Getting Fit - Again

Let's work out on Saturday morning.  Call me when you are on your way and I will meet you there.  I will warm up on the recumbent bike while you impress me with your speed on something and then we can see what we are capable of accomplishing with the weights.  

That is part of the email I just sent to Amster.  Between me getting shot and she preparing and then trying her first case as first chair, the months have flown by.  She'd given up her gym membership around the holidays when she was saving for a down payment but life has intervened and the house search is on hold and we are both uncomfortable in our own skins.

We did this once before and we can do it again.

It will require discipline and determination and, as Amster barked it, that Army mojo.  We are good for one another in that way; we don't allow excuses.  When we are working out we are committed to the process.  We keep track of repetitions and the number of plates on the bar and we rotate the parts we work.  We chat up a storm, but only when we're walking between stations.... at least most of the time.  Certainly, when when one of us is holding the weights we both are focused. 

Life is filled with meaningful occupations with which I could choose to occupy my time.  If I opt to spend 90 minutes of my day in the gym I am going to work out with good form and real intensity. Otherwise, I might as well be doing something else.

At least that's the plan.  When we started, we knew the program needed incentives built into the original structure.  Our $200 jeans fit the bill very nicely.  Of course, by the time our bodies were worthy of the expenditure the temperatures in Tucson were nearing triple digits and jeans were out of the question.  Gym shorts were barely tolerable; just the thought of trying on heavy denim made us sweat.

This time we are starting a bit further down the road. We've both had and lost muscle and tone and stamina.  We are both hungry for what we know will be the immediate results: improved posture and digestion and mood.  Further out, we're looking at some weight loss and then maintaining a happy balance between figure and fun.  

We're on the Big Cuter diet: calories in = calories out and so what if some of those calories are french fries.  Life is too short and we work too hard to deny ourselves french fries.  Most of what goes in is healthy and we're going to be burning up those fat calories lickety-split.

I'm not sure how aerobic I can make the recumbent bike.  I wish there were one with moving arms; I'm not used to using only part of my body when I'm trying to work up a sweat.  It will be one more thing on which to concentrate; I'll make it a posture and upper body control exercise as well.  

I think I know what they meant, those well-meaning therapists and friends and doctors and strangers, those who warned me to avoid comparing my new self to my old self. I can't look to my old routines for solutions.  I have to look at my situation and be creative.  It does no good, no earthly good at all, to stamp and stomp and moan and groan.  Once the tantrum is over, I'm still in the same place.
Yes, LeBron, I go back to my same old life while you go on with yours. 

My life is different, is constrained, is less fluid...... but it is.  For now, I am looking at what I can do instead of what I could do.  Amster promises to carry the dumbbells until I feel confident that I won't break a foot - mine or another's - while transporting them from rack to bench.  We'll start slowly, with the basics, low weights, lots of good slow careful reps.  I think I'm going to bring a notebook and keep track of what we do. 

Ahhhhhh..... it's good to be back. 

Working Out

I'm pushing myself once again.  It's a struggle not unlike those I watch on Biggest Loser or listen to from the mouths of my friends and my mother.  It hurts.  It's not fun.  I want to do that but my body does this.  And I'm not making any progress at all.


Or so it seems.  Those who see me infrequently are amazed at my speed and my posture and my attitude, but day to day it's often hard to focus on the little gains which are really quite remarkable I know but.... 


There's always a but, isn't there.  But I'm not balanced.  But I'm teetering from side to side. But it hurts.  But what if I fall? And, perhaps the worst one of all, but what difference will it make if I take today off?


A roadrunner just zipped across the front yard and has settled into the shade under the mesquite tree across the street.  My camera is right here.  The weather is fine.  It's a picture ready to be taken and yet I sit here, stuck by the notion that by the time I got there, lumbering with my cane and the camera swinging wildly as I try to stay focused on looking up and not down, well, the bird will have moved on to other pursuits and I'll be standing there having accomplished nothing but aggravating myself.


Really and truly, Baskin Robbins sounds better to me right now than lifting weights ever has.  


That's what happens when I focus on what I can't instead of what I can.  Those buts stand up and push their way into the forefront of my consciousness and all of a sudden I'm wallowing instead of working.  Lying still for 12 weeks trained me well to look for the positives when I'm immobile.  I watched the sun march across the sky in a northward arc as the months went by and I healed at that pace; slow and steady won that race.


I need a new frame of reference right now.  My old routine involved dripping sweat on the treadmill or the elliptical with the moving arms and lifting weights with precision and good form.  Pilates mat classes and all kinds of yoga (except Bikram because really what's the point when you live in a place where the temperatures outdoors regularly hit 104 anyway?  I don't need to go inside and exercise to feel the heat.) were in the mix, too.  


I started back simply using the recumbent bike for 10 minutes and doing the exercises Marcus the Master Manipulator created to stretch and strengthen me back into shape.  People were glad to see me in the gym, but I didn't like being on the Nautilis side of things.  I'm a free weight girl.  Always have been.  Always will be.  But the fear of dropping one or being unable to get up and the absence of Amster as a spotter and buddy was just the excuse I needed to keep me from trying.

chikung-unlimited.com

Then, I moved on to yoga.  Getting down onto the mat was really really hard, but my yogi tailored the class to what I could do and no one seemed to notice.  That's one of the wonderful things about yoga; it is your practice.  I couldn't do all that I could before, couldn't even sit with my legs akimbo let alone all the way into half lotus, my usual posture.  

labayoga.com

BUT, I was still the plank queen and that felt pretty good.  The second week was easier than the first, and I was less fearful.  There's a high probability that those two are related, don't you think?  

My biggest but is that I'll hurt myself.  Doctors and therapists and nurses have all assured me that as long as I don't jump I'll be fine.  Fine is an interesting word, and worthy of a post all its own (note to self) but I'm not going there right now.  I have chosen to be skeptical because it was in service of my ego, it gave me permission to slack.  

ucmeta.org

No longer.  Not any more.  After an hour of massage and manipulation, Marcus has managed to get my legs almost entirely into butterfly or cobbler's pose.  I know it is possible.  I was there, after all.  Yes, it hurts.  Yes, it's not as easy as it was before my injuries.  




But, I'm not letting that stop me any more.  I want my life back and the only way to get it is to earn it.  I have to remember that I love going to the gym.  I have to remember the rush, the pump, the deep deep breaths that fed more than just my oxygen depleted muscles.  It centered me, focused me, healed me from over-exertion and strain.  I need it for just a little bit more right now, but that's okay.


It didn't need italics there.  It's not getting in my way any more.  I'm just going to do it and breathe.