12.12.17

How much does it cost me to have a five-person panel of experts on hand to guide me as I work to improve my health? To work out with Barbara AND Grace, both personal trainers – to have Chad stretch my tendons, ligaments, muscles – to learn from Gwynn, the therapeutic masseuse – to goggle in astonishment at the insights Chip provides about nutrition?

Well, it ain’t cheap – and I suppose if you’re looking at your disposable income as something that could pay for entertainment and action and hijinx, then maybe you’d think I spend too much.

But if you have a chronic health issue – for me, it’s obesity – then you can’t afford NOT to pay for people who can actually help.

So far, all I have is obesity. All the attendant things that go with being consistently, chronically overweight – like diabetes, high blood pressure, joint replacements, susceptibility to disease – have passed me over. So far. I’m lucky. But before I started with Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA, my blood pressure was beginning to creep up. My blood sugar was no longer consistently low. My knees had begun to hurt. And I’d been ignoring high cholesterol for years.

So trouble was coming.

I had the opportunity to choose. Did I want to decay slowly – or maybe not so slowly – as I aged? Or did I want to spend a fair chunk of change on something that would keep me healthy and active not just today but throughout my aging process?

So I’m spending the money. My blood pressure is back to the same as my teen years. My cholesterol is in the “normal” range. My blood sugar is perfect. My knees never hurt anymore. I’ve lost 11 inches off my waistline and have retired my size 22 pants in favor of size 18s (which, I note, are beginning to be a little baggy in the butt).

I’m a noted spendthrift; I’m fortunate to not need to pinch pennies. I know a lot of people couldn’t afford as much one-on-one time with trainers as I get. But Barbara’s Balance Class and Chad’s Stretch Class both cost $19 per class. That’s not too “spendthrifty,” is it?

I’ve joined three different gyms in the past – places I went to once where I felt awkward and out of place. I didn’t go back, even though I’d paid my membership dues. They were cheaper than Body Dynamics… unless you measure the cost by how effective the care was. In that case, Body Dynamics is by far the most frugal, efficient, effective money I’ve ever spent.

We all make the best choices for ourselves, of course. This is the best choice for me.

You can see this photo of three $20s as a nice evening out – or it could be one Balance class, one Stretch class, and one Zumba class with Devin, whose feet fly like she’s wearing winged shoes.  All that AND $3 change. Health, entertainment, and the glow of having done something good for yourself; I’d say that’s a pretty good way to spend $60, me!

12.11.17

Gwynn applies gentle tension to my neck, lifting my skull up and away from my shoulders. Little ripples of bliss roll down to the soles of my feet. All the chat drains out of me – the questions, the comments, the idle thoughts – they evaporate like mist. I fall silent.

Then she curls those clever fingers into faint hooks and digs into the suboccipital muscles, right where the skull meets the spine, and if I was in any position other than flat on my back, I would be drooling.

This is what people in opium dens were chasing, I’m sure of it. This blissful, floaty feeling – this endorphin rush – this fragile moment exactly before you slip into a deep, restful sleep. This is how you make a Manchurian candidate. This is why a therapeutic masseuse must be entirely trustworthy, because at that point if Gwynn leaned down and whispered into my defenseless ear, “You need to go out and kill my mailman,” I’d be asking for details and schedules.

I know lots of people who say they don’t like massages. My husband used to say “I don’t like people touching me,” like a massage was just someone wandering by patting you in passing.

But if that’s you, you should maybe give it another thought – because a massage from a trained expert like Gwynn (as opposed to a spa massage from someone who thinks they know what they’re doing) isn’t what you expect. Gwynn’s ministrations are PART of my workout routine; she identifies things that might limit or impede my fitness progress and then she fixes them. Sometimes her work is uncomfortably forceful; she’s not there to put me to sleep – she’s there to work. And STILL she leaves me feeling stoned and blissed.

It’s worth noting that she couldn’t make me drool in my first two or three visits because – she told me later – my suboccipitals were frozen into place and it took her weeks to loosen them enough to be able to actually relax them. So if you gave therapeutic massage one try and then discounted it, you sold yourself short.

There’s an amazing natural high available to you. It’s not illegal, it’s not fattening, it isn’t chemically addictive (although – I’d like more, please!). Why deny yourself the feeling of your muscles sliding easily against each other? Why turn away from a hand-applied narcotic?

