You’ll recall last Advent I shared a mega-link on the physiology of extended fasting. Meanwhile, Jimmy Akin (whom you should read), has been fasting for health reasons, and now has started sharing his experiences:
Fasting Notes – His initial report on his experiment with eating just one meal a day as a means of losing weight.
Fasting Update 1 – Q&A on all things related to his experient. (Religion, doctors, etc. etc.)
Why Newspaper Diet Advice is Terrible – I just thought this was funny. When apologists talk about nutrition, next thing you know, they’re fisking bad journalism. Ha!
If you’re one of those people who’d be happy just to scrape through a Lenten Friday without violating any Precepts of the Church, I’ve got you covered in my 101 on Lenten Tactics: Thwarting the Meat Demon.
Prayer and fasting is the beginning of everything. Everything. So if you suck at it? You can’t just give up. Try learning a little bit more about how it’s done, and maybe that will help you make a better go of it this Lent.
Once again, this cat photo replaces 1000 words on the miseries of Lent. Photo by Von.grzanka (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons
So the reason I vanished from the internet like I’d been kidnapped in broad daylight is that I had to quick plan a massive trip to Europe. (I know!) A different day, I will write more about the how-to’s of pulling off that feat; for now just know that yes, it consumed my every free minute from the moment the opportunity opened up until the transport, lodging, and insurance were firmly established.
You understand, because you, too, have something you want to do that, if you were suddenly given the chance, you’d drop everything and make it happen. I want to talk about what it takes to make that thing happen for you.
The One Big Thing
I think “bucket lists” are nonsense. Life isn’t like that. My list of priorities looks like this:
God.
My vocation as a wife and mother.
Everything else.
#1 and #2 are inseparably intertwined — doing one means doing the other, always. #3 is composed of all the other things that might be important, but that when push comes to shove you can pout all you want, I’m not available to do that thing you think I should be doing, if it interferes with #1 and #2.
Still, there’s a pile of good stuff behind door #3, including a long list of, “It would sure be nice if . . .” items. It would sure be nice to have a bigger, prettier house. It would sure be nice to visit New England. It would sure be nice to take the kids to Mount Vernon (God-willing, that’s next summer). The One Big Thing also sits behind door #3, but in a different corner of the Everything Else room.
We have a friend whose One Big Thing was to invest in a large, well-appointed home for his eventual wife and children. It was so important to him that he started saving up for that house while he was still in college. It’s not that he would have felt like he’d failed in life, or “missed out,” or that his happiness depended on having that house. It was just important enough to him that he was willing to sacrifice a lot of other good things in order to make it happen if he could. (And he did.)
You have some things like that. Things that maybe are achievable or maybe they aren’t, but if you do get the chance, you’d be willing to set aside a lot of other good stuff in order to make your One Big Thing happen.
The Things We Set Aside
So I’ve been thinking about taking my kids on this trip since I was sixteen years old.
(Yes, that’s right: I wasn’t dating anybody, I hadn’t yet met the man I’d eventually marry, it would be another decade before the first child was even born. I was sixteen years old and walking along a misty tree-lined alley leading up to a historic French chateau, and I knew that one day I wanted to share that moment’s experience with my future children.)
Everybody has a different financial picture, so this isn’t a talk about how if you just do what I do you can have your big thing. But I want to make it clear that there’s a long list of good, worthwhile things we’re forgoing to make the One Big Thing happen. On that list:
All superfluous purchases. I was going to bring home flowers for Valentine’s day, but I need that $2.99 to be in the bank this summer.
A laptop that works. My trusty Surface Pro has given it up, and thus one of the reasons I don’t write as much lately is that I don’t have a computer I can take to another room when the family’s all home, and I do have to jockey for time on the shared machines. So basically I’ve made the decision that something I really love, writing, is just not going to happen as much as I’d like, for a while.
