One of the main purposes of “PraiseWalking” is to bring your spirit, soul, and body together in a place of growing. One way to do this is to practice spiritual exercises while walking, and one of the easiest exercises to do is a “Gratitude Walk”.  If you think of the 4 definitions of a noun “Person, Place, Thing or Idea” and use them as your guide, you can spend your whole walk thinking of things you’re thankful for. First you think of all the people, but instead of just listing names, be specific. For example, I might pray: I’m thankful for my husband who is, to me, an incarnation of Christ; He loves me unconditionally and shows me through that, the heart of God.

I am thankful for my son who has a serving, compassionate heart and a dry wit that makes me laugh out loud.

I am thankful for my daughter, the muse, who always brings a deep question to a light conversation, and makes us think. Then you move on to places, and in those places, experiences. Then things you’re thankful for, and why. Finally, think of things like love, joy, beauty, sorrow, pain, and anything else that is a part of your life. You might want to write yours down and share them below.  Or put them on your own blog, and link to it here. I’d love to create a HUGE collection of these, and start a gratitude revolution.  Wanna join me?

Darlene

Don’t forget to pick up your FREE COPY of the PraiseWalker Primer! And also, please check out my Christmas challenge here!

I’ve been in a bad place recently. I have an area of my life that was immersed in hurt and confusion and I didn’t know how to resolve things.

I asked a friend involved to tell me the truth about that part of my life. I hate asking for truth – you end up hearing really hurtful, shameful things about yourself – but it’s so much more freeing than wallowing in ignorance.

He spoke truth to me, faithfully, painfully, and with healing. It was hard to hear, but it was also very freeing.

As I took what he said to God, God showed me that I am seeking significance in things outside of Him:

Significance:

1. importance; consequence: the significance of the new treaty.

2. meaning; import: The familiar place had a new significance for her.

3. the quality of being significant or having a meaning: to give significance to dull chores.

When I seek significance outside of God I create dark, shameful things in my life.

The truth is, there is no significance outside of God. That’s easy to say. Not so sure how to live it out as fallen man. I’m going to begin, however, by rehearsing truth (something else we talked about), so I’ve turned to Neil Anderson’s “Who I Am in Christ” to begin with, starting specifically with “I Am Significant”:

I am significant… (click the links below for the verse)

• I am a branch of Jesus Christ, the true vine, and a channel of His life.
• I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit.
• I am God’s temple.
• I am a minister of reconciliation for God.
• I am seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm.
• I am God’s workmanship.
• I may approach God with freedom and confidence.
• I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

Amen

With that kind of significance behind me, I can hardly feel small.

Darlene

Don’t forget to pick up your FREE COPY of the PraiseWalker Primer!

The truth is, I absolutely hate Halloween. Except for adorable little children in fluffy costumes, I don’t see that the holiday has a single redeeming feature. Blood, guts, decomposing bodies, horrifying monsters all decorating our kids and our streets, nasty kids out there wanting to create damage and havoc, and then weeks of sugar crashes. No siree. Not for me. I wish someone would ban it.

However, I don’t want to be a humbug, so to make up for my bad feelings about Halloween, I’m giving anyone and everyone a gift.

It’s taken a lot of hours of writing and research, not to mention years of trial and error, but it’s finally done! The PraiseWalker Primer is ready and available for anyone who wants to have a simple, stress-free, pain-free way to get physically, mentally, and spiritually fit.

Here’s what it is:

• It’s a 126- page, nicely illustrated, step-by-step program for people who neither have the time nor the energy to work on wellness
• The program starts from total couch potato and eases you into a regular walking program over a period of 8 weeks
• You get small steps, working on only one area at a time for a two week period so there’s no overwhelm
• You get a specially designed journal that uses the latest research in accelerated learning to actually program your mind for success
• You learn creative prayer techniques that you can eventually apply to your walking program
• You master each of the pieces of PraiseWalking so you’re ready for level one which will train you to walk 5k
• and there’s are some simple nutritional tricks and suggestions that will help you lose weight without being hungry.

Better than that, I giving it away. For Free. No strings attached.

For those of you wanting to join me in Florida in January 2010, this is your first step, and it starts on Monday, Nov 1 if you want to keep up with the whole program.

Get the e-book here:

Happy Halloween!

