Health Update

Simply because I find it easier to post here for anyone who is interested than to repeat myself for people who ask.  Anyone understandably not interested, maybe go read this old post about building our garage.  Or, if you want something more deathy there's this.  (Or something random, or something violin-y.)

I'm doing well!  The new doctor put me on steroids back at the beginning of December, and that's doing the trick.  Apparently steroids either work for people with Granulomatous Mastitis immediately or they don't help much at all.  I am in the lucky category of people for whom they seem work.

Weighty Issues

I'm officially in the range of normal for my weight.  It's a large range (depending on which chart you use) and I am in the heaviest end of it, but technically I'm not overweight, and certainly not obese.  It's taken a lot of effort, but it's good to be 35 pounds lighter than I was back in June.  I still have another ten pounds or so to go, because I want to be squarely in the normal range.  I would like the option of one day eating a cookie again without that tipping the scales into overweight territory.

Self-perception is a strange thing, though.  Other people tell me I look slimmer, but I'm not really seeing it.  I know I am smaller by looking at the clothes I can wear.  I was an 18 and now I'm an 8.  (My preferred swimsuit, however still fits best at a 14, because somewhere, somehow, I am always a size 14.)  But when my pants are tight enough to stay up I still have some muffin-top stuff going on, so I don't feel any different.  I have the same body issues, just different pants.

Goodbye Y

It's so strange navigating this week without factoring in trips to the Y.

We went to Swim Team as a family last Thursday (although, ironically Mona was the only one who didn't swim--her coaches threw a dance party).  Friday I did my laps as usual before work.  And that was it.  Now it's closed and we're not going back there anymore.

We've been going there for a long time.  Here are my kids in the playroom at the Y when we first signed up:









One of my favorite places to let the kids use up some energy was the racket ball court.  We never actually figured out how to play, we just always got as many balls as we could and let them all fly.  (Yes, occasionally someone got bonked, but life is like that.)

Fish out of Water

We found out today that our Y is closing at the end of the month.  It's thrown us for a loop because we've had such a nice routine going: We drop the kids off at school, head for the Y where I swim and Ian uses the gym, home by 9:30 with a little time to breathe before going to work around 10:00.

I've been trying all day to track down another place to swim.  The trouble with swimming as a chosen form of exercise is being dependent on someone having and maintaining a pool.  I wish I didn't loathe running or something that didn't require needing more than myself and maybe a decent pair of shoes to do it.  But I swim.  It's pretty much the only form of exercise I don't hate.  So I need a pool.

It looks like my only real option is going to be the local county pool, which is perfectly nice, except that they don't open until 9:00.  They also don't have anything for Ian, so we will have to split up to go exercise, which is too bad because we were able to help each other stick to the routine when we went together.  I haven't quite figured how this will work.  I may have to keep a hair dryer at the violin store since I will likely have to go straight there from the pool.  It's cutting it all very close, but again, I don't really have options. 

I'm more sad about Mona losing her Swim Team.  I don't know if I will be able to convince her to try a different one, and I will miss our whole family going to the Y on those two evenings a week.

Anyway, not the end of the world by any means, but disappointing.  Maybe once we figure it out it will be for the best.  The county pool and a gym membership will be cheaper than the Y, and both are much closer to home.

Still, I'll miss the Y.  We originally signed up when we were eligible for six months of free membership while Ian was deployed the first time.  It was a great place in the winter to let the kids all run around when I was going stir crazy at home.  We've enjoyed many a wacky hour in the racket ball courts, I appreciated the towel service, and every lifeguard was unfailingly nice.

We have until the 31st before they close their doors, so in the meantime we will just keep swimming.  Not too thrilled to have to give up a routine that's worked so well, but I'm sure we'll adapt.

Off Switch Eating

I've lost about 30 pounds since the beginning of June.  That's enough weight that people notice, and many ask what it is I'm doing.

I know what people want to hear is that it's something that doesn't involve much sacrifice.  Unfortunately that's not the way it works.  For me, anyway.  Everyone's bodies and goals are different, so I can only say what works for me and people can take from it what they will.

For various reasons my weight has been up and down and all over the map.  I know at this point what my body responds to, how exercise and food affects it, and where most of my limits are.  My 30s were all spent in and out of pregnancies and breast feeding, and dealing with the stress of small children, starting a business, and my husband's deployments.  But now my last baby is about to turn eight, Ian returned from Iraq four years ago, and I've finally arrived at a place where I have no excuses for getting control over my own body and my health and my habits.

