Jessica's Journey...November 14th

It is hard to be focused with this today.

While I was at the gym yesterday I took a break in between all the exercises and glanced at my e-mail.  I needed a break and e-mail seemed like a good idea at the time.  What I read almost brought me to my knees and my eyes were filled with tears.

A family in our church had a son that was 12 years old who was in an ATV accident and was fighting for his life.  He wasn't expected to make it.  Later on in the day the news spread that he passed away Saturday night.  You can see a blog that was created for this little boy at this link.

I don't know the family well but I do know them and we have crossed paths in many different areas in our church activities.  Regardless of if we have a close connection or not, the focus during the day tends to shift towards my kiddos and just treasuring them in this moment.

I did manage to finish my workout in the morning but I'm not sure pretty sure that my focus was not entirely on what I was doing.  Can't say that my focus is completely back yet but it is getting there.  This little boy was the same age as my sister when she passed away and it brings back some pretty painful memories of the days surrounding her death.  Many are saying that they can't imagine what it is like to lose someone this age and a son.  I don't understand the "son" part but I do understand this from the aspect of a sister.

This makes me think of my own life...what is taking priority?  Am I doing the right thing for my health so I can be around as long as possible for my family?  How might I be able to inspire others in my family to have a healthier life?  Although the little boy that passed away was from a tragic accident, many people that I know can prevent their own premature mortality by taking healthier steps in their life.

My family has quite the health history summary:
...cancer in my grandfather, cancer in my sister, bone disease with my dad, diabetes with my dad, heart problems (multiple stents, defibrillator and surgeries) with my dad, sleep apnea with my dad, cancer-like rash with my dad...I have 1 living grandparent and have seen 4 others pass away (yes, I know my math and I had 3 grandmothers and 2 grandfathers, one who is still living).


When I go to fill out my family health history I need a few pages and need to look up how to spell things on my phone.  Our family also has a lot of adoptions that have happened so there is some medical history for the family that we don't even know, some that does impact my own medical history.  What is listed above though is just the biological health history.

Exercise and eating healthy wasn't something that was talked about in our house that I can remember.  As kids we played outside, rode our bikes around town and had fun...but from what I remember that was just us being kids.  I played volleyball and basketball or I kept the bench warmed most of the time and that was until I stopped when I was a Junior.  I don't remember much about making sure we had a fruit and vegetable or both of those at each meal or watching our portion sizes.  Did we even talk about that stuff in the 80's?

Through my journey I hope to make an impact on others...specifically my family.  Teaching my kids the importance of eating good foods and exercising will hopefully get some positive habits established in their lives so they can be as healthy as possible.  Doing day care has really helped with this since we have to follow the food program for our meals and snacks.  If we are missing a part of the meal the kids are pretty quick to point that out :)  We do eat out at fast food, we don't always comply as a family with the MyPlate guidelines and some days you just want to eat junk food.  We are not the perfect American family when it comes to eating healthy.  But, we are trying.  I think there are a lot of bad habits that should be looked at intently and then challenged in our culture today to get rid of our epidemic of people dying as a result of being obese.  Yes, people need to be able to do this for themselves and want to do this for themselves in order for change to actually occur but our society and culture isn't helping this epidemic either.

Click here for this link...these are the guidelines from the USDA that we follow for day care and what I try to do when we make meals at home for our family.  Now think about what you eat when you drive through a fast food joint...are you getting all of those correct portions?  Hmm.  

Take a moment to see what habits you have that may be impacting others.  


&


Treasure your families today.  I know I have been giving extra hugs out lately.


My workout today...Yes, I still went to the gym.  I actually made it a point to try to go to bed early because now that I have more sets to do I had to use every minute of my time.  I had to get out of bed by 4:30am in order to get it all done before I needed to get back home.

Today was day 2 of Week 3.  Here is what I did and how it went:

• dumbbell single leg deadlift (this was great last week.  Today was good on the right side.  The left side, I had pain shooting down my leg, or maybe back up, when I was lifting with the 20 lb. weights.  I stopped because it hurt so bad and didn't finish those.  I did try it again at the end of everything and did it without weights.  It was pretty much ok without weights.  I tried it with 10 lb. weights and the pain was back.  Not sure what I did but it didn't hurt while I did anything else, just this exercise.  I did notice some pain in my knee a bit this afternoon too.  I've been trying to sit as much as possible today...hard to do with kids running around...just to give it a rest to see if that helps)
• cable face pull (I increased my weights in this!  I didn't like this one at the beginning but I am starting to enjoy doing this exercise)
• cable pull down combo (I increased my weight in this too!  My left side is stronger than my right side...I can just tell when I do this with the same weights on both sides.  It is much easier on my left arm than my right)
• cable woodchop (I think I was a little apprehensive because I didn't want to hurt my leg doing this one.  I was fine and nothing hurt but I was not sure if it would.  I am trying to get the form down on this one and not be so sloppy though.  After this one is done I am thirsty and tired.  This one wears me out.)
• Reach out (this isn't as bad as it used to be and is much better than the core row.  I don't know that I would do this one for fun all on my own but it is a good workout.  My arms don't start to shake as much as they used to :)
• I ended my workout with intervals on the bike.  I did 8 intervals of 15 seconds as hard as I could with 45 seconds of a slower ride.  I was going to do the elliptical but just wasn't sure how my leg was going to handle it and I didn't want to push it.

Tuesday I am going to take it easy.  I know I won't be doing one of the planned workouts that Jeff has for me but I will still be at the gym.  I need to make sure that what I do is simple and won't hurt my knee.  I am guessing my spin class is out for the morning.  :(