"Courage Through the Covid-19 Storm": Exercise

Tips for THRIVING

Tip #6 Stay Active
Listen to this blog post here on Anchor  https://anchor.fm/karen-sue-murdy/episodes/Courage-Through-the-Covid-19-Storm-Exercise-ecq0ea 
or here on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4TEmdQWT1WJZwufFQODoYn

What would Mom and Dad do in Covid-19? They would walk, just like they always did, rain or shine. Sadly, they have both been gone for far too many years now. Long before exercise was even a thing, for as long as I can recall, probably back into the 1960's, they exercised. Some of my earliest favorite memories are of walking to the park.  When my sisters were on the high school track team, the entire family would walk to the track, so my sisters could practice.  I would ride my red and white tricycle around the track as fast as my little legs would pedal. Such happy memories. Even when Mom was on her death bed with cancer, she insisted we take her out for a walk! Sometimes that included two or three of us basically carrying her for a short walk down the driveway; but it made her so happy.
If I could ask my parents why they exercised, here is what I think they would say:
1. Mental reasons: Exercise made them feel happy, good and lowered stress levels.
2. Physical reasons: Exercise made them stronger. (When raising six kids, it's good to be strong.) Exercise made them healthier. Mom always had high cholesterol and my parents had family histories of heart disease and high blood pressure.
They loved chocolate and ice cream. If you know my own love for chocolate, no surprise there. Exercise allowed them to burn extra calories to make up for some of those sweets.
3. Relationship reasons: Exercise was a time for my mom and dad to laugh, to recall fun memories, and to dream together. Exercise was a time to solve scheduling issues and resolve problems.
4. Family reasons: Exercise was an inexpensive and positive way to enjoy family time together.
5. Social reasons: Exercise was a time to interact with people in the community.
What are YOUR reasons (benefits) for exercising? Make a list and post it on your refrigerator.

My parents had six children. We all exercise. This picture was taken a few months ago at a family wedding gathering when several of my siblings, in-laws, and kids were out walking:

My husband and I have been in a great exercise routine for almost a year now.  Prior to that we had been in an exercise routine for many years. But with moving, our exercise plan was disrupted, which often happens with change. Throughout our moving process we were always good with walking, the aerobic part of our exercise plan, but we fumbled a bit with strength training. Eventually I found an exercise facility close to our home, with the equipment and hours we wanted. And we got back on track. Now with Covid-19, like so many other places, our exercise facility is closed. For a few weeks we fumbled again, but after some adjustments to get our strength training set up at home, we are back on track. We borrowed some weights from a neighbor who was not using them. We got our sturdy foot stool out to be our step up platform and so on. (And we have added wearing our masks when we walk outside.) My daughter-in-law, with her exercise facility closed now too, has switched to using online videos for her strength training. 
Lack of time is usually the number one barrier for people. Many people are now working from home sans commute; can you convert your commute time to exercise?
What are YOUR barriers to exercise and how can you overcome them?

Like anything else, scheduling an activity on the calendar, helps make it a priority. When do YOU plan to exercise? Look at your calendar at the beginning of the week and mark down your exercise times for each day.


Even though it is important to physical distance right down, please encourage those in your circles of contact, through phone calls and social media, to exercise. My doctor husband is noticing an increase in health issues due to inactivity such as blood clots. Especially for those who are elderly and at high risk, getting some activity every day is very important for good physical and mental health.  

On my blog, I have other exercise posts available for you to read. Here are a few to check out. https://karensuemurdy.blogspot.com/2016/09/exercise-on-challenge.html  
https://karensuemurdy.blogspot.com/2016/12/don-your-exercise-shoes.html 
https://karensuemurdy.blogspot.com/2014/03/from-new-years-resolutions-to-march.html

American College of Sports Medicine has an excellent resource page for staying physically active during the Covid-19 pandemic (including free at home workout videos). I encourage to take a look. https://www.acsm.org/read-research/newsroom/news-releases/news-detail/2020/03/16/staying-physically-active-during-covid-19-pandemic


Now more than ever, as people are working from home, children are out of school, this is a perfect time to start a healthy family tradition.
What legacy are you leaving behind for your loved ones? 
What are your benefits for exercise?
What are your barriers for exercise?
What is your plan for exercise?

Covid-19 Challenge: Set a timer for 60 minutes and when it rings, gather everyone in your household to take a one minute walk outside and around a tree or two, each person sharing something for which s/he is thankful now. REPEAT. 

(If you are alone, do the same, but text someone what you are thankful for when you come back inside.)

Wash your hands. Wear a mask and do NOT touch your face-especially when you are out of your home (like going to the grocery store). Try to stay 6 feet apart from those not living in your household. 

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UP NEXT TIME: Expectations

Happy and Merry Walking

Happy and Merry Walking.

