It should not surprise me that again a year has evaporated. In The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin says something along the lines of “the years are fast, and the days are slow” in regards to life with small children. That does resonate with me. Where did these people go…
Oh, here they are…
The photo above is from last spring, but the first photo was taken almost six years ago. Given that the end of the year is rapidly approaching, I am thinking about hopes for 2012. About a month ago, I started reading the of a fellow Smith College alumna Jamie Eslinger, who almost one year ago made a promise to herself: she would, for one year, be “aware of what goes in and on the one body I’ve got… and I will write about it every day, for 365 days.”
Here are the rules of The Promise 365:
The Promise 365:
1) No frivolous shopping for 365 days, starting January 1, 2011.
2) Purchases may occur in the following categories: Heart, Head, Body, Soul. Because these are really investments, in me.
3) When tempted by a potential frivolous purchase, it must be analyzed. What is really going on? What do I really want or need?
4) After analyzing and determining what is emotionally or physically at play, find another way to meet the want or need through a healthy alternative (heart, head, body, soul).
Having just done most of my holiday shopping today, I feel freshly aware of how much we consume! I do think I have scaled back a little this year, and yet my home seems overflowing with stuff (and soon there will be more).
In her post on December 13, Jamie asks “What will you give up?” encouraging her readers to think about something to let go of in 2012.
From inside our apartment, the day looked gray and gloomy. I was sure it was still Chicago-no-spring cold outside. Without checking anywhere for the temperature, I headed outside with my short (have put the long, sleeping bag coat away until next winter) down coat on. Surprise! It was 68 degrees outside and almost muggy. No need for jackets and coats, not even sweatshirts. Will there be a spring here this year? Hard to say. It wouldn’t surprise me if it snowed next week. But here’s hoping we are actually on the other side of winter.
Now, where have I been for the past several weeks? Did I, once again, relapse into old bad habits? Getting myself into pretty good shape only to let it all atrophy in a slow and painful process? No! I am happy to report. I have been searching around, trying different exercise options, and still, actually, in the process of figuring out what comes next. I have mostly been doing , DVDs that allow me to exercise at home and at 5 in the morning — which I can’t believe I am saying that I love! It leaves me more time to work during the weekdays, and by 6:15 am, I am cheerful because I am done with exercise. I love that! There is also a compare/contrast essay to be written on Tony Horton (“leader of the band,” P90X band, that is) and Jack LaLanne. How do you like the claim on the P90x website: “Get absolutely ripped in 90 days, or your money back, guaranteed.” Apparently Tony was influenced by . Not sure Tony’s as charming. The workouts are much harder and that same compare/contrast essay could explore lots about the evolution of fitness, especially for women.
I also have the challenge in front of me of getting prepared for the Chicago Triathlon, which I’ve signed up for and am hoping to complete on August 28. Olympic Distance: .93 mile swim; 24.8 mile bike; 6.2 mile run. For now I’m in the thick of p90x and will launch the triathlon training plan in late May. I’d love any advice anyone can offer about p90x, triathlons, or anything else!
My annual mammogram did not get off to an auspicious beginning. The day I learned that Elizabeth Edwards had died, I, in a heightened emotional state, made an appointment for my annual mammogram. (This had been on my To Do List for months.) After arriving at the appointment, checking in, getting the smock on, and meeting the technician, I realized, when the technician looked at my form, that it hadn’t been a year since my last mammogram. To avoid trouble with the insurance company (or a huge bill that I had to cover myself), I dressed and rescheduled the appointment for two weeks later.
This time all seemed to go swimmingly. I adored the technician, who lovingly explained everything she was doing. Respectful and careful, she was the best technician I’ve ever had. Despite all the squeezing and flattening of my breasts between plastic plates, all the awkward positions and the holding of my breath for the photos, the appointment seemed like a great success. I even stopped at the front desk to let them know how magnificent the technician, Cristall, was. I left the appointment practically skipping, so glad to have this annual task taken care of, feeling so good about myself, certain I was in top health, and also pleased because Cristall had referred to me as “petite,” a word nobody has ever used to describe me. I went straight to the gym after the appointment and pursued my strength training routine with energy and enthusiasm, again feeling like and admiring myself as the pinnacle of health and well-being.
