wellness tips

Five Summer Time Tricks To Stay Fit

Don Grier

Summer officially starts tomorrow, June 20, but the heat index has already crept into the 100s in Austin for a few days.   If you want to continue to Change Well with physical activity, we all need a few tricks to stay cool when it is hot.  Here are a few techniques I use to keep active during the doldrums of August. 

1. Sunrise, Sunset.  They say the early bird catches the worm.  But I say the early walker catches the cool breeze. (ok, make that a warm breeze in Texas).  The good news for those working is that the sun rises earlier and sets later in the summer.  That means you don’t need to search for a flashlight to take your walk before or after work.  I always use the early and late sun to walk before or after work (or both).  This way, I catch the morning sunrise or glorious sunset when the temperature is less hot.  You rejuvenate yourself before a busy day or decompress after a stressful one.  Nothing soothes stress better than birdsong carried on a cool morning breeze or seeing the sun touch down over a shimmering pond.   To change up the lyrics a bit from a song from Fiddler on the Roof:

Sunrise, Sunset,
Sunrise, Sunset,
Avoid the heat of day,
Cool breezes fade after the morning,
Turning into a stifling haze.

Sunrise, Sunset,
Sunrise, Sunset,
Wait until the evening comes,
Take a walk with the moon and birdsong,
That way, you can walk extra-long.

2.  Stay Cool In The Pool. Playing in the pool is one way to exercise and avoid heat exhaustion. But what if you are not Michael Phelps or Katie Ledecky?  I am assuredly not a great swimmer.  I did not know how to swim until I was a plebe at West Point and never got out of the rock squad (those who sink like a rock).  I still do not know how I passed with a C- since I nearly drowned during the timed swim.   

You can engage in activities in the pool other than swimming, even if you’re not in the best shape.  The one that helped me when I was first beginning my weight loss journey was water aerobics. Weighing in at 350+, I entered the pool because it was the only thing I could do without my joints protesting.  Once I overcame my initial self-consciousness of being the youngest in the class, I found that water aerobics provided a fantastic workout. The best part was that I didn’t need to be overly coordinated.  It was my first step in reclaiming my fitness, and it’s still a reliable exercise option when the weather gets hot. 

For all the young parents out there, playing with your children in the pool is not just a way to beat the heat but also a fun way to stay in shape.  When my oldest daughter was learning to swim (not from me, the Rock, but from classes), we used to have a blast playing a game called Butterfly.  I would lift her and toss her in the pool, singing, “Butterfly, butterfly, how high can you fly?”.  She would then swim 15 feet back to me and respond upon return, “Over the trees and meadows!”.   We sometimes repeated that for about 20 minutes. This is how she learned how to swim, and I got my weightlifting done. The bottom line is to be creative when staying cool in the pool and enjoying precious moments with your children.

3.  Drink and Know Things. One of my favorite lines from Game of Thrones is when Tyrian says, “I drink, and I know things.”   I even have a T-shirt with that saying. This is good advice for the summer as long as, unlike Tyrian, you drink water instead of wine and know when to stop and stay hydrated.  You may be saying that advice is obvious.  I might agree.  But here is something that is not as obvious.  You can drink a lot of water and not remain hydrated.  Here is what I mean.

I went on a Kennedy Walk (50 miles in one day) during a hot day. I kept stopping at water stations along the way and became waterlogged. However, around mile marker 35, my muscles cramped up terribly, and I became woozy.  Then I realized that I had not been taking enough electrolytes and had sweated out most of the salt in my body.  I stumbled to a nearby store and was crestfallen when they ran out of Gatorade.  Luckily, they had some jars of pickles.  So I ate some pickles and drank pickle juice and got better.  The story’s moral is that staying hydrated means also watching your electrolytes.  So drink electrolytes with your water, or you’ll be in a pickle.  Ok, that was corny even for me!

4.  Buddy Up.  I usually walk alone to listen to the latest David Baldacci book.  But in the summer, I know enough to buddy up when hiking.  First, it will keep you motivated.  But more importantly, you can watch out for one another.

If I have to exercise in the heat, I try to find a friend to come with me.  This advice has saved me on several occasions directly and probably a lot more indirectly.  Here is an example.   I enlisted my youngest daughter to come with me on a walk one early fall day.  Even though the place we were walking in was wooded, we unfortunately got a bit lost.  Plus, the temperature, which was supposed to be in the low eighties, jumped into the nineties (never trust a weather report).  We finally found our way out, but it would have been scary if I had been alone in the woods in the heat. 

5.  Switch it up with indoor activities.  Lastly, summer is an excellent time to switch up with some indoor activities.  My go-to exercise will always be hiking in nature.  However, it is time to try something indoors when it is 110 in the shade.   Summer, for me, is an excellent time to take on a new Peloton exercise series or to catch up with some low-impact on YouTube with Paul Eugene. Also, if I want to go on a walk, I can always catch up with the latest stores at the mall or what is happening at Costco.

