Fashionista to Passionista

So you’ve taken a little time out and given some thought to your bucket list. You’ve determined there are a few things you’d like to experience while you still have the balance to kick at the can without falling on yours. Good for you! Here was my recent, illuminating experience with that process. I determined that my biggest bucket list item was to swim with whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. Delighted with my new goal, I began to reverse-engineer this dream: Swim with sharks. Obtain scuba certification. Be able to swim 200 meters/yards. Try on one-piece bathing suit that’s been in my drawer for years. Get bikini wax. Try on one-piece bathing suit that’s been in my drawer for years.

Despite much whining and moaning from my inner workaholic who has no time for such frivolities as joy, off I went to the pool. At 50, this is not as simple as it was when I was 30, which is probably the last time I was in a pool. I used to take the kids for family swim time, however, what I was doing couldn’t be called swimming. I was just there to make sure the kids didn’t drown. As a child I could swim like a fish, but that was a distant memory. So, standing firm in my desire to actually DO SOMETHING other than work, off I went. What fun I had. I did a short workout first to warm myself up. I wore my bathing suit and a pair of sweat pants because I am nothing if not efficient. I figured after my workout, I could just remove the sweat pants, and voila! I’d be ready for the pool. However, I wear a panty liner when I work out (no need to go into detail, but any woman with children or over 40 knows why), and I forgot to remove it when I stowed my sweats in my locker. I tucked my hair under my swim cap, donned a pair of goggles, and entered the pool area. I should point out here that I am near-sighted. I thought it a good idea to wear my contact lenses and then my goggles so I would be able to see the end of the pool before I crashed headlong into it. The pool was empty save a lone woman doing laps at the far end. I climbed down the ladder, and pushed off from the shallow end in a surprisingly fluid front crawl (it seems it’s like riding a bike).

Very quickly the following things happened. 1. I realized I’d forgotten to remove the pantyliner from my suit when it suddenly felt as though there was a wet sponge between my legs (and not in a good way), and 2. I hadn’t affixed my goggles properly. They promptly half filled up with water which in turn slid the contacts off my eyeballs so I could see nothing but mini aquariums with pale blue discs floating around in them in front of me. I also ran out of air and energy before I made it the length of the pool, which was 25 ft long. Super. 

It is a sobering moment when you experience an ephiphany – I want to do THIS! – and you realize you are nowhere near qualified/able/capable to do so. Talk about a smack in the face with a hard dose of reality. I may have the money to go to Georgia, but I don’t have the ability to get my certification. A hard fact had to be accepted: I am in terrible physical shape. I had the fitness level to work an office job and manage a home, which is all I’d really done in the past two decades. I realized the fittest I’d been was when both kids were small and I could haul them and their equipment around without blinking an eye. But no more. It was time to take my physical self seriously. Damn it.

A dear friend of mine says that whenever the urge to exercise strikes, she sits down until it goes away. While this is appealing to me on many levels, it’s not going to get me a space beside a whale shark. And so I began to focus on wellness, both with regards to diet and exercise. Again, it boils down to choices and options. I am annoyed at myself for closing doors that I now have to make a real effort to pry open. A naturally thin person, I never had to exercise to maintain my figure. Unfortunately, while my outsides fit nicely into my clothes, my insides have taken a shit-kicking. I have very little strength, stamina, or flexibility. I have high blood pressure (workaholic anyone?) and osteopenia (that sounds vaguely sexual but it means the stage before osteoporosis – I’ve broken my wrist twice in the last 7 years). This done not bode well for some of the activities I want to include on my bucket list. Sure Bob, I’ll happily participate in this ziplining thing you’ve got going. Just let me surround myself in ten layers of bubble wrap and I’m good to go!. I travel a few times a year for business and sometimes I’m hauling around luggage that weighs more than 50 pounds. Depending on the size of the airport, I can end up winded by the time I get to my gate. This has become entirely unacceptable to me.

Here’s my definition of fitness: The ability to haul my body weight around, have enough stamina to run somewhere if I need  to, and be flexible enough to, say, get into my Mustang without putting out my back. As it turns out, this is also basically the fitness description of the Crossfit plan. My ex-husband mentioned this philosophy to  me and it made sense so that is the fitness plan I have decided to follow. (I was making progress a few months back after the swimming debacle but then I bought my ’stang and starting focusing on my writing and, well, the fitness part took a back seat.) My point is, I’ve given it a try,and it actually works. Regardless of whether you follow the Crossfit Plan or not, my advice to you is to do something. Here is my diet and exercise plan in a nutshell.