For our family, and many other people, ‘tis the season of the trifecta of holidays: Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas.  In my family we have a few birthdays thrown in there, too, along with Baptism birthdays. (We have a tradition of celebrating with Baptism brownies.) Wow - that’s a lot of celebrating...with a lot of extra calories. With the time change making dark arrive earlier and the cooler weather this season of the year becomes a time of less activity too. So how do we counter the decreased activity and increased calories, which ultimately results in the rising of the scale?

For now, I want to give you some ideas for increasing activity.

Any time a change occurs in your life, evaluating your exercise plan can be helpful.  My husband and I were very faithful with both our walking plan most days of the week and our weight lifting plan 2-3 times per week.  But suddenly with our move to TX, the change in location, the change in schedules, and not having our usual YMCA to lift weights, we struggle to exercise like we did before. So we are having to examine our exercise plan.

Use these PACE tricks to set yourself up for successful exercise in this happy and merry season:

-Plan your exercise ahead of time. On Saturday or Sunday, look at your upcoming week’s calendar and schedule when you’re going to exercise each day.  

-Ask someone to be your accountability partner. Once a  week this accountability partner asks you 2 questions.  “How many days did you exercise last week?” and “How many minutes did you exercise last week?”

-Find a co-exerciser. God created us to be in community. Just as in every part of life, we need to have people to encourage us along the way. Ask people with whom you would like to spend more time, to walk or go to the gym with you.

-In your day, every hour try to get some activity. Recent research suggests that if you take 13 minutes an hour activity break, at the end of the day you’re actually just as productive as if you worked 60 minutes straight through every hour. Set your phone alarm for 60 mins; when it rings get up and move around even for several minutes. Reset your phone for another 60 minutes. If you did 5 minutes for each hour for 12 hours, you would have 35 minutes of activity daily and better health too!

In addition to PACE, set a goal for yourself. Perhaps it is a step goal of getting at least 10,000 steps 5-6 days per week if you have a step counter. Or maybe your goal might be 150-200 minutes of exercise per week. Often having a larger goal like training for a 5K or 10K walk or run can be motivating.

If you happen to be in the Austin area, please join me at “Walk with a Doc, The Path to a Healthier You”, Saturday, November 10 at 9:00AM, Baylor Scott & White Clinic, Main Entrance 3108 S. Ranch Road 620, Lakeway, TX

A New Year's P.L.A.N.

Christmas calories have caught up with me. And I don’t want to carry them along in the New Year, especially not in the year I’m going to be the mother of the groom! Typically I eat too many sugary calories the last half of December. But unfortunately this year, I also ended up with a bad cold and sinus infection, which temporarily curtailed my exercise minutes. Yikes. I’m happy to say I’m slowly cutting back on the calories and today couldn’t resist adding a short run to my exercise walk.

This is the time of year when many people make a variety of resolutions, including weight and other health issues. What is your plan? Here is the P.L.A.N. I frequently use with my patients to help them succeed. Utilize this P.L.A.N. to help you get back on track, “flee from evil” and use the “magic bullet” to your advantage. Follow this PLAN towards success:

P: Portion control

*Smaller portion of food.

*Greater portion of exercise and activity.

Practically speaking, no foods are forbidden. However, portion sizes of all foods needs to be controlled.  In the land of “super-size” food servings, we need to eat smaller portions especially of high calorie, low nutrient-rich foods.  Typical “junk foods” such as potato chips, soda, candy bars, etc. have comparatively fewer nutrients and more calories than foods like apples, spinach, or grapes. If we take in more calories than we burn, we will carry that weight on our bodies. (Additionally, in a very complex hormone system in the body, eating carbohydrates triggers more eating. Eating more protein helps curb appetite.)

A Journal of the American Medical Association 11/2015 article declares, “Physical inactivity has been labeled pandemic due to its increasing global prevalence and its health, economic, environmental, and social consequences.  More than half of US adults fail to meet the 2008 physical activity recommendations of 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise daily or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise weekly.” Unfortunately elevators, remote controls, and “automatic” almost everything have reduced our activity. Clearly most people need to increase the number of daily activity minutes. In what ways can you increase number of steps every day? Every step counts; it does not have to be in one chunk exercise session. Park farther away from the store or office. Set a rime for 60 minutes and walk a few minutes or climb a flight of stairs every time it goes off. Walk to the mailbox. Find little ways to add steps throughout the day.

L: Leave it. Flee from evil.  

*Leave it...high-calorie low-nutrient food sources.

*Leave it...couch, computer chair, & other sedentary circumstances.

Flee from anything that tempts you to eat too many calories. What are areas from which you need to flee? Drive home on a different route so McDonalds or Dairy Queen does not call your name?  Walk right past the break room at work or down a different hallway?  Push your grocery cart towards the fruit aisle and away from the snack aisle?  Avoid the all-you-can eat restaurants?

Turn the TV, computer or other electronics off so you avoid sedentary evenings on the couch, at least until after you have exercised? 