Three days later my internist called to say that there was a “density” on one of my images and that I needed to return, but this time to the second floor, where they send you when routine checks become other than routine. I needed additional images taken and perhaps also an ultra sound. My internist was reassuring that often this amounted to nothing, but that it was important to be certain about what the “density” was. I’ve been told I have “nodey” breasts and so have to be particularly careful when checking for abnormalities. I’ve also been through something similar to this before, being called back for more checking. I made an appointment for as soon as I could get in. In the meantime a letter came saying, “Your mammogram showed an abnormality that needs further investigation.” It went on to say, “Most of these abnormalities prove to be insignificant or benign (non-cancerous). We cannot determine whether your particular abnormality is benign or malignant (cancerous) until further evaluation is completed.”
For the days prior to the second appointment, I went about my business, trying not to dwell on what might be going on inside my body. I found it hard to believe that something could be malfunctioning given how good I felt physically, probably the best I’ve felt in years. Matt asked me whether I wanted him to come to the appointment, but I didn’t. I did, however, finally get nervous: I was lying on the table in the room, waiting for the doctor to do the ultra sound (the new images weren’t sufficient), and I thought to myself that it was possible they were going to give me bad news. After all, many women go to these appointments and get bad news. Why should I be exempt?
My dad died of cancer at age 52, more than twenty years ago now, having been diagnosed some three years earlier with bone marrow cancer. I kept thinking about what it must have been like when he went in search of help for what he thought was a routine lower back problem, the sign of aging, and instead found out that he had a vicious form of cancer.
When the radiologist explained about the ultra sound lotion he needed to squirt all over my left breast, I told him, “I’ve had two kids.” Then I tried being funny, when he scanned the images on his screen, saying, “Where’s the baby?” How different to have the same procedure now for something that could be deadly when previously this technology allowed me to see alien-like images of my two precious sons. Initially I made a lot of small talk with the doctor, until I decided to shut my mouth so that he could focus fully on determining whether anything was awry in the ocean-like pictures he was studying intently.
It didn’t seem as though he had found anything, but that was confirmed when a more senior doctor burst into the room saying, “You can be relieved! Everything looks fine.” Of course, I was relieved, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about the women who go to those appointments and are told something entirely different. I can’t take for granted my good health and the opportunity every day brings to take care of myself.
Yesterday I was talking to someone about exercise, encouraging her just to get out and do some brisk walking, perhaps four times/week for 45 minutes at a time. The conversation led me to think about motivation and what is it that motivates people to exercise. Fortunately, Frank Bruni has provided some thoughts on this very topic in in today’s New York Times in which he explores Jack LaLanne’s legacy.
Here’s Bruni’s answer to my question: GUILT (although that guilt doesn’t always lead one to exercise…) Bruni chronicles how LaLanne provided the catalyst (and the first American gym in 1936) that led to the ubiquity of gyms today along with a widespread fitness and health culture, which was virtually nonexistent when LaLanne originally started promoting fitness and nutrition. Beyond inspiring the equipment, the spandex, and everything from Equinox to LA Fitness, Bally, and Crunch, LaLanne, Bruni claims, created the notion that “fitness equals character, and that self-actualization begins with the self-discipline to get and stay in shape. In the post-LaLanne landscape, it’s not the eyes but the abdominals that are the windows to the soul.”
Bruni also says, however, that the “conflation of the physical and the moral virtually spans all of human history. It’s present in the writings of the ancient Greeks, for whom athleticism was much more than mere sport. Christians long ago designated sloth one of the seven deadly sins, though they meant a dearth of industry more than a deficit of treadmill time.” Further, he highlights the religious tone in LaLanne’s “proselytizing about diet and exercise” and quotes LaLanne as saying, “‘To me, this one thing — physical culture and nutrition — is the salvation of America.’” (The American Heritage Dictionary defines salvation as “preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil,” a definition that seems to conflate the religious and the secular.)