It’s tough to get on Gwynn’s schedule; her patrons are pretty quick to grab her available appointments, but if you’re in or near Falls Church, VA, you could try. Body Dynamics – (703) 527-9557. My friend Steve says Catherine (Gwynn’s coworker) is every bit as insightful and drool-inducing. If you’re out of range, ask around. Find someone who has studied. You’re looking for a certified massage therapist. Accept no substitutes!

This photo is of one of my very favorite views in the world – the ceiling in Gwynn’s treatment room. Another favorite is the small square of rug on the floor when I’m on my stomach with my face on the padded ring, but with the occasional exception of a glimpse of Gwynn’s feet, that image is even more boring.

12.9.17

If you are offered some poutine (which turns out to be a French Canadian treat consisting of gravy poured over French fries) and the server asks “Do you want it with or without the traditional cheese curd?” then it is simply rude to life and karma and opportunity to answer anything OTHER than “With, of course!”

I was invited last night to a very fancy company Christmas party by my dear friend Chuck. I’m used to the non-profit world, where it’s important to not only BE frugal but also to APPEAR frugal; Christmas parties in this universe are renowned for paper decorations held over from a few years ago and Betty from accounting’s rum balls.

Chuck helps to run a for-profit enterprise; it is in their best interests to not only be but also appear to be prosperous. This makes for a much more luxurious holiday celebration. I felt like the country mouse in the big city; they had a live band at a country club paradise decked out for the holidays in a million lights and swags and huge Christmas trees. The food options were simply charming:

• The aforementioned poutine, with a choice of three gravies. (Do you want brisket? Turkey? Perhaps the lobster and shrimp gravy?)
• Cheese – an entire cheese shop’s worth – and a charcuterie board of preserved meats and pickles.
• A team behind a series of woks; you could put together your choice of stir fry and they’d wok it up for you and serve it in adorable Chinese food take-out containers.
• An entire Christmas dinner served in martini glasses – turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce stacked in a glorious pyramid of deliciousness.
• A carving station featuring tender, bloody Delmonico steak with bearnaise, tiny perfect asparagus, and sinful little potatoes swimming in butter.
• A decorate-your-own-Christmas-cookie bar with varied frostings, sprinkles, chips.
• And a hot chocolate mecca; build the cup (or three) of the perfect cocoa for you.

Did I sit primly, hands folded, murmuring a prissy little “No, thank you” when the silent, efficient waiters offered me smoked salmon pizza? Did I sip abstemiously at my water with lime while calculating my body’s preferred ratio of protein to fat to carbs? Did I remember all the work I’ve put into staying (or getting) fit?

HELL, NO.

If life offers you such an opportunity, it is impolite to decline. If you want life to keep offering you wonders, you have to reach out and enjoy what’s out there. Like writing a thank-you note to Aunt Martha; you want to ENCOURAGE her to keep giving.

So I ate. No – I feasted. By the time I left, clutching a large to-go cup of hot chocolate into which I had melted half a candy cane, I felt mildly ill. But only mildly. Mostly I felt satisfied and full and sleepy.

There’s a time to be careful. And there’s a time to embrace wholeheartedly (and whole-assedly) what so generously appears before you. We will all die eventually; a long life is less enjoyable if it doesn’t also include a few forays into the wild, uncontrollable world of poutine.

You know what I say? I say MORE!!

12.6.17

The serf bowed as he approached the lord in the great hall. Lacking a hat, he nervously tugged his forelock and waited to be recognized.

“What is it, my good man?” the lord of the manor said from his warrior’s chair.

“Beg pardon, milord, but I think I can get a higher yield of beans from your fields if I plant from north to south this time.”

The lord smiled benevolently on his peasant. “Good thinking – but this season, we’re planting alfalfa. The soil needs the nitrogen.”

“Alfalfa, sir?”

“I’ll send you the seeds. That’s how we will increase our bean yield next season.”

The peasant, walking away to his humble but warm hovel, marveled at the wisdom and care of his lord and master. “Thank God,” he thought reverently, “that I don’t have to keep track of all of this stuff!”

Flash forward about a thousand years and hear the same conversation (almost) – this time between me (the serf) and Barbara (my lord and master) standing in the large gym at Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA.

“Barbara,” I said, tugging my forelock nervously, “My scale has been stuck on 230 pounds for months now. It’s so much better than the 260 that I started from, but now it’s driving me up the wall. I want it to go down. What do I do?”