I've learned that exercise has almost no impact on my weight.  I swim a mile almost every day.  That was true 30 pounds ago and it's true now.  Exercise is important, and I'm glad it's something I've added to my routine, but I think weight loss has to do with what you eat, not how you move.  Exercise does affect the shape I'm in.  I think if I'd lost 30 pounds rapidly and without exercise I would look very different.  For instance, my arms are not flabby anymore, but only because my muscle tone is good and my skin has had time to adjust to the change.  So I'm not saying exercise isn't helping, but it does not affect the numbers on the scale.

What has brought my weight down is eating less.  I know, shocking.  But I'm not someone who wants to track every bite I put into my mouth.  I don't want to think that hard.

So I've come up with a system for myself that I'm calling "Off Switch Eating."

Swim Team

Swimming is one of those basic skills I feel all of my kids should have a handle on before they grow up and leave my care.  We've done basic group lessons at the Y sporadically over the years, and my kids are comfortable in the water, but this last summer I decided I wanted them to have training in more specific strokes rather than just let them keep paddling around however.  We ended up enrolling them in private lessons, and that worked out really well.

The Y was nice about letting us sign up for the regular blocks of time and then splitting that time up amongst our various kids.  They each got at least two private lessons, and they advanced much more quickly than they would have in another group class.

The teacher was particularly impressed with Mona's abilities, and told me that she expected by the last lesson Mona would be ready for the Swim Team if she wanted to join.  The Swim Team met at the same time in the evenings as our private lessons so we could see it in action in the next couple of lanes.  All the kids were about Mona's age, happily doing laps and being coached by some young, energetic Y people.  It looked fun, so I introduced the idea to Mona and let her think about it.  She can be shy, so I knew it would need time to sink in before she'd consider giving it a go.

I have no idea what to eat.

I know I'm probably not alone in this feeling, but it always looks to me as if people around me have an idea or a plan or some handle on what they're doing where food is concerned, and I am just lost.  My weight is out of control and I need to do something, but I honestly don't know what.

I want to be someone who likes tons of vegetables, is not tempted by sugar, and can eat everything in moderation.  I am not that someone.  I'm frustrated by the fact that in many ways I know what I should do, but that I don't seem capable of actually doing it.  Am I broken?

I suspect that in our modern world many of us are sabotaged by our biology and our instincts in the face of comfortable lifestyle options and easy availability of unhealthy things to eat.  I'd like to think because I'm smart enough to recognize the problems I should be able to muster the will to deal with them, but I feel overwhelmed.  There is too much.  Too much temptation and too much information.

The last time I made the attempt to lose weight with any success I did a kind of modified points counting plan borrowed from Weight Watchers in combination with about 90 minutes a day of exercise.  It worked, but it was like a full-time job.  I don't want to do that again.  I don't want to get to the end of my life and have my weight be my only accomplishment because it took up all my time.  That's ridiculous.  Unless you are a serious cook you should not be obsessed with food.

A Matter of Size

It's hard to explain to anyone who hasn't struggled with his or her weight how difficult it can be.  I'm a pretty determined person and able to accomplish most things I set my mind to.  But getting down to a weight where I want to be and staying there?  I'm starting to think it's impossible.  Which is frustrating.

I try not to beat myself up too much about it.  I'm doing better at incorporating regular exercise into my schedule (I swim a mile in the morning about five or six days a week), and I'm trying to make better choices about what I eat.  But life gets stressful and I betray myself with decisions I know are bad but seem irresistible in the moment.  When I start to question my sanity and lack of will I think about how if Oprah with her infinite resources and all the incentive in the world to keep her weight down still struggles, then there is probably more to it than I realize and shouldn't feel like such a failure.

But does anyone who cares about me really love me less when my jeans are getting tight again?  Do I care less about anyone based on his or her size?  No.  So why do I obsess?  Why do I dislike myself so much over it?  I'm not sure, but I don't seem able to escape it.

Back toward the beginning of the school year I went through all my kids' clothes to figure out what fit them and what didn't, what should be handed down, and what should be given away.  We seldom have to shop for Mona since she is delighted to inherit whatever clothes no longer fit her sister, but each time Aden grows we end up walking down the street to Target and stocking up on some new shirts and leggings and skirts.  Easy enough.

