Fitness Update

In an earlier post, I mentioned I started a yoga program using an iPhone app called Sunsa. This app offers free programs, using real yoga instructors who take you on a routine that ranges from 10 to 26 minutes.

As of yesterday, I completed my first full program (for beginners of course). The entire journey was twenty-eight days long. I only missed one day, thanks to one of our long retail shopping days.

Here is the review of the app and my overall personal experience.

The app itself is truly wonderful. The instructors are very fluid in their movements. The narrator has a soothing voice that accompanies the gentle music that plays in the background. While some reviews indicated that they would've preferred getting to see each pose with its name individually so they would recognize them, anything I needed to learn, I found out about on Google. All in all, I give the app five stars out of five.

As far as my overall personal experience, I can truly say the last 28 days have been transformative--mentally, spiritually, and physically. While I did experience pain early on (leading me to purchase Joint Juice, a glucosamine-chondroitin drink), I am pain-free as of this writing.

My flexibility, which wasn't too bad to start with for a sixty-year-old man, has improved quite a bit. I find myself looking forward to my daily yoga sessions and feel very cleanses when I complete them. In fact, I employ some yoga poses during the day, too, just to center myself.

I now have to decide whether to go further in my studies or stay with what I've done to date. As of today, I decided to start from the beginning of my program and add a few additional poses on my own in conjunction with the push-ups, sit-ups, and planks I already do twice a day.

The only cardio workout we're getting is walking outside. Most days, we're getting three or more miles done. While it's not my preferred aerobic exercise, it works for now considering we won't be able to get into our gym until at least May 12th (Arizona's "reopening" date) and probably longer than that. As I told my wife yesterday, I would want to wait it out for another 3 weeks to see if we have a resurgence of the virus before going back.

Yours in health,

Michael

Bloody Hot

We made the decision to move from the Los Angeles metro area back in 2013 after both my wife and I had suffered through some serious illnesses. Our thought was simple: life's too damn short to spend it working our asses off to pay bills, especially a huge mortgage which, if you ask anybody, is the only kind of mortgage you can get because houses are so damn expenses.

Despite the fact we knew we'd miss Southern California, it turned out to be a smart choice, at least from an economic perspective. The cost of living in California continued to rise in the interposing years since our move. Mounting expenses grew at a much higher rate than income in the same period...basically, a no-win situation.

I had another reason for not wanting to move. Not being close to the "film capital of the world" while I had so many scripts in progress (and in the hopper, so to speak) meant I would be getting out of the game when I hadn't even gotten a chance to make a name for myself in the entertainment business.

Anyway, we had been looking at the Phoenix area for years as the place to retire because the cost of housing and living, in general, is about a third less than Los Angeles. We merely accelerated the timeline by ten years. No biggie.

One thing everyone knows about Phoenix is it's hot as hell during the summer. I'm talking triple-digits-for-weeks-on-end kind of hot. What they don't tell you the heat doesn't dissipate much at night. You can still have 100+ heat at mostly any time of day. But we were naive at the time and figured the similarity in weather between California and Arizona would be acceptable.

It's not. Trust me.

Without relief for such a long period, year-round residents basically shelter in place, only venturing out when necessary. Either that or you travel out of the state for a couple of months--just to escape. Of course, California is a popular destination spot for Arizonans (particularly San Diego). Others, go to Utah and other ski resort areas to take advantage of the lower summer rates.

So, when we saw on the TV weather report that we're about to hit our first triple-digit days, we were dismayed beyond belief. With temps in the 90s this week (as a ramp-up to the 100+ days to come this weekend), we've already shifted our walking time to the morning.

But what will happen when it's too hot for even early in the morning, which is always the case? Without a gym to go to, we're going to have to get creative in ways to get our cardio in.

The problem? We have no ideas right now.

Yours in confusion,

Michael