A new-used car. Our minivan has 170,000 miles on it. The doors either don’t lock or don’t open or sometimes both. The paint job is Green and Black Cheetah because we’ve filled in with primer where the original finish is rusting out. There is no interior carpet anymore, just bare metal with strategically-placed rubber mats. We’d been planning to upgrade to something conceived this millennium, but my mechanical engineer tells me we can get that baby to 200K, no problem. So that’s what we’ll be doing.
Living room furniture. When we updated the circa-1985 paint in the living room and hallways this Christmas, we donated our couch and recliner, from the same era and in the same general condition, to other worthy recipients. What’s there instead? Lawn chairs. Really nice ones, yes: They’re the ones we got from Lowe’s on clearance and had previously been using to kit the screen porch. They just got promoted to a full-time, permanent gig as Chief Living Room Furniture.
More house space. Eventually that minivan is going to need to be replaced. Good thing we just painted, because this family of six is going to be squeezed into the three-bedroom ranch for a long time to come.
I mention that last one not because it’s a big deal (I know larger families living in smaller houses), but because to a lot of people, a spacious home is their One Big Thing.
You just have to know yourself and know what trade-offs fit the kind of person you are. No matter how rich you are, you can’t have everything you’re able to want. We all have to prioritize, and give up some good things in order to have other good things that are more important to us.
Seizing the Day
I’m not omnipotent nor omniscient, and neither are you. There’s no telling what will happen between now and the end of June. Perhaps our plans all come to naught. One of the ways you know you’ve hit your One Big Thing is because you can honestly say to yourself: Even if this doesn’t work out, I have to try it, because I will always regret not having taken my chance when it came.
[Tip: If you are making a significant financial investment in anything, get that investment insured. You can insure a house, a car, a boat, a musical instrument, and yes, even a trip.]
In our case, what happened is that we were thinking about taking a much more reasonable, but still-ambitious, stateside family trip. That was another thing we’ve always wanted to do and here we were: The kids were at the ideal age, my health was finally decent again, there was a slot when we could take the time off and make it happen.
So we talked about a variety of other, much more sane choices. Then one day I came to my senses. I told my husband: I would rather not go anywhere this summer, and save up for as long as it takes to make my One Big Thing happen.
And he briefly set aside all reason and scruples and determined that he really, really loves me, and that maybe we should talk about this. I pointed out that I’ve been talking about doing this trip since as long as he’s known me, and also there has not been a single time in the past decade when I was physically able to make it happen. Our son graduates high school next year. If I wanted to do it, now was literally the only time.
So I did it. Trip is booked.
This is where we’re going. Photo by Fr_Antunes (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons. And no I won’t be live-blogging it, because: I don’t have a working laptop. That’s fine. My One Big Thing wasn’t “taking the internet on this trip,” it was, “taking my kids on this trip.” I don’t recall ever giving birth to a computer, thanks.
Tip of the day: Once the teenagers are 4-6 inches taller than the mother, it’s time to reorganize.
–> Remove all the controlled-access food items (biscotti, etc.) from the high shelf, and store them down low instead. Behind the cleaning supplies is most effective.
If the mother is the only one who has to stand on the counters to reach what she wants, you’re doing it wrong.
I rarely blog about it, but a few readers know that I sometimes take on private writing or editing projects. Most recently I got to work with Sean O’Halloran from SO’ Creative on a film project for a small parish group. We were both working pro-bono — he did the filming, I was the primary author on the script.
Lesson learned: This is a guy you want on your short list.
He doesn’t monkey around. Even though he was working purely as a volunteer on this one, he was 100% professional. I’m not sure Sean even knows how to do something halfway.
He’s good at bringing your idea to life. Sean took everything the group brought to the project, and then he worked with the team to help them achieve their goals.
Some examples of how perfectly he did this:
I had a basic script, but no clue how to turn that into a screenplay — so Sean took my draft and converted it into a set of working documents that could be used on the set.