But Aden has finally reached the limit of what the girls section at Target has to offer.  She's tall, like I am, and the biggest size girl clothes are 14/16, which are getting too short on her.  We looked around at things she liked, but realized anything we bought would likely not last the whole year.  So we had to move over to the older girl/women's area of the store.  And it wasn't good.

A Body of Work

I suspect that if I live long enough to get to die of a ripe and wrinkly old age I will regret that I wasted so much time and energy being frustrated with my body.

It's unwarranted, my disappointment with it, because it serves me so well.  It works!  No, I haven't put keeping it in its optimum condition a priority, but I can walk and move and see and feel and breathe....  From a vanity standpoint I don't think I'm conventionally cute, but I like my face and wouldn't change it.  I should accept my body's size and shape and concentrate on being healthy and not get so critical.  I know these things.  But it doesn't matter sometimes what I know.

It's a weird line between getting motivated to change and being self-critical.  I'm not in the shape I would like to be in, and it's hard not to feel like a failure about that.  But if I'm too forgiving of myself in that regard then I'm less likely to do something different.  There must be a happy midpoint in there, but instead I tend to ping pong over that net between the two extremes.  I wish I didn't, because as I mentioned, it seems like a colossal waste of time.

I have been back on my 'paleo' (no grains, dairy, sugar, legumes, or processed foods) kick since the first of May.  It does solve my problem with headaches so it's not a completely ridiculous thing to do, but it's not easy.  My husband needed to lose weight for the Army so he did this plan with me this time, and annoyingly lost about as much weight in six weeks as I did in as many months.  (Ugh, men.  A friend told me her dad dropped twenty pounds and when she asked him about it he said, "I just had one scoop of ice cream at night instead of two!"  Yeah.)

I am proud of myself for staying with the stupid food rules even while on our recent road trip.  Those are hard restrictions to follow outside of my own house.  I eat really well most days and enjoy some really nice food, but it's labor intensive making every meal.  I make a good carrot soup, and zucchini strangely enough is a good substitute for noodles, and throw some pine nuts in with my curry stir fry and I'm happy.  I start planning my meals around vegetables, and there is something really satisfying as I watch our groceries at the checkout because it's all produce and whole ingredients and just an occasional box of cereal for the kids, but otherwise it's eggs and apples and kale, etc.

But eating out is hard, and eating with other people is awkward.  I end up eating my hamburger without a bun, and I can't have the chips or the dip or an ice cream cone.  It looks silly and arbitrary (which it is, being self-imposed and not some medical need), and I fear unnecessarily draws other people's attention to what they are eating when they shouldn't have to.  In my opinion it's rude to turn down food offered to you at someone's home, but on my trip I felt like I needed to do it and tried to not make it seem annoying or overly weird.  I know people understand, but sticking to my salad while everyone else indulged in some outrageously good looking pizza was really tough.  But I did it.  I decided I've had pizza in my lifetime.  I've had too much pizza.  The couple of minutes of enjoying more pizza at this time does not outweigh my desire to fit into smaller clothes.  Someday I will eat pizza again.  Just not right now.  So for the first time ever I came back from a vacation a little lighter than when I left.  That's good.

But what's not good is the more weight I lose the more critical I seem to feel about my body.  I can actually tell when my weight goes up a bit because I'm oddly more confident about my appearance.  Why is that?  What screwed up relationship do I have between my brain and my belly that I can't see or feel things clearly in this area?  I just don't know.

As regularly as I can I swim at the Y in the mornings.  Most often I do laps at the same time as the aqua-aerobics class which is populated with old ladies.  (I suppose I should say Seniors, but my grandma used the term old lady and I just like it.  I find it endearing and hope to live long enough to become an old lady.)  I sort through an interesting collection of thoughts and emotions when I'm in the changing room with the aqua-aerobics class.

There is nothing that will make you feel better in a swimsuit than to be at the Y during aqua-aerobics.  I see bodies that are large, lumpy, saggy, discolored, and all kinds of odd.  My overweight, 43-year-old self seems quite young and fit in that environment.