 The Crossfit plan is basically the Zone diet. Every meal consists of 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. Portion control is very important and it’s based on portions called “blocks”. They have a handy-dandy PDF document I downloaded which is posted on my fridge. There is a sheet that outlines the block portions for all desirable foods, and one for undesirable carbs. (Sadly, red wine is on the undesirable carb list but it’s still there – 4 oz is one block!) Based on your  body type, you determine your portions (how many blocks you should eat). I can follow this plan easily. I find that by sticking to this menu plan, I have better digestion, assimilation, and elimination. All good things. This may not be for you, but my point is that you need to find what menu plan works best for you. Everyone’s body is different, and what works for me may not work for you.

The Crossfit philosophy focuses on whole fitness which includes strength, stamina, and flexibility. They have a great article defining fitness and you can download it here. This simply made sense to me. As a result, I have created a workout schedule which includes weight training, aerobic conditioning, and flexibilty training. Here’s the downside: It takes a lot of time and effort. Sadly, I won’t get fit watching people do what I want to do on Discovery Channel. I actually have to get my ass up and moving. There’s no way around it. I could simply give up and say I’ll be happy to walk my dog, enjoy the culture of my city, and indulge in cerebral pursuits. But that’s just not enough for me. And so, I am going to have to put in some serious effort. And not just for now. For good. It needs to become part of my lifestyle. The good news is – it works! I saw measurable results within a couple of weeks of swimming. Same for weights and interval running. Unfortunately, I lost all the progress I’d made over the last few months while I focused on other things. That’s the catch – you gotta keep it up. Always.

So, here’s my workout schedule. May not work for you, and yes, it takes a lot of time. But be honest, what else would you be doing? Are you engaging in activities which will ensure a longer, healthier, more productive life? Or are you indulging in your guilty pleasures and watching Jersey Shore? (God Almighty, what a train wreck. If I could say anything positive, it would be that “The Situation” has the discipline to adhere to a strict fitness routine – and he has the abs to prove it.) Here goes:

Monday: strength training, swimming

Tuesday: off

Wednesday: Pilates, running

Thursday: strength straining, swimming

Friday: off

Saturday: Pilates; running

Sunday: Yoga

In addition to this, I do my version of a yoga sun salutation every morning, walk the dog for 30 mins every morning and evening, and do sit ups (not crunches, actual sit ups) and push ups (on the third stair) when I return from the walks.

Yes, it’s a lot of work. But give it some serious thought. I can’t speak for you but I want to be here for a lot longer. I have a lot to do, a lot I’ve put off, a lot to experience. I need my health, and a decent level of fitness, to manage that. And I can no longer fool myself into thinking that walking the dog twice a day or vigorously folding the laundry is doing the trick. I found that out when I couldn’t make it to the other side of a 25 ft pool. Make sure fitness, in whatever form you can manage, but that challenges you, is part of your regular routine. Make sure you are fueling your body with whole foods, and not preservatives and things you can’t pronounce.

For my 50th birthday in October, I have scheduled a photo shoot to document this milestone. I’ll post the pics here, and you can see the results of my efforts. I was diligent for May and June, and have done nothing the last 6 weeks. Time to get back on track. Why don’t you join me?

Whether we realize it or not, we inspire others. As we go through our daily routine, we connect with the world, often in ways we aren’t even aware of. Who are you presenting to the world? To your family, your colleagues, your community? Are you a good example, or a horrible warning? I would venture to say that all of us at any given time, are both.

I have lived in my home for just over ten years. Every spring when the weather warms, the joggers come out. And every spring, I see the Old Black Guy. I’ve never met him. In fact I wouldn’t easily have an opportunity to do so because I see him while driving home from work. I don’t see him every day, but I see him consistently enough to know that this man is committed to his jogging. I would say he’s  in his late 70’s or early 80’s, and I’ve seen him jogging in everything from tennis whites (spectacular against his very dark, toned skin) to jeans and a plaid shirt. But regardless of wardrobe or weather, he’s out there, consistently. Seeing him is always a high point in a busy day, and it gives me a sense of continuity and comfort. But more importantly, he inspires me.

