My Legs Hurt
For some reason, I'm very conscious of my body the last few days. It may be just the flip side of the fact that I've been doing a lot of thinking lately--some of it about some more complex issues than I've dealt with in a while, some of it emotional stuff. As such, I think I've also been pushing myself during my exercise time, and on my rides to and from work and such. I was actually pretty achey yesterday, as well, and I had decided to not exercise at the end of the workday, but by the time the end of the workday came around, I was raring to go, in need of some venting-exercise. Thing is, I think I'm also becoming sort of obsessed with the cardio. Maybe that's the way cardio affects my body, by making me sort of addicted to it? I guess I was that way with free weights for a while, too. At any rate, once I get on the stationary bike, I keep trying to up my miles/time that I keep my heart rate up/calorie burn numbers. Which is sort of strange, I guess...but the long and the short of it is that I've worked my body too hard and too fast this week so far. I may go do some weights after work, or do a little bit of cardio (maybe a ride around the lake), but I think I need to give my legs (at least) a bit of a rest.

This body stuff is weird. It's sort of like what Steve said recently talking about replacing the carpet in his house. Once you start to clean the place up, you start to notice other stuff that needs doing. I feel that way about my body lately, which doesn't feel exactly healthy. I need to keep focusing on the progress I have made, on the health aspects of it all--lately I've mostly been wanting to lose some of my belly. And it's strange, because I am healthier (though not as healthy as I'd like to be), I'm leaner in a lot of ways; you can see it in my face, in my arms and legs, in my torso in general. I can feel it as I ride up the hill on my way home from work. And yet, when I climb into bed at night, I feel my belly, I feel my whole torso not being what I want it to be. And that feels really weird to me, because I can also feel myself toning up in my torso--it's just not as fast as the rest of me; it's the last part of my body to feel the effects of getting more muscle and less fat.

I guess what I'm facing is that I'm hitting something of a wall as far as my progress visually goes--and that wall is making me feel more body (self-)conscous, not less. And again, that doesn't feel particularly healthy, emotionally. I've started to change my relationship to my body, and I'm not entirely happy with the new relationship.

On the other hand, I'm still on the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race kick, really; I'm eating (for the most part) what I want, not going hungry. Trying to eat more fruits and veggies, eating smaller portions; eating those little portions and snacks more often, so I can eat less and not feel hungry. And I'm exercising, enjoying that still. I just wonder if my body will ever be able to move up to a different level of fitness, or if I want it to. What I mean is: Do I want to be a person who is athletic, or a person who exercises so that he can eat more of what he wants to eat? False dichotomy, sure, but I still make decisions along these lines all of the time. A big part of me wants to be just more athletic--but my mindset is such that thinking of myself that way is difficult; also, I think given the fact that I haven't been that way in my life up until now, being athletic in the sense I'm talking about may not be possible(?)...it may be too much of a change of lifestyle for me to really do it.

Or maybe I'll do it slow and steady?
Filed under:Health

Posture-ing
I feel a rash coming on. No, not that type. A rash of posts about exercise and my feelings about my body and such. But that's likely just the endorphins talking.

So--I had to work a bit late last night, but I went to work out anyway, and did 10 minutes of weights and an hour of the stationary bike. The weights felt good to do--although I am suprised by how much my body reverted, as far as strength goes, to my pre-weights stage. I can still lift quite a bit more than I could a year ago, but man, I can't lift what I did 3 months ago.

Still, today I feel very good. That nice ache-yness that comes from doing some hard work or from doing curls. It's a funny thing--the sort of stereotype at a gym is that the men love to do the bench pressing and the curls. For some reason they are seen as the epitome of masculinity or some such; this stereotype holds to such a degree that you often see men with huge biceps and pecs and, say, no quads to speak of. I used to think this was all just sort of culturally created--and that may still be the case--but I will say that after doing curls and bench pressing some yesterday, my entire musculature feels different today. I recognize how much I use my chest muscles, and my arm muscles. That sounds silly perhaps.

Thing is, one of the things that may be happening with the relationship between exercise and my body image is that I may not even be toning up much, really--but I carry myself differently. Shoulders back. Standing straighter. Sure, I have a little belly, but I just put it out there, rather than trying to hide it by slouching and such. And the weights help me to change the way I stand, I think--even a moderate increase in strength makes me feel like walking taller and the like. I know I've learned this lesson before...but I keep forgetting. When I exercise harder, I just feel better. I have to keep it within moderate levels, I think, or I start to get sort of habitually tired, but in general harder workouts mean feeling better.

Now, I've been working out regularly--but I've been focusing pretty much only on cardio for a few months now. And it's the weights that actually make me feel like I'm getting into better shape, though I know intellecutally both weights and cardio are doing the trick. And, of course, they aren't mutually exclusive--I can increase the resistance on the stationary bike to the point that my muscles really feel it...and I do sometimes. But there's something about freeweights--whether it's just a gym culture thing (I did take one weight training class in high school, for which I'm pretty grateful, actually; I know my way around the freeweights, at least, and some of the basic exercises and traps people get caught up in) or not.