Then I end up next to a lifeguard who appears to be about twelve with perfect skin and has thighs that don't rub together and I blend in better with the old ladies, lumps and all.  I go from feeling sort of aghast that the people with such heavy or peculiar bodies are willing to be seen in bathing suits, to being impressed by how little it matters.  It will seem crazy to me that they to want to be in public in such outfits, and then it seems just as crazy for them not to be out there baring themselves if they wish.  They are not there for a beauty contest, they are there to get healthy and strong, and I admire that.  In the end it's neither heroic nor an affront to fashion, all these different shapes in their different suits.  It's just people living their lives.

The thing is, I intellectually understand where I want to be in terms of my own attitude and level of comfort with myself, and I can't figure out why I put as much importance on my body image as I do.  Because I know, for a fact, that my love for other people is not dependent on their body shapes.  I don't give a damn what size my mom or friends or brothers or cousins wear.  I care in the sense that I'm interested in what matters to them, and if that's something that concerns them then I am concerned too.  But I would love them at any weight or in any condition.  I would not love someone less if their bodies were fat, thin, sick, healthy, or covered with tattoos.  I'm quite sure none of the people in my life who love me do so based on my size.  As long as my husband and kids want to be with me, I bet they feel whatever size I am is the right one.  Which happens to be how I feel about them as well.

I suppose the trick is to be able to extend that kind of love to myself.  I find it a little alarming that apparently I don't.  In the meantime I will continue to pay attention to what I eat and keep exercising as part of a regular routine, because regardless of how I see myself (or don't see myself) I know what the right things I must do are to stay healthy.  If I can't do that at the moment for love of myself, I will do it for those who love me back.

Temporarily Not A Liar (Babble)

This morning I hit an arbitrary milestone.  After months of making a conscious effort to watch what I eat and trying to exercise regularly I’ve made some progress.  And today?  Today I stepped on the scale and discovered I now weigh what it says I do on my driver’s license.  This is both exciting and pathetic.

I’m proud of myself that I’m more than 20 pounds lighter than I was back in the spring.  I still have another 20 to go to get where I really should be.  The next 20 will be harder than the first were, but I think I can do it.  My goal was to see if I could reach a healthy weight that I can try to maintain by my birthday in March, and my gift to myself would be a new driver’s license with my actual weight on it, but I don’t think I’m going to get there by then.  Maybe summer?  Although my motivation is wearing thin so hard to say how fast progress will be from here.

But here’s a question to anyone else out there who struggles with his or her weight too:  Do you see and feel the changes in your body when you lose weight?  Because I sort of don’t, and I wonder about that.  I know I am lighter.  I started out at some size randomly bigger than an 18.  (Target doesn’t really sell women’s jeans above an 18 so I had something from the men’s section for a while that fit but I don’t know what it was.)  Then whenever I reach a point where I can remove my jeans without having to unbutton or unzip them I buy the next smaller size.  I am currently down to a 14 which is starting to feel loose, and I have a pair of 12’s in the wings that I can get on but still look too tight to venture out in public in yet.  The last time I worked really hard to lose weight after Mona was born I made it all the way down to an 8, and then I got pregnant with Quinn and Ian got deployed and cookies became my friend and that’s how I ended up in the men’s jeans.
 
So I’ve come a ways in the right direction and I see the progress through my clothes.  I also see the startled reaction on the faces of people whom I haven’t seen in months and know they see a difference in my appearance.  But I can’t see it in myself.  Is that normal?
Part of me thinks that when I am heavier I am good at 1.) just not looking at myself in the mirror much, and 2.) adopting an attitude of inner beauty being important.  If I’m not actively watching my weight, then I’m actively ignoring my weight.  If I am trying to lose weight, then I have to pay attention, and I get frustrated by what I see.  If I’m actively looking to change a flaw then I am hyper aware of that flaw, otherwise how could I address it?  Therefore my own body image is oddly better when I’m heavy, I guess just through the magic of denial.  But it seems unfair to go through all this effort and not get to at least feel more genuinely pleased about it.

I mean, I am pleased, because I want to be healthy and I want to set a good example for my kids.  Aden worries about my denying myself sugar, but we had a talk about how I don’t need it and different bodies need different things.  Her body is growing so she can have the spaghetti with the meatballs and I’ll just have the meatballs and the salad and that’s what’s better for me right now.  I want my kids to see that exercise is something you build into your day based on what I do, not because of some lecture.  That there are lots of choices to make about food but they don’t have to be hard, just sensible.  I think I’m accomplishing those goals, so the effort is worth it.  But when you are overweight and dream of being smaller, it’s weird when being smaller in and of itself doesn’t bring the joy you expect it to.  Or maybe it does and I’m weird?  I’m probably weird.