“Don’t look at the scale.”

“What?” (I might as well have said “Alfalfa??”)

“How did you lose the thirty pounds?”

“Oh. I ignored the scale.”

“That’s right. Just do these exercises and don’t weigh yourself. It’s just a number.”

“But it’s such an easy number to track.”

“It’s getting you OFF track. Stop weighing yourself – seriously. Do what I tell you, eat the way Chip taught you. Ignore the scale. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I wandered away, deeply grateful that I have someone to keep track of these things for me so I can go on about my life thinking about why my dog has taken up barking as a hobby, or whether anyone can buy a Christmas gift for a 19-year-old that would actually be wanted.

These aren’t just my chronological Middle Ages; they’re my fitness Middle Ages too – progress has been made, but the enlightenment still waits ahead. I follow behind Milord Barbara wherever she leads me!

From Monty Python. The Holy Grail, of course.

 

12.4.17

Last night I was driving home from my bedside duties at the hospital. (Mom’s gall bladder will be popped out like Lego at 3-ish today, theoretically.) I was thinking about the previous night’s MacWallow, when I was too tired and too hungry to make a better decision than a Big Mac AND a quarter-pounder. Yes – both.

I decided to go to Subway. Still fast food, but I could make a few marginally better choices. Whole-wheat bread. Oil and vinegar instead of mayo. Ham and provolone, lettuce and lots of black olives.

I walked past the chips and the soda. I made my better-than-bad choices. When I got to the cash register, the sweet little girl said “Would you like a complimentary cookie?”

It was clear they were about to close, and their cookies were going to have to be thrown out.

“Oh, COME on!” I thought. It was almost 9PM, I was exhausted and starving, and a darling little high schooler was innocently offering me fast-burning carbs at a time when I was fighting the sugar craze tooth and nail.

And shit – they had the white chocolate chip cookies just sitting there, looking all fresh and tender and a little undercooked – perfect, in other words.

“I’d like the white chocolate chip, please,” I said weakly.

“Do you mind if I give them all to you?”

She was stacking up six or seven cookies, preparatory to bagging them in the little paper sleeve.

‘“No!” I shrieked as if I’d been pinched. “LOOK at me!” I grabbed a fistful of the ampleness of me just where hip becomes ass. “I’ve been trying so hard!”

She looked so startled, this adorable creature who had been trying to do something nice for a late-night customer. “Two,” I said with resignation. “Just give me two. And thank you – that’s very kind of you.”

She didn’t look very appeased by my lame thanks…

My friend Fern warned me about this slippery slope (the “caring for an aging parent instead of yourself” slope) – I just didn’t realize pretty little imps were going to leap out at me from ambush to increase the demon temptation!

12.2.17

He’s prone to lounging against walls or leaning on fences. He’s lean and just attractive enough to inspire instinctive trust. Probably Irish in heritage.

He’s Justin the Justifier, and he whispers in my ear a LOT.

“It’s the holidays,” he says when the moment comes when you either do or don’t order dessert. “Enjoy your friends. Share a dessert. Oh – they want bread pudding and you don’t like that? That’s okay – order what you want, too.”

“You’ll get back on track in January,” he whispers.

Today I’m sitting next to my mother’s hospital bed; she has a hot gall bladder and feels crummy and it will probably be removed surgically tomorrow – and didn’t Justin appear to me in the cafeteria a few minutes ago when I went to get lunch?

I was staring unhappily at a very wilted salad bar when Justin crooned from his pose at my elbow, “you’re in a hospital. Your mother is sick. Surely this is not the time to worry about zinc or sugars or carbohydrates. That cheeseburger looks pretty good. Why don’t you get that?”

So I did.

Justin can persuade me to surrender my determination and buy whatever I want – and the more I listen to him, the more gravity he develops. “You ate McDonalds last night on your way home from a day at her bedside in the ER. It’s not like another cheeseburger is going to hurt that much more. You’ll do better later.”

There are people who really do go through trauma who deserve indulgent treatment; a mother sleeping the day away because the anti-nausea meds make her drowsy doesn’t even remotely qualify. There is no excuse for Justin’s snaky, sneaky whispers – but I’m succumbing to them anyway!

Why isn’t hospital cafeteria food better? Should it be so hard to eat well AND deliciously in a place where, one assumes, we value good nutrition??

Let’s see – who else can I blame this on!?

