time to exercise?

Good question.

As discussed here and here, we throw our old identities of competent, non-butt-smelling parents out the window. Then, we think up a new plan that is dissonant with the parent we thought we would become. We embrace our inner loser.

And so, when I therefore stopped trying to be excellent as a homeschooling parent, the solution became apparent:

Let them rot their brains!

I decided, in my excess of homeschooling wisdom born from a recognition of my incompetencies, to begin each day by pouring into my children’s brains not challenging academic subjects, but . . . content dribbled from online devices straight into their beautiful little brains as they stared intently at screens!

I essentially bribed them.

“Look,” I said that morning as I pulled out their new to-do lists. “Do the stuff on the list this morning and then you will get to rot your brains with time online!” I promised them that big carrot held out tantalizingly close.

And so they finally got up, brushed their little teeth, put away the milk (one of their to-do items in that season), got dressed, combed their cute little hair, and then sat down to veg out on a device.

I let them watch anything they wanted from the RightNow Media app. I can trust what this company produces. And for a high-tech tip, if you triple-click your iPad or iPhone the kids can’t suddenly switch from the app of your choice to their favourite “Candy Plus Violence!” (or whatever) app.

We all won!

I got my sweat on downstairs on my elliptical machine for half an hour while they watched something that was loosely a morning character development program. (That was the rationale of the old “I must be an exceptional homeschooling parent” tiny voice remnant that still lurked in the recesses of my mind.) I got my sweat on, and the best thing was that I could find them all at 8:00 am, and they were ready to go!

When I sneakily put pencils into their hands in the last 10 seconds of their program, it was a transition they barely even noticed, from vegging out to doing math!

By 10:00 am every single day, I felt I should have won a homeschooling award. (I didn’t. No one cared. God does though!*)

So, lose your respectable homeschooling parent identity!

Let them rot their brains online early every morning instead!

You’ll feel amazing AFTER exercising! (Not before or during exercising – Let it be known). It feels pretty great (eventually) to shift identity, too. And so, how do we change our identity to the kind of parent who exercises?

1. All of our initial ideas about who we will become as homeschooling parents are kind of nut-so if we’re honest! Let’s toss those ideas with our huge egos and embrace mediocrity for our children instead! 

2. Our children may need their brains to rot a little so that this homeschooling journey is sustainable for all of us. So be it! 

3. Time for popcorn and a group educational video at 11:00 am, little family? We did something useful today! Let’s celebrate! We give each other a high five, and I have time for a visit with a homeschooling mom that afternoon. (While the kids build a mini-nuclear reactor or do whatever it is homeschooled kids do in their spare time). 

This homeschooling ship is on course!

When a mom’s long-term well-being matters EQUALLY as much as the (nut-so, unrealistic) goals we have for our children*, this homeschooling ship can sail into the future as long and as far as God calls us.

Well done, parents!

Love others as well as you love yourself

Jesus of Nazareth, a guy with tons of wisdom!

As you listen to this song below, consider asking the King of Kings, the guy who longs to pour love on you as your Father, what gifts He longs to put into the hands of His favourite child, you.

(Because we’re all His favourite child. Shhh… that’s God’s secret that He is whispering to you even now. Hear Him?)

Blogpost Footnotes

*That discussion is for next time – we are all works in progress!

The Best Solutions Suddenly Materialize When We Embrace Our Inner Loser!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The problem I couldn’t solve in that season was, “How do I, a VERY busy, mentally fragile (We’re around kids a LOT) homeschooling parent, find time to exercise?”

I did, eventually, find a solution to this problem by embracing my inner loser. I hope this problem-solving method helps you find solutions to your biggest problems, too! Here’s what happened, which is a continuation of this post.

And yes, I realize this last post was useless without an explanation, which I didn’t have time to provide.

Now, where was I? Ah yes. Smelling kid’s butts. After the low of us parents becoming butt-sniffers, we hit an even lower low several months later.

