August 2

“My feet are getting tired just STANDING in your shoes,” my fabulous trainer Barbara said to me.

That sounds like a metaphor for life – as though someone was saying “Lordy – walking a mile in your shoes is TOUGH, my, how I admire you!” (Don’t we all want to assume that we cover gracefully about how hard our lives are? Oh, if they only knew, we think, and imagine the medals and accolades we would receive if someone realized that we’d been to the bank AND the post office while REALLY having to pee. Such martyrdom!)

In fact, Barbara had commented that I tended to stand on the outsides of my feet. Instead of attempting to correct my posture, I (of course) whined that it was the SHOES – see?? They’re all THICK under the arches! (And they are. I stand by that statement.) (Stand. Get it?)

Because she knows she is right and has x-ray vision and can see my bones through all impediments, Barbara said “Okay – do it without the shoes.”

(The “do it,” by the way, was a highly remedial exercise involving touching a fat workout ball to the ground, standing from the squat, and reaching the ball overhead. This is the kind of exercise that makes me giggle, because it’s simultaneously incredibly easy and yet also impossibly hard – like rubbing your belly and patting your head. I do these exercises while giggling through mutters: Arches down. Pelvis neutral. Abs engaged. Ribs down. Use the glutes – the GLUTES. And then, because I cannot accomplish all this, I giggle. Whoops – missed the abs. “And the arches,” says Barbara.)

So gleefully, I took off my shoes. I always do better when barefoot because A. I live my life barefoot and B. I’m always trying to show Barbara that I should NEVER have to wear shoes and laws should be rewritten to make exceptions for me. (Seriously: Why CAN’T I be barefoot in a restaurant? It’s not as if shoes will stop me from tracking in something nasty from the sidewalk – and if you’re protecting me from something nasty on your floor, shouldn’t that be my choice?)

Then Barbara, because she is a badass from the DNA out, asked if she could put on my sneakers. Ew! How much would YOU have to get paid per hour to put on someone else’s hot, icky sneakers??

Admittedly, I wear these sneakers ONLY when I’m at Body Dynamics; I put them on in the car once I’ve parked out front… sometimes I put them on in the waiting area. Not a shoe fan. So, they aren’t as nasty as you might think. But still: Warm from the body, so again: Ew.

Wide-eyed, I nodded. She slipped her elegant runner’s feet out of her shoes and into mine and immediately made me get back to squatting and lifting and other remedial, hugely simple exercises that somehow leave me dripping with sweat.

After a long, distracting discussion about a click in my shoulder (“Keep your chest open when you lift. No, pull your wing bones back and in. But keep your shoulders down. Now where are your headlights?” That’s Barbara-speak for have I again allowed my pelvis to drop forward, and away from the carefully-won neutral position; the answer is always “Damn it!”), she suddenly said “My feet are getting tired just standing in your shoes.”

That made me howl like a loon, just barking with laughter in the large work-out room while others nearby looked in to make sure I hadn’t slipped into hysteria as surely as I’d slipped – again – into improper pelvic alignment. Barbara, who is naturally quieter than me (isn’t everyone?), was also laughing, and agreed that she hadn’t intended such a profound statement when she spoke.

So now she’s going to research minimalist shoes for me.

Is it any wonder that I just LOVE giving those people every red cent I earn? I am constantly entertained!

July 10

I’ve recently come under the care of Chip, an absolutely lovely nutritionist at Body Dynamics in Falls Church. I love Chip even though he’s a dancer who told me with no irony at all that he felt guilty because he ate a piece of pizza A FEW DAYS AGO; I love him because he is more interested in my zinc (low) and pH levels (also low) than he is in my weight (“It’s just a number”), and no one else has ever even told me I HAD zinc levels to wonder at.

Now I’m eating pumpkin seeds to help. How curious. (It was either that or raw oysters, which – ew.)

Anyway, one of the things Chip told me to do was to buy my dairy at Whole Foods (which I still call Fresh Fields); I was to look for a brand called Trickling Springs.

