Mama Physics

While not ever having taken a course in physics (thanks to my underwhelming lack of interest and/or intellect) I have lately witnessed one of its actual laws: a body in motion tends to stay in motion - or something along those lines.

As noted before in this blog, I generally move at the pace of a garden slug and am a hopeless procrastinator. I put off everything - except wasting time. But yesterday as I was trying to beat out the forecasted next three days of steady rain, I amazed even myself (not a huge leap here as 1+0=1 - not a big number but still bigger than zero). I took the dog for a 45 minute walk, spread some lawn treatment on our 1 acre yard, planted nine flower boxes, did two loads of wash, cooked dinner (or as it's known at my house, "compost") and cleaned two bathrooms ("compost part deux"). And by the end of the day I was beat - not from being bored or mentally exhausted but from actually moving all day long - and it felt great!

The next step here is to coordinate this activity with a sane eating plan. I have been caving into my pasta craving for about a week now with disasterous results. I will weigh in on Friday to learn the full extent (Primal scream alert posted for May 29th 6:30 a.m. EST). I will also finally be joining the Y this week and checking out the personal trainer that my friend recommended. What a refreshing change to have a lot on my plate that is actually good for me.

Wimble-don't

Staying true to my George Costanza regimen, I played tennis last night with my friend even though I still don't have the results of the xrays on my foot. Remember - I'm going for the complete opposite of what I would normally do. I suspect that if there was some small fracture that last night's activity would certainly have had me howling in pain at some point (and no, I'm not referring to the score or how I looked in shorts).

My tennis friend, Doc, is about 10 years older than I but has the energy of a twelve year old after consuming a 2 pound tin of Pixie Sticks and she regularly kicks my ass on the court. In the past 7 or so years we've been playing I've only beat her once. Her husband, who regularly instructs me to "wax her ass", brought me over a bottle of champagne to celebrate my victory. It is one of my goals this year to beat her again and last night it was close....but no cigar.

On entering the public park court, I noticed everyone started applying sunscreen and lowering their sunglasses. As it was 6:00 pm and well past sun damage time, I and my paranoia automatically assumed it was from the glare of my pasty white legs and arms reflecting the setting sun. We warmed up a little and then it was on like donkey kong! Hold on to your panties Doc, I'm doing the ass-kicking tonight!

We got right into it - this match was not for sissies and it was very close. I did, as one might expect from a woman carrying around 50 extra pounds, experience some difficulties during our match. Aware that no thunderstorms were in the forecast, I observed a loud clapping sound that seemed to coming from my side of the court only. And yes, Matlock, the clapping noise did seem to correspond with Ethel and Lucy swinging wide and low and having no harnessing device engaged, save this pathetic little 18 hour wonder that usually surrenders after 20 minutes. Either that or it was my thighs whose close relationship haven't allowed my ankles to say hello to each other since 4th grade. Oh good Lord, I was my own cheering section!

I must've been quite the sight having to constantly adjust my bra and pull my shirt out from getting stuck in it all night long. Wonder bra, indeed - it lets the girls go completely AWOL while hoovering at my sweaty shirt. I looked like some spastic escapee chimp from a Madonna video (and don't you always feel the need for a shot of penicillin just even reading her name?).

Nature doesn't always play against me. I have a trick that usually works pretty well when exerting myself in this fashion. I'm one of the lucky few whose blood vessels or capillaries or some other blood delivery system is so close to my skin's surface that my face turns the color of eggplant. This usually gets my opponents to back off a little; so afraid are they of me stroking out or having a heart attack and that's when I move in for the kill. If I can't win on skill then I will certainly take the lower road of exploiting my opponent's weakness/concern for my health. However, Doc being a doctor and regular tennis buddy is onto this and in fact seemed to actually punch the gas peddle that much harder. Some humanitarian, huh? In a futile attempt to get her to back off, I started reciting her oath back at her..."first, do no harm". No luck. She beat me.

I exited the court to thunderous applause - my own still, only this time it sounded like it was underwater. Rematch pending.

Have a great weekend!

Stupid Human Tricks

Not much to say today. While still at less than full capacity, I am just chomping at the bit to get as busy as the rest of you are blogging about. I am also chomping at the pasta salad that mysteriously (by my own hand) appeared in my fridge.

I continue my George Costanza regimen in which I am doing the exact opposite of what I think I should do or always have done. Results thus far are inconclusive. I weighed myself this morning and while I'm unchanged from last week, I feel incredibly bloated and the new size 16w's are snug - which they were when I bought them last month but figured by this time they'd fit fine. Unlike George, I think I'm having some sort of hormonal surge that always puffs me up for a few days and makes me go all Lizzie Borden. Go ahead, just ask my husband.....right after I've decided to remove the duct tape from his mouth, wrists and ankles. However, in keeping with this new opposites regimen I am doing something incredibly stupid today which is playing tennis against my friend on a 90 degree day with a still uncertain ankle. In true George form, I ask myself, "What's the worst that can happen?" Not to worry friends, my tennis buddy is a doctor and should anything go awry I can either allow her to fix me up onsite or file a malpractice lawsuit - whichever my hormones tell me to do at the time.

Hope all is well where you are and that you have a great long weekend! Enjoy!

