The DIY Diet

After a total of 46 hours aboard Amtrak (round trip between St. Paul, Minnesota and Whitefish, Montana) I felt as if I’d been in Never-Never Land.  I wasn’t impressed with Amtrak, at least not the route I took.  Maybe other routes around the U.S. are better but I’ll never know because I won’t take another long Amtrak train trip.  Rattling along the bumpy tracks in a close environment packed with people made for an uncomfortable trip for me.  My back and neck hurt as I tried to find an acceptable sleeping position without imposing on my assigned seat mate for the 22-hour ride to Whitefish.  I admit that I should have done more research about Amtrak before eagerly buying tickets. I was too excited about the adventure of riding the train.

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First, let me tell you what it is not. It is not a religion. It is a study of the human body totally separate from any religion. You may continue to be a strongly religious person and you may learn to energize and heal your body with Qigong.

Secondly, it might help to know how to pronounce it: Qi = chee. It is the Chinese word for energy, your life force. Gong = gung, like lung, is the Chinese word for practice. So, Qigong is learning how to improve your energy through practice. It is typically practiced for health maintenance purposes.

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Over the past six months or so I’ve been seeing people walking along the streets and sidewalks using ski pole-like sticks as they walk.

I wondered what they were doing, so I decided to do some research on the Internet.

I learned that the people were doing Nordic ski walking. As I read the material I got very excited about trying the technique myself.

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I don’t have time to eat breakfast.

That seems to be a mantra chanted by a lot of people these days. I’m going from the assumption that you actually want to eat breakfast. You can make time for breakfast in different ways.

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