The parish group had a good director on the project, Carol Pelster from Catholic Playscripts; Sean had no trouble working with her on the set, understanding the vision she had for the film and what sorts of extra shots to propose to capture that vision.
As the group was filming, when the actors would improvise bits of characterization, Sean knew how to direct the all-amateur cast so that their ideas read well on film.
It never ever felt like The Professionals Have Arrived, Get Out Of The Way. The entire process was more like, “We know what we want, but how do we get there?” and Sean helped the group get there.
You won’t meet more gracious people. I run in some of the same circles as the O’Hallorans, and I’m continually impressed by how down-to-the-bones courteous this family is. When I go to an O’Halloran event, I’m in awe at how seriously Sean and his wife Tracy take their work of hospitality. On the film set, Sean was disciplined and professional, but always completely calm, patient, and polite.
Sean donated an enormous amount of time to this parish project, and when I spoke to his wife about how the group could thank him, she said, “As many referrals you can send his way as possible!”
To see if the kind of work you need is the kind that he does, scroll down on the SO’ Creative website and click through on each project-type to view the corresponding portfolio. Edited to add: You can also view some of Sean’s graphic design work at the SO’ Creative Facebook page. Tracy gave me her quick list of the kinds of projects he does most:
Graphic Design
Photography
Editing
Retouching
Sound Design
Videography/Cinematography/Director/Producer
Sean takes on projects of all kinds. In addition, Catholic readers should know that the O’Hallorans are faithful, committed Catholics — so if you are working on a project that involves the faith, Sean is in a position to make sure your message comes across clearly and accurately. Give him a look, and please recommend him to your friends. Thanks!
A rolodex is a thing that was invented to make this lady’s life easier. It did what your “contacts” list does, except that it still works even when your phone isn’t charged.
So next up on the dashboard is a post sharing parents’ confirmation class experiences from around the country. But meanwhile, Margaret Rose Realy — yes, this Margaret Rose Realy — let me in on the secret about The Lake of Beer.
No one told me about this.
We have a Lake of Beer.
Catholics get a Lake of Beer.
People: Christian Mysticism –> Lake of Beer.
I don’t understand why we’re not taking advantage of this situation.
I mean, yes, “Infinity Mercy” is a fine theme for Confirmation class. Sure sure sure. But there outta be an asterix and fine print on the bottom of the t-shirt that says and also a Lake of Beer.
Catholic mystics do it right.
Artwork: Stained Glass of St. Brigid of Ireland via Wikimedia [Public Domain]
This time a year ago, my littlest homeschooler asked if she could go to St. Urban’s, the elementary school that serves several parishes in the region. We knew some of the families at the school and liked what we saw. She had made friends with girls her age at parish events. It was not an agonizing decision, because we had already been considering the move for about a year. We did a little more research and decided this was the time.
Our experience so far has been nothing but positive. Since this is Catholic Schools Week, let me share a few of the reasons we love our school.
Everyone is kind and friendly.
When I was researching the school, I spoke to a friend who had volunteered there and at a number of other elementary schools in the region. She said to me: “I can honestly say that St. Urban’s is what a Christian school should be.”
The administration actively works to promote kindness and encouragement among the students. Recently on the drive into town my daughter told me she had to write a persuasive paper, and she had chosen the topic ofwhether there ought to be school uniforms. She asked my opinion, and I gave her the long list of reasons mothers love uniforms (thank you, school, for a simple, stain-resistant, affordable set of uniform options). I finished up by adding, “And that way, for example, a mean girl can’t say oh your skirt is so ugly, because she’s wearing the same skirt.”
To which my daughter replied: “Mom. This is St. Urban’s. We don’t have bullies. The worst thing that happened is that Scholastica wanted to play with Benedicta at recess but not Ignatia, and then they all ended up playing together anyway.”
The friendliness is welcoming to me, too. The administration respects my time. The school’s academic reputation isn’t built on sending home young children with mountains of homework every night. We parents aren’t saddled with a bazillion overwhelming volunteer projects and fundraisers. When teachers or staff do ask for parent help, they take into account our varying circumstances.