Interestingly, I have described myself as “evangelical” when it comes to strength training, and I claim my proselytizing stems from how good I feel and my hearthfelt desire to spread the good word. There was another in Thursday’s Styles section exploring the challenges faced by full-service gyms. It seems that the thing most agree this type of setting best provides and that many seek in a gym is community. Hmmm… also akin to what religious organizations have historically provided.
Bruni ends his piece with an interesting question: “When exercise comes wrapped in value judgments, does it wind up entangled in an anxiety that threatens the very resolve to get fit?” He goes on to say, “As Mr. LaLanne was siring new methods for shaping up, he was fathering something else, too: a potent, and in some cases immobilizing, strain of contemporary guilt.” If we agree with Bruni, what do we do to counteract this? to get motivated (especially if guilt doesn’t do it)? to get out and walk briskly for 45 minutes? and ultimately to feel good because we did so!
I just learned that Jack LaLanne died this afternoon.
One of his LaLanneisms was that he couldn’t die: “it would wreck my image.”
The in the LA Times says the following: “Jack LaLanne, the seemingly eternal master of health and fitness who first popularized the idea that Americans should work out and eat right to retain youthfulness and vigor, died Sunday. He was 96. LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia at his home in Morro Bay, Calif., his agent Rick Hersh said. He had undergone heart valve surgery in December 2009.”
His wife Elaine said the following: “I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for.”
Thank you, Jack, for doing all you did to promote health and well-being. Some 70+ years ago, Jack was advocating things that are now well-known and widely-practiced, yet at the time he was seen as a “crackpot” (his word).
I’m stunned he’s gone. I thought he would live to at least 100. But he did have many, many years of good health and undoubtedly was responsible for getting others (including me) to take better care of themselves and appreciate deeply what our bodies can do for us when we embrace the kingdom: “Exercise is king; nutrition is queen; together you have a kingdom.”
Today while I was huffing and puffing away on the elliptical at the gym, my gym neighbor thought she would offer some parenting advice. You see she had watched me talking with my nine-year-old son, who had come with me to the gym to play basketball while I worked out. He’d grown weary of basketball and was hoping to watch ESPN on the flatscreen in the main atrium of the gym. (Have you noticed that there is hardly a place left in the world that doesn’t have a flatscreen blaring? Even Whole Foods! The Whole Foods in Evanston has a big TV, mostly tuned to the Food Network, but sheesh.)
Anyway, my neighbor thought she’d let me know how important it is that young boys get plenty of running around and that while her kids are now grown, her husband had always been willing to take her son out to play and play and play (and undoubtedly all of this was in the dead of a frigid Chicago winter). She and I did chat merrily away, with me huffing it up and agreeing with her good thoughts about boys and running around and all of that while I was also trying to wrap up the conversation so that I could get back to VH1′s .
You know, everyone is an expert when it comes to parenting! And this little tete-a-tete was timely, given how much time I’ve given to thinking and reading about this past week. I haven’t read the whole book yet, just a couple of chapters in the bookstore, and I’ve read a lot ABOUT the book. I know I’ll read the book. I’ll get it soon and read it in a couple of days or one day or a few hours. I imagine I’m especially drawn to the book because of its attention to children and having them play instruments. Maybe I’m hoping that I’ll feel better about all the times when my son has cried when practicing the cello because I’m really a kitten in comparison to Amy Chua.
I need to actually read the whole book before I offer much more, but just my little quick look around in the book has got me thinking about a lot of things. Today I found myself wondering whether in all of Chua’s relentless insistence on achievement whether she ever asked her girls to do things for others? to serve their communities? to think about the contributions they might make to people with fewer resources than they have? Relentless achievement that focuses primarily on one’s own accomplishments seems rather selfish, doesn’t it? Maybe Chua would say that the music her older daughter will give to the world is her contribution?
