Loose Parts

My dad, who has been gone from this world 19 years this fall, had a thing for security.  He was born during the Depression, so this made a lot of sense.  The man saved.  He socked money away for a retirement he so rudely never got to see.  He was a periodontist, so he came by being detail-oriented naturally.  He was meticulous, when it suited him (talk to my mom about the home office and you can hear her eyeballs roll from across state lines).  He labeled everything, and everything labelable was assigned a designated place which was also labeled.  This he has passed down to me.

Dad wore many hats.  For instance, he wore a Captain’s hat in the U.S. Navy Reserves, something for which he was quietly and immensely proud to earn, and proud to serve.  But he was also a photographer – both taking photos and developing them himself.  He was a wood craftsman, and built all of the multilevel decks on all four sides of our house, with precise spacing between each board so that you could blast out all of the maple tree helicopters with the soft stream of a garden hose.  Details, people.

My dad also refined the art of the lecture.  Something my kids are ecstatic he passed on to me.

All of my dad’s hobbies required much precision, care, and patience.  And control, really, which was maybe the hallmark of my dad.  Among his hobbies, perhaps his greatest passion was fishing.  He bought a Duckworth jet boat when I was in high school.  It was the first time I can remember seeing my dad overtly excited about something.  Polished aluminum with a thin red stripe rendered it a giant floating can of Coors Light, so he christened it the Premium Draught, because he was clever that way.  A consummate story teller, he spun tales from his silver bullet, though truth be told, my brother’s stories were always waaay better…  The other truth was the biggest thing I heard he ever caught on board was a ration of crap – enough to fertilize the Heartland – for strapping everything down in his boat with a bungee cord.  EVERYTHING.  And when he hit a cool breeze and choppy water, by God and the power of Grayskull, nothing moved.  George, he had it locked down.

Strap it in.  Lock it down.  Secure all loose parts.

Loose.  Parts.

So… I joined a gym.  (I know, it’s a terrible segue.)

I’ll start again.  This past (school) year has been a big personal growth year for me.  I went back to work this year.  How I managed to reinvent myself yet again somewhat alarms me, since I hold this advanced degree in…  God Lord, do I even remember?  Anyway, I’ve grown this year, both inwardly and… very outwardly.  I began teaching at my kids’ former preschool, and let me tell you – Cheddar cheese on Ritz crackers?  Addictive.  Pretzels?  Addictive.  Raisins?  Not by a long shot.  But anyway, by Christmas I figured I might as well just shove the cheese and crackers down my pants, because that’s where it’s all going anyway.  And it’s been depressing.  I worked so hard after having my third kiddo – my girl – to lose the weight I held on to for years, and for several years after I kept if off!  I made healthy eating choices!  I ran, I did Pilates, I — why yes, I’ll have some cheddar on Ritz…  And now it seems I’ve worked just as hard putting it back on, damn it.  Many starts and stops this year.  And I was so, so freaking tired.

Toward the end of the school year, my teaching partner encouraged me to come with her to this magical place where you get fit by sweating out your eyeballs.  Let me start again.  My teaching partner invited me to join her for a free session of getting my ass kicked by a 100 pound inanimate object, a heavy bag.  Last try: I was sucked in by fear and desperation that I was only 5 buttery Ritz crackers away from turning my “boyfriend jeans” into my “skinny paint” and needing an entire calendar’s worth of firefighters and the  Jaws of Life to cut me out of them IF I ever successfully poured myself into them again…  Kidding.  Kind of.  So I joined a 30 minute kickboxing circuit fitness gym.  When I made it to my one-month anniversary, I celebrated by almost not crying in the car on the way home.  Three months in and I’m not in a full-body cast yet, so I’d say it’s going pretty good.  The payoff being I can now sit down on the toilet without grappling for the wall before my legs collapse after doing 90,000 squats and lunges and kicks and more kicks.  A modicum of improvement, all things being relative.

By the way, the lunging.  It makes me fall.  Big time.