A:Accountability 

*Food diary

*Exercise diary

*Accountability partner

Repeatedly, research shows that keeping a food diary helps a person reduce the number of calories and increases the number of exercise minutes. Because of modern technology, multiple options are easily available for food and exercise diaries:online apps, calendar logs, or journals. 

A few years back, at an obesity conference, a renowned speaker declared, “We have the magic bullet for weight loss.” You could have heard a pin drop in that room as people listened expectantly. “Every research study has shown that if people keep food & exercise logs, they will lose weight!”

Pick a person to be your accountability partner. Identify your problem areas. Give your accountability partner 2-3 quantitative (yes or no, or specific number) questions to ask you each week. Examples might include: How many minutes did you exercise last week? How many evenings did you eat food past 8:00?  How many sodas did you drink? Did you eat vegetables every day last week?

N: Nurture

*Nurture in non-food ways. 

*Nurture yourself with exercise.

Unfortunately, our culture uses food to comfort, to calm, to celebrate.  Identify non-food ways to nurture yourself, your family, and your friends. Make a list. Have your ideas easily available so that you do not fall back to your usual source of food (and usually high-calorie, low-nutrient food.)  

Instead of cookies for the children after school, how about hugs, fruit, and cuddling on the couch reading a good book. Instead of grabbing a bag of chips, stroll around the block. Instead of eating candy, take a few moments to read or listen to God’s word. Other ideas include: listening to favorite music, taking a soothing bath, writing or drawing in a journal, golfing, playing the piano or another musical instrument, woodworking, talking with a friend, reading a fun book, or doing another favorite hobby. 

Exercise should not be unpleasant or a punishment, but instead exercise refreshes the body, soul, and mind.  As you exercise, focus your mind on fun memories, memorize a special bible verse, allow God’s Word to penetrate your mind and soul by listening to the Bible on a phone app, or just be mindful of the moment.  Or nurture yourself and a family member or friend by enjoying exercise time together.

Bask in God’s love and nurture for you!

 “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love He will exult over you with loud singing. “ Zephaniah 3:17

Our bodies are fueled by food, and exercise makes our bodies strong and functional. Psalm 139:14 declares, “ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Indeed our bodies are amazing -fearfully and wonderfully made!  However, In the unfriendly environment of too many calories and too few calorie burners, often it is difficult to maneuver towards healthy choices. A P.L.A.N. can enable a person to steer clear of obesity and associated diseases, and live a healthy, functional, vibrant life.

Exercise ENCOURAGEMENT

Exercise Challenge ON update! Of course my husband knew he would win big brownie points with me by taking the Exercise ON Challenge!  Last week before going to work, he asked if I could walk with him for 10 minutes!?!?! Woo hoo!! I was so happy. Every bit adds up. And he even went swimming with my 17 year old son before going to work on Wednesday.  That's what I love about exercise challenges.  We say yes to activity and exercise instead of yes to couch potatoeing. :) This week I have 331 minutes of exercise! (When you are leading the challenge, the pressure is on!) My husband has 264 minutes. How about you?? Remember 150 minutes per week is the goal. Keep reading for some encouragement.

This blog post first appeared http://blog.cph.org/everyday-faith/exercise-on-challenge-encouragement/ on October 4, 2016:
Are you taking the Exercise ON Challenge with me for the months of October and November? In the almost-nine weeks (61 days) of October and November, can you exercise a total of 1,350 minutes? For added benefits, take the Exercise ON Challenge PLUS and add weight training two days per week. Keep track of your exercise minutes. Rally your family, co-workers, or church members to take the challenge with you. Hold one another accountable. Connect with your friends and family; download and listen to a CPH book; listen to your Bible on an app; memorize Scripture; give thanks; pray. 

At the beginning of each week, schedule your exercise time each day on your calendar, just like any other appointment. Plan and schedule exercise every day; invariably some conflict will arise that will interfere with your exercise. Plan for seven days of exercise, even though you may actually exercise five or six days per week.

Exercise Guidelines:

F=Frequency: Aerobic exercise (such as walking, biking, swimming) 5–6 days/week. Strength training (weights) 2–3 days/week.

I=Intensity: “Moderate”—exercise as intensely as possible while still carrying on a conversation. On a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high), exercise at about 6–8.

T=Time: Initial goal is 150–180 minutes/week. Ultimate goal is 200–300 minutes/week.

Start with realistic goals! The “race” is for the long haul, not just for this week. Your starting point should be based on your current fitness level. If you are currently doing no exercise, start slowly with 10–15 minutes of exercise one or two times per day. Each day, gradually add a few minutes. Ideally, you will eventually reach a goal of at least 150–220 minutes per week of exercise. As you become more comfortable, you can also increase the intensity of your exercise.

Memory challenge:

“In Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1–2

To more easily memorize a verse, write the Bible verse on an index card. Read it before and during exercise. Keep it with you and read it throughout the day.

May God’s presence permeate all of your day and life!

After you have this verse memorized, share it with your family and friends.

Autumn holds so many colorful days. HAPPY EXERCISING!