In any case, yea!  Officially smaller, whether I see it myself or not.  I hate this struggle and the amount of mental energy it sucks up, but it’s important.  This is the only body I’ve got and I’d like to keep it in good enough shape to keep building violins for a long time, and to be around to enjoy my family and so many other things life has to offer.

I’m looking forward to the weight on my driver’s license being wrong the other direction for a while.

(Quinn at the center of the labyrinth at school.  That’s the kind of triumph I want to feel!  Maybe I need to walk that labyrinth….)

Adventures in Swimming (Babble)

I do my best to find time to swim a mile as many days a week as I can.  Except Saturdays, because the kids are home in the morning and I work all day and it’s just too much.  And then there are days my swimming ambitions are thwarted because either I or one of my kids is sick, or a project gets in the way, but typically I would say I swim at least three times a week.  I don’t know how much good it’s doing, but it can’t hurt, and it sounds like something I should be doing, so there we are.

Anyway, since all that time at the pool is taking up a sizable chunk of my life it seemed worth a blog post.  At least, it seemed like a good idea in my head as I was going back and forth in the water for 45 minutes one morning.  Here’s everything I have to say about swimming:

The big advantage to swimming is that even when something hurts during any other exercise (like my left knee, which I think one of my kids leaned on too hard when I was sitting cross legged and it’s been painful for months while I walk) I can still swim.  And I like a form of exercise where I come out cleaner than I started.  The disadvantage is I’m dependent on going somewhere specific to do it.  (I envy that a runner can just kind of open his or her door and go.)


There are two places I swim.  The first is the Y.  (I joined the Y back when Ian was deployed the first time because there was a free six-month membership offer for families of active duty soldiers at the time.  We didn’t do much then beyond hang out in the play room when the weather was bad and I needed to get the kids out of the house, or occasionally sign out a racket ball court and let the kids have at it smacking balls off the walls and ceiling.  Anyway, we’re finally getting our money’s worth out of the place with as often as Ian and I go now, so that’s good.)  The pool at the Y is small, and it takes me 36 laps to do a mile.  There are three lanes (out of six) designated for lap swimming that get squeezed down to two during water aerobics in the morning.  The Y is usually crowded in the morning.  Sharing a lane at the Y gets a little tight but most of the time it works out okay.  The exceptions are if I end up with Splashy Guy (who is a middle aged man who swims at a good clip but lets one of his arms drop straight down onto the water in such a way when he does the front crawl that he sends water everywhere) or Blind Andy.  I like Blind Andy, and I’m impressed by anyone who can swim blind (although I suppose crossing the street blind would be scarier) but he uses flippers and a snorkel and moves way faster than I do.  I know I slow him down when I share a lane with him because he waits to hear when I get to the end so he knows when it’s safe to move again.  Ian uses the treadmills and the weight room at the Y, so I go there when the two of us are able to get out and exercise at the same time.

The other place I sometimes swim is the county pool.  It’s closer to home and it’s bigger.  The lanes are wider, there are eight of them, and it only takes 32 laps to do a mile.  If I go there to swim in the afternoon I sometimes literally have the whole place to myself.  There have been days I’ve seen the poor lifeguards watching me paddle back and forth and wondered if they hate me for making it necessary for them to stay there, or if I give meaning to their lives by being the only swimmer to potentially save.  (I suspect the former, but can’t prove it because they are always unfailingly polite.)  The county pool also has diving boards and a basketball hoop.  I go to the county pool if Ian and I are exercising at different times and I don’t need to go all the way to the Y, or after school when we can fit it in our schedule with the whole family.  I do laps while Ian and the kids play, and then I join them when I’m done.  The big advantage of family swim is if I get the kids’ hair washed in the showers it counts as bath night.

The biggest differences between the two pools are the amenities.  The Y has towels (although I tend to think of them as ‘exfoliating towels’ but they are still towels I don’t have to lug there myself), more private showers, a scale, a hot tub, bigger lockers, lotion, a TV, hair dryers….  Plus if we go to the Y with the kids there is a small pool for them nearby that they prefer because it’s warmer.  The county pool is more utilitarian, but in some ways smarter.  I’ve never understood the carpeting in the locker rooms at the Y because they just generate a damp mildewy smell, and the county locker room is all tile which seems more practical to me.