I know some private schools have a “type” of parent, and if you don’t fit in you’re on the outs. Our school is truly Catholic — truly diverse. Not just in terms of race and national origin (though there is that), but also in terms of the parents’ professions, state in life, personalities, and dare I say it: social class. It’s not a prep school, it’s a parish school.
Our faith as Catholics is 100% supported.
The school Mass is both beautiful and edifying. Prayer is part of the rhythm of the day. There are Bible verses on the walls, a well-delivered religion curriculum, and an enthusiastic attitude towards Catholicism that permeates everything the school does. I don’t know all the teachers very well, but I know that the two teachers who have the most influence on my daughter both exhibit a sincere and profound faith.
Before she went to school, my daughter was homeschooled by me. There are ways the Catholic faith was shared in our homeschool that don’t happen at the parish school, but the reverse is also true. When I came to eat lunch with my daughter, I asked her as we sat down and pulled out lunch bags, “Do we wait for grace?”
“We already said grace in our classroom,” she said. “And also the Angelus.”
The children ate and then talked quietly. The teacher who was serving as lunch monitor complimented the children, as a group, on how her husband had been moved to tears by their beautiful singing that Sunday at Mass. The children swept up and prepared to leave. Before dismissal to recess, everyone stood and faced the massive crucifix in the cafeteria and prayed the second grace, thanksgiving after the meal.
My daughter’s teachers know her.
The school is small. There are about fifteen children in each grade (it varies), so that the total school enrollment hovers comfortably within knowable limits. (See here for the theory of Dunbar’s Number, andhere for TheNew Yorker’s explanation of it. I have found this to be true in practice.) My daughter has been with the school less than six months, and already knows the names of all the students except the very youngest. But more important me: Her teachers have time to know her.
When I went to the parent-teacher conference after the first quarter, the 5th grade teacher sat down with me and talked about my daughter. She talked about my daughter’s strengths and weaknesses; what she needed to work on; and how her transition to school was going. To all of it, my only answer was: Yes, you are correct.
I’ve been teaching and rearing this child for ten years, I know her. All these things you describe? That’s my girl. You’ve paid attention, you’ve gotten to see the real her, you obviously care about her. She’s not lost here. There’s a real relationship going on, rooted in both love and quantity-time spent together getting to know one another.
The curriculum is well-chosen.
Between homeschooling and my years of small-format teaching in religious education, chastity education, parenting classes, French, economics, logic, debate, apologetics, can’t remember what else, and maybe a little tutoring here and there . . . I’ve evaluated curriculum. Oh and I wrote a book that has a thing or two to say about how to structure a class.
If nothing else, I know how to see whether a class is working or not, and what is or isn’t successful.
Everything that happens at our parish school makes sense.
Sometimes the book the teacher is using is right off my shelves, sometimes it’s one I’ve never heard of before. But I am still waiting for the day when I see some assignment or activity and can’t figure out what the point is. Everything I’ve seen so far fits with the goal. I can immediately see why the teacher chose a particular activity, and how it fits into the bigger picture. There is no busy-work. Everything converges on a well-built whole.
Sure, I’d heard it was a decent school, but I wasn’t quite expecting it to be this good. I’ll take it.
The school makes the most of its strengths.
One of the mistakes people make about homeschooling is thinking that it’s supposed to be just like school. That approach doesn’t work. Homeschooling isn’t for that. Homeschooling has a dynamic that’s unlike school, and that’s part of the point. If you try to re-create school at home, you’ll be harried and overwhelmed. The trick to homeschooling is to make the most of the distinctive strengths that only homeschooling can offer.
My parish school does that too.
