You “lock in” your new good habits before the new year. Starting three months before January 1, the idea is that you’ll have the strength, resilience and routine to start the new year right by the time January comes around.
What are the habits?
9 hours sleep a night
3 litres of water a day
No sugar
No fast food
No smoking
No alcohol
Daily cold showers
Workouts 3-5 times a week
No screens one hour before bed
10k steps a day
My thoughts:
That’s a lot of NOs.
I might add one, NO COLD SHOWERS. For me, anyway. You do you.
What’s wrong with the usual 8 hours sleep a night and 2 litres of water a day?
Seriously, it feels very restrictive and unsustainable to me.
Is there anything about it I like? I’ve always liked focusing on health and fitness in the fall. As an academic September feels more “new year” to me than January. And I’ve never liked thinking of December as binge month and January as the Big Change.
But for more thoughts about making sustainable changes, read the article from The Independent, linked above.
Happy Friday?
How do you feel about challenges like this one? Anything in it that works for you?
I recently went kayak camping with 6 friends at a remote Ontario provincial park called Killarney. Over 6 days and 5 nights we kayaked on a lake to 3 different camp sites. It was a chance for some holiday rest but also some active challenges.
Each site stop meant packing and unpacking my (borrowed) kayak: sleeping gear, food gear, hygiene gear, camp chair, bug repellants, clothes, and drying line. These were stored in dry sacs that kept stuff dry in inclement weather or if the kayak tips. We also agreed to each pack out our own garbage, which had to be stored every night in our kayaks to avoid attracting animals.
Though I was a girl guide and did family trailercamper trips as a kid, I am newer to camping where you haul your own gear, purify your own water, eat primarily rehydrated food, and eliminate in a “thunderbox”. On every trip I learn more through observing others and asking questions to find what arrangements suit me best (eg, tent vs hammock for sleeping, what vegetarian foods I can take, etc.).
I’m on my own to make sure I can carry what I pack, I pick up after myself, and I keep myself clean, dry, sated, and injury-free. Although this seems like regular adult stuff, in nature with no other amenities than what I carry, I must plan ahead and be self-sufficient. As one of my friends said during the trip, “Doing this as a woman, as a group of women, is empowering.” (Another one said camping is having fun while being mildly uncomfortable.)
What is empowering is not just taking care of yourself but also working together as a group. These women harnessed 7 kayaks in a trailer safely for highway driving, navigated to a remote provincial park, kayaked to multiple camp sites, used fishing gear, arranged in pairs for food prep and clean up, found wood, set up big tarps in case of rain, and shared anything that was needed, from extra salt to insect repellant to tampons to skin bandages.
For nearly a week were on our own but also together: travelling, paddling, swimming, fishing, card playing, pleinair watercolor painting, food and drink imbibing, mosquito repelling, storytelling, and looking out for each other.
I am grateful to have learned so much about the tricks and tools of kayak camping from these women. It’s given me a sense of accomplishment and pride in a hobby that’s fun but not always easy or convenient. I’ve chosen from here this quotation, attributed to Madonna (who may or may not also be a kayak camper), to sum up my thoughts:
“As women, we have to start appreciating our own worth and each other’s worth. Seek out strong women to befriend, to align yourself with, to learn from, to collaborate with, to be inspired by, to support, and enlightened by.” – Madonna
What do you do, on your own but also with others, that gives you a sense of personal autonomy as well as community?
7 kayaks hauled by a truck7 women in kayaks5 women sitting in front of a campfire at duskThe view, of an overturned kayak near the water’s edge, from my tent at dawn
I’m just back from a glorious month of playing in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Trail running. Mountain biking. Hiking. And just plain soaking up the titanic rock energy. While there, I spent time with a woman I’ve known for a long time and thought I knew most everything about. Only to discover a new side of her. I was surprised and inspired. She was more intrepid than I’d known and more comfortable in her own company than I’d understood.
The first glimpse of this new side of her came when she headed off to do a hike with a somewhat heart accelerating crux involving a chain bolted to a cliff face, with a sliver of a ledge to tip toe across. She had some idea of the challenge, from having been there in the winter with a friend. They turned back. This time she was alone. As she approached the crux, she coached herself to step onto the sliver ledge without so much as a pause. And that’s what she did. It turned out that the crux was not the end of the exciting bits. She joined up with three other hikers a short while later and they told her that the scree field they were descending was the site of the greatest number of helicopter rescues in the area. Oh.