The Y also has a thing that’s like a salad spinner for swimsuits.  There are all these instructions on it about pushing your suit far enough down before pressing on the lid which starts it spinning to get the bulk of the water out of your suit.  I learned the hard way that it really means what it says, because I nonchalantly put my suit in there any old way one morning and the thing ripped my suit to shreds.  Now I’m kind of paranoid about shoving my suit all the way down.

Luckily I buy my suits online so it wasn’t hard to replace.  I hate shopping for swimsuits, but doing it online is less painful.  The great irony about wanting to swim to get into better shape is that so few suits seem designed for swimming, particularly if you are not a size eight or under.  There are serious swimsuits for people already in shape, but bigger suits tend to have goofy straps that fall off your shoulder if you move too vigorously.
To keep my hair from becoming completely fried from chlorine I put a bunch of conditioner on under my swim cap.  I’ve seen no difference between special swimmer’s shampoo and what I normally use in terms of helping my overly chlorinated hair, but the conditioner under the cap thing helps more than anything I’ve tried.

My skin always smells like chlorine, so I started using a floral scented body butter for when I get out of the pool.  Now I smell like flowers that have been watered with chlorine.
For the most part swimming is a fairly safe activity, but once I left my razor in my bag facing the wrong direction and sliced the crap out of my thumb in the shower at the Y one morning.  That was no fun.  I couldn’t stop the bleeding long enough to get my bra on without making a mess, so I ended up heading home essentially naked under my coat which was way less sexy than it sounds.

One of the more unexpected results of all my swimming is that the bottoms of my feet aren’t cracked anymore.  I’ve had problems with cracked heels my whole life, and as a kid my toes and heels used to bleed.  I’ve always wanted cute feet and have tried any number of lotions, but I think the regular soaking in chlorine has killed whatever caused the problem.  Who knows?  Anyway, I finally have cute feet.  Not the bodily improvement I was expecting for all the effort, but go figure.

The biggest obstacle to fitting exercise into my life isn’t time so much as boredom.  I hate wasting time, and I find exercise frustratingly dull.  It’s very hard for me not to think about all the other things I’d rather be doing.  So I’ve been arming myself with gadgets to help combat the elements of exercise that I find irritating.

My first, best gadget is a lap counter.  I Googled the idea one day when I couldn’t stand spending all my time in the water keeping track of what lap I was on anymore.  I found this, which is a waterproof device I can wear like a ring, and I push the button on it with my thumb every time I reach the wall at the shallow end of the pool.  Now I can think about whatever I want, and somewhere around the 45 minute mark I check the lap counter to see if I’m done or not.  I love the thing.

The more extravagant gadget I treated myself to for Mother’s Day this year.  There is a company that waterproofs regular iPods, so I ordered one with a set of waterproof ear buds.  I’ve never owned an iPod so it took awhile to figure out exactly how to get it going.  The first problem was that my laptop’s version of iTunes was more than five minutes old so my iPod Shuffle was mystified.  We got that solved, then had to figure out how to find what I downloaded once we got it onto my player.  My first swim with the thing I listened to a 15 minute Freakonomics show and then it started repeating.  Now that I’ve had some practice I’m on track and can listen to interesting things like This American Life or Fresh Air.  I know most people would probably use it to exercise to music, but I have to choose music very carefully or it will bother more than it will entertain me.  (A few years ago I used to go to Curves, and as much as I liked the exercise routine I don’t think I could go back there and literally face the music again.)

Swimming while learning something and not having to count laps has been a big improvement.  Anything that helps me keep it up and not want to quit is useful.  And I feel good on those family swim days that my kids see me diligently getting my workout in.  Plus it’s more fun to watch them splashing around and waving to me as I go by than it is watching the synchronized feet of the water aerobics people at the Y.

I have no idea how Ian and I will fit exercising into our lives once school lets out because that three hour block of time in the morning has been so great for us getting out together.  Above and beyond my gadgets the biggest motivation to exercise has simply been that my husband goes to do it with me.  His encouragement has made a huge difference, and that extra time we get alone together on the drive to the Y and back has been really nice.  With summer vacation comes the return of our tag team lives, but we will find a way.  Besides, I’ve gotten used to smelling like a bottle of bleach.  How can I give that up?