There are ways to teach and learn that can only happen when you’ve got a dozen or so students the same age. There are cooperative projects with other programs nearby that take advantage of St. Urban’s downtown location. Even the way the classes are organized teacher-by-teacher makes sense developmentally — at least in the upper grades, which is what I’ve seen, the right teacher is assigned to each grade and specialty subject.
My daughter loves it there.
No school can be everything to everybody. My daughter thrives on structure, gentle but firm discipline, clearly stated learning objectives, and frequent feedback via formal assessments. Any time a child changes school systems there’s an adjustment period. She didn’t arrive at school having mastered The Way Things Are Done Here. Her teachers brought her up to speed through a steady combination of clear correction and enthusiastic encouragement.
She’s a normal kid. Left to her own devices, she’d gladly sit around watching sitcoms and eating endless bowls of ice cream. There’s a time and place for leisurely pleasures, but what she gets at St. Urban’s — the reason she’s excited to go to school every day — is the profound happiness that comes from having her genuine needs met so well. Her need for love, her need for guidance, her need for growth: Everyone at the school works together to do their part in meeting those needs.
Addendum: About that award she got.
Some people from the parish who read this blog might be thinking You’re just all rosy in the afterglow of your kid getting an award after Mass this morning. Truth? It’s the other way around. I started writing this post in my head months ago, and sat on it because I kept waiting for the inevitable bad day to show up so I wouldn’t be all honeymoon-googly-eyes. I started writing this post on my PC earlier this week, but it’s been coming along slowly because my primary vocation keeps getting in the way.
And thus before I could finish writing, first semester Awards Day came around. You know what happened? They quick gave out certificates to the honor roll kids, and then moved on to the big event.
What’s the big event? Grade by grade, each teacher gave a short talk about two students in her class who merited particular distinction. One student was lauded for attitude, effort, and improvement academically — not for grades earned, but for the student’s perseverance and diligence regardless of academic difficulties. The other honored student was praised, in descriptive detail, for kindness, integrity, piety, generosity — all the virtues that aren’t about being Number One, and are about being more like Jesus Christ.
That’s what I want in a Catholic school.
The sisters agree: If you cultivate the virtues, you’ll get the best academics you can have.
Yesterday I wrote about why ever-expanding parishes are a sign of trouble. This does not mean that a big parish is a bad parish; it means that if a diocese is growing in pewsitters but not in religious vocations, it’s growing spiritual fat, not muscle. The good news is that stored energy, in the form of pewsitters, can be converted into a healthy Body of Christ just as soon as the head makes up its mind to start doing the things it takes to regain spiritual vigor.
You should come visit St. William in Round Rock, Texas. We are the largest parish in the diocese with no sign of growing slower. Our post confirmation program retention rate is 4x the national average . . . and our parish faith formation programs (pre-k through high school) are thriving in ways that make our “mega church” work. We are also blessed to be a 100 year old parish in which the founding family still attends (and can often be seen in the trenches of service oriented work). We come from humble beginnings, have a multicultural background, and are rich in heritage – Mexican/Anglo/rich/poor, etc.
You should come talk to our priest, Father Dean Wilhelm, our adult faith formation director Noe Rocha and our high school and middle school youth ministers, Chris Bartlett and Gwen Bartlett (they are brother and sister). They are also co-founders of a mentoring ministry called Next Level Ministry, designed to help youth ministers get the most out of their programs.
Martina is behind the Jesus is Lord program, one of the key elements of St. William’s success, and which you can read about in detail:
Back up a second though and notice the title for Week 10 of the Jesus is Lord series. If you are not familiar with the concept of “Intentional Discipleship” you need to read Sherry Weddell’s excellent books on the topic, Forming Intentional Disciplesand Becoming a Parish of Intentional Disciples. The first book explains the problem, and the second tells you step-by-step how to solve it. Book three, Fruitful Discipleship comes out in April 2017.
