Move Your Exercise Outdoors

Today's Lovely Food:
No Breakfast - another run with my new Vibram Ten Fingers shoes

Lunch:
1 bag Living Nutz, 'I Love Vegan Cheezy Almonds!' germinated, marinated and dehydrated: almonds, pumpkin seeds, red pepper,olive oil, nama shoyu, fresh lemon juice, Celtic Sea Salt. I received a call from the wondeful Tommy K's letting me know that my reserved nuts had come in! I love Living Nutz; they have mastered the art of raw and happy.
1 wild berry smoothie with frozen cherries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries, with frozen banana, psyllium seed powder, cacao powder and nibs and agave; so so good!

32 ounces water

Dinner:
salad with romaine, daikon, carrot, sprouts, 1/2 avocado and cuke with dulse and nutritional yeast, with olive oil and Herbamare
leftover sunflower seed sundried tomato pate with cut up carrot sticks

Dessert:
Bowl of Organic Nectars chocolate hazelnut rawcream

Move your exercise outdoors. The gym can be wonderful, but moving our bodies in a way that complements our anatomy is so important to our health.
Our evolutionary heritage is to run through the forests; to use our limbs to move long distances. I remember when I lived in NYC years ago, I met a man who had just come back from a year in Thailand. Though he was American, he had spent the last year walking 18 miles a day to get to the local store. He was in his fifties, yet he had the body of a much younger man; I remember being struck by that.
Raw food has the capacity to renew collagen growth, but food alone does not allow our bodies to regenerate. We must find time to make real movement; running on dirt, pavement or sand, swimming in the ocean, lake or sound, dancing on a large plot of land. This is as much or greater a priority than any daily priority we have. We want to age gracefully and with major range of motion and strong bones and spines.
Here's a secret: Moving your anatomy more will increase movement in other areas of your lifes; movement is a metaphor for movement!
Some of my most powerful creative ideas and solutions come during my daily runs. I don't need to obsess or fret over a problem; I merely need to take a long run and the answers come.
What has moved forward in your life as a result of physical movement? Please write in and share your story.

Be Outdoors and Move Those Limbs!

Breakfast:
Raw Blueberry elixir with coconut water, water, frozen fresh banana, frozen blueberries, psylium seed powder, flax seeds, crunchy almond butter, cacao nibs (a small amount) and agave

Lunch:
Sunshine cheese with celery (soaked cashews, water, sea salt and nutritional yeast)
2 small golden delicious apples with almond butter

Snack:
Raw Revolution chocolate hazelnut bar

Dinner:
salad with romaine, carrot, mushroom, sprouts, dulse; with nutritional yeast and dressing of olive oil and stone ground mustard
Dessert:
bowl of Organic Nectars mint chocolate ice cream with a few walnuts drizzled with agave

12 ounces water

Not enough water today; I was enjoying my elixir so much after my six mile run, that I forgot to have my lemon water. I had a great run today. The sun was sparkling on the water and my "running partner for life or until we finally do a marathon together," Jim, was biking beside me as I ran. Since we have not done this for awhile, it really kicked my butt in a good way; stepping up my running speed to match his biking. Don't get impressed; he was biking very slow, but in order to make it worthwhile for him, I had to challenge myself a little. Have I told you yet how running transformed my relationship with Winter? For the past two Winters, I've been running outside in all weathers; from six degrees to snowstorms and rain. All my friends and family know that Winter used to be extremely difficult for me. From the end of August, when the nights would dip down to fifty degrees, I'd already be freezing and wearing socks to bed. I hadn't run outside in Winter since my twenties. Two Autumns ago, after three seasons of warm running, I said to myself, I need to change my relationship with Winter. Each Winter, I stop running and restart in April, and it gets harder and harder each year to do this. Plus, I'm miserable all Winter. So, I went into the runners' shop and asked for their warmest lightweight clothing. Did I believe it would actually keep Me warm? No way! Lo and behold, it worked. That Winter was a spiritual awakening for me. I ran between seven and nine miles a day (again, know that it's not my speed; I'm a ten minute miler) from five to seven days a week. Also, it was a meditation for me. I was letting go of some things in my life and the running allowed me to process without thinking; I just felt my soul. Believe it or not, I did not actually feel my body as much as my soul. This past Winter, I was running five or six miles. I've also been infusing some other exercise into the mix; dance, yoga, rebounder, jump rope. You know those legs we have? Guess what? They are not designed to sit for long hours in front of the computer or in a car; they are here to move; to bring breath and life into our circulatory system.
If the gym is something you start and stop again and again, think back to what movement excited and inspired you in your early life? Did you love to roller skate or ice skate? Was swimming the most fun for you? Did you grow up playing Frisbee on wide open fields? How about kite flying? Don't do what you "should;" do what you love!
When I was an adolescent, I took six years of modern dance a la Martha Graham; I am still totally turned on by that kind of movement, and bring it into my Thursday night gatherings, along with drumming, singing and chanting (other passions of mine).
Write in and tell me what forms of movement inspire you?