Filed under:Health

Weight for It...
So, after exercising fairly regularly for about a year now(!) and eating less, feeling more fit, being sick less often...basically feeling healthier than I have for a good deal of my life, I finally stepped on the scale again. I have made 'losing weight' not a goal at all, and have intentionally not weighed myself; mostly this is because I think it's a poor goal, in general, but also because I want to motivate myself, and losing weight just doesn't motivate me. Feeling more trim, yes. Feeling stronger, yes. Fitting into my clothes better, yep. Being lighter? Nope.

Still, I was curious. I had a hunch that I had either stayed around the same weight as a year ago or that I had actually gained a little bit (muscle weighing more than fat and all of that). Sure enough: I weight exactly what I did a year ago. And yet I still have friends and family telling me that I am looking much more fit, even having them tell me I look like I've 'lost weight'. Which just, you know, sort of proves that I'm on the right track, strategy/motivation-wise.

I have, however, stopped doing weight work for the most part. Mostly this is out of a combination of mental/emotional laziness (it takes very little mental effort to hop on the stationary cycle, vs. keeping track of a little weight routine, of doing that one last rep, etc.) but it was also because my body felt beat up. I think, even though I wasn't doing that much weight work, I was doing too much too quickly--and perhaps not supplementing my diet enough (not enough protein, perhaps?). I was constantly having achey and tired muscles, despite the fact that I was feeling better. So today I hop back on the weight bandwagon, but I'm only going to do 15 minutes of weights and then do my normal cardio stuff. I'm going to try this for a while and see how it works...and maybe a year from now when I weigh myself I'll weight 5 or 10 lbs more and feel all that much stronger.

Filed under:Health

Great Bosses=Pain
I have a pretty great work environment. And my bosses can be very thoughtful. For my b-day/a bonus, they bought me a laptop. I got it last week. I mainly just wanted something to haul to a cafe to do writing on, and this thing is more than I needed. It's a very nice thing they did, and I appreciate it very much.

But then, I lugged it down to a cafe Saturday morning and proceeded to lift the messenger-bag I had it in over my shoulder in such a way that I wrenched my lower back, which is now in a lot of pain. Which is to say that I'm in a lot of pain. Lame. I couldn't even sit and write in the cafe for long because it hurt.

Talk about self-sabotaging. What the heck is wrong with me? Sure, I'm 36 now, but geez...I'm freakin' falling apart. Between taking a week to recover from food poisoning to hurting myself lifting an extra 10 lbs. in just the wrong way, I'm starting to think that the future of Jeff's body does not bode well.


Filed under:Health

Pain
The haunting simplicity of Alexis' post about being alone as a familiar pattern keeps coming back to me.

In particular, it makes me think again and again of a Really Bad Day that I had last year, when I had to go to the doctor because I couldn't hear properly out of both of my ears, and how the isolation that the combination of being sick, being still recently broken-up-with, and being unable to hear people just kicked me when I was down. Repeatedly.

And even though I'm not in that state any longer--though I talk about break-ups ad naseum still, the sting isn't quite the same these days--being sick makes me feel the most alone. I suppose it makes sense: At a time when it's most apparent that one needs other people, one feels the lack of others. On the other hand, I did live through that day, and other days.

Speaking of which: Got food poisoning Monday night. The sad thing is, it's almost undoubtedly from my favorite taqueria, which I go to at least once a week. Or, whichI went to once a week. No burritos for me for a while, I think. Likely what happened is somehow some shrimp got into my veggie burrito or something--I'm allergic to shrimp in that food poisoning sort of way--but regardless of the reasons, I'll not be going back for a while. So Monday night was horrible. Up all night puking, dry-heaving, cold-sweating. And Tuesday wasn't much better. Stayed home from work. Got up just a few times to get some water, some graham crackers, and eventually, in my big triumph of the day, some rice. Wanted some soda water or 7-up or something, but didn't have the strength to make it to the corner store. This morning, rode to work veeeeerrrrrrrry slowly. I'm running at about 25% I think. Brain is Slow.

The funny thing about the whole lonely-while-sick thing is this: I wouldn't have wanted anybody there, really. Especially not on Monday night. I'm a very bad patient in that regard. But somebody who loves me to stop by with some juice or bubbly drink--that would have been very, very nice. And that's one of the things about having an intimate romantic relationship; if you talk every day, then at least somebody knows it when you're out for the day. Why is that comforting? I'm not sure, but it is.

Filed under:Health

Pain
The haunting simplicity of Alexis' post about being alone as a familiar pattern keeps coming back to me.

