A Non-Gift Guide

(Author's Note: A shorter version of this post appears in the Dec. 2013 issue of Fargo-Moorhead Stride magazine.)

Virtually every magazine has holiday gift guides this time of year, and health and fitness magazines are no exception. “The runner on your list will love this fleece pullover!” “For your friend obsessed with bling, there’s a new line of Swarovski resistance bands.” (No, that is not a real product—probably.) Stocking stuffers, fitness gifts for pets, gifts for you, too, because you deserve it—there are products galore to give and receive, whomever you’re shopping for.

I sound cynical, I’m sure. The truth is, I love reading gift guides. I love to give and receive presents, and there are several fitness-related gifts I covet. But I also grow weary of consumerism, even when it is a means to an end like getting in shape. I am not against buying frivolous items from time to time, and I’m certainly not against buying basics. I consider things like a gym membership and quality footwear to be basics, at least for people of a certain income level. Still, the “buy, buy, buy” message we hear every day, in forms blatant and subtle, is a cause of much misery. You’re unhappy if you can’t have that shiny new toy. If you do get the toy, you realize more often than not that it really doesn’t make you happy. But there’s that other shiny new toy...

Image source: ourbreathingplanet.com

To say that you can’t buy intangible things like health, strength, and flexibility is putting things too simplistically, I suppose. You can buy a set of dumbbells that will make you stronger if you use them. You can hire a personal trainer. You can pay a heart surgeon to give you a heart transplant. And so on. You can give these things to others as gifts, too. But there are some things money really can’t buy, things that will never be on anyone’s Ultimate Gift Guide or list of 10 Frugal but Fabulous Secret Santa Presents. For the sake of fitting in, let’s give them their own list.

The Little Mouse Non-Gift Guide: Four Fitness Benefits You Just Can’t Buy

1. Muscle tone. It is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve overall muscle tone without exercise. Taking anabolic steroids might help a bit, but they provide negligible benefits if you don’t also exercise while taking them. Also, the side effects are horrifying. Also, they’re illegal. Then there’s the Shake Weight. Though I’m unqualified to evaluate the company’s claim of “scientifically proven results,” I can point out that it’s designed to tone the upper body only. Exercise is the clear winner here.

2. Resting heart rate. The Mayo Clinic website points out that in addition to fitness level, several other factors can affect your heart rate, including medications and body position. Stress reduction techniques and weight loss through diet can improve your resting heart weight, too, so exercise is not the only solution. But many sources agree that cardiovascular exercise is the best way to lower your resting heart rate. Even if you achieve this by adding meditation and dropping medications, for instance, you can’t buy any of these other methods either.

3. A sense of accomplishment. I am in the mood to keep playing devil’s advocate, so let’s acknowledge that some people can buy something like a sense of accomplishment relating to fitness. For instance, you could feel like you’ve accomplished something after a shopping spree of workout gear and clothing. Or you could vicariously feel achievement by watching an exercise class or sporting event. But we all know these “accomplishments” pale in comparison to the real thing, that glowy good feeling you get after a workout.

4. Holistic physical and mental health benefits. For weight loss, you can buy liposuction. For a better sex life, you can buy sex toys. For more energy, you can buy colorful little bottles of fruit-flavored taurine. In fact, there aren’t many single benefits of exercise that can’t be replicated in one way or another by buying something. However, cobbling together a suite of products is a poor proxy for the holistic health and well-being that exercise provides. Panaceas may not exist in this world, but exercise sure seems a lot like one. During the holiday season and every other time of year, it may be the best gift you can give yourself.

How is practicing an instrument like working out?

Shows like Glee convey the impression that music nerds and jocks don't have a lot in common. Despite what Sue Sylvester thinks, music and fitness are actually not dissimilar pursuits. If you enjoy one but don't believe you could do well at the other, consider these things that working out and practicing an instrument have in common.

Both can be painful in the short term, but they pay off in the long term.
At a certain point, it becomes clear to both musicians and athletes that there are no shortcuts. You just have to do the work, day after day, inching towards your goal, and that's it. [.....]

Read the full article on the Classical MPR website.

A Guide to Fitness Volunteering

(Note: A slightly different version of this post appears in the November 2013 issue of Stride magazine.)
  

What do you give back to your community—money, goods, professional services? These are worthy gifts, but there is something else most of us can give: our physical resources, our bodily strength and vitality. In some respects, this is the easiest way to give of yourself. It can be simply showing up at someone’s home, picking up a shovel, and throwing snow into piles. It can be walking around with a dog. It can be rock wall climbing with a child in a Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

Like monetary charity and general volunteerism, though, volunteering with your body—let’s call it fitness volunteering—often benefits from careful planning. Sometimes urgent need arises without warning, but be smart about fitness volunteering when you can. The limits of your physical energy and strength are even easier to appreciate viscerally than the limits of your bank account or the hours in a day.

There are all-purpose charity evaluators out there, like charitynavigator.org, but to my knowledge there is no fitness-focused equivalent, no guide to help you decide if a certain organization or cause is an appropriate recipient of your physical resources. So I have developed a brief questionnaire to help you fitness volunteer more thoughtfully.

Fitness Volunteering Questionnaire

1.   Is the organization actually a nonprofit? One of my online searches for volunteer opportunities led me to a Fargo-based retirement community seeking “exercise buddy” volunteers. It turned out that the organization is a corporation, not a nonprofit. You may decide an opportunity like this is still worthwhile, but determining an organization’s 501(c) (3) status will help you make a more informed decision.

2.   Is there a chance to be hardcore? Whether you even care about this question depends on what you want to get out of fitness volunteering. Stocking food bank shelves is a noble activity, and might in some cases provide a real workout, but there are many types of fitness volunteering that could launch you out of your physical comfort zones. Digging ditches for water conservation projects, for example, could be your chance to be a real badass.

3.   Is the timing flexible? Again, this question relates to your priorities. If work needs to be done within a certain time window, it may not align with when you are in top physical form. In that case, you might not be the best candidate for a particular volunteer job—though you’ll still be the best candidate if you are the only candidate. On the other hand, it might be just the challenge you need to exercise when you’re feeling fatigued rather than fresh.

Organization Spotlight (Fargo-Moorhead)

This list of organizations where you can fitness volunteer is a starting point. I limited it to the Fargo-Moorhead area, where I live. If nothing here captures your interest, think of what types of exercise you’re good at (or would like to get better at) and do some research on how you could combine them with volunteering.

1. Humane Society Fargo Moorhead – The Humane Society’s volunteering FAQ states, “In extreme conditions, volunteers can pet the dog inside” instead of walking it. Hmm, sounds to me like a challenge to be hardcore (as long as the animal is up for it).

2. YWCA Cass Clay – Volunteer opportunities include child care (which my experience as a preschool teacher taught me can be quite physically demanding if you play certain games with the kids), yard work at the emergency shelter, moving furniture for women transitioning from the shelter to their own homes, and leading fitness classes.

3. Watch the Wild – This program run by the national nonprofit Nature Abounds needs more volunteers in the Fargo area. Record the observations you make on nature hikes for the Nature Abounds database.

4. River Keepers – According to project coordinator Christine Laney, River Keepers organizes canoe trips for on-the-water clean-up of the Red River “anytime river levels allow, preferably for a couple of hours.”

5. Your neighbors or any nonprofit in the winter – My parents still do all their snow removal the old-fashioned way, which I really admire. Occasionally I’m visiting them when it snows, so I know how tough a cardio and back workout shoveling can be. If none of your neighbors need help with snow removal, contact local nonprofits to see if they could use a hand.