Butt-sniffing became our accidental family culture.

Our two-year-old, who loved to mimic our behaviour, stopped next to me as I sat on an office stool and then had a sniff before she carried on with her other little tasks. I looked at her, startled and then smiled lamely at my husband.

How did we become THAT family?*

The point is, as discussed last time, the person we become is not always the person we aspire to be.

Not only did I find it convenient to assume the identity of a butt-sniffing parent, but I also found it convenient to shirk the identity of a homeschooling parent who has all of her ducks in a row.

Which brings me, finally, to embracing our inner loser so we can become a homeschool parent who exercises.

Before I started on this homeschooling journey, I, like you if you homeschool, envisioned myself as a particular type of homeschooling parent. This is not the parent I eventually became. I’m okay with that now.

But the shaky ground of this identity incongruence was a roller coaster ride.

I envisioned myself nicely coifed and looking like my favourite public school teacher in Grade Three, Mrs. Chamberlain. Instead, I very quickly became that parent still wearing a house coat and curlers in my hair at 11:00 am, downing my fourth coffee, and trying to find the kids so I could corral them inside. We began the day with our “Homeschool Morning Routine”, which, for us was trying to find our books or pencils strewn around the house and yard the day before.

A new problem also emerged: I knew my inconvenient, neglected body needed to start exercising again.

I couldn’t even figure out how to encourage, bribe or command my children to put the milk away after they finished breakfast (In fact, I still haven’t figured that out with one of my teenagers). How would I keep these little ones on their homeschooling tasks while I left their side to exercise?

The feat seemed impossible.

Until my new identity as an incompetent homeschooling parent thought up a solution.

Realizing I was – ahem- a BIT of a (whisper) homeschooling loser, once I stopped trying so hard to be an exercise enthusiast, and embraced mediocrity, the solution to my problem was obvious!

I’ll tell you specifically what that is next time.**

The point is, let’s embrace our inner incompetence!

Perhaps the solutions to your problems can be found there, too!

Since we’ve . . . proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God . . . got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

The Message

Once we accept our identities as people who are incompetent in so many ways, life suddenly gets much more manageable!

Time to stop trying so hard and embrace your inner loser, too?

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Blogpost Footnotes

*See this post for a perfectly reasonable answer, thank you very much, okay?!

**Ah! I forgot to say something useful again!

Not Exercising? Try Shifting Identity To The Parent You Never Wanted To Become

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

How do we develop an exercise routine we can stick to as parents?

We must morph into the parents we never dreamed we’d become.

And I mean to become the parent we feared we would become.

I’ll explain.

It all started the day I started sniffing my kid’s butts.

When I was a well-coiffed, austere young woman in my twenties, I wrinkled up my nose at those homesteading women with several children crowding around them as they made cookies and managed a beehive simultaneously. “Isn’t that disgusting?” my sophisticated friends and I whispered, and we looked away in horror when one of these busy moms lifted her toddler, sniffed around their child’s middle for signs of a “Number two” and quickly set them back down on the floor again. This mom then happily continued stirring cookies, unpasteurized honey, or whatever she did all day.

“I would never do that butt-sniffing manoeuvre!”

When my children were toddlers, I gasped my way to a mom and toddler’s event one morning, my hair dishevelled, unmatched dirty clothing thrown over my and my toddler’s forms. I was clinging to a half-drunk coffee for dear life as I sat next to a fellow mom and empathized delightedly with her. We shared similar tales of near survival, of these miniature beings often holding us hostage to their need.

Suddenly, I remembered that I should probably check the older daughter, who was not yet fully toilet trained.

I grabbed my daughter’s arm and yanked her away from her friend. My daughter morphed from playing contentedly to screaming like a fire truck. I nearly lost the battle of the wills but managed to stuff her into the change-room, where I opened her training diaper and

. . . nothing.

There was nothing there.

