Jogging for Well-being

My Jogging Biography.

Defining aerobics in his famous guidelines - book
'The New Aerobics', Dr Kenneth Cooper wrote: " Aerobics refers to a variety of exercises that stimulate heart and lung activity for a time period sufficiently long to produce benificial changes in the body. Running, swimming, cycling and jogging - there are typical aerobic exercises ."
Rene Dubos, biologist and philosopher expanded the definition of health of WHO (World Health Organization):
" Health is a quality of life, involving social, emotional, mental, spiritual and biological fitness on the part of the individual, which results from adaptions to the environment." Well-being refers to the achievement of the highest level of health in each of several key dimensions. Today , health and wellness are often used interchangeably to mean the dynamic , ever-changing process of trying to achieve one's individual potential in each of several , above mentioned, dimensions. For me, the quintessential bon mot of Dr Cooper's aerobic school and system is : 'FIT FOR WELL-BEING ' ! This definition allows me to explain now what factors make me live a very long time as a healthy person , free of disease , living happily , at peace with myself and others , creating wise decisions regardless of severe life conditions in my native country .
My talk will be about a good habit for well-being --- about jogging . How to find a right , natural pattern to create a new habit for ever? How to begin? Is there appropriate Plato's bon mot -'the beginning is the most important part of the work' ?

I started jogging 30 years ago !
There is a wise saying : " An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure " I thought what a pound of prevention could do if there were only five major areas on which to work -- the known five keys to health : exercise , diet , smoking cessation , alcohol moderation and weight control . Actually , I didn't need to worry about all the above mentioned areas because I was a nonsmoker , my body weight was not far from where it needed to be , and I had good dietary practices including alcohol moderation . I made my own personal inventory of what needed attention . My true choice was exercise -jogging .Why ?
What I knew then about jogging ? Was my choice really appropriate to my conditioning?

It's well known that exercise is the central ingredient of good health . It tones the muscles , strengthens the bones and makes the heart and lungs work better . It increases physical reserve and vitality . The increased reserve function helps you deal with crises . Exercise eases depression , aids sleep , and aids in every activity of daily life . There are three types of exercise : Strengthening exercise , the least important for effects on health ; stretching exercise designed to keep your body loose and a useful mainly as a warm - up for the last type of exercise; aerobics ( endurance ) ,designed to improve cardiovascular health . However , aerobics is the key to fitness . This is the most important kind of exercise . The word " aerobic " means that during the exercise period , the oxygen ( air ) that you breathe in balances the oxygen that you use up . During aerobic exercise , a number of body mechanisms come into play . Your heart speeds up to pump larger amounts of blood . You breathe more frequently and more deeply to increase the oxygen transfer from the lungs to the blood . Your body develops increased heat and compensates by sweating to keep your temperature normal . You build endurance . During endurance exercise periods , the cells of the body develop the ability to extract a larger amount of oxygen from the blood . This increases function at the cellular level . As you become more fit , these effects persist . The heart becomes larger and stronger and can pump more blood with each stroke . The cells can take up oxygen more readily. As a result your heart rate when you are resting doesn't need to be as rapid . In addition , this allows more time for the heart to repair itself between beats . Now , what is special about jogging ? Man is naturally a walker , a jogger . In jogging , the body becomes more efficient in delivering oxygen to its cells . New circulation is formed which allows the heart to deliver more blood to each muscle with every heartbeat . The constant movements of the legs in jogging put to work the calves , which are powerful pumps . When they contract , the blood inside gets squeezed and pushed upward . When they relax , they suck up more blood from the feet, like a siphon , and move it up to that other super-pump , the heart .