Now, I find that name rather disgusting; it sounds like something that might happen in a Russian bordello. But I’ve tried ‘Turkey Hill’ ice cream and it did NOT taste like the droppings of large birds, so I realize I need to get over my distaste based on what some mythical farmer named his mythical farm.

“Why Trickling Springs, Chip?”

“All their cows are grass-fed, so they don’t need to pasteurize the milk as much.”

“I thought pasteurization was a GOOD thing. One of those advancements of modern society.”

“Some pasteurization is a great thing. But if your cows are kept in feed sheds and fed antibiotics, then you have to pasteurize the milk so intensely that you pretty much lose the nutritional value.”

“Get out!”

“S’true.”

Well, there you go. Okay – off I went to Fresh Fields – sorry, Whole Foods – to buy pumpkin seeds and Trickling Springs.

A troll was stocking the dairy case. I don’t mean to be mean, but he was actually a troll. Short, stocky, curly hair, darkness in a cloud around him; either painfully shy or actually surly. Let’s hope for shy.

“Excuse me – do you have dairy products from Trickling Springs?”

His trollish nose wrinkled at the name as mine had. “What?” he grunted.

“Trickling Springs?” I was beginning to lose my enthusiasm.

“Neverheardofit.” He turned back to being elbow-deep in the goat yogurt.

“Oh thank God,” I thought. “That name really is disgusting. Now I can go back to eating my whole-fat, unsweetened Dannon from Giant Foods, which is more convenient and cheaper.”

I was in the frozen food aisle seeking out Ezekiel bread. (Chip was quite firm about Ezekiel bread. It’s sprouted, you know.) (What??) (Yes – they let the wheat germ sprout before they make it into flour which does miraculous things to the nutritional value, or something like that; I didn’t quite understand that one as well, but I dutifully bought frozen bread. It turns out to be nutty and pleasant and not at all annoying. I can live with it.)

So I was seeking the Ezekiel – as you do – and there was the ice cream case, so I gave it a gander. Because – Ben and Jerry’s Oats Of This Swirled, obviously.

And what did I see?

TRICKLING SPRINGS!

They make ice cream.

So I bought it. And ate it. A vanilla, smooth and creamy and tasting not at all of any kind of pasteurization (because what would that taste like anyway??) and featuring huge slabs of chocolate – I mean like paving stones of chocolate, dark – rich – sweet – salted chocolate. MY GOD, good nutrition is delicious.

And I don’t feel guilty. I had to get it. My nutritionist said.

June 18

Barbara my trainer did NOT want to have her photo taken, but if I can show my arms and appear in a gym in this outfit, her lean, fit glutes can suck it up! See? My more colorful shirt!

When I began with Barbara at Body Dynamics, she asked me a question I’d never heard before.

WHY didn’t I like to exercise?

We were standing in one of the treatment rooms, doing my initial fitness assessment. (Just – stand up and sit down for 30 seconds. Now stand on one foot for a minute. Stuff like that.)

(The standing on one foot thing was a surprise. I have great balance; I can walk with a book on my head up and down the stairs. However, this exercise – my Mom’s attempt to make her daughters glide like Grace Kelly – has NOTHING to do with what Barbara thinks balance is. I stood proudly on one foot and she looked at my ankle, wiggling to compensate, and asked, only semi-seriously, “You haven’t been drinking, have you?” Dang. Another self-delusion exploded!)

(I can do it now, though – like a one-legged boss!)

And then Barbara asked me why I didn’t like to exercise.

I’m 57. I have both experience and intellect. I am rarely caught without a strong opinion on any subject. You ask me anything about exercise or diets, I’ll have an answer at the ready. (I’m learning just how many of my answers are misinformed, but see other posts for THAT revelation.) But Barbara asked “why” when no one else ever had. Why? Why?! I don’t know – because! She left me gaping with that one.

“Why? Um… It makes me hot. Uh – I sweat. Erm… I make impact tremors like the T. Rex on Jurassic Park stomping around. Uh… my back gets tight. I, uh – ”

“Wait. Stop. What?”

