This week’s installment of the Giraffe Paper covers the 2nd half of my vacation with Morgan. If you did not read Part 1, you can catch up on that post here. There I shared how being healthy on vacation could be challenging but it could be done with proper planning. In this post, I’ll continue to share how the week progressed, how Morgan and I had an amazing and healthy vacation, and how we were able to sharpen the mind, enhance our ability for physical performance, and eat incredibly healthy.
Morgan and I had three more days at Rancho La Puerta. One of the areas we wanted to address was our flexibility. Morgan’s running mileage has increased this summer as she is building her base leading into cross country season for Florida Atlantic University. I’m deep into my triathlon season with a lot of wear and tear on the body. We attended classes on stretching, the use of foam rollers, another using tennis balls to release tension, and then repeated a couple stretching classes after our early morning runs.
It felt fantastic to dedicate the amount of time stretching that we did and although I felt the impact of the classes, it wasn’t until I returned to Florida when the full result settled in with my glutes and hip flexor feeling much better than when I left.
My key points here – It emphasizes the importance of doing these exercises to remain healthy, injury free and enable us to push our bodies as hard as we can if desired. Even if it’s just for a few minutes try to incorporate stretching after you exercise it pays dividends. It’s incredibly beneficial after you workout and it doesn’t feel like you are adding another thing to do during the week. We did learn again that it’s not a good idea to static stretch prior to exercising as it promotes instability and can create micro tears, sometimes leading to and developing an injury.
We both enjoyed runs and hikes on numerous hiking paths on the property. It was different running than I’m used to and I enjoyed every single second of it. Enjoy the pictures below for some of the beautiful landscapes.
The resort was fantastic in providing a variety of plant-based food options. We made a few special requests, most were requesting additional portions as we were burning through a lot of calories throughout the stay. They made eating healthy at the resort a given so that part was easy. They also offered a daily session on nutrition via Lindsay Sherry, a nutritionist, that covered several topics ranging from the negative impacts of the Standard American Diet (SAD), how to promote health through food, and tips on implementing change.
My key points here – add helpings of “veg” and fruits to your meals. Don’t think of it as depriving yourself of other unhealthy choices. Add “veg” and fruits and the snowball effect builds as you feel better and crave these foods more and more and crowd out more and more of the unhealthy foods. Note – love “veg” as The Happy Pear phrase vegetables. How can you not love those guys…ha!
Lastly, the mind was a big focus for me as mentioned in Part 1. I attended a couple meditation classes, a class on sound healing, another on writing to heal and the home run was more time with Molly Davis. What an amazing lady with great story telling skills and an ability to relate her concepts and stories while inspiring us to take action on what is calling or pulling us in our lives. In the first post, I shared how she started the process and charged us to explore this deeper.
In the third session, she again shared her personal and intimate stories. These helped us relate to the topic and presented examples to consider while we were considering our own stories. The way in which Molly shared her vulnerability grabbed me, hooked me, whatever you call it, but I was all in.
This session’s title, Tell the Truth, had Molly navigate us through how we could look at things a bit different. Here, it was addressing how we could be truly honest with ourselves, how we would want to tell our story looking forward and/or addressing something we needed to address and how to approach it in a manner that was in the best interest for ourselves, others or both. I took on the challenge of doing both. That is a lot and hard to explain in a short blog, but believe me it was deep and had me considering many things.
Sometime during dinner that evening, Molly and I crossed paths and she asked if we could have lunch the next day. Wow, I was humbled by offer and of course I accepted. Molly, her daughter Lauren, Morgan and I met at lunch. We all shared some things from our personal lives, had a discussion about the session from the prior evening and agreed to keep our connection going. We discussed potentially collaborating on something together…super excited about what that could be…
My key points here – be in the moment with whatever you are doing attempting to eliminate distractions (and multi-tasking). Our minds can take us many places… Allocate time in your day just for you. That can be a lot of things, but try to spend some time with yourself without TV, checking your phone, etc. Meditating or simply having time for yourself can reduce stress and you never know what will spark an idea or who you may meet and launch you to something greater in your life. As Molly states on her website, “We are all called to live authentic, wholehearted lives.” Dedicate some time for yourself to help you do this.
– Add Health to Your Life
The Healthy Giraffe 
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