When I returned to my friend, she was already chatting with another dishevelled woman, and for the rest of that “mom’s time,” my two toddlers had incessant needs again.

So it didn’t take long before I happily lifted my toddlers when they were playing contentedly, smelled their butts, and set them back down again with a wink and a nod.

I continued my coffee and well-deserved amiable chat with other homeschooling parent survivors,

My identity had shifted.

And similarly, what kind of identity shift do we need to become the kind of homeschooling parent who exercises?

1. We realize that if we are going to stay in this game long-haul we’ve got to surrender our pre-conceived ideas of success as defined by this culture, or worse, by our expectations of ourselves.

2. Our identity must be firmly linked to those who are societally undignified. We delight in our identity as children of the king, not as classy members of a specific culture (i.e. of any culture).

 3. We have fun, dancing with joy with our two-year-olds because we finally figured out that when we are happy, our little ones are too.

Throw off your chains, captive daughter . . . ! God says, “You were sold for nothing. You’re being bought back for nothing.”

The Message

And it was this change in perspective, from “culturally respectable” to “daughter of the King,” that led me to be the kind of parent who exercises regularly, as well.

The link between a shift in identity and exercise will be discussed another time.

I promise to say something useful sometime! That is if I remember to finish this blogpost series on exercising when homeschooling. This post was essential to set the foundation for when we will dive into the nitty-gritty of the shift in identity required to exercise while homeschooling young children.

For now, the first step is to stop trying to be “respectable”!

It doesn’t work anyway!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

To Lose Weight, DON’T Focus On Food – Focus On Identity (Healthy Habits Post 10)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I threw away the diet books in a fit of frustration.

I failed.

Again.

HOW is it possible that EVERY time I start to diet, I GAIN weight?

True story.

I don’t even lose weight for a while and THEN gain weight.

My body pushes the pedal to the floor, green light ahead, and helps me put on the pounds without meandering through the territory of “thinner me” first.

“Thanks a lot”, I thought. My body is too smart for me. I had to find another angle.

HOW can I win this battle of the bulge with a body that bulges whenever I FOCUS on my food, I wondered?

I was focusing on the wrong thing.

That’s when I learned about “identity.”

“Identity” and related terms were some of the most frequently Googled words in 2023. Yet I think it’s safe to say that few of us clearly understand what EXACTLY identity IS or HOW it applies to ME.

IDENTITY was the smoking gun that allowed me to keep wrestling (granted, I am still in the ring) with the battle of the bulge in my own life.

Here’s the secret. Lean in close.

Is no one looking? Ok . . . (shh… what will it take for us to BELIEVE ourselves that we are the KIND OF PERSON WHO IS FIT?).

Then we do that – end of discussion.

I’ll explain to you the FORM of what exactly this looks like in my own life. Then, if you’re still interested, I can explain WHY this works.

I will first discuss a CAR (the FORM) and then an ENGINE (the WHY) to convert the above paragraph to an analogy.

The CAR I drive is reliable and gets me where I need to go. These are the actions I take to stay fit. The ENGINE of the car, the fire and the pistons that make the wheels go around are found in digging into beliefs about identity.

In the analogy above, I drive a 20-year-old Toyota. In real life, this is the car my Grandpa gave me when he could no longer drive. He scratched and bashed this car from headlights to tail lights from failing vision and judgment, but it was a VERY reliable car because he didn’t have far to go each day.

This Toyota is kind of like me. I care that I can get from here to there and reliably do my errands. My goal, as much as I can control, is to be fit enough to have a reliable body that gets me where I need to go.

Being a healthy weight is not about image but about avoiding pain associated with obesity, if possible, in other words.

So how do we do that?

I focus on what I must do to TRICK MYSELF INTO BELIEVING I AM A FIT PERSON.

Sometimes I do a Triathlon. Sometimes, I complete P90X, and related challenging workout programs. Once, I bought equipment and lessons to learn to skate ski.

