Farmer's Walk / Sunset

 

Song:  Lady of the Lake

YouTube Channel:  Legends of Fantasia

As summer is rapidly approaching...

and as it gets nearer to the summer solstice...

the sun's arc has naturally been shifting more and more westwards.

As a result...

I had to change my sunset point to one farther down the mountain...

as at the old one...

the complete western sky is occluded by the natural lay of the land.

The old sunset point is for the Autumn and Winter sunsets...

and this new one is for Spring and Summer sunsets.

I had missed most of last night's sunset as I was working out...

and by the time I had gone outside to do a session of the Farmer's Walk...

I had noticed that almost the entire sky was a glorious golden.

I had hurriedly finished up my session...

grabbed my camera...

 leashed Bandi to my trike...

and headed off to the Spring / Summer sunset point.

By the time Bandi and I had hit the road...

most of the colors had faded.

On my way down the mountain...

I had stopped briefly to capture what I could of the rapidly setting sun.

I feared had I not taken some photos on the way down...

I would have missed most of the sunset before I reached Sunset Point

(I was correct...

by the time Bandi and I had reached sunset point...

the sunset was almost completed).

We had arrived...

and I began to take whatever pictures I could of the last vestiges of colors in the sky.

After the last of the colors had faded...

Bandi and I started back up the mountain towards home.

Bandi got a good amount of exercise...

especially on our way back...

as it was all uphill.

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Bandi loved her exercise session.

Once we got back...

Bandi began gratefully licking at my face.

She loves going on runs in the mountains.

After cooling off...

I then gave myself a haircut...

took a nice hot shower...

and I then just relaxed for the night.

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Exercise is one of the keys to living a wonderful life.

It so greatly enhances all sensations...

and speeds up the mind as it calms the body.

Sleep comes naturally and continues unabated and deeply.

The Farmer's Walk is the single greatest exercise for both...

males and females.

If you can only do one exercise...

this is the one to do.

I am slowly building up in carried weight during my sessions.

I am still healing from previous conditions...

but with a gentle and continuous progression of stress...

although adaptation comes more slowly the more we age...

I expect to keep growing and adapting until the day I die.

Research is showing that Sarcopenia (the loss of muscle tissue)...

is not merely indicative of the nearing of the end of life...

it is also a causative factor.

Muscle greatly improves the metabolic rate...

which naturally and continuously burns excess glucose...

even through a full day after exercising...

which lowers and stabilizes blood sugar all day long...

and it is uncontrolled blood sugar which has been found to greatly increase

everything from dementia to inflammatory and other metabolic diseases.

Also...

losing muscle in the body also lowers hormonal output...

which further increases muscle loss.

It becomes a self-reinforcing loop of slowly increasing poor health...

and an early death.

Especially for the elderly...

the Farmer's Walk is one of the few exercises

that forces growth throughout the entire body...

not just of the muscles...

but of the ligaments, tendons, and bones.

The key is to carry enough weight...

for long enough...

 to force adaptation.

A medium goal is to build up to being able to at least carry...

(for women) your own body weight for a total of 1,000 feet (about 1/5 mile)...

and for men...twice your own body weight for the same distance.

In order to accomplish this...

it is best to do the Farmer's Walk in sets of 100 or so feet...

with at least a few minutes rest between sets.

This will allow you to carry enough weight to stimulate overall body growth.

Repeated sets will build stamina and conditioning (HIIT).

Just slowly add the number of sets with a given weight until 10 repeated sets may be done...

and then add weight and drop the sets to 2 and slowly build up once again...

only increasing the sets once it becomes comfortable.

At first...

larger leaps in weight may be done...

but as the weight increases...

lower amounts will be necessary.

You will have to listen to your body.

Only when the stimuli is high and long enough...

and then the body is allowed to rest and fully recover...

does any growth occur (supercompensation). 

If you are sore at all...

you haven't fully recovered.

Endurance exercise will help in the recovery...

but do no heavy resistance exercise of any type until you are fully recovered.

A long term goal is to keep adapting for life.

It sends a general alarm to the whole body to adapt.

Hormones begin to flow at an increased rate...

and the effect is realized in body and mind.

A greatly added benefit of exercise...

healthy longevity.

Way too much emphasis has been placed on the diet alone.

The key to the longevity of the longest lived people in the world...

was not of a particular diet (as it varies...so long as it wasn't unhealthful)...

but of exercise.

That is the key variable in all of them

(some ate high amounts of animal protein and fat

(The Inuit and the Masai)...

some ate mostly fish and veggies

(Okinawans and Sardinians)...

and while none ate a lot of highly processed foods...

 they all exercised just in the natural course of daily chores).

Of course...

a basic healthful diet is also a key variable...

but so far as animal protein vs vegetable...

the key affecting variable is exercise.

From the older generations of the people of the Hunza Valley...

to Okinawa...

to the highlands of Sardinia...

people who got regular exercise...

lived decades longer...

and had much healthier and happier lives

(the older generations had to walk or physically labor as part of their daily life).

During many of the years when I was taking care of my mother...

I had developed an inflammatory condition 

which had prevented me from even walking any appreciable distance...

as my knees became greatly inflamed, which resulted in great pain.

It was this...in conjunction with other factors...

which had prevented me from exercising to any great degree for years.

Once moving to my home high in the Rockies of Colorado...

I began to realize that the key to regaining my health...

was to control inflammation in my body.

I had done it through the healing of my gut through dietary changes

(dramatically improving the gut flora...

making my own special bacilli yogurt...

the regular eating of live bacilli sauerkraut...Natto...etc)...

and now my joints no longer become inflamed...

or are in any pain at all.

As a result...

I have resumed my exercise regimen.

Up here...

with the combination of clean living...

of the serene setting...

and of the ease at which I may exercise once again...

I am loving life so much more.

I love heavy resistance training and stamina and endurance training.

It is a sedentary lifestyle which drives so much of our early ills in life.

With my ability to once again resume regular exercise...

all of the great simple pleasures in life have become greatly magnified.

It is the great healer of the body, mind, and soul.

Always remember...

while we all must die...

our goal is to die as healthy as possible...

by living as healthfully as possible.

Proper exercise is the key component to achieving this.

Yes...

we shall all be slain by the dark dragon of death...

but our goal is to die facing the dragon with weapon in hand...

and with a courageous and defiant heart as we make our thrust forward...

always and ever forward.