Mommy Wrong Legs

Well, as promised when the poison ivy cleared up, I've been really working it - walking every day, free weights, sit-ups - it's the power move to and through the 200 mark....until my other leg chimed in - the one with all the varicose veins and a new pain around my ankle. This has been for the last two weeks. Generally, I can slap the veins back into shape within a couple of days so this two week business was starting to concern me.

I finally went to the doctor's yesterday and she thought maybe the steroids I was on for the poison ivy could have messed up my usual recovery time. She is also sending me to xray the ankle to check for a stress fracture, just in case my exercise enthusiasm may have exceeded my physical capacity. Not too happy about that. And then the cherry on top was when she started ticking off the usual remedies for varicose veins - leg elevation, exercise, compression stockings (which look fabulous with workout shorts) and get this - losing weight. Really?! No sh*t, Sherlock. Oh, excuse me, I mean no sh*t, Doctor Sherlock. I don't have a medical degree or anything but even I can tell that I need the two legs to make that happen. When I pointed that out to her (in the nicest possible way of course) she just looked at me like the RCA Victor dog. Obviously she's never had a weight issue.

Still, I went walking again today. Push through the pain and all that. The xray techs couldn't take me within a reasonable time today so maybe tomorrow. I think I'm going to institute the George Costanza regimen for a change: I'm going to start doing the exact opposite of what I would normally do. Doing the right thing just isn't working out so I'll take a page out of George's book and see what happens. Now you know I must be desperate when I'm using a TV character as a role model. Let's see if it works before you start calling me crazy.

Down Two - Whew!

Just a quickie this morning (that's what he said! Any "Office" fans out there? Hello?)

Lost 2.0 pounds this past week as I went from garden slug to Denise Austin's distant cousin in terms of exercising again. I seem to have hit a mental and physical block when it comes to busting through the 200 mark - but I am determined. I am so tired of hauling around all this extra weight. In my head I'm still young but my body feels 15 years older than it really is. So onward and downward.

There's a great post over at CrankyFitness this morning - and yes, I know that's redundant. Check out what's on Crabby's mind. It really hit home with me.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Looking Back and Weighing In

I saw a movie a couple of weeks ago and the female lead closely resembled a once-close friend of mine so I decided to Google her to see what she was up to. And man oh man, she's doing great, which I am actually very happy about (who says all women are catty?). She was always a hard worker, had boundless energy and was very passionate about a variety of things. We were both single and lived next door to each other in Boston's North End neighborhood. Among other things we had in common was also the fact of being just a little bit overweight -say 10 or 15 pounds - which is just what I love in a best friend. It was one of the many things we joked about during our friendship along with our jobs, our families and the dearth of decent men.

She moved to Europe after marrying her husband and lived there for the next 10 or so years. We stayed in touch until she moved back to New England after divorcing her husband and I thought we could renew our friendship, even though we were about 45 minutes apart from each other. But it didn't happen that way, to my regret. I made efforts to call and get together but she was just too busy - a single working mother of two - whew! I did get a Christmas card a couple of years later that included her wedding photo as she had remarried. Again, I tried to get together but it was not reciprocated and so I reluctantly let it go. I know you're all probably thinking Jennifer Jason Leigh in "Single White Female" by now but I just really missed her friendship.

So anyway, the Googling found that she has an awesome job, has an awesome figure, an awesome new husband and family, awesome hobbies and lives in an awesome town. Yes, yes - I know. I should never look back and I should never compare myself to somebody else. Okay - some rules are made to be broken and I took it upon myself to break these two if only to figure something out: how is it that our lives took such different trajectories when we both started off in pretty much the same place? How did I get to this place of my weight running my life and emotions? How did I get so off track?

I think all the trouble started when I decided to become a stay-at-home mom. I was under the illusion that all the other moms and I would bond so well and our kids would play and grow up together and we'd all live happily ever after. Hello? Rude awakening - party of one? Perhaps it was just dumb luck that landed me in this particular snake-pit of a neighborhood but I had no idea that mothering had turned into such a competitive sport. These women were absolute beasts! And my son being an only child made it that much easier for them to isolate him from the others and make our lives a living hell. I started having panic attacks, found that I had no support from those who should've had my back, and went on antidepressants. The next 35 pounds were mostly courtesy of the meds but I helped out in any way possible - eating for comfort and companionship - and found that I had stacked on an overall extra 75 pounds since my wedding!

We moved out of Hell four years ago and have wonderful neighbors now, but all their kids are grown so the little man has no one to play with here either. But we're all happier and I'm off the meds - except for the occasional panic pill. It got me wondering though - what's your story on how you got to this place of extra poundage? Can you pin it down to any particular event in your life? Do you feel like sharing? If so, please weigh in.

Walk This Way

A small victory of sorts to report today. I had to get a new pair of sneakers because the old pair is actually almost worn out from use (notice I do not disclose how long it took me to wear them out but I digress). Imagine that - wearing out a pair of sneaks with the added bonus of the inner thigh seam of all my exercise pants still intact! Okay, but that's still not the best part. In the past, whenever I put on my sneaks I would always have to put my foot on a chair to tie them because bending over to do it was seriously interfering with the breathing process - and we all know that pretty much every death is caused by shortness of breath. But today I was able to bend over and tie the new sneaks without benefit of a separate staging area. Yay, me! I felt so good about it that I bought myself a cute pair of black strappy sandals too - which I sincerely doubt I'll wear out but it should be fun trying.

Note to self: enjoy the small victory but don't get so cocky about it that you completely blow off all the stuff that got you here.