The summer I was 18, I worked at the fancy restaurant in London, Ontario. Once a week, on Friday nights, an attractive woman came in alone and had dinner, including a glass of champagne and dessert. To my young eyes, she seemed to be about forty, and who knows, she could have been younger or older. What she was, was an icon of female power and independence. I couldn’t imagine a woman going to a restaurant alone. This was before mobile phones. So alone really meant alone. For fine dining? And champagne? And dessert? All those treats just for her own pleasure. How could she even enjoy her own company so much? Let alone have the courage to be seen alone in public on a weekend night? Such insouciance. Such confidence. I wanted to be like her.
When I strode back into the parking lot at the end of the hike, I felt like my version of that long ago woman in the restaurant. As you likely guessed, that was me setting out alone and me coaching myself through the crux. I didn’t think I could do it. I’d lain awake part of the night filled with fear. I had already given myself the grace to turn back. When I didn’t turn back, the elation started to build over the course of the next couple of hours. By the time I finished, I felt like I was champagne. I could not only make it through the crux, but I could also enjoy being in my own company. I felt insouciant. Confident. I felt like I was taking my own world by storm.
View from Tent Ridge, Kananaskis, Alberta
I did several more hikes with crux-y bits and other challenges that confirmed this woman’s existence inside me. I’d always thought that I needed company for such adventures. To discover that I could enjoy them just as much alone was a revelation. Though I would do well to have a satellite device of some kind for company. That’s a logistical issue. Meanwhile, I’m still feeling the fizz of meeting this new part of myself, with unexpected capacity.
I don’t know yet what we will do together. I am curious indeed.
This weekend in Boston is cram-jammed with activity and celebration.
Monday April 21 is the running of the 129th annual Boston Marathon, which takes place on the 3rd Monday in April. Our own blogger Alison is running Boston this year. I imagine she’ll have some things to say about the race, so stay tuned for her report.
It’s also a holiday for the city of Boston– Patriot’s Day, to commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concord, as well as the midnight ride of Paul Revere, which took place on “the eighteenth of April in Seventy Five”. That’s 1775, for those of you who live outside the Boston area.
And this year– 2025– is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of those events which signaled the start of the move toward representative democracy in then-American colonies and now-United States of America. One writer called it the “semiquincentennial” of those April 1775 events (get it? half of five hundred?) I was skeptical about this word, but some sites say it’s legit. But I think I prefer “sestercentennial”, which is a more formal term.
Finally, today is Easter Sunday and Orthodox Easter Sunday, arguably the most important holiday (personally, I think it edges out Christmas) in the Christian liturgical calendar. Boston is a big Easter town, with both religious and secular celebrations of the cycles of rebirth and renewal.
And this year, those cycles include resolve and response. Resolve to protect rights that we fought for, and response to those who would infringe upon, or rather, stomp all over those rights. Old North Church itself says it best:
Old North Church in Boston, with a lighted projection, “Let the warning ride forth once more; Tyranny is at our door.”
On Friday April 18, there was a service to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the lighting of two lanterns in the steeple of Old North Church. American historian Heather Cox Richardson gave the keynote address. You can read her talk here at her substack Letters from an American (which I and more than one million of my friends follow)
Okay, I have to say it: I WAS THERE! With my friend Norah. I was able to get tickets way back in February as soon as they went on sale because a)I subscribe to way too many newsletters; and b) I stubbornly try to read as many of them as I can, at the cost of more practical tasks (like cleaning and grading). Here are a few pictures from the event:
Top: Old North Church Visitor Experience Center Director Julius Hobert introducing Richardson. Yes, those candles are real. Middle: the plaque inside the Revere Pew, where Norah and I sat (OMG– such random but delightful luck!) Bottom: Historian Heather Cox Richardson, speaking from the raised pulpit.
Yes, Norah and I took selfies from the Revere pew, but I’m trying to write a more classy post this week, so I’ll save those for other social media.