I did THE KIND OF THINGS THAT FIT PEOPLE do.

I pretended to be someone else, in other words.

And then I thought, “Fit people eat green smoothies in the morning, so BECAUSE I AM A FIT PERSON, I will do that too.”

And so now we’re talking about the engine of the car.

I naturally ate MORE OFTEN like a fit person because I BELIEVED that I was a fit person.

It was all about identity.

Something else about identity?

Jesus cared a lot about identity.

We have a record of six times that Jesus asked something along the lines of, “Who do (the people/ the crowds/ you) say I am?“

Identity is the A-Z of what drives your car in life.

What we believe about the identity of Jesus is the steering wheel in the car He is riding.

What we believe about His identity determines whether the car of God is coming toward us, bearing the overwhelming love of the Spirit and all of the inheritance that adoption by a King offers. Or whether we are hitchhiking and miss the car of God again.

‘May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’

C. S. Lewis – Letters to Malcolm

God, help us to see ourselves using the glasses You use to look at us. And may we, by Your Spirit, grow into Your best vision for us and for our lives, we pray.

How To LOVE Exhausting Yourself Exercising! (Healthy Habits Part 3)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Not long ago, I wrote a post outlining Ten Keystone Habits that allowed me to stay within my recommended weight range my entire life. The first keystone habit is to LOVE drinking nothing but water.

The second keystone habit is exercise. Ha! Spellcheck changed EXERcise to EXORcise. Exorcism is a good habit too, but today we’re talking about exercise. The two go hand-in-hand actually. You want to get rid of any negative influences in your life (exorcise) so you can have the energy to do what God is calling you to do.

Tip 1: You want to remember how you feel AFTER you do exercise. Not before. Not during. 

You are going to feel amazing.

In fact, your new identity as a “person who is getting fit” and how you therefore feel is going to fuel this whole thing – all the healthy habits – on losing weight.

So this habit is not to be skipped.

For now, let’s start where we’re at. If all we can do is walk, let’s go for a walk, bring our dog and our friend, get an ice cream after if it’s Sunday – who cares? We did it! Let’s give ourselves a pat on the back.

The passive-aggressive, intense ones among us do better with some challenge to our exercise routines to keep boredom away.

Two examples of exercise challenges from my life:

– I felt God calling me to learn a new sport, squash, in middle age. How is God calling us into a new thing in this next season? Could this be as mundane as exercise, or do we assume God is only interested in more “spiritual” endeavours? (Answer: Nope, He’s interested in guiding us always).

– Dreaming about sports that are sometimes just out of reach due to intermittent back problems keeps me motivated to get stronger: mountain biking, downhill skiing, triathlons, CrossFit, climbing.

Did my 20-year-old climbing gear stored in the basement disintegrate from neglect yet? Dreaming about opening the box again ignites a future challenge that motivates me to do my granny exercises again today.

(Our motivation doesn’t have to necessarily be encumbered by reality).

Tip 2: Have your exercise clothes ready in the bathroom so that as soon as you get up, without thinking, the first thing you do is put them on. Your challenge is to wear exercise clothes all day until you’ve done some exercise. Even if it’s exercising for a few minutes here and there.

Tip 3: Ideally, let’s get out in the morning! This stimulates earlier melatonin release helping us sleep better at night, too.

All in all, we’ve just gotta do it.

So right now, I’m your mother and just do it. The world needs you and your gifts. How are you going to have enough energy to do all the things God is calling you to do if you’re not going to rev your energy levels up by getting some exercise?

This is non-negotiable. 

I feel strongly. You have to listen to me. 

That’s all I have to say for now. Do it or else! 

Goodbye!

Does Your Life Inspire Others To Soar?

/ Lori Lawe / 3 Comments

Here’s a picture taken just after I completed a triathlon.

I’m the one in the hat. You can also tell which one is me because I’m the one that is “fit looking”. Just sayin’. Well, at least I should say that I’m the one that looks “fitter than I was”. Whatever.