I’m also learning so much.  It feels GREAT!  First and foremost, I’ve learned that kickboxing is NOT hyphenated.  Yas!  I’ve come so far!  So soon!  I’ve learned that you really should wash the hand wraps sooner than six weeks after wearing them several times a week, because there are smells that just shouldn’t be smelled on your hands.  And I’ve also learned a degree of empathy deeper than I ever thought possible.  You know how hard it is to see someone purple-faced, the tips of her ponytail dripping with sweat, veins bulging at the forehead and her lips having gone completely horror show-white?  How uncomfortable it is to watch that person practically die trying, over and over again, while you stand by, knowing how to fix their problem but you can’t?  You want to root her on and beg her to stop all at the same time?  Well this is what I feel every time I get to watch myself flap around in front of a mirrored wall.  I can’t believe the size of those veins.  In my forehead.  Sometimes I put myself in my own shoes and I feel deeply for myself.  Some days I’d give anything to trade places with myself, just to give myself a rest from it all.

Mental healthcare professionals might consider this an exercise-induced out-of-body psychosis.  Might.

If I’m honest about how I do the kick-boxing, in between getting knocked over by a stationary bag and chasing after the trainer, attempting to jab-cross-hook-hook him in those puffy oven mitts he wears, considering all of the heavy breathing I do and the occasional “Oh My God!”, it sounds either heinous or hideously kinky in the gym.  I swear, the trainers must wonder who let the zoo animal in the backdoor, because when I’m in round 3 I start to sound something akin to an amorous, asthmatic out-of-shape race hippo…  Yes, a race hippo.  After attending a mere 5 weeks of the kick-boxing, there will no zero analogies to anything equine.

But I’ve learned some coping mechanisms, because mind over matter, right?  So when I have to do something that daunts me, I put it in a non-threatening light.  For instance, the bear crawl – hate it.  And bears, by nature of their being – largest land predator, top of the food-chain kinda animal, and whenever Disney features one, it always has red eyes – scare the crap outta me, so I want to be my big, bad bi-ped self when we’re talking bears.  But frame it in a non-threatening context and I can TOTALLY get behind the Gummi Bear Crawl.  Would I crawl for Gummie Bears?  Would I??  Yes, and in fact I’m pretty sure I have.  And do  I look like a Gummi Bear crawling?  Oh absolutely.  The plump, sticky red ones.  With Gummi Bulges in their foreheads.

Another important thing I’ve learned is you really can’t relive your childhood.  And maybe you don’t want to.  For instance, jumping rope.  I used to jump and jump and jump for joy!  Never did I realize the enormity of the health benefits I reaped for years as a kid – I just jumped because it made me happy.  And you laugh when you’re happy, right?

Yeah, no.  Clad in cheap Old Navy spandex and a sports-bra reinforced with re-bar, you try jumping rope again, 35 years after laying your beloved purple-and-white segmented plastic skip-rope down for the final time.  (On that note, doesn’t “skip rope” sound so fun and friendly?  Because it was.  Past tense.)  But it’s been 35 years since you last jumped a rope on purpose, with no jumping of any ropes in the interim, because why?, right?  And now you’ve been handed the antithesis of a tra-la-la “skip rope”  – a Devil-red “speed rope”, which once upon medieval times was most likely barbed, and wildly suggests you’re going to be fast doing this thing you haven’t done since you last feathered your hair, wore Jellies the first time they were popular, and were flat-chested…  Yuuuuuuge difference.  So now you’re surprised to find that your feet don’t lift and land at the same time so you trip, your hips and knees are screaming, “No no no no no!”, and when they do your timing with the whip is totally off so you flog yourself silly and then you trip.  Jumping for joy, right?  Right?

And then…  Then there’s that slightly awkward thing that happens every time my feet hit the ground:  I laugh.  Hysterically.  And it’s not just because of flappy parts.  Even though the laughing isn’t the awkward part – actually yes, yes it is the way I do it – it definitely doesn’t help me in this case.  In fact, my laughing actually just makes it worse because the real reason I’m laughing is that after having three children, some of the internal mechanisms – the parts up there that secure the perimeter – aren’t always 100% effective, especially if I’ve had anything more than a teaspoon to drink.  Parts are loose.  And any kid with a Fisher-Price tool belt can tell you that loose parts – they leak.

