WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
Crawl with me over the fold so I can tell you how a hare was forced to turn into a turtle, and my thoughts on how any shelled creature can find a plan to get fit and restore their health.
For those who are looking for a daily read on what it's like to use diet plus exercise plus support to overcome injury, illness and multiple allergies as well as that genetic tendency to be skinny in childhood and huge after adolescence, you will find my Livejournal here: I don't need surgery, maybe you don't either
I've been at the current plan now for 17 days. I won't lie: the IDEA of exercise is a thrilling one for me - I was an active child, a fiercely competitive gymnast and runner, a formidable volleyball and soccer player. I grew up on a farm, and child labor laws notwithstanding, I spent most of my time on my feet, chasing cattle, riding ponies, tossing hay into lofts and pulling it back down again, and despite persistent anemia and indifferent nutrition, managed to somehow thrive at it. And there are advantages to this intensely active early life that have helped me to regain my fitness each time I have been sidelined by injury or illness. But I'll be frank, here: as my health problems accumulated, it got harder and harder to get up and walk, much less run. Climbing stairs, due to the degeneration in my knees, is something I plan for and contemplate the way a marathoner contemplates a 10K run, because those years of bicycling for long miles to school and into town on inclines with no gears took its toll and an orthopedic surgeon suggested surgery on my knees back in 1980. I was officially overweight then, but relatively fit still, and certainly not yet arthritic - nothing that would have caused the tendons in my knees to ALREADY be giving out. I had just voted in my first presidential election! and no, I didn't vote for Ronald Reagan!
So from the active, competitive, Type A self I had been, I have accumulated a list of injuries which is mild compared to most - I've only ever broken one bone - but that was a metatarsal, in an auto accident. The knees, well, I'd pay for new ones if I could get em. But they aren't handing out knees as far as I know. I've injured my back and neck multiple times, and more than once I was told I should never lift more than 15 pounds again, and that I should get my spine fused. I turned down all the surgeries. Yet, I've turned from a hare into a turtle. On top of that, I developed asthma at the age of 43 after a toxic mold exposure on the job, and the list of allergies that produce asthmatic responses keeps growing since that event. Being out of shape and having back cramps from inactivity is one layer of complication; the inability to catch my breath was another whole dimension of scary - particularly since I have been the lone proud non-smoker in a family of overweight chain-smokers, and swore (in that competitive fashion) that I would outlive all of my siblings who adopted my Dad's 4-pack-a-day habit. Yes, you read that correctly. Four. packs. a day. He died of complications to heart disease at the age of 62, after heart attacks at 46 and 48, and a quad bypass at 49. That is the 'health environment' I grew up in, and I had always vowed I would not end up like him.
But I have become a turtle, a shelled creature whose body will only move so fast and so far, carrying the equivalent of a heavy-set man as extra weight, on knees that would rather not bend, thank you very much. So what can I do to get fit?
My first two weeks were disappointing in the exercise department: I could barely walk for more than 3 or 4 minutes without having to grab onto something due to the cramping in my back. I never even got to irritating the knees because my back was so tight - from sitting for long hours, for years at a time, without stretching, I have the equivalent of a hamstring problem - in my back. I had to find out how far to go before bending over and doing stretches, toe-touches, and light twists just to stay on my feet and keep going. But I kept going - and pushed too much. Last Saturday I wrote here on WHEE that I went 2 miles on a hiking trail. But the following day, I went back out to the same trail and was staggering. And then my universally-helpful friend Alex (a female my own age with vast worldly experience and contacts) told me that a doctor she consulted in fitness training for VERY HEAVY PEOPLE (I would be one of them) told her, never exercise every day when starting a fitness program, due to the muscle damage. The body needs a full day of recovery from that before exercising again, because it isn't just a matter of moving - it's a matter of retraining and building muscle, which involves tissue damage and healing.
And so reluctantly (because I am so competitive), I started out my second week of my plan committing myself to exercising every OTHER day. And limiting that exercise to half an hour, until it feels too easy to do.
It doesn't feel too easy yet! I went out to the park this morning with my new SanDisk Sansa (a $77 alternative to the Ipod) playing Schumann's 2nd symphony, which is sublime music that I have listened to several times in concert halls. This time it accompanied me on a strictly rationed 15-minutes in, 15 minutes back walk into the hiking trail that had nearly disabled me when I went 2 miles a week ago. I had still had to stop. I still had to do stretches, and three times, I still had to sit down, let my pulse slow, drink water and cool down, even at 60 degrees outside temperature. Well I'm a turtle after all! But this is how a turtle has to exercise, if I'm ever going to win the race back to fitness. Because it's not a race, really. And I'm not competing with anybody, unless it's to exceed the life expectancy of the generation before me who pulled itself into a shell and was seen no more.
If this is how it has to be, then I'll do it. And live long enough to get those new knees put in!
Here's to all you turtles out there - if I can do it, you can too. I'm sure of it!
Diarists Schedule
Aug 2 Sun AM - louisev
Sun PM - Brimi
Aug 3 Mon AM - NC Dem
Mon PM - help
Aug 4 Tues AM - Kascade Kat
Tues PM - debbieleft
Aug 5 Wed AM - Edward Spurlock
Wed PM - ???
Aug 6 Thurs AM Darthstar
Thurs PM ???
Aug 7 Fri AM ???
Fri PM ???
Aug 8 Sat AM ???
Sat PM ???
You can be a diarist too! Let us know if you want one of the open slots by leaving a comment and I will add you. We need a diarist for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday PM as well as both morning and evening Thursday.