Life Lessons: Skating and Sugar

Skater’s High

It really warmed up considerably this past weekend, which led to me participating in one of my favorite winter activities: ice skating! Here in Winnipeg we’ve become “famous” for our exceptionally long skating trail on the river, and I’m fortunate enough to live right on the river. There’s a bridge less than five minutes walking distance from my door in which a small shack is set up to leave your boots as you go out skating. It’s perfect.

I went skating on Saturday, enjoying the scenery and the company of all of the people (apparently tens of thousands of people were there that day!), for a good hour and fifteen minutes. The weather was beautiful again yesterday so I strapped on the skates and hit the ice once more. This time, I made the whole route in less than an hour.

We are all capable of much more than we think. The people out on the river are at all levels of skill; some have all the equipment and really know what they are doing, and others have clearly never put on skates in their life. My winter sport growing up was cross country skiing, and it wasn’t until a couple years ago that I started skating nearly every day in the winter months. I didn’t even know how to skate until my friend taught me once in high school. After that, I was on my own.

I have no idea how to put on the brakes. Nor can I skate backwards. In fact, most of those 8 year old hockey kids can skate circles around me. But I love it, I can keep my balance, and if the difference in speed between Saturday and Sunday is any indicator, I can skate pretty fast when I want to. And that is the result of one lesson years ago and then self-teaching from there. If you enjoy something and put the effort in to learn, setting your mind to it, you can accomplish so much.

Sugar Struggles

I have been struggling with the sugar addiction (I know you can all relate!), so on Friday I decided to go the whole day with no added sugars. Coincidentally, there was also a national no-sugar day set for Friday or something, so it worked out quite well! My biggest challenge was not having peanut butter. The all-natural peanut butter that I eat, PB2, has added sugar to it, so I was determined not to have any on Friday (I generally eat way too much of it on a daily basis). And I got through the day just fine. Had lots of fruit for the sugar kick and a handful of raisins because dried fruit works wonders if you’re trying to cut out added sugar, and I didn’t have any cravings. It was very successful. I’d like to go a week with no added sugar, though that’s going to be difficult, considering there’s sugar in everything from bread to cans of corn… I’ll have to do a considerable amount of prep before I issue that challenge for myself 🙂

Learning Contentment

It wasn’t until I was out on the ice by myself with big fat snowflakes falling that I began to think about all this and remember why it is that I live here. I’m sure that if (I refuse to say “when”!) the deepfreeze returns, I’ll promptly forget why I live in this part of the world, but for now I am at ease and content. When you can enjoy the outdoors and see the progress you’re making, it’s difficult to not be happy!