Darlene

My Marathon Countdown – 6 days! (gulp!)

It’s amazing what you learn about the human body when you start to do more intense training.

Like the fact that you can go too far, too fast. I’m thinking this is where I am.

I’ve learned that there are wise ways and foolish ways to train for a big event like a marathon. I’ve managed to incorporate both – foolish at the beginning, and wiser now. Much wiser, I hope.

But here’s the problem. My marathon is in 6 days, and while I’m not suffering any pain or injury, I find I’m exhausted. I can hardly get through the day.

I know that I started the training with too much enthusiasm and not enough knowledge (so what else is new?) I have corrected my training along the way as I’ve done my research, but alas, I find myself less and less able to get through what have been easy, invigorating walks for me. This seems to be due to the phenomenon of overtraining.

I guess you can have too much of a good thing.

So, the plan of attack now is rest, water, good nutrition, while still keeping myself limber with easy walking instead of Bionic Woman stuff. Things any good ADD A-type personality is really great at. Sigh.

But I have found a great resource for the next time around: The Maffetone Method: The Holistic, Low-Stress, No-Pain Way to Exceptional Fitness

Happy walking!

Darlene

My Marathon Countdown – 9 days!

Hello all!

Today we’re going to start moving into some weight loss moves! I was stunned to see that I could go from a total couch potato, allergic to all exercise, to walking 300k a month, and not lose weight. Talk about depressing.

So I did some research, and discovered the joys of interval training, and the weight started coming off. I’ll share those secrets in these next few weeks.

So, here’s the line up for the coming week:

1. Equipment Needs: Download Prevention’s interval walking podcasts and have them ready. Also download “Pray-as-You-Go” for this week. We’ll only use three of them. I would also like to challenge you to spend the next forty days working through the book “The Purpose Driven® Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?*“. If you’ve already done it before, it’s a good idea to work through it again!

2. The Spiritual Challenge: We’ll continue to use “Pray-as-You-Go” on alternate walking days, and you will be working through “The Purpose Driven® Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?*“.

3. Nutritional Focus: Keeping up with your water, this week we are going to work on breakfast. There are just a few rules to remember for each breakfast, and they are:

1. Start with 1 oz of almonds
2. Eat 2-3 pieces of fruit or a fruit smoothie
3. Follow this with some oatmeal
4. Wait 5 hours before eating your lunch unless you have a blood sugar problem. Make sure your breakfast is sufficient to carry you that far.

4. The Exercise Program: Now that you are walking 10-15 minutes on a regular basis, we’re going to start adding some interval training. Because we are going to be increasing our speed, you need to focus a bit on walking posture so that you are walking as efficiently as possible. Don’t worry, it’s really not complicated. I’ve put a suggested walking plan below:

So that’s next week’s training plan. Try and find a friend to walk with – even if you walk at different times. Share your struggles, encourage each other, keep track of and celebrate your successes.

Post your results, struggles, triumphs and questions below!

Happy Walking!

Darlene

My Marathon Countdown: 16 days

Welcome to week 5 – how are you feeling? The water alone should be giving you more energy and clarity. I’d love to hear your feedback!

1. Equipment Needs: Download next week’s “Pray-As-You-Go” podcasts either from their site or from iTunes. You will also need to buy some raw, organic almonds, and soak them (you can see the instructions for doing so on this site).

2. The Spiritual Challenge: You will use the “Pray-as-you-go” podcast as a walking meditation this week.

3. Nutritional Focus: Something new! While still keeping up faithfully with your water, eat about 5-6 almonds right before each meal. Here’s why:

1. According to the BodyEcology diet website, almonds are one of the most nutritious of all nuts, and are a delicious source of protein, fiber, vitamin E, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, calcium, magnesium and zinc. Almonds are also the least acid-forming of all nuts.
2. More importantly than even that, according to the “Metabolic Balance” (C) diet, any protein eaten at the beginning of a meal jump-starts the fat-burning process of your body, so you automatically lose more weight.

   Check out more benefits and ideas for almonds here: Really Useful Fitness Blog

4. The Exercise Program: We’re going to continue to concentrate on our “designated walking times” this week, while still trying to remember to move as much as possible during the day. You need to find a workable time, five days a week, to go for a walk while listening to the podcast. The podcast is 10-13 minutes long, so I would suggest turning around after the first Bible Reading on the recording.