Richardson, in her account of the events of April 18-19. 1775, noted all the work done by so many people– people who rode hard, climbed high, carried messages and armaments, beat drums of alert, marched, fought, wrote, organized, fed, housed, and spoke in favor of the rights of the people to govern themselves.
Two hundred and fifty years later, people all over the US and Canada and all over the world are doing the same. We don’t know what effects our actions will have. As Richardson pointed out, neither did those folks:
Paul Revere didn’t wake up on the morning of April 18, 1775, and decide to change the world. That morning began like many of the other tense days of the past year, and there was little reason to think the next two days would end as they did. Like his neighbors, Revere simply offered what he could to the cause: engraving skills, information, knowledge of a church steeple, longstanding friendships that helped to create a network. And on April 18, he and his friends set out to protect the men who were leading the fight to establish a representative government.
The work of Newman (sexton of Old North) and Pulling (sea captain and friend of Paul Revere) to light the lanterns exactly 250 years ago tonight sounds even less heroic. They agreed to cross through town to light two lanterns in a church steeple. It sounds like such a very little thing to do, and yet by doing it, they risked imprisonment or even death. It was such a little thing…but it was everything. And what they did, as with so many of the little steps that lead to profound change, was largely forgotten until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used their story to inspire a later generation to work to stop tyranny in his own time.
What Newman and Pulling did was simply to honor their friendships and their principles and to do the next right thing, even if it risked their lives, even if no one ever knew. And that is all anyone can do as we work to preserve the concept of human self-determination. In that heroic struggle, most of us will be lost to history, but we will, nonetheless, move the story forward, even if just a little bit.
And once in a great while, someone will light a lantern—or even two—that will shine forth for democratic principles that are under siege, and set the world ablaze.
This day is Easter Sunday. It’s, for many of us, a time of renewal. I’m renewing my commitment to protecting all of those in my small, medium and large communities.
Easter is also a time of resolve. I resolve not to forget those who have sacrificed much for justice and to join them with my own efforts. I resolve to keep moving, marching, writing, speaking, supporting, feeding, donating, and maintaining our communities.
This Easter, I’m adding in respond. Those responses include physical and mental and emotional and financial and political actions, all aimed at restoring and protecting the democratic rights of everyone in this country.
What does this Easter mean to you at this time in our history? Feel free to share what you’re thinking, feeling, and doing.
Usually, it occurs to me to share the Action for Happiness calendar once the month has already started but, for once, I have remembered to share it in advance.
You may even have time to plan!
I always really like the ‘small’ steps approach outlined in these calendars and I am slowly, slowly, slowly learning not to try and ‘catch up’ if I miss a day. I hope you can do the same or even just pick a few things to try here and there.
I also enjoy how Active April invites us to take action for our own happiness AND reminds us that being more active can help boost our mood and our feeling of well-being.
And, to be clear, suggesting that we seek these small moments of well being is not about being in denial of the state of the world right now. Instead, it is part of fortifying ourselves so we can do the necessary work of supporting our communities and resisting evil.
image description: a calendar of daily suggestions for Active April. The blocks are in different shades of blue and green and there are cartoon images of people doing a variety of activities around the edge.
An embedded video of Vanessa King from Action for Happiness entitled ‘No Happiness Without Action: 3 top tips with Vanessa King.’ The still image shows Vanessa Kind, a middle aged woman with shoulder length hair and bangs smiling toward the camera.
By the way, if you are looking for other things to try/celebrate/do in April, check out the list here of national days, weeks, and month celebrations here: National Days in April.
It seems to me that January is turning into a varied and tricky obstacle course, with new twists and turns each year. What kinds of new challenges lie in waiting for us? My favorite new silly challenge that I’m NOT doing is alphabet eating: starting with the letter A, eat only foods that day that begin with A. And so on.
Filling up on apples and asparagus one day, followed by bananas and broccoli the next seems harmless enough. But some other popular challenges not only fail to offer health benefits, they may be actually harmful to us.
Yes, I’m talking about the annual January Detox talk.
