My acupuncturist recently gave me three interesting and new “prescriptions” that involve changes to my diet and my exercise plan. And when your acupuncturist is the renowned Dr. Bong Dal Kim, you listen.
Because these changes are new for me, too, I figured this was the perfect place for us to begin this blog journey together. I won’t share all three with you today (I don’t want to overload you, too!) but I’ll start with the fitness change since I’m writing here on the e-pages of Fitness Magazine.
Though I love to exercise and feel, like many of you I’m sure, particularly great after a good sweat session, Dr. Kim has asked me to make a different form of exercise my first priority – meditation. Mind you, I’ve always punctuated my workout routine with a regular yoga practice, but I hadn’t ever spent time a portion of every single day meditating. Now I’m doing that. If I’m not going to be in a yoga class that day, then I begin the morning by sitting cross legged on the floor (or sometimes on a chair if I feel like I’m going to tip over from fatigue….I’m not to the point of levitating yet) for 20 minutes or so breathing deeply. Simply counting each breath in and out is the best way to get started, Dr. Kim told me, and it’s the method I’ve followed.
Dr. Kim has also told me that I don’t have to stress, as many meditation novices do, about clearing my mind of all thoughts, rather I should acknowledge a thought when it comes to my mind, and then deliberately dismiss it. And it hasn’t been as hard as I might have thought.
Since beginning my practice, I’ve noticed that I’m slower and more deliberate in everything. My vinyasa flow has more focus and intention. My daily meditation is a practice in slow, even breathing. Even when I hit the treadmill, elliptical or the sidewalks, I have a new intention, and it feels good.
It’s always been interesting to me how fitness can mean different things to different people at different times in their lives. It means something different when you’re training for a marathon versus when you’re recovering from one. Exercise can be a different experience in the morning as in the night. And for women it can be very different at the beginning, middle and end of your monthly cycle.
For me right now, it’s about focused and deliberate actions – in my meditation and my daily strolls, but it’s branching out into so much more. And that feels really good!