Do you find yourself at times wondering where in hell the time has gone? Have you ever told someone you did something four weeks ago and it turns out it was four months ago? And in the blink of an eye, another four months goes by? This happens as we age – time seems to speed up exponentially. What is remarkable to me is that we spend so much of our time doing, there is no time left for being. And recovery time – you know, when you’re staring at the wall or the tv simply as a way to keep all stimulation out – doesn’t count. Recovery time from a rough day, stressful week, bad choice, lousy relationship, is not “down time”. Down time is pro-active relaxation in whatever form centers, gounds, and calms you.You have to move past recovery time to get anywhere close to healthy down time. Part of society’s problem, in my humble opinion, is that people are working their asses off for most of the week, earning a wage, raising families, helping elderly parents, maintaining homes, and then when the weekend rolls around, it consists of more obligations with some recovery time thrown in. I believe that very few us ever actually make it to rejuvenating down time before we’re back to work. But that’s another post (hell, that’s a whole book but I digress…)

My point is that we are so busy that we forget to think about what we’re doing. We know what’s important. By this age we know damn well good health for ourselves and our families is all that really matters. And we tell ourselves, sometimes daily, that we really are going to incorporate a healthy lifestyle into the current maelstrom that is our life. But not today, because I have a meeting. And not tomorrow because I need to take Mom to the doctor’s. And I can’t start on Saturday because my daughter needs the car, and my son has a job interview….  Aw to hell with it, just pass the fast food with a side order of guilt while I plop myself down on the couch to watch bad tv, which raises my stress level even more. Because now, I’m not just being a horrible warning, but I’m aware of it, and I’m ticked at myself (or my family, my job, my dog) for it.

I have had this argument with myself a thousand times, I think many of us have. We absolutely know what we need to do to acquire and maintain the vitality and energy we need to live the lives we really want to live. But somehow, some way, real life always seems to intervene to mess up our best laid plains.  You plan to join that new gym on Monday but you encounter construction so don’t bother. You plan to spend 10 minutes on the treadmill but notice that the floor needs washing (funny, you didn’t notice that before), and so obligation takes over.

Here is the secret to life (at least one of them): Life will ALWAYS mess up our plans. In fact, that’s what life is. Life is messy. The human experience is unpredictable. I believe the secret to creating the balance that we all want and need is to learn to work with the mess, not against it. To determine what is important, and then do it no matter what.

I recently put myself on an exercise program. A naturally thin person, exercise was never a big priority for me. I would like to say that I did so because I recognize that my health is important, I want to be around for my grandkids, I want to climb Mr. Everest but in all honesty, for the first summer ever, I couldn’t get into my white skinny jeans. Yeah, I’m superficial that way. As my URL suggests, I can take pretty much anything that comes my way, but when you start messing with my wardrobe, well that’s when things get ugly. And a significant muffin top spilling over the low rise waistband of white skinny jeans is not a pretty sight. (Let me make a blanket statement right now that I believe people are beautiful at every size; I am talking strictly about me and what I want for me only.)

And so, I made up my mind a month ago to get back into those jeans. And I turned to the Old Black Guy for inspiration. He enters my mind any time I’m thinking of doing something that I’ve been meaning to do for years (exercise, go back to school, learn a new language, enter your own dream here…) He enters my mind because for years - not weeks, not months, but years – he has been out there, a silent, recurring, wonderful, blissfully unaware  inspiration to me as I speed by on my way to spend another six evening hours not accomplishing my goals. And so I picked my sorry ass up off the couch one night, strapped on my iPod, and hit the pavement. I think I was swearing a lot under my breath because I was missing 24 (although I was PVRing it so wtf, really?) but I went anyway.

Fast forward to now, 4 weeks later. I have, consistently, gone power walking every morning and every night. I have, consistently, eaten healthy meals every day which required thought and preparation (both of which I hate – I think I put most of Wendy’s employees’ kids through college). I made this my priority over everything else. I did that by slowing down enough to THINK about what I was doing, and then doing it whether I felt like it or not. It’s that simple, and it’s that difficult. And, now 4 weeks later, I have lost 8 pounds. And those jeans are starting to look pretty good. Interestingly, because I see that I’ve made progress, I don’t want to stop until I reach my goal. I am now positively motivated to maintain this new addition to my lifestyle.

Some of us relish being a horrible warning. After all, we’re always succeeding at something even if it’s failing. For instance, after 10 years of being a single mother, my finances are a horrible warning and then some. And I’ll tackle that mountain once I’ve got this healthy lifestyle down pat. Is there any place in your life where you are a horrible warning? If so, either embrace it or face it!

This spring, for the first time in ten years, I haven’t seen the Old Black Guy. I would like to believe that he has moved house or perhaps he’s changed up his training routine. I would prefer to believe his absence is not as a result of anything tragic. I’ll never know, because I have no idea who he is or where he lives. But he reminded me, consistently, of the importance of being consistent. He reminded me that fanfair and big gestures get you nowhere, and that goals and grand achievements are all as a result of small, consistent, dedicated steps. He reminded me that the tortoise had it all over the hare. He not only inspired me, but it could be said his inspiration caused a significant positive change in my life, without his every knowing it. Simply, he set a good example. You and I are either a good example or a horrible warning at any given time of the day. Think about whom you may be inspiring, most importantly, yourself.