Stumbling Blocks

From my Spark blog Saturday, February 25, 2012

It seems that every time I start on something new, something that I think will be great for my life, that's when life starts throwing me curveballs. It's as if the Universe is saying to me "How much do you really want this?" I know that good things in life don't always come easy, but does it really have to be this hard?

I usually eat pretty healthy foods, I just eat way too much of them, my biggest challenge seems to be exercise. Each time I've begun an exercise plan, something happens that prevents me from carrying it out, usually an injury. I don't know why I keep getting hurt, and it doesn't happen while I'm exercising.

Five years ago, I had a friend who was a trainer, and she started walking with me, setting up a routine that would challenge me. It was really fun, and I was enjoying myself, and I even lost enough inches to have to buy smaller pants. Then I slipped on the ice at work, and broke my ankle. Turns out you can't walk if you have a broken ankle. By the time my ankle recovered enough to walk for exercise again, my friend had moved away. It wasn't fun walking without her, with her little challenging comments, and her plans (we walked somewhere different every day).

Last summer, I rediscovered the joy of swimming. I was swimming about a mile a day 4 or 5 days a week. I wasn't losing a ton of weight, but I was becoming a lot less flabby, and much stronger. Then I tripped and broke my wrist. Turns out you can't swim with a cast on. By the time my wrist had healed enough to be swimming again, it was winter and cold. I've gone a few times since then, but it's hard in the winter.

I was actually starting to get into a pretty good routine with some workout videos at home, and then a few weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night with an extreme pain in my thigh. This thigh has been mostly numb for about 15 years because of a nerve injury incurred during knee surgery. So when I can feel it, it's incredibly painful. I went to a doctor, and she told me that it was probably blod clots. I'd read about that, and was a little scared. I went to another doctor, a specialist, and had some tests done. It wasn't blod clots - whew! - but it was something serious. I have been diagnosed with neurogenic atrophy. Basically this means that because my nerve has been dead for so long, my muscles are starting to die because there is no nerve connection. This condition is, at the current time, irreversible.

There are things that I can't do now, because of the extreme pain. Even walking hurts. I was doing so well! I was losing about a pound a week, I was exercising every day, I was logging my calorie intake, and trying to modify it to be healthier. And then this. I almost feel like something, or someone, doesn't want me to lose weight.

I had just about given up. I had stopped trying to exercise at all, and didn't bother to plan my meals or count calories. "What's the point?" I thought. Then something happened in my heart. Not another medical problem, no, a feeling that I couldn't explain. Something deep inside of me, something my Grandmother told me a long time ago that just came back to me in my hour of need, as it were. She told me "You are worth whatever effort it takes to do whatever you want." I realized that my giving up attitude everytime I came against a wall wasn't so much that it was hard to go on, but that I didn't believe that I was worth the effort. If I believe that I'm important and special enough to have good things, then I've got to believe that the effort of achieving those good things, overcoming the stumbling blocks if you will, is worth it.

So, I am going to use my stumbling blocks as stepping stones. I used my arthritis pain as an excuse not to exercise, now I use it as an excuse to get in the pool even though I look like a great white whale - it's the only workout that doesn't hurt. If I can do that, then I can turn this new pain into something that will help me, rather than something that will prevent me from achieving what I want.

Winter is Stupid

From my Spark blog Tuesday, January 17, 2012

At 5:30 every morning my alarm sounds: time to get up! From about mid-April through September, I jump right out of bed (mostly because I have to pee), at get started in on my day. I love mornings. I love to watch the sun come over the mountains (I live in Utah, and the mountains here are incredible), I love to listen to the birds singing, I love how quiet it is on my street before everyone starts rushing off to work. But right around the first part of October, I don't like getting up with my alarm anymore. I've decided that it's winter: it's stupid! I have learned that I only like mornings when I get up with the sun. I DO NOT LIKE GETTING UP BEFORE THE SUN!

There, I said it: early mornings are for days when the sun gets up before the people do, not for cold, dark winter days. I struggle for nearly half the year getting moving in the mornings. My bed is warm, the floor is cold; and the sun's still in bed, I should be, too. The problem is, when I don't get up with the alarm, I don't have time to exercise. When I don't exercise in the mornings, I eat more during the day - I have yet to figure out that correlation - so winter time has come to mean pack-on-the-pounds time. Last month (December) I gained 14 pounds - 14! That is unacceptable.