The most crucial questions , for me as a beginner , 30 years ago , were : How to start ? How to find the right speed of increasing the jogging time ? How to transfer this action to a habit ? How long time it would take me to possess this good , healthy habit ? For the right model of a jogging schedule I decided to use the known in mathematics the " Fibonacci series " , the series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers . For example , a series beginning 0 , 1 ... continues as 1,2,3,5,8,13,21, and so forth . The series was discovered by the Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonnacci ( circa 1170 - c. 1240 ). My decision was based on the fact that Fibonnacci numbers do have many interesting properties and natural patterns . The spiral growth of leaves on some trees , for instance , often exhibit the Fibonacci series . So the logical structure of the schedule looks very simple getting as units minutes and weeks and expressing the right increasing of the jogging time according the Fibonacci series .
I named the schedule with the above mentioned structure as " My personal jogging schedule ( getting a physiological pump ) ." According to this schedule it took me 371 days ( 53 weeks ) of regular daily jogging to accomplish my healthy goal .It also required strong determination , willpower and self-confidence . Finally it became a habit which can be compared to brushing teeth ... every morning ! ( See the schedule ). Now the schedule is prepared as a worksheet , Excel template , so it requires only an entering of the starting date .(Now there are more than 40 followers ,users of this schedule, around me ! ) Preparing my personal program I tried to use different supporting details ; for instance , I liked to convey the meaning of several Latin classical sayings associating them with the reality . In this case I composed the main formula of my well-being : [ curo , ergo cogito ] + [ cogito , ergo sum ] = { mens sana in corpore sano }
[ I jog ; thus , I think ] + [ I think ; thus , I am ] = { Sound mind in sound body }
If you look around you today , you'll see more and more bright people giving their jogging the priority it deserves and outfitting themselves appropriately , so I have the satisfaction of knowing I'm part of an elite who are doing the best thing to preserve and enrich their lives . Metropolitan Opera baritone Robert Merrill , who jogs between flights in an airport baggage room , on a landing strip , or even in his hotel room , says:
" I just listen to my legs and feet , turn everything off , and my mind becomes very clear ".
Jogging seems like a lot of hard work , but
lifelong joggers say it gives pleasure that cannot be matched . It is an addiction . San Diego Mercy Hospital's Chief of Psychiatry , Dr Thaddeus Kostrubala, believes running is an addiction that may allow other addicts , such as alcoholics and heroin users , to transfer their allegiance from harmful to healthful peak experiences .

Joggers use words like "ecstasy" to explain their emotions . A special feeling of "ecstasy" arrives in a veteran lifelong jogger after a half-hour workout. About ten minutes later , your thoughts begin to organize the disarray in your mind . Insights , concepts and ideas rush through your consciousness. After an hour , you seem to enter a jog-like trance of exquisite awareness and sensitivity . I think that the ability to get some of your best thinking done while you are jogging seems to have a physiological basis. In many instances , during my daily jogging , I understood complicated math problems , even though I couldn't solve them in habitual surroundings . It's not certain just how jogging works on mood . That may explain why it's hard to worry when you are jogging . It seems me often that the problems I have can't catch me !

There are some data from my personal jogging journal :
--- June 21 1970 I started jogging with a daily distance of three miles in 34 minutes . My jogging time is morning . Since December 18 , 1993 I've been jogging daily a distance of 5 miles .
--- Before jogging I practice special stretching exercises as a warm - up . I consider it important for three reasons : it warms the muscles , it makes them looser and it decreases the chances of injury .
--- I finished jogging my first circle around the earth ; consequently , I accomplished a distance equal to the length of the equator
( ~ 24000 miles ) on November 1992 .
--- Since 1970 my weight is constant and equal to ( 134-139 ) lb. I think it is owing to my regular morning jogging at the same daily time , before taking breakfast ; in fact , I spend 500 calories during my jogging and exercise and get them back taking breakfast , equal or less , but never more . This is the secret of constant weight ! ( As in banking : before deposit and then withdrawal...)

--- Analyzing my cholesterol tests of the last decade , I can conclude that regular jogging provides any positive influence on the cholesterol in the blood ; particularly , it concerns the index of the ratio between Cholesterol and HDL -high density lipoprotein (See the Well- being spread sheets at the page 'Life's Mathematics ' on the top content)
All above - described experience gave me a greater understanding of life ; in fact , the life became an area of practicing a good habit for well- being and health wellness . It's called -- lifelong jogging . Life has taught me about prevention and self- control for the sake of health.

This is really the idea of " HOMO , COGNOSCE TE IPSUM " i.e understanding yourself, your body , your fitness !
In 1986 , I got the opportunity for first time, to read the russian translation of Dr Kenneth Cooper's book -
"The New Aerobics".
I was so impressed by this high professional reference work - a real key to health and well-being! Now I try to analyze the multilateral impact of my jogging experience on my well-being by means of Dr Cooper's approach and system. ( For details about what Cooper's aerobics system neans for me , please read " My Open Letter to Dr K. Cooper'; Go to the content of the site clicking 'CTRL+HOME'and then click the page of the same name - "My Open Letter...")

Now, how to inventory my energy balance? Via special prepaired excell-sheets I defined the intake and expenditure energy during two working days and two weekend days. You can go to those sheets and customize them preparing your personal energy balance sheets (See the links on the bottom of the page.)

In conclusion , what about creating your personal
well-being's records ( cholesterol & hematology) using my
Excel sheets as templates ? ( Go to the link at the bottom)

And, what about your personal jogging journal ?