So that’s next week’s training plan. Remember to post your results, struggles, triumphs and questions below!

Happy Walking!

Darlene

Marathon Countdown: 20 days

I know, I know.  I’m an extremist.  I tend to go off the deep end, jump on bandwagons, and get fixated on weird stuff.  Ach, it makes life interesting.

Like this new tangent.

You see, shortly after deciding to walk a marathon, I began reading everything I could about walking.  All of these books talked about footwear.  One of them, Brain Training For Runners: A Revolutionary New Training System to Improve Endurance, Speed, Health, and Results mentioned trying an extremist shoe called the “Vibram 5 Fingers” shoe.  He said that it was like running in bare feet.  I thought that sounded dangerous.

When my sciatica showed up, I bumped into a book called Fix Your Feet: Build the Best Foundation for Healthy, Pain-Free Knees, Hips, and Spine and he’s a big supporter of being bare foot as often as possible. Still sounded a little extreme, even for me!

But here’s the premise:  If you always wear good supportive shoes, the muscles in your feet no longer have to work, and they begin to atrophy, causing all kinds of problems in your legs, hips and back.  Also, if you wear shoes with super spongy soles, your feet have trouble adjusting to your weight and the impact because they can’t read the signs properly.

Here’s the rub.  The shoes are wierd – I mean, look at them!  They also cost $70 and up.  To pay that much for an extremist shoe that looks stupid and might not be all it’s cracked up to be was too  much of a risk.

But my $170 shoes aren’t holding up very well.  300+ kilometers a month wear them out pretty quickly.  I’d rather replace them with $70 shoes if I can.

So, here’s the great news.  Steamboat Springs has a shoe store that carries them, and they were on for 50% off (I guess they’re ugly enough to put off the general population!) and so I took the risk.

My verdict?  I LOVE THEM! It’s a bit like walking in Ballet slippers (though they don’t look quite as graceful, LOL!) You somehow feel really connected to the ground, and you feel all the small pebbles and groves and bumps, but without pain.  Your feet kind of “spread into the earth” as you walk, and it’s a really cool experience.

My first test was just walking around town here (kudos to Tom and the kids who didn’t die of shame while walking with me).  Then I took them on a one-mile nature hike over stones and twigs and very uneven ground.  I didn’t turn my ankle once – which is unusual for me – and it felt wonderful to feel the earth beneath my feet.

The next test was 5k on concrete and asphalt to see if my heels could stand the jarring. No problems there.

Now, here’s the funny (sad?) bit

Then I tried a 16 mile (26k) hike up the mountain. I had a 26k endurance walk scheduled anyway. This seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a colossally bad one (understatement of the century). The shoes come with a warning that you need to get used to them slowly. Anyone with half a brain would have realized that going from 5k to 26k, and from smooth pavement to really rough mountain terrain with gravel, rocks, roots, and twigs all over the path, would have known that that was probably not wise (Duh!). I seem to have left both halves of my brain at home that day.

Actually, I did the first 15k without incident, and, in fact, really enjoyed the feel of the earth beneath my feet. Even the rocks were fine. The next 5k began to get uncomfortable and the final 6 were painful. I spent the afternoon and evening icing my feet and massaging them with anti-inflammatory cream, unable to walk. The next day was more of the same. PAIN. They healed pretty well by Sunday, enabling me to walk about 10 miles through Yellowstone Park – which was GREAT.

Did this discourage me? Not in the least. My stupidity does not mean the shoes are bad.

The result?  I got a second pair at 50% off before I left Steamboat Springs, and I’m ordering the thermal shoes for winter training once I get back to Calgary.  These are going to be my new favourite shoes!

VERY stylish, don’t you think? I think I could start a new trend here!

Darlene
(yep, those are my feet and my Vibram 5 Fingers in the photo)

My Marathon Countdown: 23 days

Here we are in week four already! I’m sure that by now you’ve seen that ANYONE can keep up with this program. The results, as far as weight loss is concerned, are slow to start with, but starting this next month, you should begin to see some good changes.

1. Equipment Needs: Nothing new this week.

2. The Spiritual Challenge: As you walk this week, check in with God en route. Let what you see and experience talk to you about who God really is. Ask Him to speak to you as you walk.