I have also found myself thinking: how in the world did Chua have time to do all the relentless parenting she did? (and while working full time) More on all of this when I read the book! Perhaps, though, I need to keep in mind while reading it how I felt today when given advice from my new friend at the gym. And what was amazing today was how quickly I felt compelled to assure this woman that my son did play outside! and loved sports! and had just been playing basketball! and has limited television at home! and no video games! and plays the cello! I even told this woman that. Oy vey.
It’s not as though I haven’t heard for many years about the horrendous state of affairs at poultry farms and slaughterhouses and all of that. It’s not as though I don’t know about how crops are sprayed and food is doctored and engineered. It’s not as though I haven’t read and other such books and articles. Yet, I am in a state of panic as I try to figure out what in the world to do post watching . last night. “You’ll never look at dinner the same way” is right. Or breakfast. Or lunch. Or snacks. How about, “You’ll never look at food the same way again.” And, of course, Jack LaLanne said this long, long ago and has continued to say it, “Eat foods in their natural state as much as possible.” He’s also got a line about not wanting any “food” that comes out of a box or a package.
There are many, many things in the movie that give you pause, but the scenes in the huge supermarkets, when they travel down the aisles and flash the camera by all the crazy, crazy products we face on each trip to such a place are unforgettable: pop tarts and corn pops and twinkies and Karo corn syrup and ultra sanitized package after package of meat (much of which has no skin or bones) and yogurt drinks with cartoon characters on them and so much more. It’s rather insane! And then, of course, there’s all the information about who controls the food industry and the challenge of bad food being cheap (all those dollar meals at fast food restaurants), and you begin to feel like a helpless victim of a system designed to poison you by the incredible, addictive allure of fat and sugar.
What also kills me, and this movie doesn’t focus on this the way that some parts of did, and that’s the whole topic of what we feed children and how all these crazy food products are designed to entice them and win them over as lifelong friends. I was thinking to myself that if I took my kids to one of the big supermarkets and said, “You can pick any five things you want,” I would right quick have a cart filled with the most awful, bad-for-you junk. And then I would feel terrible. Like a rotten failure of a parent. I might even cry, and then they’d agree to put one crappy thing back and get an apple or two. Maybe.
Now, how do I quiet the panic and figure out a game plan? Something that is workable, sustainable, manageable, and that doesn’t involve $300/week grocery bills at Whole Foods. I do think we have to pay more for better quality food, but the food budget can only go so far. This is all not to say we don’t already have some good things in place, but what more can we do? How can we raise healthy kids and still attend birthday parties and pizza events and all of that? Okay, I’m off to grind some wheat and churn some butter.
I’m thinking about subscribing to O. Over a year ago, I gave up most magazines with one exception (the New Yorker, which Matt reads, and I read the table of contents and the cartoon contest in the back). Got rid of Real Simple. I found that I rarely got around to reading the magazines, except for sometimes during a one-week vacation in the summer, when I would haul pounds of them with me to northern Minnesota, and my friend Sarah and I would read about a year’s worth of my magazines in one week.
Here’s what led me to buy this month’s O: “Weight Loss Made Simple/The Only Tip You’ll Ever Need.” Okay, so what’s the one tip? “Get moving!” And then…”If you want to BOOST YOUR MOOD, STENGTHEN YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM, SLEEP BETTER, AND LOOK GREAT, Bob Greene has one word for you: EXERCISE.” So there you have it.
We all already know that I am now an evangelical when it comes to strength training. Amen. But there remain questions to be answered, and, of course, there is no better time for me to be thinking about what’s next than the new year. However, it isn’t feeling so much like I need resolutions but rather than I need new goals and a plan.