Yes! We are wearing matching shirts! I completed this triathlon as a memorial for my dad, who passed away not long ago, and who inspired us all in physical strength by completing many triathlons.

Leaders inspire others by their examples.

. . . lead them by your own good example says the ancient text

How will our lives inspire others who are watching us, even though we don’t see them looking our way? By our example. Are you awake to who God is calling you to become?

In the last post, we talked about how God often wants to wake us up to His vision for our lives, if our ears are screwed on tight enough to hear Him.

God may be blowing open your expectations of what He can do through your life if you sense any of the following:

1) God is whispering about something you know you could never accomplish on your own strength.

2) God seems to envelop you in love, even for just a moment, or to touch your heart with His invisible love. With Him as the wind, holding up your wings, He can move mountains.

3) God is trying to wake you. He stands next to your bedside, gently nudging you. He picked up your ears off the floor. Will you put them on?

What does He see when He looks at you? Ask Him! If you don’t hear His gentle whisper, continue reading The Message. Every word read helps put a bit more glue on our ears, ever ready to fall off.

How may God be calling you to set an example for others of a life well lived?

Abba, continue to speak in ways that we can finally grasp the truth that You have much, much bigger plans for our lives than we do, with You at the helm, guiding us for Your kingdom purposes. Help us to be able to hear You more clearly, we pray. Keep our ears screwed on tight.

God Encourages Us To Complete The Triathlon?

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

While my back still felt like an old lady’s, when I had to yell up at people so they could hear me as I spoke to their waist, hunched over, I announced I would do a triathlon.

“Well . . . if I can walk, I will do a triathlon,” I clarified.

This annoying back problem has GOT to get better someday, right?

And it did get better, praise be to God.

It didn’t help that the little kid I was playing with at the family dinner jumped on my back in a fit of fun.

My community gathered around me that same night and cared for me, lifting me to God in prayer.

My back felt better after that night than it had in a long, long time.

So, yup, time to do a triathlon.

I didn’t have as much time to train as I had intended, but I thought the bike part was about 10 km?

I was shocked as I picked up my bib the day before the race to learn that the bike part was 20 km. Could my back even handle being on a bike that long?

My husband coached me, like a parent coaching a small child. I needed some direction. “Now remember,” he said slowly, “You have your goals in the wrong order.” He coached me by holding up a finger for each goal. “The most important goal is not to get hurt,” he said. I had relegated that goal to Goal #3. He was right.

But in the pool, I felt God nudging me to swim faster (!). What does God care about an obscure triathlon where a bunch of fairly fit middle-aged people do their exercises?

(There were actually some young and very fit people there who definitely upped the cool factor of the race. Just sayin’. I’m sure I would have beaten John in the race to Jesus’ tomb too. Just sayin’. Not that that matters OF COURSE, but for those who are interested, I thought you should know).

Then I realized that God was speaking to me during this triathlon because God cares about everything we do. We can’t relegate Jesus to an hour on Sunday. Everything is an opportunity to grow closer to Him, if we can find our ears and screw them on.

Maybe there was a lesson here too, while completing this triathlon, that He wanted to nail through my thick skull, a lesson that wouldn’t sink into my brain any other way, perhaps.

And I went further and faster than I thought I could.

. . . THAN I THOUGHT I COULD.

How else are we limiting ourselves with what God wants to do through us?

What race is God asking you to enter that is too far for you to go, or that you are too slow to finish?

Are your ears lying on the floor, too?

Samuel took his flask of oil and anointed [David, the shepherd boy, as king], with his brothers standing around, watching. The Spirit of God entered David like a rush of wind, God vitally empowering him for the rest of his life. The Message

Ways that God may be trying to wake us, trying to translate His words into a language we can understand, trying to encourage us to pick up our ears, screw them on, and listen to His vision for our lives will be discussed in the next post.