FID and BPID are both best suited to intermediate-level lay readers. You don’t have to be a genius or on staff at the parish, and both books are eminently readable, but when my own discipleship group read FID, some of the members found the density of the book a little overwhelming. After you’ve read the book yourself, if you want to communicate and discuss the ideas in Forming Intentional Disciples with a broader audience of parish lay-leaders and future lay-leaders, the free CatholicMom.com study guide for Forming Intentional Disciples provides a snapshot summary of the key ideas and a few discussion questions for each chapter.
We are fortunate to live in a diocese where good design is flourishing. I don’t for a moment wish to naysay any of the hard work and sacrifice that went into creating these beautiful new buildings. On the contrary — I am grateful beyond expressing.
But let’s not delude ourselves: The very existence of some (not all) of this new construction should be an elegant, delightful, but shocking warning sign.
The Myth of the Flourishing Parish
Let’s look at St. Mary’s as a case study. The original St. Clare’s chapel, now devoted to perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, was succeeded by the first St. Mary’s Help of Christians parish church early last century. You can read an insightful history of Catholicism in the region — dating back to the 16th century — here. The historic St. Mary’s parish church is still in use. It wasn’t replaced because it was no longer habitable. It was replaced because there were too many parishioners to fit into the building.
This sounds like a good problem, right? It is, in a way.
It would be more accurate, however, to say: There were too many parishioners for the number of priests.
The Catholic population in Aiken, SC, as with the rest of the diocese, has grown significantly due to retirees moving south (we get your empty church parts to refurbish our buildings), professionals moving here from other parts of the United States, immigrants arriving from around the world, a certain number of conversions, and of course old-fashioned human reproduction. Some of this represents spiritual growth; some of it is just other parts of the world sending us their Catholics.
But regardless of the cause, an unavoidable fact is now set in stone, brick, and concrete: We are not producing priestly vocations in adequate numbers.
Still, the arithmetic doesn’t lie. Some parishes are on fire with the faith. Some Catholics — in every parish — are wildly in love with Jesus and have the fruit to prove it. But mostly we have to make larger buildings because we have pewsitters who love the pews, but who wouldn’t want to get carried away with any craziness. Catholicism is legit here these days. Church-going is civilized. If you’re nicely married, it’s a wholesome place to raise the kids.
We feel good about our faith and we do good works, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d really give your life over for. We pat ourselves on the back if we get the teens to Adoration for ten minutes. We’re wildly excited if a young couple gets married in the Church — the idea that most young adults would remain Catholic after high school is a rich fantasy. Some statistics, via Brandon Vogt:
79% of former Catholics leave the Church before age 23 (Pew)
50% of Millennials raised Catholic no longer identify as Catholic today (i.e., half of the babies you’ve seen baptized in the last 30 years, half of the kids you’ve seen confirmed, half of the Catholic young people you’ve seen get married)
Only 7% of Millennials raised Catholic still actively practice their faith today (weekly Mass, pray a few times each week, say their faith is “extremely” or “very” important)
90% of American “nones” who left religion did so before age 29 (PRRI)
62% leave before 18
28% leave from 18-29
If you’re not even Catholic, you are highly unlikely to become a Catholic priest.
Old Warning Signs
For as long as I’ve been talking to catechists and faith formation leaders, the refrain has been the same: “The kids in religious ed don’t even go to Mass.” Some do, of course (mine, and quite a few others I know), but a surprising number of children are dropped off for CCD but never taken to Mass. The situation is so dire that some parishes have resorted to requiring children preparing for sacraments to provide hard evidence they attend Sunday Mass, such as getting a bulletin signed.
Here’s another example by way of a personal story. My daughter’s would-be confirmation sponsor is an ardent young Catholic well known by many in the local Catholic community. As we put together paperwork, however, we discovered that due to an oversight when the family purchased a new home, they are not presently registered at the parish they attend most. We’ll get it all straightened out one way or another, don’t be scandalized because there is no scandal.