Today while I was out running on the wonderful trail that sits next to Lake Michigan, I started thinking that maybe I should take on a year-long commitment in which each month has a different focus and goals; for example, in January I research and start figuring out why yoga and pilates would (or wouldn’t) make sense to include in my exercise regime. Then in February I might take up something such as the vegan and vegetarian diets. I do need to keep this simple in order to have success, and I also want to ensure that there are larger guiding principles and goals and aspirations that each month relies on. And I’d love for all of this to be larger than what might seem like a diet or weight loss plan; rather, I’d like this to help me become happier and healthier and consequently able to contribute more fully to my family and the world. Lots to think about…
I will share more of the O article. Apparently it is essential to set goals: in a study of what helps people to stick to exercise, researchers found that women who filled out a goal-setting worksheet doubled their weekly workout time as compared with a group of women who didn’t. So Bob Greene then provides us with the following:
1) What is my exercise goal? Set an objective you can achieve–nothing overly ambitious. Example: Getting 30 minutes of exercise in the morning.
2) What’s the most positive outcome of achieving this goal? This is crucial. Think back to the reasons you chose to exercise. Example from the article: This will get me in better shape and help me manage my diabetes.
3) What’s the main obstacle standing in the way? “I don’t have enough time.”
4) How can I overcome the obstacle? Give details about the changes you’re going to make. “The night before, I can get to bed by 10, so I can wake up 30 minutes earlier.”
5) How should I achieve my goal? This means focusing on the when and where.” “Between 6:30 and 7 in the moring, before I shower, I’ll exercise with a 30-minute aerobics video in my living room.”
I’m going to work on my own answers to these questions for my next post. In the meantime, here are a few recent related things going on here as well as ideas I’ve had recently:
- What’s an hour? How often do you twidle (is that a word?) an hour away? How hard would it be to say: every day I must give myself one hour to take care of myself through exercise? Maybe it’s a matter of writing down, for a week, exactly how you spend each waking minute and seeing where that hour for exercise might fit in (and also assessing your use of time more generally), and maybe the hour might even come from two 30-minute slots? But what about the goal of simply giving yourself one hour/day for exercise?
- ! This was my special Christmas gift, and it’s been perfect rice (and steel cut oats) ever since the 25th. I also just bought and am hoping to take full advantage of what I don’t want to become another seldom-used, space-taking appliance.
- I bought a ! It hasn’t arrived yet (bought online from swimoutlet.com), but if all goes as planned, I will be wearing it in Florida in March. I had a two-piece swimsuit in 1996, wore it once, saw a photo of a friend took of me in it, and that was the end of that suit and my two-piece swimsuit days. (I also found myself with some questions about my friend the photographer… oy vey.) More on the new suit down the line.
Much more importantly than my new swimsuit: Here’s to 2011 and making it a year full of health and fitness and happiness.
We are a little more than halfway through “Winter Break,” which is more than two weeks long. That’s a lot of break. This is also the first week after completing the 12 weeks of my “project.” I’m happy to say there’s been no break from the exercise routine; in fact, I did some new things this week, exercise-wise and am feeling inspired by all that’s possible with forthcoming fitness. I am very American in my love affair with self-improvement, and the new year and its requisite resolutions always make me happy.
I was thinking today about how Jack LaLanne so often in his exercise show talked about how great we would look if we did the exercises he recommended. I even remember this one segment where he was presenting an exercise that would tone the ankles, and he enthusiastically underscored how gorgeous our ankles would look through exercising them. I kind of love that he was right out there, not white washing the desire so many of us possess to look good. What he also did was emphasize how good we would feel, and that is something I find myself unable to say enough about.
Memories are funny things. Years ago I remember reading something about “love’s memory” in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, something about how “love’s memory” allows us to forget things in order to endure the burden of our past. The memory is a type of life-saving instrument. I mention all of this here to suggest that my memory may not be entirely trustworthy; however, I cannot remember feeling this good physically at any other time in the last 20 years. Truly.
Today Matt and I went to the gym together, and there was a moment when I was doing some crunches on a mat. I noticed he was starting at me.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking at you.”
“Why?”
“I can’t believe how much you’ve changed. You couldn’t have ever done that 12 weeks ago.”