In particular, it makes me think again and again of a Really Bad Day that I had last year, when I had to go to the doctor because I couldn't hear properly out of both of my ears, and how the isolation that the combination of being sick, being still recently broken-up-with, and being unable to hear people just kicked me when I was down. Repeatedly.

And even though I'm not in that state any longer--though I talk about break-ups ad naseum still, the sting isn't quite the same these days--being sick makes me feel the most alone. I suppose it makes sense: At a time when it's most apparent that one needs other people, one feels the lack of others. On the other hand, I did live through that day, and other days.

Speaking of which: Got food poisoning Monday night. The sad thing is, it's almost undoubtedly from my favorite taqueria, which I go to at least once a week. Or, whichI went to once a week. No burritos for me for a while, I think. Likely what happened is somehow some shrimp got into my veggie burrito or something--I'm allergic to shrimp in that food poisoning sort of way--but regardless of the reasons, I'll not be going back for a while. So Monday night was horrible. Up all night puking, dry-heaving, cold-sweating. And Tuesday wasn't much better. Stayed home from work. Got up just a few times to get some water, some graham crackers, and eventually, in my big triumph of the day, some rice. Wanted some soda water or 7-up or something, but didn't have the strength to make it to the corner store. This morning, rode to work veeeeerrrrrrrry slowly. I'm running at about 25% I think. Brain is Slow.

The funny thing about the whole lonely-while-sick thing is this: I wouldn't have wanted anybody there, really. Especially not on Monday night. I'm a very bad patient in that regard. But somebody who loves me to stop by with some juice or bubbly drink--that would have been very, very nice. And that's one of the things about having an intimate romantic relationship; if you talk every day, then at least somebody knows it when you're out for the day. Why is that comforting? I'm not sure, but it is.

Filed under:Health

Allergic to Happiness?
The relationships between my body and my emotional states are (understandably) inextricably intertwined and complex. But sometimes the cause and effect is so simple that I don't even really recognize it for a long time. When I first got contact lenses, I loved them, though they were difficult to put in and take out. A few months after that I started feeling really tired all of the time. I couldn't understand my exhaustion, I (being something of a hypochondriac) kept thinking I had some thyroid problem or some such. I would sleep a lot, but mostly it was just like I was tired all the time. In class I would yawn consistently. I would want to close my eyes. I would rub my eyes a lot.

Wait. My eyes?

And that's when I figured out that what was happening was that my contacts were drying my eyes out, which my brain was interpreting as he needs sleep. When I changed brands and started using eyedrops, no more sleepyhead. In fact, I sometimes still use eyedrops to wake up. So, it's kind of like method acting, except unintentional.

I'm discovering a similar relationship between depression and allergies to pollen-ish stuff. One symptom of depression for me is an acheyness in my face. That sounds weird, I know, but it is a pretty definite way in which I feel depressed. When I'm depressed, my eyelids feel heavy, I feel like I have huge weights on my lower lids, my face feels puffy. Part of the listlessness that can come from depression for me is how my whole face feels droopy--my whole body too, but I feel it more in my face. I get a sort of tunnell-vision when I'm depressed, too, and--strange as this may sound--it sort of feels like it comes from my face being unmovable to some degree.

All of these things are difficult to describe. Pehraps I can get better at describing it as time goes on.

The interesting thing for me is that I also feel a lot of this when I'm perfectly happy, but having some reaction to pollen. Springtime usually consists of some adjustment of my sinuses and such. Usually I do adjust, but for a while my face and body feel achey, my eyes feel heavy...many of the same things that I feel when I'm depressed. And the thing is, I think I sort of become depressed as a part of that. Not to a huge degree, but there it is. My face feels lazy, I feel lazy...and the connection between lethargy and depression is a close one for me as well.

What to do about it? Well, recognizing it helps, because I can think to myself, "Hmm...actually, I think I just need to take an allergy pill or exercise a bit (which seems to relieve the symptoms for a while no matter the cause)". But here's another thing--I think knowing this I might just try to do something like face exercises or something. This seems all-too-new-agey for me, but I think it might help. I think that one of the reasons that, say, laughing makes me happier might be because it mixes up my face a bit, gets me out of that lethargy somewhat that my brain associates with a droopy little face. Maybe smiling some might make me happier? Or, maybe even frowning some might!
Filed under:Health and Therapy

Body Flux
Changing my exercise regimen yet again. I suppose at some point I have to recognize that part of the fun of exercising is mixing it up, making changes. Part of me would just like to do the same thing all the time, forever and ever, actually. I definitely have a facet of my personality that embraces habit to the nth degree. But I think it's important for me to see exercise as something that I enjoy for various reasons, something that I enjoy for the long-term effects (i.e. health), but also because of the intrinsic joy it can bring (i.e. the good feelings during a workout). Another facet of enjoying exercise can be the planning/listmaking/goalsetting/goal achieving involved.

