Starting Off Saddled Down
Feeling weighed down? That may be a good thing!
As soon as I picked up the box, I knew exactly what it was. This was the Christmas present I had been looking forward to—nay, hoping—I would receive!
I was not disappointed.
No lumps of coal for Danny this year. I had stayed on Santa’s Nice List, and my good behaviour finally paid off!
It was heavy, all right. As I tore away the wrapping paper and cardboard, there it was: a gift that would soon find its way over my head and around my torso for hours a day. That’s right; lying at the bottom of that Amazon shipping box was my brand-new weighted exercise vest!
Despite only recently becoming all the exercise rage, for months I had wanted a weighted vest for walking, exercising, and running. After enviously eyeing the vests my friend and wife had recently started using, I was eager to get one of my own.
So, how does a weighted vest work exactly? The principle is simple: the vest adds extra weight to your body so exercises feel harder, making your muscles work more, raising your heart rate, and helping build strength, endurance, and burn more of those hard-to-shake calories. The key is to start light, maintain proper form, and use it mainly for walking or bodyweight exercises.
In an attempt to get fit, I now pile weights into the pockets of my new vest with the goal of losing weight off my body, only to then add those “lost” pounds right back onto the vest. It’s a vicious (and ironic) cycle that sees me putting on weight as I take off weight!
Saddling myself down has been a counterintuitive way to kick off 2026, knowing that the extra strain on my body will ultimately be for my improvement and, well, if you’re thinking ahead you can probably see where this analogy might be going . . .
Sometimes the heavy road we are forced to trudge—though hard—can strengthen us for the journey ahead. We want sunshine and rainbows, but it’s often the breaking uphill climb that prepares us for incredible summits we never dreamed possible.
2025 was a challenging year for me on multiple fronts: I often did not like the yoke I was forced to bear while trying to inch ahead. It was a year of many cries for help on my journey, pleas that did not see my burdens lifted, but did yield strength for the difficult next forward step.
Anyone who has run a long-distance race understands this pain (David, Jess, and Pascal I’m looking at you): your lungs scream that you can’t get past the next two minutes, yet somehow—somehow—you collapse at the finish line hours later, having endured countless screaming minutes to reach your goal.
I like the way Elaine A. Cannon sums it up with this quote:
“Every burden on the back can become a gift in the hand.”
If you’ve had a hard year, know that you weren’t alone in your struggle. You may be facing a hard road right now, and you’re convinced there’s no way to carry the burdensome load you’ve been called to bear.
Maybe the weight will lift so you can move forward more easily.
Or maybe enduring that weight will make you stronger.
I don’t know.
But I do know as I keep adding extra weight to my newest Christmas present, I’m becoming stronger each day I carry this progressively heavy load. Sometimes I don’t need ay easy path, I need strong legs. And starting the year off saddled down may very well lead to otherwise undiscovered breakthroughs.
February Is Heart Health Month
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