My friend, Kim and I like to run a five mile route a few days a week, the mornings I don’t teach classes at the Gem of the Hills. As we pass through the State Park, on the home stretch, I sometimes feel inspired with an idea for your fit tip. Here’s what came to me during my run with Kim last Tuesday:
Giant trees are wonderful! We plant them for all sorts of reasons, don’t we? We want shade. We want pecans or peaches (pick your fruit). We want hardwood for lumber or to burn. We want soft wood to craft things into pieces of artwork or to build other useful things. We plant trees simply for beauty, sometimes. There are many, many motivations we might have to plant a tree, but no matter what the reason, many purposes are served by it in the end. A tree may easily outlive the one who plants it, depending on the type of tree planted and the care it receives. It may live on to become something more than the one who planted imagined. A tree planted for its nuts, may end up being used to smoke jerky, one day. A broken, old stump of a tree planted to shade a country cabin, long gone, may in the end, supply just the right kind of bark to start a fire for a group of Boy Scouts…
The metaphorical parallel in all of this is to your fitness endeavor. Your motivation may be one or more of various goals; you may want to lower your blood pressure, or maybe get your blood sugar under control. Perhaps you want to feel more energized or look better in your clothing. You want to be able to play with your grandchildren, or even your children, without tiring out as easily. Regardless of your motivation to begin with, multiple purposes are served by your exercising and eating in a healthy manner. A healthy lifestyle, including a regular exercise program helps accomplish all of the end results I’ve mentioned and many more.
When I run beneath a giant pecan tree in the park, I see and am grateful for its majesty, its beauty, its fruit, its shade. I see in it potential for so many things…all because someone sowed a seed…years ago. No matter why the tree was planted, it provides so many wonderful gifts. It’s the same with your body. No matter why you choose to improve your health, many wonderful effects will result.
“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Galatians 6:7)
Sally Windham-Blackburn is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Instructor in Blanco, TX. Please send questions and comments to sally_blackburn@yahoo.com
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