My first 10 adult jumps (of rope) were marked first by fascination with what was about to happen, which then quickly morphed into DEFCON KEGELS.  Like, the kind with lights flashing, sirens blaring, and the words “Cargo Bay Door Closing!” blaring on a loudspeaker.  Jumps 11 through 20 were characterized by terror sweats and sheer desperation for a ShamWow.  “I never should have had that second cup of coffee!”  If you know firsthand what I’m talking about, then you know a jumping-induced storm surge in your pants is not a thing to be trifled with.  You cannot hold back that tide.  You know why ladies avoid trampolines and why Mom sent you to your room each time you tried a tickle-ambush on her.  And you learn the hard way that liners – not diamonds – are a girl’s best friend.  So instead, envisioning fields of cotton and mustering all the grace I mastered in marching band field techniques, I glide-stepped my way over that rope until I hit the magic number for the day.  And then ran straight for the ladies’…

This is where a post about Loose Parts ends, and another titled “How To Remove Tight, Sweaty Compression Exercise Pants And Get Them Back On Again” begins.  But I still haven’t figured out that part yet.

By the way, my dad’s cherished boat?  Yeah, I didn’t go fishing with him often for one reason – there was no freakin’ bathroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Was Not The Plan

I wasn’t ready for this.

Just grin and bare it.

There’s no other way to say it, and that’s a little embarrassing.  I am forty years old, and after withstanding and accepting the hilarious and cartoonish changes in my body for three pregnancies, I should think I wouldn’t be floored by this.  And yet, I am.

See, since I started attending Pilates and spin/Pilates combo classes, which are kicking me in the a** in a good way, I’m noticing a difference in the lay of my land.  Changes are afoot.  I thought I would be excited and proud.  Rather, I am stunned.

I have a butt.  I’ve never had one, but boom.  There it is.

I’m not whining or complaining, nor am I bragging or lording this over my kind, the a**less people.  It’s more akin to finding chin hair for the first time.  It’s just…  weird.  Unbelievable.  It’s not there for your whole life and then whammo!  You look at yourself in the mirror and there it is.  But unlike chin hairs, I can’t merely tweeze my butt to make it go away (until it grows back weeks later, thicker than ever).  In fact, “tweezing” your butt makes it bigger.

A butt.  Of all the things…  I love Pilates, I love the concept of strengthening my core and lengthening my muscles, not bulking them out.  It’s not like I imagined I was going to grow another six inches and stretch out my manly-man calf muscles.  My arms have definition now when I lift heavy objects, like children or bottles of wine, and if I walk around holding a half bicep curl, they look fairly decent.  That’s nice.  Surprising, but nice.  It’s just that with all of the focus going into my core muscles, the first changes I imagined I’d see would be in my core muscles.  My waistline.

But oh no.  Thanks to my faithful enjoyment of nighttime ice cream (Live a little!  Allow a reasonable amount in the bowl!  But pay no attention to what you eat out of the container!), my belly is just as soft and yielding and friendly as ever, casually slung over the tops of my jeans like a shabby chic bean bag – filled, yet deflated, wrapped in organic cotton.  If I got serious about cutting out all sweets, it would resemble a contoured sheet on a clothesline.  Empty sack-ish is my ultimate goal.  Aim high!  But it’s comfy, in a creepy sort of way – soft, in a way skin shouldn’t be.  (The term “muffin top” could apply, yet it suggests entirely too much structure.)  I mean, it’s just me – lots of the softer side of me.

The one thing I got from my father was his flat-a**.  Not much more, but what I got from him has followed me my entire life, regardless of my weight, size, or use of Spanx.  A few months ago, when I went out to purchase new exercise clothing for the first time in over a decade, the cute, plucky little sales girl, who was amazed when I told her exactly how big a cup size I achieved when I was nursing my babies, brought me these “wonder pants” that had the power to lift my derriere.  A doubting Thomas was I.

Enter a challenge and one raging case of morbid curiosity.

After my insisting that one must first have a butt before having it lifted, she went all Dr. Seuss on me, the Sam I Am of Wonder Pants:  “Try them!  Try them!  You will see!”  So, after shimmying my way into them and thanking God there are no surveillance cameras in dressing rooms, I turned to the mirror and found that, lo and behold, my butt stuck out.  I mean, it was out there.  I pranced around the changing stall with my good friend bearing witness to that fact that I was, in fact, shaped and lifted.  I couldn’t stop looking at it.  It felt artificial and prosthetic like a pair of Groucho Marx glasses, only not nearly as natural.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  I couldn’t stop exclaiming, “Look at my butt!”  And something inside of me couldn’t keep from slapping it!  What the hell was that all about?