 

11.20.17

Wet jungle vines slapped against her face with the cloying caress of toddlers on the edge of a tantrum. Freeing one hand, she shoved the vines aside and paused to wipe the sheen of sweat from her brow.

It was the thought of the ancient civilizations ahead that kept her going – of the foundations of temples carved into the earth. Of steps carved upward toward the heavens, ascending the mountains until lost in the low-lying clouds. Of once-sun drenched plazas where young warriors lost their lives in a blood-gushing attempt to appease cruel gods, the priest’s bloody ceremonial knife swiftly cutting the upstretched throat.

Well, actually it was Balance Class and the vines were strands of my own hair, wrapping around my throat and trying to choke me – but it was ALMOST as romantic…

Today Barbara decided to torment us with innocent little yoga blocks in serene moss or “fun” purple. At first it was just entertaining. Set two blocks up to either side of you (these blocks are like really oversized bricks, but made of something far lighter) and without rocking to either side, reach your leg outwards toward the block (no upper-body cheating, you – all movement comes from below the waist) and tap the block. Repeat on the other side.

Blocks were toppling all around, but we all were fresh and young and innocent and cheerfully set our blocks back up, little guessing what came next.

Between tapping the blocks with our sneaker-clad toes, we had to get down on the floor in a plank position.

(You know the plank, right? Go on all fours and tense up every abdominal muscle you’ve got. Don’t forget that step; it’s critical. Then stretch one foot back as far as it will go; send the other foot to join it. Now you’re poised on toes and hands, and you’re not allowed to let that plump, soft, heavy sit-downery part sag. Hold that back RIGID. See above, re: abdominal muscles.)

Sometimes we had to shift our weight enough to reach to the side and tap the block with our hands, alternating sides while desperately counting out twenty taps. Then more standing poses – reach backwards with the foot. Step over the blocks. Do a figure eight around the blocks; these standing poses were supposed to give our hearts time to settle, but come ON.

In between each standing pose, it was back to the planks. This time, put the blocks next to your feet. Reach out and tap the block with your toe. Groans filled the room.

The last one – the one that made me feel as if I was inching fatly through a really bad remake of an Indiana Jones movie – involved traveling. Start in a plank with your hands between the two blocks. Shift the left hand over and beyond the left block. Bring the left foot to the side. Shift the right hand over; bring the right foot along. Now back to center. Now to the right. Now back to center. Now back to the left.

During this time, someone in the class asked Barbara a question, and the two of them had a hushed, thoughtful, totally distracted conversation while the rest of the class groaned and grunted and clung to that plank position like we were summiting an Aztec fortress in the Andes – not because we wanted to, but because to do anything else meant grim death.

My unconfirmed role in the class is to be the one who breaks first and cries out “Barbara! Come ON!” And then Barbara says “THREE MORE!” and we all give serious consideration to just giving up and dying to get it all over with…

…but then it’s suddenly time for stretching and mopping off with a gym towel and the blissful, burbling, effervescent feeling of having finished a tough one, still on one’s feet.

Is the feeling worth it? Is it really THAT good?

Hell, yes!

11.29.17

I was having dinner with heavenly Nancy and Ed tonight. We were talking about health and fitness (because I monkishly ordered the steamed vegetables with my omelet but was then filching potato chips off their plates) and Ed – who has one of the biggest brains on the planet – was marveling at my list of trainers. He applauded my effort, and opined in passing “I guess with real determination, we could all get healthy on our own, but…”

I was nodding along (that’s what you do when you’re with Ed and Nancy; they rarely speak anything other than sterling truth or impressive charm), but that stopped me.

I thought of the years – YEARS – I’d spent applying “real determination” to the challenge of my ever-expanding posterior. I thought of the 436 days I spent exercising a minimum of one hour a day in a row. (On the 437^th day I forgot – and then I stopped for three years.) I thought of diets and written charts for how little I was going to weigh by which day and overwhelming feelings of remorse and shame.

I remember thinking – I’ve been able to do just about anything I set my mind to so far. I drove in Ireland, for God’s sake. Why can’t I do this?

I HAVE real determination. What I didn’t have was Barbara. And Grace. And Chip. And Gwynn. And Chad. (All at Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA.) It took two – no, three trainers, a nutritionist, and a massage therapist working together to finally equip my body with the skills and knowledge needed to at last begin to carve away some of the styrofoam padding from around the sleek, porcelain body I think is down there.

