In honor of my best friend, Connie's, birthday yesterday, hubby and I are starting a new health program which mixes up walking, strengthening, and relaxing. We want to use this as another way to connect with our new community.
"I'd taken that first step because I'd wanted to look better. I'd wanted my clothes to fit. But it didn't take me long to figure out that the biggest benefit was less about vanity than it was about sanity. Walking always helped." The Wildwater Walking Club, pg 198.
WHAT:
Marshalling the tools to embark on this venture was, and is, a foray into a river of connections. We started with the new Rio Rancho library, where I checked out The Fast Metabolism Diet by Haylie Pomroy, and renewed it at the old, but bustling, sister library. Because the book is a little complicated we have thought of purchasing it from amazon.Alert! SHOWCASING! Alert!
That alarm buzzed out of the pages of our connection guidebook, This Is Where You Belong, by Melody Warnick. Viewing an item locally, whether in stores or, in this case the library, and buying it online is called "showcasing" and becomes a wasted opportunity to put roots down, or invest, in our own place. Right now, though, we don't even know if there IS a local bookstore in Rio Rancho so we'll keep the library book until we can research that.
However, we DO know of a local shoe store that sells all kinds of shoes for the best fit ever. (Local, in this case, being Albuquerque.) It is called Sole Comfort Shoes, and is unlike any other shoe store at which I've shopped. I told the professional there that when I was in the 6th grade a salesperson at Montgomery Ward's informed me that they could never fit my feet, labeling them as "deformed" and, indeed, since then I've had a lot of unfit shoes! The pro measured, examined, and tested my feet and figured out EXACTLY what the problem is and found shoes that worked best for that challenge!
And so, when we visited this store last October, Sole Shoes started my romance with ABQ when Seve bought me a dress pair for my birthday. Maybe this year he me get a pair of walking shoes there.
http://www.solecomfortabq.com
The no-frills pedometer came from a Walmart in ABQ just on the edge of Rio Rancho. Warnick admits that the big box stores are always going to factor into our lives, no matter how much we want to support local businesses. Plus, my friend Jenna Wiley, reminded me that local people work at those chain stores.
Because this plan calls for an immense amount of water, we have a variety of containers for that. One is a special balloon fiesta cup from a restaurant chain that was started in ABQ in 1991 and put roots down in RR in 1994. The other is a plain water bottle from Steve's new dentist in RR, even though the dentists, like other health pros, travel around from RR, ABQ, Santa Fe.WHEN:
Our new plan calls for walking on Mondays and Tuesdays. Our only time frame for that is to go within 30 minutes after eating.
HOW:
We read somewhere that it's good to work up to a 30 minute daily walk but we are starting at 12 minutes per walking day until we can reach the 30 minute goal.
I am also recording my steps; today, for me, 12 minutes equaled about 266 steps.
WHERE:
Holly and I go to parks, especially those with dog areas, to achieve the 12 minute goal while Steve needs to explore some around our apartment community or use the treadmill in the fitness room after his work.Today's park was an "oldie but goodie" because it featured a giant obstacle course for dogs!
In my prayer walking post, I talked about the Prescription Trails at parks around our city. Our future goal is to visit some of the nature trails, like Willow Creek Trail, around RR.
Where do you like to walk in nature?
For a light-hearted look at a Nature Walk, with stunning Missouri photos check out my friend Marcia's blog at
http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com/2016/10/nature-walk.html
WHO:
I prefer walking by myself because, as noted in a previous blog, I'm a turtle. Holly and our dog Chester come with me but don't walk beside of me. Steve's much more of a hiker than a walker.But...there are advantages to walking with a partner or even a walking club such as motivating each other toward a common goal.
The Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook features a fictionalized walking club of three neighbor women, new to each other, who plod along together over life changes and challenges. They use something that grows all over Albuquerque as their motivational goal!
If you guessed chile, this time time you wouldn't even be hot!
After x number of combined steps, the women go to a fancy-schmanzy Lavender Festival in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe our library houses this book because of that connection; they could have just have easily visited Los Poblanos here. When we have time, we enjoy traveling the 25 mph road in and out of "The Q" that goes by Los Poblanos. The website describes it best:
"Set among 25 acres of lavender fields, enormous cottonwood trees and lush formal gardens, Los Poblanos is one of the most magnificent historic properties in the Southwest."
http://www.lospoblanos.com/lavender-organic-farm/lavender-farm/
While we don't have a walking club, I am hoping to find a "pedometer partner" who will log steps for joint accountability. I hope I can find someone who would rather go to a Los Poblanos than to a Hatch chile farm! My partner may have to come from out of state, because chile, is well, NEW MEXICO.
I'm thinking this approach gives a little nudge, but eliminates messy factors like having to be in the same place at the same time, not to mention going at the same pace. Melody Warnick aside, I'll chalk it up to "internet community connection."
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