Exercise Can Kill You

It's been several years since I've had the motivation, energy or mental wherewithal to attempt to get in shape.  If you've ever been through a trauma or a sustained period of grief, you get exactly where I'm coming from.  It takes all your energy just to survive.

Now, after three years of trial and grief and struggle, I feel like I may possibly be able to thrive.  Maybe even grow!

Unfortunately, the years of stress have taken their toll on my 44-year-old body.  I am in serious denial about this.  I still think my body should behave like it did twenty years ago.  I should be able to go out and walk a few miles without breaking a sweat.  If I don my running shoes, I should be able to jog by the end of the week and run a 5K by the end of April.

Ha ha ha ha ha. I'm so stupid.

My body mocks me.

Last week, we had one gorgeous afternoon when the sun was shining and the temperature was, remarkably, above freezing.  I knew I had to get out and take advantage of it.  I donned my running shoes (which have never experienced actual running, by the way), put on a long-sleeved shirt, and gloves and I was off.

It was quite the glorious walk/jog, I'll have you know.  Even with the thaw, there were still gigantic snow piles that I had to leap, slushy puddles for me to navigate, and icy patches to negotiate.  I even had to duck under some branches that had been broken by the ice storm we had in December.  It was like a delightfully sunny, snowy, slushy obstacle course.  And to top it off, I jogged up and down the skywalk at the end of the street.

Not too shabby for an old lady, hey?

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I kept hearing this little voice telling me:  Take it easy.  Don't overdo it your first day.  Don't push yourself too hard.

I brushed it off, thinking it was my cynical, tired old body trying to tell me it would be sore the next day.  So what?  I could handle soreness.  I was going to beat my body into submission.

Plus, it felt too good to stop, so I pushed myself.

In addition to the inevitable soreness and fatigue that followed, I also developed a cough.  This is normal for me for a day or so after a workout like that.  But when the cough lingered into the weekend, my chest and my back started to hurt.  And I could hear funny rattling noises bubbling up from my lungs when I breathed.

I finally went to see my doctor today.

He actually laughed as he listened to my lungs and reported, "Jen, you have pneumonia!"

Now, you have to know a bit about my relationship with my doctor to understand why he laughed.  We've been friends for years, since my husband and I met him at MSU.  Dr. P and I did random evangelism on MSU's campus.  Dr. P and I once went into the woods and built a lean-to from scratch, just for fun.  Dr. P knows that I did missionary work in the Philippines where I subsisted on fish heads.

He laughed because he knows I'm a little too hearty to subscribe to the idea that I would catch pneumonia from playing outside.

But indeed, I caught pneumonia from playing outside. 

It probably won't kill me, but I will be much more wary of exercise in the future.

Top 10 Reasons I Want to Lose Weight

10.  I weigh as much now as I did when I was 9 months pregnant with Child #2.  That just ain't right.  You may remember that from this post. Somehow I just can't let that go.

9.  Having to hold my belly fat out of the way while I shave my legs. . . .well, that is just getting old.

8.  I used to be photogenic when I was younger.  I ran in front of the camera every time someone was snapping photos.  I worked on the yearbook staff, and I used to make sure that a disproportionate number of pictures of myself got into the yearbook.  Now, when I see a camera, I run in the other direction.  Kind of the like the women that Mark Gungor describes in this hilarious video.

One day, I will probably die.  And when that day comes, my kids will want to look back at pictures of me.  But there won't be any.  And they will just wonder, "Where the heck was Mom while we were raising ourselves?"

7.  I'm tired of having ZERO energy.  I'm pretty sure that has something to do with the fact that I'm lugging a zillion extra pounds around all the time.


6.  I'm regularly offended by the clothing in the "Women's" (aka Fat, Portly, Chubby, Large, Obese, etc.) section.  Those clothes look like they were designed in the 1950's for women who were roughly 87 years old.  Frumpy.  I would like to wear more stylish clothes before I really am 87.

5.  They also say you can find clothing to "accentuate" your shape.  There's apple-shaped, pear-shaped, banana-shaped, and hourglass-shaped.  So far I haven't seen clothing for the Michelin Man-shaped woman.

4.  I don't like how everything jiggles when I walk.  And when stand still.   And when I sit.  And when I breathe.

3.  I want my kids to eat better and feel better about themselves than I do.  So, I want to change the tide and become a positive influence on my kids.  Also, I'm jealous of my 13-year-old who has a shape I would kill for.  Is that bad?

2. I love to swim.  But I've noticed a strange phenomenon in the past few summers.  When I try to swim underwater, I find it extremely difficult to stay underwater.  I thought maybe I was becoming a weak swimmer.  But then the truth gradually came to me. . . .I couldn't stay under water because fat is buoyant.  With my spare tire, (see Michelin Man), it's like trying to swim with an inner tube around my waist.

1.  When I complain about being a fat, old lady, my husband consoles me with, "You're not old."

Mirror Image

You know how they say that people look in the mirror and think they are fatter than they really are?

Well, not me, apparently.

I mean, I know I'm not slim by any means. I know that I could stand to lose a good amount of weight (never mind how much). But I tend to think I carry it well.

Here is evidence to the contrary: when I put on this outfit for my nephew's graduation party, I thought it looked decent. I thought it looked light and summery and that it managed to cover up my flaws in a fairly efficient fashion.

Instead I look like the Great Pumpkin.


Unfortunately I didn't notice this until after the party and after all the pictures were taken. And I can't exactly delete the pictures of my awesome God-son's graduation bash.

But, dang. I thought I was going to be his cool, hip Auntie Jenny.

Instead, I'm his great aunt Marge in a muumuu.

OUCH!

I'm walking gingerly today, but I'm not nearly as bad as yesterday. I was hobbling through the house, barely able to do so without yelling, "OW!" with every step. Getting up and down the stairs required me to cling for dear life to the railing, like a frail old lady. My back hurt, my shins hurt, my butt hurt, and my thighs. . . .Oh my goodness, they were painful to the touch.

So, what on earth caused this agony? My ridiculous decision to start running. Yes, me! A runner. The idea seems ludicrous, even to me, but I've been contemplating it for a while now. Actually, craving is a better word. I've had this inexplicable desire to run for quite some time, and it only took me a year and a half to work up the courage to start.

Of course, I had to find a way to ease into it without injuring myself. (This, for the woman who, in college, ended up in a cervical collar from an injury sustained while getting out of bed - seriously!) So I did a search on the web and came across a site called Cool Running (http://www.coolrunning.com/), and found their beginner's workout, called "The Couch to 5K Running Plan" (http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml).

It's a very reasonable workout designed to help you gradually build up your strength and endurance over 8 weeks (or more if you need to take it more slowly). I began with 2 children at my side - partly because they really wanted to come and I KNEW they could keep up with me, and partly because I would feel less embarrassed with kids accompanying me. That way, if I had a really hard time, I could just call out to the kids, in a voice loud enough for the neighbors to hear, "OK, honey, if you're too tired, we can stop!" It turns out, 15 minutes into the 20-minute workout, I went staggering back into the house, with the kids yelling after me, "Mom, why are you quitting?" So much for saving face.

So, I think I got one of the best workouts of my life, as evidenced by a kind of soreness I haven't felt since I pushed a baby out of my body.

I can only pray and hope I will have the physical AND mental fortitude to continue on this journey I've begun. I HAVE to - mainly so my children won't humiliate me.