So That’s How It’s Done

Apparently there is a trick to running with a jogging stroller. The first time I ran with Bob, I held on to the handle with both hands. Holding on for dear life, squeezing the handle like nothing else.

That’s not how you do it. Who knew?

No wonder my neck felt like it had been squished in a vice. And I wondered how people could possibly run pushing one of these things and actually enjoy it? I got my answer- not like that, they can’t.

You are supposed to hold on and push with one hand, alternating the other arm in a pumping, natural running-like motion.

That makes it SOOO much easier. I actually enjoyed myself. Sort of.

Except that I got a late start.

I have been trying to run in the period of time between picking Lucas up at school and getting Madeline off the bus. It’s a very small window. Yesterday, it shut on me.

I got halfway around the neighborhood when I spotted moms congregating on the corner, waiting for the arrival of mayhem children.

Oh.My.Gawd. An audience. Just what every out-of-breath, beet red, overweight jogger wants.

I contemplated my options. Ignore them all together, pretending to be so wrapped up in my iPod music that I barely noticed anyone. Start walking so I would have time to catch my breath and look halfway normal by the time I got to the corner. Or keep running, do a little head nod and keep on plugging.

The decision to keep on plugging had been made when I had a little accident. Thing One and Thing Two popped right out the top, sprung loose from their Nike activewear home.

I did my best to bend over, running at an almost 90 degree angle to hide the carnage, ignoring the people congregated at the bus stop. I am quite sure I looked like I was either searching for a lost contact or about to vomit. But never mind, there was NO way I was stopping at that point to “fix” myself. No way at all.

I do have some pride.

Thinking it is time for new…..equipment. Stat.

The Early Days of Exercise

I found a picture the other day that brought me right back to high school. Many, many moons ago. It was a picture of a good friend of mine, Terri and me at my parents house on Governors Island, where our dads were both stationed in the early 80’s. (Terri is on the right).

If you look in the background you can see an antique. A rotary phone. Mounted on the wall. You know the one you tried to pull as far as you could to get some privacy and ended up with a practically straight 10 foot long phone cord that rewound itself in the oddest manner after your father yelled at you to “Get off the phone!”

That’s the one. The one kids would look at now and wonder how to dial. But one that your siblings could pick up the extension on and eavesdrop to get blackmail material.

That period of my life was my first real exposure to exercise. Aerobics specifically. VCR taped aerobics to be precise.

Terri and I used to go to the “Big Gym” on Governors Island to work out. There was a tape check-out area where you could pick a VCR tape of your choice and then use the “aerobics” room for an hour. I am pretty there was a cute guy in a Coast Guard uniform working at the desk. Not positive, but I am pretty sure there was some flirting involved.

We alternated between two favorites that I can recall. The first was Jane Fonda. All decked out in her big-80’s hair, surrounded by skinny women with bigger hair clad in Flashdance style leg warmers. She had a good thing going. Very encouraging, kind of mellow.

And then there was our other favorite. Jane Fonda’s polar opposite. Richard Simmons. Remember him? He had a very pleading, encouraging, moderately whiny manner with a very annoying voice. But he had boundless energy. And a fabulous story. Plus a big heart. And he was surrounded by real people. Big people, small people, men, women. And he had great music.

I think maybe his video was a tad shorter, too. Not that we were slackers, mind you.

But when you looked at the women surrounding Jane Fonda you thought “Maybe someday”. And when you looked at the people surrounding Richard Simmons you thought “Real people!”.

Very refreshing, even for a teen.

It Happened How?

I would wager a bet that no one wakes up finding themselves 40 pounds heavier one day and says, “Wow, how’d that happen?”. For most people, it is a process; a gradual up and down process. I, for one, can account for practically every pound I have gained and lost over the last 20 years. And they are numerous. Quite numerous.

When Greg and I got married 19 years ago I was at what I was then calling post-college pudge weight.

Of course, looking back, I only wish that was the pudge I was carrying on me right now. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

For the sake of argument, we will call this weight “A”.

When we decided to get married, I went to Weight Watchers, lost about 2o pounds. Now at A-15. Skinniest point of my life.

Not.Able.To.Maintain.

After the wedding I went into “happy to be married and not needing to fit into my wedding dress” mode.

Now back to just plain “A”.

Decide we are ready to start a family. 9 months later, A+40.

Two years later, after a gradual 20 pound loss, decide to add our family again. End up the whole affair at A+55 Ouch.

One Weight Watchers membership and 1o months later, down to A+30. Find out we are indeed expanding in the kiddo arena yet again. All said and done: A +55 once again.

And again, OUCH.

A few years later we moved to North Dakota. I was at home full-time. My neighbor started going to Weight Watchers and I decided I would try yet again. Religiously tracked points. Did aerobics nearly every day. Started weight training. By the time Madeline started kindergarten I was at A+15 and feeling pretty darn good.

That is when I moved to stress city. We have all lived there at one time or another. Crazy place, that stress city.

We adopted Lucas, Greg took a new job, we moved 1/2 way across the country, bought a house, had the sale of our other house fall through, unpacked, finally sold our other house, and re-acclimated our clan to a new place.

Whew. Had there been, God-forbid, an untimely death in the family we would have experienced all of life’s major stressors in a 2 month period. Now that would have been fun. Or not.

When all was said and done- A+45.

And that is how it happened. Or how I let it happen, me being in charge of what goes in my mouth and all. I am sure many of you can relate to the up and down y0-yo.

Time to turn over a new leaf. For good. For real.

Again. For the LAST time.

Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

I have recovered from the snarkiness of my last post. It was written shortly after returning from the Y, where I was swimming at 5:30 in-the-dark-AM. I had not yet had my morning coffee. 'Nuf said.

Last night I went here for my "how come I am exercising so freakin' much and not losing weight" consultation. Very interesting. Quite informative.

I met with a man named Rhys who is a registered dietitian and happens to be a triathlete. Great guy. Quite funny. Think "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy".

He gave me that analogy himself, by the way. Cracked me up.

I was quite glad, when reviewing my food logs, that he did not immediately cringe at the nightly wine. I do so enjoy my 6-ounce allotment. And I appreciate someone who understands that it could possibly have medicinal purposes. Or be an integral part of sanity maintenance. Or both.

I loved him already.

He gave me a thumbs up for my breakfast--egg beaters with a Fiber One english muffin.

Thumbs down for my snack choices at work. Apparently an apple would be preferable to a Little Debbie 100 calorie snack cake. Something about them being nutritionally void. Go figure.

That's a shame, 'cause I love those little suckers.

He also suggested more protein snacks, less carbs. So I am scratching the pretzels. Adding a cheese stick. Nixing the Special-K bars. Adding 100 calorie almond packs. Other than that he said keep up the good work.

Rhys thought that my weight loss to this point---5 pounds--was perfectly fine and gradual.

I am channeling the hare. He channels the tortoise.

Slow and steady wins the race? We shall see.

Open Letter to The Running Man

Dear Running Man,

First of all good morning. I hope you had a nice run after I saw you on Dale Street at 5:30am. You remember--Ford Expedition, headlights, you in the road. Yep, that was me.

Normally when I meet someone I like to say hello and shake their hand. Apparently, you prefer the finger. Never been partial to that form of greeting myself, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Now first, you may want to remember next time you go for a run in the dark that black clothing is not a good idea. Apparently you were absent the day Officer Friendly visited your school to talk about safety. Reflective clothing. Light colors. You know, common sense?

Next, the headlights you were so dramatically shrinking from probably saved your life. You see, when you are running against traffic, in the road dressed in black, it is very hard for drivers to see you. The fact that the headlights were “annoying” you probably also meant that I could see you in time to move over and not hit your cranky, bony little body.

You’re welcome.

And lastly, you maybe are not familiar with these really cool inventions. They are called sidewalks. Repeat after me---sidewalks. If you had glanced 2 feet to your left, you would have seen one, all lovely in the moonlight. Designed to be walked on. Or run on. You may want to remember that for next time. Much safer for you.

Hope you have a most fantastic, birdless day, and that perhaps we can meet again under better circumstances. Or not.

Signed,

Lady who flipped you right back

Top O’ the Morning To Ya

I love mornings.

Morning is my favorite time of the day. I wake up at 5am every day. On my own. Without an alarm clock. Weird, right? It has been that way for as long as I can remember.

When I was in elementary school I would go to my friend Michelle Dorr’s house for sleepovers. We were CHiPs junkies. I had the hots for Jon. She had the hots for Ponch. We used to squeal with delight when the theme music would start playing. Of course we were watching it at it’s regularly scheduled time.

Life before the DVR. How did we do it?

On the nights I would sleep at her house, morning came much too fast. I would wake up at some ungodly early hour when the rest of the house was still asleep. Michelle would be snoozing in the next bed. And I would just lay there waiting for her to wake up.

I usually lasted about a half an hour before I started making “oops” noises.

Kicking the wall. Oops. Dropping a book on the floor. Oops. Going to the bathroom and shutting the door exceptionally loudly. Oops.

Trying like hell to wake her up so I’d have someone to talk to.

How funny now that it is just the opposite. I wake up early and sneak downstairs so that I can have an hour of quiet time before the chaos begins. There is a little part of me that does an internal groan when I hear little feet on the stairs. Quiet over. Darn it all.

Lately I have realized that this hour or so of early morning quiet is going to have to be used for-----I can barely stand to type it------exercise . With homework and mood swings and hormones and sibling rivalry and lessons and life, there is absolutely no way that I can count on getting in any good exercise time after work. The referee shirt goes on and the whistle comes out at 3pm. The same time all sense and sensibility goes out the window.

Which is how, by the way, I now know that my mother is a saint. And I am not buttering her up for anything . Pinky swear. She never yelled. Ever.

That trait most definitely skipped a generation.

But I digress.

Tomorrow it begins. The crack-of-dawn exercise regime. 5:30 am swim.

Quiet morning time, I will miss you. RIP.

Keeps Me Goin’

Repeat after me:

Exercise is fun.

Exercise is fun.

Exercise is fun.

Did it work for you?

Yeah, me neither.

But I will admit that it is getting to be much more fun than it was 6 weeks ago.  I rarely swear while running.  I can now swim 22 lengths of the pool without stopping or hanging onto the lane line looking like a drowned dog.  And I look forward to spinning class with a kind of odd pleasure.  I  love knowing that at the end I will have sweated off hundreds of calories. 

It probably helps that I have also decided to sit where I can’t see the clock.  Just like a watched pot never boils, a watched clock never moves.   Makes for a long class.

What is so fun about working toward this goal?

Aside from platitudes about self-improvement, fulfilling dreams, smaller jeans size and all that jazz,  it comes down to this:

Knowing that soon I will see my sister in a sweatshirt that looks like this:

And we’ll be hanging out, for an entire. Long. Sedentary. Weekend.

Sitting.  Scrapping.  Chatting.  Eating.  Drinking.  Vegging.  Laughing.

It will be something that sounds just like run, but without the sweat.

F-U-N.  For me, anyway.  Apparently fun is subjective.

And I can’t wait.