Slow and Steady… Because Fast and Furious Put Me in an MRI Tube

 

“Slow and steady wins the race.”
“All things in moderation.”
“Trust the process.”
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“Poco a poco.”
“Step by step.”
“Stay the course.”

We have heard these phrases our entire lives. Somewhere along the way, they became background noise—like elevator music for personal growth. Nice sayings. Good advice. Easy to nod at and then completely ignore while we sprint headfirst into exhaustion.

I’ll be honest. I have not always adhered to this advice. In fact, I have often done the exact opposite.

“More haste, less speed.”
“Little strokes fell great oaks.”
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.”
“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.”

These words have been echoing in my mind lately as this body continues to ache and remind me that it is no longer 25 years old and indestructible.

The painful reality of my progress. The harder I try to get in shape, the more active I try to become, the more I seem to hurt myself. There’s an irony in that. I go all out in the summer.
Swimming 2,000 meters at least three times a week. Sometimes more. There is something magical about the water. It forgives my joints. It carries my weight. It gives me freedom of movement without punishment. Recovery time is manageable.

But when I tried five days a week, I had nothing left in the tank. Lesson learned.

Fall and winter, however, are different stories. The recumbent bike and elliptical become instruments of determination… and sometimes destruction. I push until it hurts. Then push a little more. Then push until something gives; this winter, something did. MRIs showed damage in my spine. Torn and dislocated issues in my left arm. No MRI on the right side—but trust me, it feels the same. That kind of reality forces reflection.

Spring Training?!? This season has been confusing in more ways than one. One day it’s in the teens. The next day it’s 90 degrees. Is this the third winter or the second start of spring? I lose track. But something clicked recently.

Each morning during drop-off duty at school, I stand outside for about 30 minutes in the cold. Instead of just standing there, I started doing trunk twists. Nothing dramatic. Nothing flashy. Nothing that would even register as exercise to anyone watching. Just small movements. Quiet movement. Intentional movement. By lunch recess duty, the twists are a little more pronounced. Still controlled. Still gentle. Still within reason.

My Apple Watch doesn’t even recognize it as exercise. But maybe that’s the point. Slow progress is still progress. There is something deeply comforting in the idea of starting small and building slowly. Not pushing into noticeable pain. Not trying to win the fitness Olympics in a single season. Not trying to undo decades in a matter of weeks. Just inching forward. Poco a poco. Little by little.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.”
“The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.”
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect.”

Maybe the goal isn’t a dramatic transformation. Maybe the goal is sustainability. Maybe the goal is simply to keep moving.

Every time I hear the phrase “all things in moderation,” I grin a little. It takes me back to a two-family flat, where Tina and I lived early in our married life. Our upstairs tenant was Ivy. Ivy didn’t just say moderation; she lived it. On Sundays, we would break bread together, and there was some rule about chewing your food a certain number of times before swallowing. Ivy doubled or tripled it. We would be starting dessert while she was still working through the main course. It was almost comical. Slow bites. Small portions. Deliberate pace. She lived the mantra of moderation with surgical precision. It worked; she lived into her early 100s.

That’s not even the best part of the story. My father-in-law bought that two-family flat as a rental property at a dirt-cheap price with one condition: Ivy could remain in the top floor, rent-free, for the rest of her life. He made that deal when she was in her 70s. More than two decades later, she was still there. Still chewing slowly. Still living deliberately. Still practicing moderation.

That top floor stayed off the rental market for over twenty years. And honestly? Worth it. Because Ivy was a living sermon on patience and consistency.

There is wisdom in these old sayings that we tend to overlook.

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”
“Keep plugging away.”
“Savor the small things.”
“Stay the path.”

This season of life is teaching me that slow progress is not failure. It’s discipline. It’s wisdom. It’s survival. It’s hope. My trunk twists may not show up on my Apple Watch. My slow movement may not impress anyone. My progress may barely move the BMI needle. But it is movement. Movement leads to progress. Progress leads to possibility. So for now, I will keep twisting in the cold mornings. Keep moving at lunch duty. Keep swimming when summer returns. Keep trusting the process. Slow and steady. Poco a poco. Stay the course.