My goal has never been to 'loose weight'. From the outset that just seemed like the wrong sort of goal to set; it buys into the various unhealthy attitudes about the body that I want to avoid. Which is not to say that the goals I do have (to feel healthier, to be healthier, to enjoy my body more, to feel more attractive--this is not an exhaustive list!) can't be tied to 'losing weight'--but they can't be directly tied to it, and, in some cases, may be antithetical to it (i.e. I want to gain muscle mass, and gaining mass tends to mean gaining weight!).

The Way Things Have Shaped Up
For the first 8 or 9 months of my exercise changes, while I resisted the goal of 'losing weight', I embraced some effects that aren't unrelated to losing weight. Mostly I loved that my waistline was getting smaller. More holes in the ol' belt, and that felt good. It felt good for other reasons--I can breathe more easily, I'm more comfortable sitting at a desk for extended periods (though I fidget more now, I think, as a kind of weird exercise) and the like. I also was obviously losing fat in various parts of my body. My arms were showing more definition, my face was losing some of its fullness, my shoulders look more taut. My legs, which have always been sort of the region of my body that I was most happy with, became even more muscular and showed even more definition. My chest was getting slightly more definition, too, and losing a bit of fat.

And then recently I recognized how much time I was spending exercising, and started to feel a little bit strange about it--there were other things I wanted to do. Part of this is finally seeing light at the end of the breakup tunnel: When I first started exercising, part of the whole thing was to give myself something healthy to do, to keep my body and mind more occupied, so that I didn't dwell on the sadness as much. Now that I'm less sad, my interests are multiplying again, and exercising must be factored in among them more than it had to be before. So I compromised, decided to cut down on cardio a bit, do a little bit less on the weights, but keep the number of times a week I did things the same. I wasn't sure what effect this would have, as my body is just in a general state of flux all the time these days, what with changes in mood, diet and exercise.

Part of the effect is that I ended up just doing less exercising. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily. But then, my appetite began to grow again. Exercising, for me, seems to be the best sort of appetite suppressant, and more than that, it focuses me on eating more healthy--I tend to crave better stuff when I'm exercising, presumably because my body needs that stuff more when it's getting worked. So, combine less exercise and more eating, and what do you get? It's a pretty easy equation--the changes in my body began to slow, and my waist actually grew a little bit.

But even these changes aren't that simple. The whole time, I've been building muscle mass--and part of that has been in my abdomen. At least part of the gain in my waist has to do with this, I think. I've reached a point now where losing fat off my belly doesn't mean that my torso will get smaller--it might stay the same or even get bigger. And it will take a looooong time for definition to show in my abdomen, if it does at all. Different people carry most of their fat in different places, and that's where I carry mine. In fact, there's a way in which it might actually be unhealthy for my belly to lose enough fat to show much definition--it might mean that the rest of my body has less fat than it needs to have. And what I'm after is mainly health, so it's something to keep in mind.

Changes in the Making
So I do want to balance the various things I want to do in life, but I've come to realize something that is sort of suprising to me. I like exercising. At first I thought that maybe I was just trying to fool myself--the days where I decide to walk my bike up the hill after exercising for an hour and a half seemed to be evidence that I don't really like exercising: If I did like it, wouldn't I just do it all the time, whenever I can? And of course that's silly, and I'm srtarting to understand that the walking up the hill time simply reflects that I'm not as healthy as I'd like to be, and also reflects that there are different times to do different things. It does not mean, and I'm trying to keep this in mind, that my 'default' is to not be active. I'm figuring out that I don't think I really have a default, or that it can be changed through effort.

And keeping all that in mind changes how I decide to weigh (pun intended) my various options as far as what I like to do with my day. That is, for the first time in my life, really, I recognize that, sometimes, I want to exercise just as much if not more than I want to, say, read a book. Exercise is a priority. More importantly, I want it to be a priority. Which isn't to say that it's always the top priority--it clearly isn't, and I don't want it to be. But it's up there. And that's new for me.

Either/Or, and Identity
The either/or fallacy always creeps in here, and I begin to think that if I become more athletic, that I have to become less, say, academic. And there's some truth in that, in a way--if I were to always exercise instead of reading (which is infinitely rhetorical, because that would never happen, then it may be the case that things shift that significantly. But that's either/or thinking, and it doesn't match up with reality very well. In fact, if I increase exercise a bit, I may actually end up doing more reading. This is because these aren't my only two options--and that exercising more might actually cut out some other options. I'm less likely to sit and watch a movie, for instance, when I've been more active. I'm more likely to read, or to play guitar, etc.

And the thing is: I can be both a thinker and athletic (to various degrees!). Why is it that I have to keep reminding myself of that? The nonexistent dichotomies have grown some deep roots, that's for sure.
Filed under:Health and Philosophy