(No way could anyone ever pay me enough to get me to post a picture of myself in a swimsuit, so here is Mona a few years back during her hat phase.  Nothing says born in Wisconsin more than a winter hat in the pool.  Or something.)

Forget Walking and Chewing Gum at the Same Time... (Babble)

I am blogging while walking on my treadmill!

Despite my hopeful attempts of late to get in better shape, getting out to exercise keeps getting interrupted by life.  The kids will be off of school or someone gets sick or I have to use my time to wrap presents because things like memorial services pop up.  I know these aren’t real excuses to some people, but I argue those are people who actually like to exercise.  I know several people who run, and not because they have to but they seem to like it.  I am not one of those people.  I wish I were one of those people!  The idea of exercising for the pleasure of it rather than as some time sucking chore is amazing to me.  I like the results of it, I understand it is something I must do, but I am infinitely happier reading a book or building a violin or cuddling with my kids, none of which burn calories or strengthen muscles.  Time spent exercising makes me want to scream.

But, my weight has reached proportions that make me physically uncomfortable, so I have to start paying attention and putting the task of getting into better shape on the front burner.  I can’t ignore it.  I want to be healthy and I want to be a healthy example to my kids.  I can’t be a role model that shows them exercise is fun, but at least I can prove to them I believe when something is important to do, you do it even if you don’t want to.  And whenever possible, be creative.

I saw a news story a few weeks back about a workplace that got rid of traditional desks and replaced them with treadmill workstations.  The employees could walk slowly while they typed and used the phone, and everyone was happier.  What an idea!  If I could combine my laptop time with exercise, that could work.


We have a simple, fold-up treadmill that had gotten buried behind computer equipment in Ian’s study.  I had him move it into my shop.  I am not crazy about anything invading my shop space that is not directly related to violin making, and the treadmill is being doomed to a sawdust covered existence, but it’s an out of the way room with enough space for it, so in it went.

My first thought was to construct a tall shelf thing with legs that would fit on either side of the treadmill, but then I realized if I faced the wall I could just screw a little shelf in right there.  It’s not very feng shui to have my back kind of to the door, but maybe I’ll just get a little rear view mirror.  (Or try turning my head.  That sounds cheaper.)

Anyway, so far it seems to work.  Walking somewhere at a pace between one and two miles an hour is easy, but I figure it adds up and it’s better than not doing it.  I walked a mile last night while writing emails and catching up on my favorite blogs.  Then I walked a little faster while watching a show on Hulu, and slowed down again when I wanted to type.  I’ve composed this whole post while walking on the treadmill, so I can actually consider blogging exercise.  And it doesn’t feel like exercise, and it doesn’t feel like wasted time.  This could be good!  The trick will be to see if I can write blog posts about anything other than walking on my treadmill.  We’ll find out soon.

Going Swimmingly (Babble)

We’ve settled into a nice routine here in our busy house.  It was hard trading the flexibility of the anything goes summer schedule for the necessary rigidity of our fall days, but I think we’ve all adjusted to it.  I have to keep a breakdown of each day posted in the kitchen so I can keep everything straight, but so far so good.  We’ve mapped out which days each of us cooks what meal, who does the drop offs and the pick ups, choir, violin lessons, neighborhood recess, bath nights, rehearsals….  It makes my head spin a little, but writing it down seems to help make it look less overwhelming.

I’ve never been someone interested in scheduling my kids for organized activities, but it just seems to happen.  I prefer coming up with our own fun, and my kids put together dinosaur picnics and create dragons from paper and like to do puzzles and and play with clay, etc., so they don’t lack for things to do on their own, but some things just require us to sign on, pack up and head out.  Both girls do violin lessons and choir, and Quinn and Mona are in swimming lessons.  If you count family movie night on Fridays and the optional neighborhood recess, there is something on every day of the work week.  Seems a bit much to me, but everyone likes everything so there’s no reason to cut any of it out.


There are two very nice things for me and Ian in the new schedule, though, and we’ll have to figure out a way to keep them when we have to reconfigure the schedule next year when he starts working for the Army again a couple of days a week.  The first thing is that each of us gets one day off during the week.  Mine is a designated building day where I get to work in my home shop building my own instruments.  I’ve started a new violin and I’m really happy about it.  On my day I get to sleep in and I don’t have to make any of the trips to the school unless I feel like it.  So far on Ian’s day off he’s mostly put in time getting filing and computer work done at the violin store, but he’s off kid duty at least, and he knows he could choose to do something else if he wanted to.  Of course, we each still end up helping each other out and playing with Quinn after lunch and running errands, but it’s nice to know on one day you have permission to opt out if you really need to and not feel bad about it.  I love my day off.  It makes all the demands on me the rest of the week far more bearable.