So I went against type and disagreed with Ed. “No,” I said firmly, “You really can’t do it with just determination. I’ve tried, and I’ve failed. I needed help. And I’m not giving these people up!”

When I win the mega-millions lottery, I’m going to hire all five of them away from Body Dynamics. I’ll pay them an obscene amount of money and build them each a house (to their specifications) on my enormous compound and they can live there with their families. I’ll get each of them for an hour a day – five hours spent doing good for my body.

Dang. I gotta go buy a lottery ticket!

Peas with melting butter in a silver bowl because I forgot to take a snap of blissful Nancy and Ed.

11.28.17

That’d make a good band name – Chad Dammit.

I was telling Chad in stretch class today that I’d had occasion to curse him, which wasn’t very nice in the abstract, but Chad thrives on the groans of his stretch class students and he just grinned with joy.

(Chad is a trainer at Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA. He teaches stretch class to a handful of people who have opted to not lock up tight as we age. Chad teaches with foam rollers and tennis balls and cloth straps and the fiendishness of his vampire nature, where the moans of agony from his class nourish him at the cellular level; this is his personal Fountain of Youth.)

It was Grace’s fault that I cursed Chad. Grace, also a trainer (and don’t they conspire with each other when I’m not looking? They do.) has me doing a stretch for my thorax every day.

Thorax, thorax, thorax. What a great word.

I lie across the foam roller (which, despite its name, is as hard as a rock) so the roller is just barely under my wing bones. Cross my hands behind my head. Knees bent, to make sure the stretch gets the mid-back and isn’t absorbed by my far-more-limber lumbar spine. Then breathe. Inhale-exhale (in case you forgot how to breathe) five times slowly… and THEN…

Roll one elbow down, knees follow, until you’re all the way on your side. Go slowly; cherish every single gasp of ouchiness. Then roll to the other side (reaching your elbow back and up as you go; otherwise you end up sliding further and further down until the foam roller is under your neck.) Repeat four times.

I’m getting pretty good at this; I think my thorax might be beginning to unfreeze. (I think of it as The Thing, trapped in arctic ice and just waiting for handsome, bearded men to stumble upon it accidentally so it can feed once more.) (All this in my mid-back?? I may be watching too many movies.)

But last night while doing my HEP (that’s Home Exercise Program to you), the rolling from side to side was simply EXCRUCIATING – and instead of cursing Grace, whose bright idea this was in the first place, I illogically equated groans of agony on the roller with Chad.

So I was cursing him – and uttered “Chad Dammit.”

So now I’m changing his street name from “Shoulders Down” to “Chad Dammit.” He doesn’t seem to mind at all.

Foam rollers. Look so simple and innocent, don’t they?

11.26.17

“The hip bone’s connected to the… THIGH bone.” I can hear them singing now, a deep-voiced, gorgeous, racially-insulting black quartet singing “de” instead of “the” at the insistence of Mr. Disney, working down the scale to point out that all the body parts are connected…

…but they left out a few things.

Did you know there’s a connection between your ribs and your elbow?

Not the sharp angle you’re thinking. (She flips a finger through the air, pointing from your waist to your armpit and down to your elbow.) No, I mean a direct line. (The same finger flicks arrogantly across with an attendant “fssht” sound effect to put the bar across the “A” now drawn in the air.)

I lay on my back on a foam roller, eight-pound weights held overhead, inside wrists straight and facing each other. I drop the left arm slowly to the side while the right knee goes out to the side and down. And slowly back up. No worries.

I do the same movement with my right arm and OW – that hurts my elbow.

“Pull your ribs down,” says Barbara in what appears to me to be an absolute and complete non-sequitur. It seems as unconnected as if I said “This hurts my elbow” and she replied “Try a higher rate of withholding on your taxes.”

But Barbara is a wizard. She knows when to add the eye of newt and when to pull back on the tongue of frog. So I gripped whatever it is that pulls your ribs down and in…

…and my elbow no longer hurts doing the exact same exercise.

I know. I don’t understand it either. The Disney quartet never sang that de rib bone connected to de… ELBOW bone. But it is. Don’t know how, don’t know why. Go figure.

I’ll say it again: It is a real advantage to have a wizard with you on your fitness journey. Barbara Gallagher Benson, Body Dynamics in Falls Church, VA. (703) 527-9557. Ask for Babs.