These are five ways to beat the Summer heat and keep your fitness progressing.  Other recommendations include wearing sunscreen and head covering outdoors, bringing a wet towel to cool off, or, better yet, taking a cool shower after working out.  Lastly, do not forget about your pets when you take them outside.  The first rule of “Sunrise, Sunset” is essential for a dog’s paws.   So take them out before the sidewalk gets too hot.  Remember these rules so you can continue to change well, even in the summer heat!

Harness Four Powerful Wellness Concepts To Be Fully Engaged

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Our recent podcast and blog series on the body and soul connection recalled two books.  I am reading He Leadeth Me by Father Walter Ciszek now, and one that helped spur me on during my initial efforts to change well is The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.  Both books discuss the importance of practicing engagement in all directions and four wellness concepts.  Let’s see what that looks like.

I am going to start first with He Leadeth Me.   If you have the Hallow application, which I spoke about in the previous podcast on Body and Soul routine combos, there is a 40-day Lenten discussion using excerpts from the book.  The book is a memoir of Father Walter Ciszek and his survival in a Soviet prison and later a Siberian Gulag after being falsely accused of crimes.  The book is a powerful spiritual testament to surviving the harshest conditions if you trust God and have a purpose beyond yourself.  It also showed how the stress of the prison camp and Gulag helped Father Ciszek become more spiritually alive.  It is a fantastic book for many reasons, and I recommend it to anyone, even if they are not Christian.    But the point I want to focus on today is Father Ciszek’s quote on the connection between body and soul and the impact each has on the other.  Also, how the stress that he previously put on his body conditioned him physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually to deal with his over twenty years in captivity. Here are two pertinent excerpts from the book that will ever remain etched in my mind and heart:

“During my early years in religious life, I had even tried to outdo the legends of the saints in fastings and penances of every sort. But I did it, not so much to punish the body or attain perfection as to prove to the world and to myself how tough I was. Yet it was only now, when each day ended with exhaustion and the body cried out for every extra minute of rest, every little respite from work, every extra crumb of food, that i really came to appreciate the marvelous gift of life god had given man in the resources of the human body. The intimacy that exists between soul and body is a marvel of creation and a mystery of human existence.”

“The mysterious interplay of body and soul is an essential characteristic of our human nature. If the body is sick or sore, tired or hungry or otherwise distressed, it affects the spirit, affects our judgment, changes our personality. So slight a thing as a headache can affect our relations with those around us. It is through the body that we express and experience love and kindness and comfort. We excuse our snappish, petty, ill-mannered conduct to one another on the grounds that the body is having a bad day. We are constantly, day in and day out, hour after hour, under the influence of these mysterious workings of soul on body and body on soul.”

                He Leadeth Me by Walter J. Ciszek with Daniel L. Flaherty, 99

Father Ciszek points out that he could not have kept his soul and emotions intact if he had not trained himself physically.  He also discusses in the book how his spiritual well-being and purpose helped him to drive on even when it appeared physically impossible.

The Power of Full Engagement

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in The Power of Full Engagement make a similar connection, albeit from a secular viewpoint.  This book was instrumental in starting my wellness journey, and I have referenced some of its four wellness concepts in developing my practice.  The fundamental premise is to become a fully engaged, effective person and leader, you should focus on managing energy rather than time.  The second key idea is that there are four dimensions of energy, the capacity of which you need to increase and manage to be fully engaged and high-performing.  These are:

  1. Physical energy, which focuses on the quantity of energy;
  2. Emotional energy, which defines the quality of energy (for example, compare  the impact of negative talk to positive affirmation on your well-being);
  3. Mental energy, which defines the direction of energy (focused versus distracted);
  4. Spiritual energy, which defines the power and impact of the energy (energy and effort not aligned with spiritual being and vision is wasted)

The third of the wellness concepts is the best way to build up energy in all four quadrants is to train like an athlete with intervals of stress and rest.  If there is too much stress and insufficient rest in any quadrant, you become tired and disheartened.  Alternatively, too much rest without the stress of a challenge leads to complacency and, in extreme cases, sloth. 

The last of these wellness concepts is that the most fundamental energy source is physical; the most significant that guides our vision and purpose is spiritual.  The underlying capacity of our physical energy impacts all other quadrants.  When we are tired, unhealthy, and hyped up on too many all-nighters of pizza and soda, we are often cranky and short with others.  Lack of sleep impacts our ability to focus on our work, and we become distracted. 

On the other hand, without stores of spiritual energy, we can dissipate our energy on the wrong things and forego the purpose for which we were put on this earth.  To refer back to our initial quote from Father Ciszek, if you do not have the physical capacity, you will not have the energy to be led to your ultimate purpose. And if you do not have the spiritual backbone and purpose for living, you will be led in the wrong direction.

I highly recommend that you take the time to read both books.  I cannot underestimate the impact that both have had on my life.  My blogs and podcasts focus on how I used the wellness concepts of these books to change my life.  If you have not had the time, check out Episode 2, which covers techniques in all four energy quadrants, Episode 4, Waking Up to Your Why about the spiritual component, and Episode 7, THINK Yourself to a New You, for ideas on Emotional and Mental Energy.  The podcasts each have links to the associated blogs for a deeper dive into wellness concepts.  In conclusion, let me close by paraphrasing St Francis De Sales.  Within every period of desolation lies the seeds of consolation.  The opposite is also true.  To best build our capacity in all four quadrants of our humanity – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual – we must learn how to harness the ebb and flow of stress and relaxation to become fully engaged, fully human, and to change well!