The other thing is that we’ve firmly put exercise time into the schedule.  Three days a week we go together to drop off the kids at school and then drive straight to the YMCA to swim.  (The true advantage of running your own business is being able to set your hours to fit your life a little better.  We don’t have to open until 10:30, so there is enough time to exercise and change before going to work.)  I had high hopes for trying to get in better shape while Ian was away, but once I started the process of moving whatever extra time I didn’t have to start with, vanished.  I gave up any idea that it was even possible to exercise at that point because I couldn’t handle one more thing.  I ate cookies, avoided the scale, and tried not to think about it.

But now Ian is home and Quinn is in school in the mornings, so it’s a whole new world.  Three times a week I swim a mile.  I’d like to work something else in, too, someday, but for now this works.  And my approach is different.  I don’t have time to concentrate on getting in better shape as if it’s another job.  I’m not counting calories or weighing myself.  I’m going to try just eating what looks reasonable and keeping up with our exercise routine, and if in a few months I don’t notice any difference I’ll reevaluate what I’m doing, but until then I’m content that this is a lifestyle I can maintain.  It’s a start.

I’m hoping my kids will be the kind of people who enjoy exercise.  They are certainly active, and they love swimming at the Y and biking and running around, and I encourage all of that.  But I hate exercise.  Swimming is the only activity along those lines that I can tolerate.  It comes easily and I’m cleaner at the end of it.  Running drives me crazy because I think loudly to myself with every single step how much I hate running.  Walking is fine but only if I have a place to go.  I’m too goal oriented to walk just for the sake of walking.  Same thing with biking–I need to know where I’m going first or else I get irritated.

But swimming is nice.  I don’t like being up early to do it, and that initial shock of getting into the water never improves, but I once I get going I can splash along for 45 minutes to do my mile with no problem.  The one thing I’d like to fix, though, is an easier way to count my laps.  Counting gets so boring, and it would be nice to let my mind wander a little.  I sometimes do different strokes for odd vs. even  laps just to help keep straight where I am, but ideally I’d like to let the numbers go.  I keep envisioning some kind of abacus like contraption to put at the end of my lane so that I can just flick beads across each time I reach that end so I don’t have to keep numbers in my head.  Or a bracelet that does something similar, where I slide beads over and when I’ve moved 36 of them I know I’m done.

In the meantime I use my memory.  Not just to remember the actual number, but to keep the number interesting.  While I swim I try to think of something relevant to do with whatever number I’m on.  One I don’t need help remembering, two is how old I was at the time of my first memories, three is Quinn’s age, four is how old he’ll be soon and I think about what he wants for his party, five is how old Aden was when her dad came back from his first deployment, six is Mona, seven was yellow on a puzzle I had as a kid, eight is Aden, nine is how old she will be soon (I can’t believe my baby is going to be nine), ten is all my fingers and I think about the scars on my thumbs or the ring I’m wearing…. at fourteen I had a Rubik’s cube themed birthday, at fifteen my kids will have driver’s permits….  at eighteen they’ll vote….  what did I do on my twenty-first birthday?….  The writers of the Sid Caesar Show thought thirty-two was the funniest number and I think they’re right….  at thirty-four I had Mona, what will Aden be doing when she’s thirty-five?  Thirty-six is the last one yay yay yay!  It’s a little disconcerting that the number of my current age is higher than the number of laps in a mile in the YMCA pool, but oh well.  If I wanted to count really high I could keep track of lengths instead of laps and go up to eighty-two, but that sounds like too many distracting thoughts rattling around my brain during one swim.  The result of this kind of counting is I finish exercising feeling a little nostalgic instead of just tired.  For someone who doesn’t like to exercise in the first place that’s the best I’m going to do.

I like that Ian and I are trying to set a good example for our kids regardless of our own inclinations about incorporating necessary physical activity into our lives.  If we’re lucky, our kids will grow up thinking that’s just what you do, you make time in your schedule for things like swimming.  I just hope they develop a joy for things like running instead of a grudging resignation.  Despite my genetic input, it could happen!