My bottom line was that those pants were ridiculous.  What is the point?  Why?  LOOK GOOD WHILE SWEATING A SMALL SEA?  Are you for real?!  A butt is not something you choose to wear if it’s clean, nor should you be able to put it on or take it off, like a Mr. Potato Head.  It’s just a butt!!  Those pants were putting on airs, and that is something I cannot get behind when straining away in a spin/Pilates combo class.  What do I care what it looks like when doing (my best interpretation of) a plank?  They are not going to make me any more capable, or give me sudden, greater flexibility.  If anything, they were binding.  (Bah!  Pants of Counter-Productivity!)  But, I suppose during the spin portion of the class, if I fall off the cycle before disengaging my shoe clips from the pedals (new much?) and I wind up face-first on the floor, I can take comfort in knowing that while I might look utterly stupid, my butt will look smart, pertly waving in the air, saying hi, engaging with everyone in the class.

Needless to say, I opted out of the Wonder Pants.  Because I liked and was comfortable with my flat butt.

Man, change is hard.

So, this new development – this new and very REAL butt of mine – is an unintended and unforeseen consequence to getting healthy.  A consequence to getting healthy?  This was not in the plan.  I never made allowances for it, so now I might have a new set of problems.  Keeping things in perspective, they’re first-world problems.  Good problems.  But all things being relative…  One of my goals in getting into better shape is to comfortably wear the clothes I already own, and I stand by this.  Shopping for new clothes is out of the question.  But.  This new butt won’t fit into those pants.  So creatively, I will have to find a way to wear them.

Maybe I’ll get lucky.  Maybe I’ve been merely stung by a bee and didn’t know it.  Maybe it will be too hot to wear pants this summer.  Maybe Lou Ferrigno-inspired skinny capris, ventilated by a little shredding from the mid-calf to the upper thigh, will become all the rage this year.  Or maybe white denim leg warmers…

 

 

A Work In Progress

Ice cream is, and forever shall be, my friend.

My elliptical machine is sitting in the garage.  I am sitting on the couch with my toasty laptop and emptied bowl of ice cream.

I see no problem with this.  Which is probably part of the problem.

For the past 12 years, I’ve exercised on my own.  I figured that walking and running is better than any treadmill because it requires no batteries, it’s FREE, and the growing coyote population around here might keep my solitary outings varying, brisk and invigorating.  My elliptical, for which I bartered with speech therapy services, actually saw regular use once it was moved to the garage years ago.  It has been well-used.  And for over a decade, on and off I’ve done (or just watched) the entire Mari Winsor Pilates DVDs in the comfort of my own living room. Because it’s cheap.

Get the theme here?  On the cheap?  For a multitude of reasons, that’s how it’s worked for me.  Until I hit forty, or I hit the I’m-Forty-And-Don’t-Wanna-Do-It-Anymore wall.  It’s soooo easy to not be accountable and just choose coffee.  Or coffee and a treat.  Or just treats, hold the coffee.  (That’s a lie – never, ever hold the coffee.)

I had three babies, each of them roughly 19 months apart.  I was either pregnant or nursing for 6 years solid.  I’m not going to compare timelines with people.  I’m not a record holder or anything, but 6 years is a lotta years of PEOPLE INSIDE OR LATCHED ON TO MY BODY.  It’s safe to say I was a bit desperate to drive in a stake and claim me as mine (again).  So, after our last kiddo came along I started in earnest working on the Great Reclamation Act of Me.  Parts of me were still recognizable, others totally re-landscaped, and some altogether missing.  (Postpartum hair-loss.  What was lost eventually grew back gray.  Fascinating.)  My body was never a picture of perfection before popping out kids, but after having three, my discontent went well beyond looks – I felt awful.  I would look at the very few pictures my husband took of me (which before he took I’d rant, “Why don’t you take pictures of me?” and after seeing them I’d rant, “Why did you take that picture of me?”  Poor man.)  Run-down, achy, and I felt like I looked like I had just given up.  I was kind of horrified.  This was not how I wanted to remember my children’s younger years.  And like so many moms out there, this was definitely not how I wanted to represent.

