“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will involve the patient in the proper use of food, fresh air, and exercise.”—Thomas Edison
Definitely a light bulb moment!
Welcome, everyone, to the weekly blog challenge hosted by the great folks over at Long and Short Reviews. This week’s topic: exercise I enjoy.
Unfortunately, it is my belief that the future Edison envisioned has yet to arrive. I feel it’s still the widespread practice of physicians to poke a pill out at us whatever the woe with no regard to actually treating the problem or offering anything in the way of alternative treatments. By and large, medications are just a symptom reliever. They don’t actually get to the root of the what’s wrong and eradicate the true nature of the illness. By and large, not in totality. I’m in no way advocating rescinding or refusing medications. Obviously, antibiotics save lives every day. There is no cure for Type-1 diabetes; insulin is a daily necessity. Cancer has yet to be eradicated. And I am in the vaccination camp, solidly. What I’m talking about are problems, symptoms if you will, which we could either eliminate or at least alleviate radically through means other than by medicines. I’m a follower of the school of whole-body health and wellness and naturopathy. I think where the most success lies is in taking control of our own bodies and where Eastern and Western medicine meet.
All that being said, I am a true believer in exercise of all types. It doesn’t have to be boring at all. It doesn’t have to be a chore or a punishment. I might not look like it, because I am a fluffy girl who’s always working at reducing the fluffiness, but I exercise in a plethora of ways. And I enjoy all the ways I accomplish that. Some things I didn’t really enjoy at first, but I’ve learned to love them because of the way they make me feel.
At the beginning of the year, I evaluated by health and wellness goals and came up with some new things I thought might help me achieve them. One component of that was to try some new ways to exercise. Two words: Body Groove. Oh, my gravy, y’all! This is one of my most favorite things to do now. If you don’t know what Body Groove is, it’s sort of Zumba meets Pilates meets yoga. But there are no rules! Misty Tripoli is a fantastic instructor. She gives you the basic move then you make it your own and just dance your heart out. I’ve never tried a taped exercise program than didn’t feel like punishment. This is so much fun! I highly recommend.
The Toning Tower. This is a piece of equipment that’s part barre system and part Pilates. I love mine. It comes with DVDs but you can totally target and make it up as you go. It’s compact and folds down to slide easily under the bed. But don’t leave it under there! The idea is to use it and have fun and get fit and toned.
Walking. This isn’t a new thing for me. I’ve utilized walking as a means of exercise and stress relief for years, but now that I live in the mountains and not on the coast, I’ve had to revise my method a bit. I can’t get out nearly every day and pound the sidewalk or trot along the beach. We have many rainy days here and winters are cold and often snowy. On good days, we have several greenways near the rivers and I’ll go walk the greenways. The rivers here are beautiful! On not so great days, I use my handy-dandy treadmill. I’ll be honest, treadmilling can get tedious, but I multitask during my time on the dread mill (yes, I said dread mill). I sometimes listen to music. I have nice long chats with God. Or I read. Mine also faces a window so I can see my backyard chickens doing their thing and that’s loads of entertainment. This year I’m thinking of making the leap to audio books then I could listen to stories while I walk indoors.
Last, but not least, I love to swim. However, the nearest indoor pool to me is over twenty miles away. I couldn’t justify the cost of belonging to that particular gym to only get to use the pool a couple times a week. Word has it on the street, our county has a plan to make an indoor pool a reality in the next several months. I can’t wait!
In keeping with the whole-body wellness that I talked about earlier, I use aromatherapy and get massage regularly. If you’ve never had the opportunity to get massage, or you have some reservations about it, let me assure you, massage is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. Professional therapists will make you feel comfortable. They ask a lot of questions and that includes a health survey. They cater to you. My therapist is the best at what she does and practices several schools of massage…relaxation, deep relaxation, Thai, and Ashiatsu. My spa also has a Himalayan salt room where you can either just go sit or have a massage. It’s great for respiratory issues. If you have a cold and are stuffy, the salt will break all that gunk up and you’ll feel better in no time. I’m a HUGE advocate of self-care in the form of massage.
Y’all now know more about me than some of my family members do.
Be sure to swing by Long and Short for a list of the other bloggers participating in today’s challenge, and leave them some love. And, if you’re a blogger yourself, feel free to join in the fun with the next challenge. The more the merrier!
Nice.
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Thank you! Great to have you stop in today. 🙂 And thanks for all the inspiration I find over on your blog. I love finding like-minded whole-body wellness folks.
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Body Groove sounds like a blast. I have to try it sometime.
Yes, I agree that good health starts with good nutrition and exercise. Of course it isn’t the solution to every illness, but there is something to be said for prevention for sure.
And I’d never thought of massage as something that should be part of whole-body wellness. You’re making me want to go get a massage!
My post.
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I just got done with day 3 of the Body Groove 30 Day Challenge a bit ago. I love grooving! The time goes by so quickly and I feel so wonderful when I’m done. And exactly! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Right? Definitely not the “cure all” but goes a long, long way in taking care of ourselves. 🙂 Thanks for stopping in, Lydia!
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I hate exercise, but I do it regularly because otherwise my brain doesn’t work right. So I get the necessity of it. And I binge on Netflix while walking on the treadmill, until I can get outside and walk around the lake.