He says I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I think that’s true. And I haven’t ever felt this good. Yet I now need to figure out the next chapter of my fitness journey. I did some exploration this week in service of doing that: I went to a yoga class and a pilates class. Both were challenging, and yet I also could tell how much my base fitness was serving me during both classes. The thing that stood out most, however, was how much I need to re-orient my thinking about exercise. I’m used to “exercise” consisting of pounding it out on the treadmill or along the running path next to Lake Michigan while sweating buckets. Oh, and I should add, that this pounding is often accompanied by pounding music (recall the playlist made my nine-year-old son) in my ears. Reorientation to a beautiful, calm studio space with exercises done slowly, mindfully, carefully. Quite a challenge to push my body in the new ways that yoga and pilates demanded, but I felt located in my body and aware of its parts and the demands being placed on them, more attuned to the physical challenges than I am when pounding away while watching Oprah, hoping to distract myself from the physical challenges.
On another topic: Here’s almost five-year-old Matteo in the cowboy costume that Santa brought (along with a set of “stylish mustaches” — the one worn is called “The Sheriff”).
I cannot believe that twelve weeks have passed since Sunday, September 26, Jack LaLanne’s 96th birthday, and the day I launched my 12-week project to take Jack LaLanne’s advice and revitalize my life through paying close attention to exercise and nutrition. I’ve learned many things, and I anticipate it’s going to take time to become articulate and clear about what all of them are.
The one thing that is clear: I’ve only just begun. This is it now. This is my life. My first blog entry on September 26 put my inconsistency right out there: I have seen myself get in and out of shape many, many times. Yet I can’t imagine that this will happen again. I just can’t. I feel too good to sacrifice my well-being because I’m too busy to exercise or whatever it is that might surface and tempt me to abandon my routine. Come tomorrow I won’t be eating doughnuts and smoking cigarettes while sitting on the couch, remote in hand and feet up on the table. I like Jack LaLanne on this kind of thing:”Would you get your dog up in the morning and give him a cigarette, a cup of coffee and a doughnut? How many millions of Americans got up this morning with a breakfast like that? And you wonder why people are sick and obese?”
In fact, tomorrow I am going to a yoga class with a friend. In my 45 years, I have been to one yoga class. It was about 15 years ago at the Equinox Gym in New York City. I can bring up images of the studio space where it was held, and I recall feeling as though I wasn’t good at yoga, whereas others in the class were, but the whole experience is fuzzy and distant. I’ve also made a plan with another friend to go to a Pilates mat class with her on Wednesday, so this coming week will bring at least two new fitness adventures.
One big thing I have learned and must admit: I can’t be Jack LaLanne when it comes to food. I do embrace many of his ideas and mostly eat in the way that he does, but I can’t and don’t want to cut out of my diet everything that he has eliminated from his. I do want to aim for moderation and healthier options when it comes to sweets (e.g. one of my ideas is that it’s quite different to have something that is homemade as opposed to something that was processed and packaged and mass manufactured and all of that). Given all that I know about women and food and complexities around it, and given all that I know about my own story in this arena, I just don’t want to be too rigid or restrictive. Yet I want to be healthy and fit. And, I think I can do all of this!
The final thing for today: “We’re always growing up.” Amen, Jane Fonda. Yes, I am always going to be growing up, and that is a gift, a privilege, and a blessing. I’m thrilled that at 45 I am learning what I’m learning. Here’s hoping I have at least 45 forthcoming years to learn much, much more. I plan to continue with this project, and my hope is to blog two days/week: one post focused on food, the other on fitness. Food and fitness. Fitness and food. And anything else that seems worth sharing!
After many years in New York City, Susan Fine said goodbye to Zabar's and Gray's Papaya in search of an affordable apartment. She, her husband, their two boys, and 10,000 pieces of Lego landed in Chicago, where they love everything except the weather. A former English teacher, Susan can still hear a me/I error from a mile away. For assistance with sorting out the me/I conundrum, check out pages 110-113 in her first book Zen in the Art of the SAT. Initiation is her first YA novel, and she is currently at work on her second. For answers to pressing grammar questions or just to say "hi and I love your books," you can email her at susmatt@earthlink.net.