3. Nutritional Focus: Water – yep, sorry, it’s still the focus. It’ one of the best things you can do for yourself! Your timer is already beeping/buzzing every hour. Now when it goes off, check both your posture, and drink about 5 mouthfuls of water. If you like other drinks (coffee, tea, pop, juice) drink an additional glass of water before each of those other drinks. Stay close to a bathroom! LOL! To avoid hyponatremia put a small pinch of raw, unrefined sea salt in each glass.

4. The Exercise Program: We’re going to concentrate on our “designated walking times” this week. You need to find a workable time, five days a week, to go for a 10 minute walk. Try to not take more than one day off in a row, or you will break the momentum. I’ve put a suggested walking plan below:

So that’s next week’s training plan. Try and find a friend to walk with – even if you walk at different times. Share your struggles, encourage each other, keep track of and celebrate your successes.

Post your results, struggles, triumphs and questions below!

Happy Walking!

Darlene

I tend to attack things with a passion. I get pretty serious about my training.

Thankfully, God has a sense of humour.

A while back I got dressed for my walk – t-shirt, sweats, socks, shoes, etc. Then I started adding the “gear”: timer, iPod with the Nike attachment, pedometer, rosary, rosary prayer book, etc.(not that these all clip to my waistband or go in my pockets), and headed out.

The first couple of kilometers were, for some strange reason, fine. When I got a good distance from home I realized that the sweat pants I was wearing were a couple of sizes too large. They kept slipping down.

I spent the walk trying to see about attaching my gear in such a way as to keep my pants from falling down – attaching my sweats to my underwear only pulled them both down, attaching my sweats to my t-shirt made my timer pop off, etc.

I got pretty frustrated, wanting to complete my 16k as required, but before frustration turned to anger, I thought about what this must look like to anyone who might somehow be aware of what’s going on, and I started to laugh.

God loves to nudge me with a sense of my own ridiculousness. It’s so good for me to laugh at myself.

However, I have since retired those sweat pants from future walks!

Happy walking ( and remember to have fun and wear pants that fit!)

Darlene

Cat photo by John Nettleship, used with permission

Well, how did you do this week? Did you manage any or all of the training steps? Post your reaction below, and share with us your trials and triumphs. Let’s spur each other on to greater things!

Week one is behind us, so let’s look ahead to week 2. Remember these assignments all start on Monday so you have the weekend to get yourself “kitted out” and “psyched up”:

1. Equipment Needs: See last week for basic equipment, and this week add a timer, either a watch that beeps on the hour, or some other kind of timer.

2. The Spiritual Challenge: The big key with spiritual growth is making sure you’re on the right track in the first place. I love this quote by John Eldredge:

Life, for most of us, feels like a movie we’ve arrived to forty minutes late.

Sure, good things happen, sometimes beautiful things. But tragic things happen, too. What does
it mean? We find ourselves in the middle of a story that is sometimes wonderful, sometimes awful, usually a confusing mixture of both, and we haven’t a clue how to make sense of it all.
No wonder we keep losing heart.

We need to know the rest of the story.

For when we were born, we were born into the midst of a great story begun before the dawn of time. A story of adventure, of risk and loss, heroism, …and betrayal. A story where good is warring against evil, danger lurks around every corner, and glorious deeds wait to be done. Think of all those stories you’ve ever loved – there’s a reason they stirred your heart. They’ve been trying to tell you about the true Epic ever since you were young.

There is a Larger Story. And you have a crucial role to play.

That’s what our Spiritual walk is all about. Understanding the Larger Story and what our role is, in it. John’s book “The Epic” is the best book I’ve ever read on that story. Your Spiritual homework this week is to read it, listen to it, or watch it. It’s a pretty small book, but it will be hard to put down, I promise, and it will probably change the way you see everything.

3. Nutritional Focus: Water

• Now fill your water bottle up full. In the morning drink half before you get out of bed, and drink the other half before you leave your bedroom, to get ready for the day.

4. The Exercise Program: We’re going to continue to increase our daily steps, but this week we’re going to put our focus on our posture, as well.

And there you have it – very manageable tasks for each day of next week. Get your equipment together over the weekend, and off you go!

Post your results, struggles, triumphs and questions below!

Happy Walking!

Darlene