Friday, 6th of August 2010 at 07:41:11 AM 
Walking: It does a body... less slug-like.
I have no idea where it went.
Of course, part of the reason it flew by so quickly is that we had a really nice summer; we took a cruise (courtesy of my father’s Big Birthday Celebration), we did quite a bit of camping, the kids had time with their dad and time with their friends here, and for the first time since my husband and I joined households, we did not decide it would be a “great idea” to do some sort of major house project over the summer. We just… had a relaxing summer. And it was great.
As I take stock in “where I’m at” with all this fitness-y stuff, I find myself very much wanting to excuse myself with things like “I’m doing okay!” and “I kept most of the weight off!” But I also want to smack myself, a little, because I had gotten to a place where I was exercising five days a week and not really hating it as much as I used to, and I thought I’d broken the exercise-hatred barrier, finally. Turns out that was only temporary.
So it’s true that my weight is fine. It’s true that after a brief week of “what if I go back to eating whatever I want” and feeling crappy and my skin going haywire, I’ve (happily!) gone back to eating a South Beach-esque menu that leans heavily on fruits and veggies. It’s also true that for the first time in my life, I’ve gotten multiple compliments on my arms, of all things. (Apparently months of wearing weighted gloves while riding the elliptical does help sculpt the muscles.) But the other true—and more concerning—thing is that by June I had pretty much stopped exercising altogether, and I’m back in my old sit-at-my-desk-all-day rut whenever I’m not needed elsewhere.
We’ve picked berries. We’ve spent a fair amount of time swimming. We’ve gone to the Farmer’s Market and school Open Houses and here and there and everywhere, true. But the simple, daily commitment to exercising my body has been overpowered by excuses like, “Oh, I lost all day yesterday to [insert family activity here]. Today I just need to sit down and work.”
On Monday we’re back on schedule. And I need to be back in motion.
Resolved: To start, I will either walk my son to school or get on the elliptical a minimum of three days a week. Three days out of seven; that’s less than half. Anyone can fit that in, no matter how much work waits on the desk. Right? Right.
I got an email from a reader this week, gently chiding me for the way I sometimes talk about my body image and my fitness “shoulds.” She said (among other things):
If you love ice cream and think that exercise is stupid, why do you refrain from eating ice cream and (force yourself to) exercise? Perhaps I am secretly Vulcan, but that seem highly illogical.
This comment made me giggle (she had me at Vulcan, people), but it also made me think. I don’t want to buy in to “having” to look or be a certain way, of course. And—as I told her in a reply—I do view my personal blog as a bit of a hyperbolic dumping ground when it comes to venting about anything that displeases me, so we do have to take me with a grain or fifty of salt when I whine, please.
But the bottom line is this: I want to be healthy. Sure, sometimes I want to look a certain way, but more importantly, I want to see my kids grow up, and I want to see their kids grow up. That means I cannot sit at a desk all day, every day, and expect to reach a ripe old age. I do hate exercise-for-the-sake-of-exercise, but as long as my job is to sit on my butt in front of my computer, I need to learn to tolerate it, because it’s not good for me to do nothing but sit around. I don’t need to be model-skinny, nor do I need to run a marathon. But I need to find balance in my life, and part of that balance is incorporating enough exercise that I am not secretly worried about hidden heart disease or falling down the next time we go hiking.
It starts on Monday, with walking. I’m sorry, Desk, but I need to see others. I hear there’s a whole world out there, and I don’t want to miss it.
Having never been an athlete or even coordinated, exercise was always about taking off weight. But now I have drunk the coolaid. Exercise provides endorphins. Endorphins are great. They help mitigate the egregious and numerous stressors of life that are impossible to avoid. And, as opposed to other stress management techniques such as alcohol, people don’t try to get you into a 12 step program for exercising. Go Endorphins! Good luck getting back into the habit.
I try to think of exercise not as an option, but as something I have to do. It has to fit in somewhere before the day is over. I wouldn’t skip brushing my teeth because I didn’t feel like doing it. It took a while but I pretty much have changed my thinking about exercise as an option to exercise as a need.
I work in a lab where this is not a possibility, but you work at home! You could set up a treadmill desk and saunter along all day, keeping your body gently moving. I would love to be able to do this, and supposedly it’s an easy step to healthifying your body.
Mir, maybe a “standing desk” would work. Lifehacker talks about them from time to time. http://lifehacker.com/5220094/create-a-simple-standing-desk-for-20 Just a thought..
Summer ate my exercise regime as well. I am a teacher, so one would think summer would enhance it. Alas–I have two children and a husband who is ALSO a teacher, so there was a house full of people I like to have fun with all summer. And it was grand and glorious and awesome, but for the FIRST TIME EVER I thought (just last night) “I’m ready for school to start so I can back to my regular yoga schedule.”
Yes, to the endorphins, which are almost (almost!) as good as ice cream. Endorphins are the reason we exercise and not (not! I say!) to get the wide hips back into the skinnier jeans. Snort. I want to feel better and I want to look better, too. I want to live to be a million years old and I want to be that lady people point at and say doesn’t she look GREAT to be a million years old? I want all that, and I want it in skinnier jeans. Well, I have some good, childbearing hips. Skinny jeans just ain’t happening again, but I can hobble along toward skinnier.
Also, I find that if I force myself onto the elliptical before I even start thinking in the morning, well before coffee and cereal, I can get in a mile or two without “realizing” it. And then once I’ve done THAT workout, I’m in the mood to find more active things to do later in the day to push to see how much more I can do. So, if you can get it out of the way up front, you feel productive and it keeps you motivated not to scarf down bad stuff. Or at least it does for me.
Just doing my duty as a Little Black Cloud: the heart disease can remain hidden even if you do all the right things, as we’ve unhappily found with several friends and family members over the last few years. If you are over 40, I recommend having some kind of stress test that can detect if your arteries are narrowed, because you have no clue otherwise.