Three Key Reasons Your Organization Should Be Wellness-Led

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Today, we begin the first of a four-part series on why your organization should lead with wellness and fitness, followed by subsequent blogs with tips and tricks to get you there!

I was fortunate to be in the Army in my early adult life.  One of the perks of the Army is that you are paid to work out every day and keep fitness top of mind.  Likewise, the Army has weight standards that each soldier needs to meet.  It was part of your role description and responsibility.  An unfit soldier will put himself and his unit at risk.   I, therefore, had the pleasure and pain to exercise regularly.  Sometimes, it was exhilarating, like singing cadence at the top of your lungs while on a battalion run.  Other times brutal, such as the yearly Obstacle Course administered by the Department with a Heart at West Point.  Exercise and maintaining your weight standard were good, necessary, and part of your job description!  While the Army has other wellness areas that continue to improve, they had the fitness component down. 

My life changed when I left the military and joined the corporate well in the early 90’s.   Early morning calls replaced morning PT.  Long hours on planes and in front of a computer slinging code affected my health.  At the time, it seemed that fitness and taking care of myself was no longer part of my job description or even opposed to it. 

Companies and I at that time did not yet see the impact of wellness on work.   The drive for more billable hours and seemingly higher productivity dominated.   This corporate culture (or my take on it) resulted in weight gain, loss of my health, and a decline in productivity over time.

Luckily, the corporate culture and my thought processes changed around 2010.  Corporate wellness programs, such as those at Google, Microsoft, GE, Salesforce, and Accenture, to name some of the top ones, are now focused on fitness and the human aspects of work.  I greatly advocate for these programs and credit the wellness programs of my prior company as instrumental in turning my life around.  It is why my wife and I started our company, Wellness Leadership, LLC.  To read about the five corporate programs that helped restore my health, click the link in the show notes titled Five Corporate Wellness Programs that Saved My Life.  

Before jumping into my three top reasons for investing in the wellness of your employees, let me give you a few statistics.  I got this from a compilation of several sources on the Gapin Institute website. 

  • Companies with highly effective health and wellness programs report 11% higher revenue per employee, 1.8 fewer days absent per employee per year, and 28% greater shareholder returns.

In companies that provide health and wellness support:

  • 91 percent of their employees say they feel motivated to do their best (vs. 38 percent of those without)
  • 89 percent of their employees are more likely to recommend their company as a good place to work ( vs. 17 percent)
  • 91 percent of their employees have a positive relationship with supervisors (vs. 54 percent)

Expanding upon these facts, let me give you my take on why I think a focus on the wellness of the members of an organization improves an organization’s outcomes. 

Here are my top three reasons why:

  •  Improves Decision Making.  The enemy of all good decisions is stress.  Exercise and fitness help relieve stress and keep away fatigue. A simple 20-minute walk will provide a few minutes to clear your mind, allowing you to focus on the problem.  Better yet, get up and walk around the office during a phone meeting when things get heated. The simple step of standing up will shake off the cobwebs that tend to collect during back-to-back calls. 
  • Builds Comradery.   The best thing about the Army was the camaraderie.  One way it was built was through morning PT.  While I am not advocating that each company go on a company run each morning, I recommend a common fitness program to build spirit de corps.   Such a common fitness program helped me to know my colleagues better through fitness events (MS 150, Annual Veterans Walk, etc.) and programs (active rewards programs, Fitbit competition).  One simple example was a random competition I and some colleagues engaged in one Saturday.  One of my friends started a Fitbit weekend competition, and although we were all in different states, we kept apprised of the others’ progress.   We all engaged in friendly and sometimes hilarious banter through the Fitbit app as we each surpassed 10 miles.
  • Reduces  Sick Days.  Staying fit helps to keep you out of the doctor’s office and in yours during working hours.  Research conducted at Brigham Young University, the Center for Health Research at Healthways, and the Health Enhancement Research Organization suggests unhealthy eating is linked with a 66% increased risk of loss of productivity. In comparison, lack of exercise is associated with a 50% increased risk of low productivity. My experience bears this out.  Before returning to fitness, I was habitually hit with bronchitis and, at least twice a year, pneumonia.  Both resulted in sick days and loss of productivity when I worked through it.  Since returning to my target weight and improved fitness, I have had neither bronchitis nor pneumonia.  I’m not sure how many days have been saved, but approximately a week a year.  There was an increase in productivity on those days when I should have been recovering, and I drove through and worked despite my illness.

These are the top three reasons an organization should focus on member wellness.  Increased productivity, esprit de corps and better decisions are just three reasons wellness is imperative in the work world.  In blogs over the next few weeks, I will further discuss 15 guidelines for the Well Led organization. Until then,  lead through wellness!