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I love walking near the water. Any water will do. So relaxing and clears the brain fog right up! 🙂
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Enjoyed reading your post, Dixie! I love to walk and miss walking along the ocean. We used to live near the coast (Monterey Bay), and it was refreshing to take daily walks there.
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Thanks, Mary! We lived within ten minutes of the ocean for years due to my husband’s lengthy military career. I loved I had easy access anytime I wanted. I love the mountains as well, but I really miss the ocean. One of the places our travels never took us was Cali. We did live in the Pacific Northwest, however, and really enjoyed our time there.
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Walking is great for getting out there to clear the mind and work out plot holes. 🙂
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Exactly! I’ve worked a lot of plot problems out while out pounding the ground. 🙂 I think sometimes the other walkers might think I’ve lost it when they hear me talking to my muse. LOL
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I know they look at me when I’m talking to myself but I figure it’s better than the ones talking on their phone and it looks like they’re talking to themselves.
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Body Groove sounds like a blast. I’ve found that if it’s fun, you forget it’s exercise! I like that you’re working towards a whole mind-body health. I realized this morning that I forgot to add meditation to my list because it’s helped me so much this year.
My post.
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Hi Aymee! I at first had purchased a couple of the Body Groove DVDs and loved it so much, over the weekend I sprang for the Roku subscription and found some meditative dance clips in the library. SO awesome! I have a terrible time shutting my brain off at times and the meditative dance helped quiet things SO much. Delicious stuff for sure! Thanks for coming by today!
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That’s awesome, so glad you found something that works so well for you. I hear you on shutting the brain off, I have that problem, too!
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Aromatherapy helps a lot with the brain overthinking thing, too. I found some really cool eucalyptus shower spray that I use with abandon.
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Wow good for you. Walking is one thing I like to do. The rest, well I leave you too it. Though I must admit I’m intrigued. LOL Thanks for sharing. Here’s mine. https://www.tenastetler.com/lsrs-wednesdays-blog-challenge-2-19-2020-types-of-exercise-i-enjoy/
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Be brave, Tena! lol Have you tried Leslie Sansone’s walking DVDs? Really great stuff if you’re not able to get outside to get a walk in.
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Wow, you’ve got this figured out. I’m doing Pilates in the pool now and it’s fun. https://pmprescott.blogspot.com/2020/02/wednesday-challenge-021920.html
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Hi Patrick! That sounds like so much fun! I can’t wait until our county indoor pool becomes a reality. I don’t know if I have it all figured out, but I’m giving it all she’s got over here. 🙂 Thanks for coming by!
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I’ve been seeing ads for Body Groove in my social media feeds lately and wondered about it. Can you stream it from somewhere? We don’t have a DVD player anymore.
RE: the rest — I absolutely agree. Keeping yourself well is so much better than treating yourself when you’re sick.
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Body Groove you can stream through Roku, Apple devices, your phone; it’s easy to get started and fairly inexpensive. I’m paying $59.00 a year for streaming unlimited access and she has TONS of dance and motivational videos listed. She just started a workout of the day. It’s never boring because it’s never the same.
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Very cool list with a lot of neat ideas; I’m very much with you on walking and swimming, but I haven’t tried any of the others. My post is here.
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Hi Michael! We’ve discussed if the county doesn’t go ahead with the indoor pool soon we may actually have a single lap lane put in in our backyard. We have the space, which is unheard of in the mountains, and not only would it fulfill one of our wants, it’d increase our property value. Win-win! Thanks for stopping by!
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Thanks for stopping by earlier… and I am so going to check out Body Groove. That sounds right up my alley! And, I’ve had a couple of massages and would love to incorporate that into a monthly self-care regime.
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My pleasure, Judy. Awesome post! 🙂 I watched the video that would pop up in my Facebook stream nearly every time I saw it, and one day I just took the leap. The DVDs were on sale and I thought, what the heck! One routine and I was hooked. I absolutely love it. And definitely look into the massage. I have a running date with my therapist once a month and sometimes in between hubby and I go in for a couples massage. One of the greatest gifts I ever gave myself was a membership to my spa.
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Swimming is overlooked in my opinion. I definitely like to get in the pool. I need to find one close to home so I can just slop home after I’m finished, instead of having to get changed at the pool.
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Body groove sounds cool, Dixie!!
What you wrote in the opening paragraphs resonates. About 18 months I ago I was hit by a mystery illness and was looking down the barrel of a very bad diagnosis. Until it could be confirmed, I asked my GP what to do. He said the most important thing was to exercise because it has not only a positive effect on the body but on the brain too. Luckily for me, my diagnosis wasn’t as horrible as feared but my GP’s advice has stuck with me since.
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I absolutely love Body Groove! I actually decided it was worth subscribing to the Roku streaming channel this weekend and I’m doing the first 30 day challenge. Great stuff! When I first began to embrace whole body wellness was in 2015. In October of 2014, my grandma died of complications from breast cancer. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was facing my own diagnosis in the form of endometrial cancer. Luckily, it was caught in time and I’m almost at my five year cancer free mark. I’ll have to have a huge celebration March 4th to mark it. My gynecological oncologist was a firm believer in whole body wellness and set me on the path to lots of research and living a much healthier way. If the going ever gets tough, I make a great cheerleader and will root you on in your journey. 🙂
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