But the underlying situation is this: It is now the rule that the way we “prove” someone is a “practicing Catholic” is via a set of papers and financial transactions. Get registered, turn in collection envelopes, and you qualify for a “Catholic in Good Standing” letter. The idea that one could simply be a faithful Catholic known in one’s community is utterly foreign to the present practice.
What if you trusted people when they said the godparents or sponsor were good Catholics? We have come to fully expect people would outright lie as a matter of course.
Thus we live with a different set of lies. We as a Church are so alienated from any sense of real community that we depend on bureaucratic proxies that supposedly indicate a practice of the faith, but everyone knows that they don’t. Everyone knows that teenagers go through confirmation to make their parents happy, and then drop out at first opportunity. Everyone knows that the confirmation class is composed of kids who last attended Mass at their First Communion. Everyone knows that when we teach the Catholic faith assiduously, the kids whisper to themselves, right there in class, which parts they think are bunk.
The parts they think are bunk are almost invariably the parts their parents likewise think are bunk. The Catholic Church is the stronghold of people who know how to shut up, smile, and get along.
Repeating Ourselves to Death
Any student of Church history can attest that things have always been shockingly bad. The behavior of Catholics is the incontroveritble evidence that God must be holding this institution together, because it sure isn’t us. That is not, however, an excuse to keep on behaving badly.
I write this today because I’m concerned that our beautiful new buildings will lull us into continued complacency. We will persuade ourselves that what we’ve been doing is working.
It isn’t.
The buildings themselves cry it out. We shouldn’t have mega-parishes. We should have enough priests that when the parish overflows, we’re ready to form a second parish nearby.
The lack of priests isn’t some mystical aberration. God isn’t suddenly pleased with the idea of men exhausted from administering multiple parishes and saying half a dozen masses in a weekend and having to rely on collection envelopes to know who comes to Mass because they couldn’t possibly meet all the parishioners they are supposed to be pastoring. Nonsense.
We have no priests because we are very good at getting along and forming lovely clubs, but we are terrible at being Catholic.
If we don’t change this, St. Mary’s beautiful new building in Aiken will enjoy a brief sojourn as a Catholic Church, and then go the way of Sacred Heart across the river, no longer a church, now just a lovely but Godforsaken building.
Artwork: Postcard courtesy of Boston Public Library (Sacred Heart Church, Augusta, Georgia) [CC BY 2.0, Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
If you made ambitious fitness resolutions this year, they have probably fallen apart by now. If so, this message is for you:
Try small workouts instead.
By “small” or “short” what I mean is an amount of exercise that seems hopelessly ineffective, but that you can actually manage to do.
When I was racing, “short” was a thirty-minute sprint on the bike. When I was so sick I couldn’t walk an 1/8th of a mile, “short” was ten sit-ups, then lay on the floor and recover for five minutes, then do ten more. Your “short” is someone else’s “long,” and your “big” is someone else’s “small.” The key here is that if you are not succeeding at what you think you should be accomplishing, try scaling back instead of giving up.
Are short workouts beneficial?
Yes! At the extreme end of the spectrum, here’s a study that found that breaking up a long day by just 1 minute and 40 seconds of exercise every hour results in lower plasma glucose and insulin than sitting around with no exercise break. Even if you are ill to the point that you can do almost nothing, you’re still better off getting micro-bouts of exercise than doing nothing at all. (And in fact, you’re better off than if you workout for thirty minutes then sit all day, the study found.)
If you can exercise more, have at it. But if you can’t seem to pull that off, trying doing something instead of doing nothing.
10 Reasons Short Workouts Succeed
The main reason I recommend short walks or other exercise is that it works. That other thing you aren’t doing isn’t working. This is a thing you can do.
#1 You can slip a short workout into a tight schedule. The boss probably won’t let you spend 30 minutes mid-morning at the gym, but might be fine with five minutes walking around the building while other people are lounging at the coffee machine. The spouse might not be ready to watch the kids for an hour at the end of a long day while you go off to do a super-workout, but probably can manage fifteen minutes while you sneak out and run sprints. The baby will be hungry and angry after forty-five minutes in the stroller, but might put up with ten minutes. You might have children at the in-between age when they can’t be left alone for long periods, but can safely occupy themselves while you jog around the block.