“You know – Jurassic Park. When Jeff Goldblum sees the impact tremors in the glass of water.”

“No. Your back. What was that?”

“When I walk or something. My back tightens up. I want to sit down every five minutes to stretch it.”

“Where on your back?”

“Now, hang on – my back is fine. I’m the only person I know with no back problems.”

“I’m not saying you have a spinal issue. Where on your back do the muscles get tight?”

So we discussed it. And I walked for her. And I stood for her. And then she announced that I was lordotic.

I’m a writer; I love new words. “Lordotic” was a new one on me; I demanded an immediate explanation.

It turns out that the pelvis drapes around the spine like a lady wearing a shawl. (This is my description, not Barbara’s, so my imagery could be very, very wrong.) The shawl is supposed to be even, but my “shawl” tends to dip forward. The points of my hip bones – Barbara calls them headlights – tend to point down.

Now, there’s nothing physically forcing my pelvis down; it’s just the way I stand. So my lordosis is entirely treatable simply by building up the abdominal muscles that will pull my shawl back up into alignment.

And when that happens, the muscles across my mid- and low-back that have been trying to make up for the slipped shawl will be able to relax and do their usual job. So – no pain. No need to stretch or sit down every five minutes.

“Shut up – you’re kidding. You can fix this?”

“YOU can fix this.”

That was over a year ago.  I’ve done all these hopelessly remedial exercises, giggling while I did them because they are SO SIMPLE and yet SO HARD. And now I walk down the street and unconsciously pull my headlights up with my mighty, mighty abs, and I extend through the thigh to engage the big ol’ butt muscles, and I draw my ribs down and in and hold my neck long and my head proud… and nothing hurts. I can walk, and it feels pretty good.

And I think my impact tremors are getting just a bit less powerful, too. Hah!

June 22, 2017

I know this photo doesn’t look like much, but really – it’s a small milestone for me. (Or actually, a 2X milestone for me!) I’ve been working out at Body Dynamics – this gym that my friend Steve found in Falls Church, where all the staff are just dripping with advanced degrees and they’re not drill sergeants and they actually want to find out WHY you don’t like to exercise and then they work to change that. And for a year or more, I’ve gone there dressed in baggy sweats and even more baggy t-shirts. This is “shame” clothing, and a useless attempt to hide the bitter truth.

My glorious trainer Barbara gently persuaded me to take the leap and buy new shoes specifically for exercising. Doesn’t sound like a big deal to you? It was to me; I had to go to a running store and have a bearded (and very kind) millennial watch the way I walked, like I was some Take Myself So Seriously athlete.

And the shoes were not such a big deal, after all…

So I threw myself on the mercy of my sister Twig, who derives tremendous joy from exercise, and she was so pleased to be asked about getting me into less shame-based workout wear that she bought me a selection based on what makes her comfortable – which is exercise pants under a loose top that skims over the upper body. What a blissful idea.

It took a few weeks for me to get the fit right; had to send lots of clothes back and order new sizes for a while… but today I bravely put on my new arm-baring garb and went to the gym and sweated in it. My classmates were hugely supportive and said nice things, and I worked out hard and easily in my not-quite-so-shamed outfit. This is a bit of my internal dialog as I faced the mirror in the work-out room at Balance Class:

1. I feel like a five-year-old dressed in a Wonder Woman costume; people will smile on me fondly and think – how cute! Look – she thinks she’s all that!
2. I’ve got a pretty good oompa-loompa/jodhpur thing going on there at the midline.
3. Next time, white socks, so I look less like a boxer in a Boston gym. Okay, okay, okay.
4. I’m used to wiping my face on my t-shirt – neckline or sleeve, which is gross but easy. Where’s a damned towel? This is a prima donna outfit. Sheesh.
5. I’m looking better than I did; now I look less like a fat lady and more like an East German Olympic swimmer.
6. I’m looking better…

So that’s my long-winded post on the glacially-slow evolution of body image. Tomorrow I go back to the same gym to start working with their nutritionist. Maybe I should go scarf some sugar now while I have the chance!

 

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