Today's
prompt:
Exercise
and RA - write about your favourite exercise. What do you like about it, and
what keeps you going?
I've
never been a fitness junkie. Pre turning 40 when EVERYTHING changed - I'm
absolutely convinced that some huge hormonal thing happens at 40, even if
menopause is still a ways off - I had one of those hyperactive metabolisms that
just doesn't put on weight. To the point that my mother used to keep putting
food in front of me, forcing me to eat it because she was frightened I might be
anorexic. I wasn't - it's just that nothing stayed in my system long enough to
take up lodging. Fast track to that doomed birthday, and suddenly I find myself
with jeans that are too tight, and skirts that don't do up - WTH???
I
didn't do anything different. I just had a birthday. So, it MUST be something
to do with the aging process. That was enough to get me off my butt and looking
for some kind of regular exercise that I could learn to enjoy enough to keep it
up. I'd always walked a lot, but that wasn't doing it, and mindful of the RA, I
wasn't about to try doing something that could cause harm, so I convinced
myself to join a gym that had a pool so I could start swimming laps. The thing
was, I wasn't THAT enthused about swimming...
The
mornings used to be quite a fight. I'd fall out of bed into a swimsuit and grab
my prepacked bag with goggles, towel, drink bottle, etc, and get in the car and
the whole way there would chant to myself, 'Go to the gym, do NOT turn the car
around, go to the gym, do NOT turn the car around...' I'd get there, park, drag
myself in, fall into the pool and start. Week after week I kept going,
gradually working up the number of laps, looking for that lovely buzz you get after
lifting weights (I'd tried that, and liked it, but it was scary with wrists
that could just fail without warning...). The buzz didn't come. And then one
magical morning, I hit thirty laps (of a 25m pool) and there it was. You do get
a buzz swimming - you just have to do it for longer to achieve it!
From
that point on, I started to enjoy it. I certainly enjoyed feeling my body
getting stronger, the development of lean muscle, and my jeans being
comfortable again. I also realised I was regaining rotation in my shoulders
that had been stiffening up, and less pain in my hips and knees with the extra
support of stronger muscles. With the exception of the morning I felt good at
the end of the forty laps that became my standard swim, and foolishly swam
another ten and stuffed up my dodgy neck (not RA, wrecked from two separate
accidents) I wasn't hurting myself either because the water supports your body,
and provides resistance as well as the cardio workout swimming gives.
I
managed, off and on, to keep up that routine on average days a week for years.
There'd be breaks when I moved or changed jobs until I got back into the
routine, but it was keeping me stronger and fitter, as well as much more supple
than I'd been. When the disease changed its mind about being mild and turned
aggressive, everything stopped. I had horrendous reactions to MTX, had to
change drugs, was getting very much worse very fast and ended up in hospital.
It was a very long time before I was well enough to get back in a pool and
actually try to swim. I was also much heavier courtesy of prednisone, and even
now that I'm no longer taking that, I'm finding it - as I'm that much older
again - much more difficult to shift the weight.
I
got back to semi regular swimming last summer when my eldest started training
for his first triathlon and my partner was mentoring him. I went along, and
while they were doing their thing in the 50m pool, I'd go inside to the warmer
25m pool and get going. By the end of the summer I'd built back up to 20 laps a
session 2-3 times a week. It felt good. I haven't managed to maintain that
through winter because we don't have an indoor 25m pool near us, but in the
next month or so, I should be able to start again. We're moving interstate soon
and I'm hoping that wherever in our new city we end up, we'll be close to an
indoor pool so I can swim year round. I have to shift this extra weight because
I have a very fine frame and anything extra it has to carry is adding extra
strain to joints - so it's coming off - somehow!
No comments:
Post a Comment