As you all know, I’m not an expert in medicine, nutrition or diet (which nonetheless fails to deter me from writing about them). So today I offer you advice from an expert– Megan Maisano, a Registered Dietician Nutritionist who (among other things) has her own Substack and also contributes to a Substack I read a lot– Your Local Epidemiologist.
So, without further ado, I turn it over to Megan. By the way, she was sooo nice to 1) respond so quickly to my request to reblog her post; and 2) praise FIFI for the good work it does. Definitely go and check out her Substack here, subscribing if you’re so inclined.
This year, I asked my fellow FIFI bloggers what habits they are keeping, jettisoning and adding for 2025. Here’s what they had to say.
Elan:
Keep: Cycling. Friend gifted me an indoor trainer for my hybrid bike. Need to try it before committing to something that costs like Zwift. Unless it is precisely the investment that is motivating?
Jettison: Women’s rec soccer has given me so much since I started playing 10 years ago. However, other factors have prevented me from enjoying it for some time now. How have others managed their FOMO leaving a team sport?
Add: I’ve never gone in for any real fitness challenges. Maybe someone could recommend one they’ve enjoyed?
Savita:
Keep: swimming! Without injury, and keep it feeling good. Maybe even keep the once per month lake swims.
Jetttison: the 25 in 2025 list. Also perhaps the monthly contribution to the blog. Sorry.
Add: nothing. More subtracting and focusing on things that are doable and enjoyable.
Diane:
Keep: my cooking, reading and most of my camping/cottage related activities.
Jettison: my unrealistic cycling goal from last year, in favour of something more manageable.
Add: a specific swimming goal (200 km).
Tracy:
Keep: resistance training and yoga for strength.
Jettison: (1) stuff so I can make an easy transition to moving and combining two households and (2) negative self-talk.
Add: regular speed work to my running (even if it means the treadmill) and add a more consistent bed time routine.
Natalie:
Keep: biking to work and walking 10k steps.
Jettison: my fixed mindset
Add: daily yoga and writing.
Amanda:
Keep: working on balancing career and professional opportunity vs personal time
Jettison: monthly commitments and eventually part time teaching. And worrying about disappointing people.
Add: yoga (and return to aquafit), performing music
Samantha:
Keep: my habits that I blogged about here, and also that you can see in this handy-dandy tracker:
Jettison: for the first four months of 2025, my dean job– I’m on research leave!
Add: a daily mobility routine that incorporates some of the knee physio moves.
Catherine:
Keep: daily meditation, fun physical activities with friends, family, and their dogs, yoga.
Jettison: complicated (to me) expectations for a wide variety of weekly activities rather than focusing on basics (walk, yoga, gym, cycle). Even though I love novelty, staying simpler is better for now.
Add: going to the gym 1–2 times a week. I got started over the holidays and am excited about doing more strength training!
Remember when Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, came out?
Studious alligator doesn’t know.
Neither did I. Google does– it was 2011, and was released in the US in 2014. But it wasn’t until the January 2019 Netflix series that full-on Kondo-ing fever hit. All of a sudden, thrift shops and donation bins everywhere were overflowing with good stuff. We all wanted to get rid of whatever no longer brought us joy. And yes, I joined the throw-out brigade.
But that was six years ago. In the meantime, stuff has built back up. And not just stuff: the grime and residue and smudginess of habits and ruts and plans (even new pandemic-provoked ones) created too much complexity, too much mess. Some of us (by us I mean me) thought that by tweaking or shifting around or reconfiguring, we (I) could juggle all the things (physical and mental) to function efficiently and happily.
Yeah, no.
It’s now five years later, and I’m in need of a full Marie Kondo treatment– not just of my stuff, but of my life habits. Back in 2016, I wrote about Marie Kondo here, concluding that, for my workouts, more was still more. And during the pandemic, Sam was on Team More, doing more and more varied workouts. I was on Team Less can be More. Fast forward to now, I’m joining Team Less Life Clutter. How to do that? Here are some ideas I came up with:
Fewer streaming services– I mean, how many spy suspense series and cooking shows can I actually watch while I have a job? I’m dropping Apple+ and Hulu. Keeping Netflix, Amazon Prime, and PBS (public tv app, which is awesome). We’ll see how long Amazon Prime stays around…
Fewer clothes– I’m going on a serious buy nothing* plan starting this January (*except basics that urgently need replacing and stuff from my favorite consignment shop, provided I bring things to consign, too).