This was not about self-loathing, nor about wanting to be some sort of “hot mom” (BAAAAAAAH!!!).  I will never, ever post a picture of me in a swimsuit on The Facebook.  Sure, I most certainly did not like how I looked.  But truly, it has more to do with whether or not I liked and was okay with reaching my arms up for something and part of my midsection falling out of my own pants.  Love it, I did not.  How does one casually tuck herself back into her own pants?  I didn’t love that my nursing bra was sized with FIVE letters and lined with rebar.   Did you know that bras can make a woman cry?  And that it is FREAKING HARD TO BREATHE with all of that boobage?  I felt confident that, if I ever came face-to-face with a bear, I’d be more than a light snack…  I didn’t love feeling held together tenuously by worn-out, elasticized maternity jeans, several months after having baby.

I will tell you what’s not to love about it – what’s not to love about it is, if you don’t love it, then you just don’t love it.  Period.

Such a trendy, touchy, and often polarizing subject – losing weight, specifically losing The Baby Weight.  In one corner rests Camp Headlines, that screams “Giselle’s Body After Baby and How She Did It!” or “Never Step Into a Gym and Shed 40 Pounds in 8 Days With Our Specially Formulated Ancient Aztecan Diet of Tuna, Grape Skins and a Protein Shake!” or “Enlist in Mommy Machine Boot Camp and Hurl Tractor Tires Across a Football Field at 0500!”  Gaaaah!  Too much!  In the other corner sits the equally shaming Backlash Bandwagon:  “Attain inner peace in loving your naturally ruched, over-sized skin shirt.  Love all of your transcontinental stretch marks!  Be proud of your life-giving, crazy-big, cartoonish, end-of-the-alphabet-sized breasts!”   Stop.  If people can love their own, then fantastic for them.  I am not a believah.  For me, it’s a lot like politics, listening to both sides of it was tiring.  I could not put any precious energy I had left into convincing myself of something I just couldn’t get behind – boot camp or lovin’ my new, pourable skin.   I chose middle ground.

Middle ground was a highly-regarded weight loss program, with its own inherent flaws and gimmicks, but I stuck to it and bit by bit, I lost the baby weight…  and surprisingly the early married years/graduate school weight…  and then delightedly the single-in-Seattle/20s/dad-passing-away weight…  and unbelievably the undergrad weight… And then, shy of one year after I started, by my baby girl’s first birthday (and also the night of my 20-year high school reunion), I was down to what I weighed my freaking sophomore year in high school.  It was slow.  It was work.  Nursing while I did this most certainly helped, but it wasn’t instant and I had to be conscientious about my eating and exercising.  And because of this, I knew, I KNEW that this was no destination, I hadn’t “arrived” – my challenges to maintain a healthy lifestyle would remain ongoing.  And they are.  Because I recently found my three kids’ bags o’ Halloween candy.  And those mini candy bars make a great topping for light ice cream (aka “frozen dairy dessert”).

The axe is falling, slowly.  The weight is creeping back on.  Continue forward I must on this journey, for all of the right reasons – comfort, health, longevity, strength, for ME, and with one addition – so I can fit into the clothing I already own.  In that regard, I strive to maintain my cheapness.  Thus, I joined a fitness studio.  A non-cheap fitness studio.

It’s all a wash, really.

I’m a paying customer now, hence an obligation.  Another reason to get out and get it done.  I sussed up good money to pay people to show me how to do ACTUAL Pilate exercises on these reformer machines with springs and ropes and sliding parts and handles and spring boards so you can jump while lying down…  And I was so proud to tell the owner/instructor on my first day that I almost threw up only ONCE during the spin portion of the class.  She thought I was joking.  But I now have a new benchmark for physical fitness – if I can dance like her on the saddle/bike seat/crotch rack while spinning and not totally hating it, and WITHOUT falling off, then I’m doing well.  Which means right now I have so very far to go…

Years ago, a close friend of mine who used to be a leader in a weight-loss program asked me two important questions regarding weight loss and goal setting:  1) Can I do it?  and 2) Will I do it?  Hmmm…  Will I?  Will I…  So.  I am also going back to my weight loss program for weekly weigh-ins, which I am not loving, and which I’ve skipped out on twice now because I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GO, but I WILL GO, I will keep plugging away at it.  It is hard, harder now than ever before.  No short cuts.  Just do it.  I’m not getting any younger.  My mom-jeans will only get tighter.  But.  Come to think of it, losing weight while nursing a baby was brilliantly easy…

…Anyone got a newborn?