Monday and Tuesday

Rode my bike for the first time in a while. That was supposed to be my activity but somehow I forgot. It was fun. Fun! I didn't ride too far, just down to the grocery store and back.

Overall I feel stronger. Although the past two days I've also felt very very tired. I think it is the heat, my mother's long visit, and I need a day off. My jobs, being a minister and freelance writing, are both kind of ongoing - there aren't set hours and so I can tend to do them too much. I worry too much. I'm going to worry less. Today I could have driven an hour to "be there" for something that I am not actually needed for. But I am not going to go. Listening to my body.

I'll go for a bike ride instead.

I'm hungry.

Sunday

Sunday was busy. My plan of splitting my jumping didn't happen. I find all these new exercises very challenging. Feel like I'm spending more energy figuring out how to do them than actually doing them well! I like the simple squats, rowing, crunch stuff. There are a few I simply can't do - like the pistol squat. So I try a few but then resort to the regular squat.

All right. Enough whining.

Overall I'm feeling very good. I am continuing to lose weight. Down 10 pounds as of today. And I feel so much stronger. And not worried about hurting my back or something when I pick things up. My posture is better. I'm feeling my body more - and I notice when I'm slumping or sitting in a strange position for too long. I'm much more aware of my physical self. Not so sedentary and intellectual.

Can't believe I am doing this

Okay. I am going to post four pictures - two from when we started and two from today. I am middle aged, and not exactly a pin up model. But I can really see the progress. Of course it helps that in the first pictures I look completely miserable. Which I was at the thought of sending such photos out to strangers. But now you are not strangers and you will understand the work that went into the progress... which, although it is not some kind of fabulous babe - it is more my self - my true body. So here.

and the side view...

Good Heavens

I guess Patrick was talking about me not posting for so many days. Augh!! How did that happen. My mother has been here all week. I was busy, had a very big funeral yesterday. And it has been extremely hot.

Enough whining.

Things are 0kay... I am making progress, slow but sure. I also got my photo thing to work finally - it connects to all the extremely honest pictures on Flickr.

Food is fine. Exercise is fine. My progress is slow but sure.

Yesterday I divided my jumping and managed to do 400 in the morning and 400 at night. So... I know it is still a ways from what I am aiming for, but it is more than I've felt comfortable doing in one run. Knees still feeling good. Lots of stretching.

I am more in my body now. Aware of my posture. More aware of what my body is actually feeling. The diet is great - it seems to have cut out all the external influences that were whipping me into energy or taking me down. Although I have kept coffee, everything else seems like it is giving me slow, steady energy.

I like it very much. It feels "clean."

Yesterday I was in a bakery, looking in the glass case at plates of cookies and brownies and the like. I wasn't even slightly tempted. Odd. I left with a small thing of yogurt and a hard boiled egg. (Vermont bakeries are eclectic.)

My journey is bringing me back from a pretty lost place where my body didn't matter. Two years ago I kind of felt like I was standing at the line of life and death. Not exactly a question of suicide, but rather of what the rest of my life would be. I chose life. Since that time it has been a slow but steady climb back into a body and a life that is happy and healthy. My progress has been slower sometimes than I want. There is so much to balance in my day - single mom, two part time jobs, worries about money and the future, loneliness, and all that junky junk. But I have kept at it.

Today, after I did my exercises I walked down to the thrift store (that's a used clothing store) and there was a Brooks Brothers black silk evening gown, with the original tag still on it ($188). It was beautiful. Simple, elegant, and sleeveless. I tried it on and it fit like a glove. It was $20 and I can't imagine where I am going to wear it. But it is in my closet.

Cheers.

Ritual

I'm guessing we all have a ritual with the exercising rigamarole.

This is mine.

When evening begins to fall and the air turns cool, I go across the street to the high school. There is a place next to the building, a dirt path, in the middle of a bunch of trees, quiet and private, with a picnic table.

I set my list of exercises, water bottle, beloved jump rope, cell phone (in case of heart attack..ha ha...) on the table and then I stretch. Knee stretches...every which way. Hip stretches (they also ache). And then I stop and look for a four leaf clover. An old habit of mine. I often find one.

Today I found one right away.

I jump. I stop every 50 or so jumps and make sure my knees are feeling loose and warm. Sometimes I have to stop for a while and catch my breath. Every 50 I make a mark in the dirt.

When my knees start hurt, I get these little sharp pains, then I take a longer break. I try to jump a bit more but if I get a really strong pain - I stop completely and stretch more.

Then I go through the exercises. I use the picnic table for the incline thing and triceps thing (had to come inside for that double chair thing). When I'm done I lay on the picnic bench and relax.

As I was doing the exercises I kept finding more leaf clovers.

When I lay on the bench I looked at my clovers. My luck. I thought - We make our own luck. We find it if we look for it. We make our own bodies if we try.

So my global comrades...we're making our own luck because we're looking, pushing, pulling, leaping and reaching for it.

Stretched ... not but stretched thin...

Whew. What a week. I over scheduled, over stressed and over extended myself. It was instructive.

So at the end of this incredibly busy week I ended up at a table, set up outside of my friend's house who lives in Brookfield Vermont (she runs a restaurant there actually) by the side of a beautiful lake. Sun going down. And I gave in. I did not do the indulgent thing last week because I spent that week in NYC and drank some wine so I figured that counted. But tonight, the husband of my friend, who is an actual sommelier wine genius person, offers me a glass of low alcohol wine from Spain. Oh my God, I think. Just say no. But I was too fricking tired. I grabbed it and with it a cookie. The cookie was made by Mrs. Jenny Brown for coffee hour at church this morning and I had been so busy this weekend that I hadn't made anything for the July 4th party. So I bought a plate of gingersnap cookies from Mrs. Brown. There I sat with a big beautiful sugary cookie and a glass of cold wine on a hot July 4th night.

Okay. Time for the indulgence.

It was okay. Kind of made me feel sleepy. And my hands and feet got kind of puffy and swollen.

It wasn't really worth it. The evening with friends and lovely lake and great food (grilled chicken, poached salmon, lots of home grown salad...) would have been enough. The food wasn't on my diet but it wasn't "bad." Be honest. The evening with friends would have been enough. Laughing.

So I'm home and heading out to do my jumping at 8:30 PM, sigh. Don't want to go. I don't mind the other exercises but the jumping feels like penance, like punishment. It's just not my thing. None the less. I do as many as I can. When my knees start twinging, around 450, I slow down and then stop if there is any sharper pain. So far that has worked. I can't keep up with the rest of you but my knees are getting stronger and they aren't hurt.

Wish me luck.

Deb

30 Days

End of the Month.

I worked hard yesterday - physically - did the workout - did almost 500 jumps (which is good for me although my right knee started hurting a bit) - went for a bike ride and a walk. Today I am slammed with life. My mother coming, house a mess (16 year old boy similar to 2 year old girl Tara...), copyedit job due, Sunday sermon, wedding on Saturday, meeting with dying man and family and preparing for his funeral, paying bills, sigh... life. No exercise yet and it's almost 5PM and I've still got to drive to Montpelier and get my mom. Sorry to bore you all with the grim details of my life.

Still. Body feeling good. Made incredible Mole Chicken with Zuchini and Peas. Should last for several days.

Triceps thingy on chairs - not so good. Thought arms might snap off.

Roll on...roll on... trying to seize the day.