Fewer books—ACK! *breathing* I have way too much books that I’ve already read or won’t read or don’t need. Plus, I have many books that I WANT to read, but they’re not organized or easily accessible. Imma organize them so I can see the vast selection I own, and put the brakes on buying for a while* (*except for book club books I can’t get from the library or something urgently needed for research).
Fewer and simpler physical activity plans—for the next two months, I’m cutting back my list of exercise activities to three: 1) one yoga class per week; 2) one trip to the gym per week; 3) ride my bike trainer once per week. Let’s see how that goes. If two weeks goes by and I don’t do all three, I’ll cut back to two, and so on until I do at least one of these every week for 4 weeks. Then I can build back up. I got so caught up in work and family stuff and social stuff that I lost consistent regular workouts. I want them back.
Less variety in my meditation– I’ve used the Happiness app (formerly Ten Percent Happiness) since 2020, and I’ve noticed that I gravitate towards the same 15–20 guided meditations and 5–6 teachers. I’m also doing more unguided meditation.
I used to think I should switch it up more and get exposed to more meditation teachers, more approaches, more variations on practice. But I’m really happy with the meditation practice I’ve embedded in my life. I do 10–20 minutes first thing in the morning, every morning. I *might* do another session in the afternoon if I’m feeling extra leisurely and contemplative. But honestly, the morning sesh fixes me up for the day.
Fewer classes to teach—I teach a four-course/semester load at my university (which is a LOT), and in addition, have been teaching at least one overload course per semester for extra money. This year, I’m getting rid of the extra course as soon as possible (maybe this spring, but definitely in the fall, and no summer school teaching!) I really enjoy teaching, but have noticed that I can’t really maintain the quality of focus I want and need when I teach so many courses. Luckily I have a little wiggle room to cut back.
Less gear: I’m selling my ultra-light speedy kayak that I bought myself as a 60th birthday gift. Here we are back in 2022.
Don’t we look happy together? Nothing bad happened, but the thrill is gone…
I was very excited to get my own boat, and loved how light it was (27 lbs/13kg). However, it just didn’t suit me in the end. So I’m letting it go. I may buy a used tandem recreational kayak if I can find a good deal. We shall see. I already have all the gear I need for it (except for one more paddle and PFD/life jacket). I’m also letting go of my old squash racket and tennis racket. I haven’t used them in a while, and they deserve good homes.
Looking at my decluttering list, I didn’t mention lots of things I really love– swimming, kayaking (in other boats), walking in nature, travel to nature places, fun outdoorsy adventures, possible new activities (full disclosure: I’m planning a bungie fitness class with my friend Martin sometime this winter, and want to take some parkour fitness again, too). BUT: I really need some decluttering before take on anything new. So, it’s time to let go. Less is less, but it’s not nothing!
Dear readers, do you have plans for decluttering any parts of your activity life this coming year? Are you adding to your schedule? Happy as you are? I’d love to hear from you.
A few weeks ago, I ran rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. The effort was a moment to remind myself of the strength of my spirit after a period of enormous loss, chaos and instability, including health setbacks. As I ran from the night into the dazzling first drops of sun gilding the tops of the cliffs, the dawning day called me back in to myself.
My youngest brother, Noah, proposed the adventure. His goal was to run rim to rim to rim (R3)—across the canyon and back again. My goal was rim to rim. I would accompany him for the first half of his effort.
It had been more than a decade since my last ultra run. Yes, I know, technically, rim to rim is not ultra, because it is not longer than a marathon. That said, those 21 miles are challenging. I underprepared. By a lot. One month out, I broke my toe. I wasn’t sure I could even join my brother for the first steps. A few days before we were set to leave, I was fretting about my lack of training, when the universe delivered me a lightning bolt of clarity. You know how to do this. In that moment, I felt a fizz of recognition, the running was the least of it. To be prepared was to believe in myself. I could give the rest over to the universe. I felt a sudden sense of being anchored. I know how to do this. I’ve done ultra runs before. The experience is inscribed in my cells. Yes, in the past I have always trained. A lot. And that wasn’t an option this time, so I will run with what I do have. My knowing.
Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t suddenly think that I had the whole thing in the bag, and it would all be a dawdle. Not at all. Rather, it was an acceptance that I might well turn around and that would be okay, combined with a confidence that I could do it, if all else aligned (weather, health & sleep, being the three primary things that needed to be in alignment).
We started running at 4 a.m. Descending 4500 feet. In the pitch dark. For more than 2 hours.
At one point, my headlamp caught a lone, bare tree, which looked like a staging of Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot. I thought about Didi and Gogo, near the end of the play, contemplating whether to hang themselves from the scrawny tree. A current of energy passed through me and a voice in my head said, I want to live. I want to stop waiting for something external to happen, to give me a reason. Life is happening now. This is it.
I relaxed into the pleasure of the run. We reached the bottom in the dark and began to make our way across. I’ve been down into the canyon twice before and come right back up. I had never traversed the canyon floor before. Never been hugged by the canyon walls, as I passed through the sometimes narrow, winding passage to the far rim. The light began to seep into the canyon, long before the first sunshine splashed over the highest rock faces. The North Rim loomed 5000 feet above. It didn’t seem possible that there was a trail leading up the sheer walls. And yet, there it was. Sometimes skinny and precipitous. Sometimes breathlessly steep. With views to astonish.
Tears prickled as I reached the top after 7 grueling hours. I was overcome with the full body pleasure of finishing. Despite all. I’m awesome. I thought. For a moment. Only to watch most runners who came after me turn around (as my brother did) and run back again to the South Rim.
I was so proud of my brother for achieving his desired goal. And, at the same time, all the runners out there covering twice as much distance as me that day made me question my own sense of accomplishment. I only did … I made a halfway effort. In our world of increasingly extreme efforts, in our world where people are routinely pushing their bodies to the very edge of their human limits, what counts? What is enough? What am I allowed to be proud of? Wait a minute, who is doing this allowing? Why can’t I allow myself to be awesome?
And then on the Thursday after the Grand Canyon, I read these words from David Whyte (from his book Consolations. Words I had read before, which took on new resonance: “…taking a new step always begins from the central foundational core of the body, a body we have neglected, beginning well means seating ourselves in the body again, catching up with ourselves and the person we have become since last we tried to begin …” I felt my first steps down the South Kaibab trail again and the intensity of everything that moment contained. The flood of memories of other physical challenges, like this run, that I’ve done in the past. All the ways in which my life and how I see myself have changed since then. All the doubts I was carrying into the canyon about my own capacity. Would my Addison’s Disease be a factor? The run was an opportunity to catch up with myself and the person I have become since last I tried to begin. I discovered a woman who is doing better than she thought. The light of resilience is seeping into her cells. Soon, the only-seemingly-insurmountable cliffs ahead will be painted gold and the trail will show itself. Step by step.
3 minutes of fun movement every day between now and December 31st.What will that include? I have no idea!
Well, here is one idea for you, Christine, and indeed all of you, dear readers: go to a local park, and find new and wrong ways to play on exercise equipment. Creating your own photoshoot of the play garners extra points.
Not sure what I mean here? No problem. I’ve got an explanation and photos.
Explanation first: a week ago, while visiting my sister and niece and nephews, we took a number of walks down by Congaree river. Happening upon one of those park exercise stations, we proceeded to find ways to use them that were not intended by their manufacturers. Here are some examples.
Me, trying to row lying face down.My niece Gracie had a little more success, but not much.
I’m not sure what the original purpose of this machine was. And it certainly didn’t matter, as we enjoyed finding new ways to use it.
Gracie using the seat as a platform for swiveling.Me, swiveling seated backwards.Gracie taking swiveling to it logical extreme.
Finally, there was artistic expression on the machines.
Gracie using the pull-up machine (?) for graceful balletic dance extension, sort of.
We went on to have our lovely walk, but this stood out as one of the more fun outdoor experiences I’ve had recently.
So, a challenge to you, dear readers: go out, find some playground equipment or other structures, and see what different ways you can find to enjoy yourself with it. Bring a friend if you can, as someone needs to take pictures…