#2 Short workouts are easier on the wardrobe. Not every workout can be completed in any clothing at all, but you can do push-ups while wearing business-casual, or go out for a quick walk in clothes you wouldn’t wear for a 5k.
#3 Short workouts are more weather-resistant. If it’s extremely hot, cold, windy, or wet, your body can tolerate short exposure with much less preparation and stress than long exposure. If it’s snowy, a short trudge through the snow is realistic, a long hike through the snow is exhausting.
#4 Short workouts are easier to orchestrate and harder to miss. You don’t need a lot of space or a gym to do some quick calisthenics. You might not have time to go out for a three-hour bike ride, but you can ride your bike to the store for groceries. You might not have immediate access to a good place to go for a forty-minute walk, whereas if you’re just getting out for five or ten minutes, you could do laps around the block, down to the corner store and back, around the parking lot, around the building — lots of options. Likewise, if you get to the end of the day and still haven’t exercised like you hoped, you probably can’t cause an extra hour to be added to your day, but you could squeeze in a ten minute walk or a stack of push-ups and sit-ups.
#5 You can always go longer. If you think the toddler’s going to mutiny after ten minutes but she’s still happy as a clam, you can keep on strolling. If you thought you’d be exhausted after just your short circuit because you’re a weakling that way, but actually you feel great, you can add on more time.
#6 You can test the waters. Sometimes you feel sluggish because you’re getting sick and need to rest, and other times you feel sluggish because you need to get up and move around and clear your head. If you go out for a short walk and it makes you feel better, you can keep on going or else make a note to do a more vigorous workout later in the day. If you go out for what would normally be a refreshing short walk and instead you feel like you’re made of lead, you know you really should take a rest day.
#7 Short workouts keep you fit for bigger, better days. If you have a sport you like to practice on weekends or vacations or with the team once a week, fitting in small workouts during your “off” days maintains a level of fitness for your sport that can help prevent injuries and improve your performance. If you are currently dealing with a health or personal situation that prevents you from exercising the way you’d like to, small workouts now provide a base for safely ramping up to bigger things when the time finally comes. If your life is always erratic, working out in small ways when opportunities are scarce allows you to take the most advantage of the odd spurt when you can do more.
#8 Short workouts work well with injuries. You might not be able to put miles and miles on your bad knee, but maybe you could still do a lap or two — some walking is better for bone density and posture and heart health than no walking. You might not be sure how to exercise for an hour without aggravating your back, your shoulder, and your spider bite, but you might be able to think up ten minutes worth of exercises that don’t make anything worse.
#9 Short workouts every day mean fewer days with no exercise. Let’s say you pencil in two big workouts a week. If you blow those days, they’re gone. You might not have two other days when you can set aside that much time. If your plan, in contrast, is several short workouts each day, if you don’t make your full goal for the day, you might still make half your goal. If yesterday was a bust because you had that horrid cold that’s going around and also you were trapped in the cellar waiting out a tornado, today you can still get something done because you aren’t scheduling all-or-nothing exercise days.
#10 Short workouts don’t sabotage bigger workouts. If your normal routine includes long, intense physical exercise, you aren’t going to blow yourself out by taking a quick walk around the block. If you ride your bike three miles to work because you think you’re going to have to stay late and not be able to go on a real ride, and then the client reschedules and thus you can get your big ride in, those three miles aren’t going to prevent you from riding the other forty. 50 sit-ups this morning aren’t going to prevent you from finishing your whole CrossFit routine this evening, if it turns out you can get to the gym after all.
If you’re getting a lot of exercise, keep on doing that. But if you are getting zero exercise, try aiming for an amount you can definitely accomplish. You can always add more.
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}