What I need to do is create my own little sunshine, at least in my mind, so that I can love dark mornings as well as bright mornings. Right now, as one of my little starter goals for this year, I have my alarm set to play music. Music can heal the soul, and tame the spirit, so it stands to reason that it can create sunshine in the mind, as well.

I am a music junkie, seriously addicted to it. I have over 8,000 songs on my i-pod, and something in every genre, it's actually getting kind of ridiculous to keep it all organized. But, I love it! Having said that, it's easy to pick a different "get up and go" song every day. Sometimes I wake up to a rousing "Anvil Chorus" from the opera Il Trovatore. Sometimes I wake to the Quantum Leap Theme song, sometimes I get moving to Duran Duran's "Reach Up for the Sunrise", and other days I start with "Defying Gravity" from the musical Wicked.

Whatever I begin the day with, it sort of sets the mood: I will conquer, I can do anything, every day is new, I can fly, whatever. I'm so glad that I have music to start my days, I know I couldn't do without it.

I Don't Get the Running

From my Spark blog Sunday, January 15, 2012

I have never liked running. No, really, NEVER! Not even as a small child when everyone else would race just for the sake of racing. I would rather read a book, or watch a movie, or take a nap. Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for running in things like soccer, or baseball, or if a child is hurt, or if you're randomly being chased by the devil. But running, just for the sake of running, really? I don't get it. It isn't fun for me, in fact, it's downright painful. I have no cartilage in my left knee, see, and when I run, my bones clack together in a most excruciating manner. So when my "friends" decided that their New Year's Resolution would be to run a 5K, and they asked me to join them ("It's in April," they said, "that's enough time to get ready."), my response was: "Surely, you jest! Me, a 5K, huh?" I was thoroughly confused as to why anyone would want to run. But, there it is: people love to run. They think it's liberating, it's like flying, they can clear their mind. Whatever. I'm sure it's great. For some people.

And, just as I can't appreciate running, I'm sure there are many people in the world who don't enjoy all the same things I do. Opera, f'rinstance, is not every person's cup of tea, as it were. But I could listen to nothing but for months on end. I would even spend a year's salary to see an opera at the Met, or other world famous opera houses (Sydney, Bayern, etc.).

The problem then becomes, if I'm not planning on running, how on earth do I intend to get this overbearing weight off of my joints. I have problems with aerobics, because of the impact, same with most martial arts, I've a loathing for the cold that rivals any you've ever heard of so skiing/sledding/boarding/skating are out. This pretty much leaves me with swimming. Oh, I hate it when my mother is right. She made me start swimming when I was about 9 years old because the pediatrician said I was too fat. And now, it seems my only recourse. I've tried some other things, too: Tai Chi (I always forget where the apostrophe[s] goes), Yoga, Pilates, dancing (Zumba, as well), water aerobics, a variety of workout videos like Tae Bo, and Turbo Jam. I can't seem to find something that I like, and likes me, I mean doesn't cause a great deal of pain. I know that there are things I can do, like sit-ups and stretches and things, that don't require impact nor pressure on the joints, but I also know that without a cardio activity of some sort, the weight will not come off.

To illustrate my reluctance to swimming, I have made a bad/good list. I know most people call it pros and cons, but I don't want to pay for my habit, nor put them in jail, so I say bad and good.

The bad things about swimming:
1. I am roughly the size and shape of a baby elephant - nobody wants to see that in a bathing suit.
2. It's a little tiring for my shoulders - pretty much the only place I don't have arthritis yet
3. Because of my schedule, I have to do it at the butt-crack of dawn.
4. There are 3-4 days every month that I can't do it.
5. I have to admit that my mother was right

The good things about swimming:
1. It doesn't hurt my knees, hips, ankles, feet, or wrists.
2. It burns tons of calories (nearly 500 for 30 minutes, and that's for moderate effort)
3. I don't have to talk to anyone while I'm doing it.
4. Exercising first thing in the morning is very invigorating
5. I don't actually hate it - hey, it isn't running

So, I will swim, as often as I can. Now I just need to find something else to do on those days that I can't go swimming...