I am trying to forget that earlier today I ate something that could probably clog up fifteen people’s arteries. A cream, butter, sugar, animal-fat, cholesterol laden brunch served in a restaurant where the portions were triple the size of one serving. Thankfully, I used my better judgment and did not ingest the entire brioche filled with pastry-cream and topped with blueberries, strawberries, and whipped cream. Nor did I finish off my husband’s stacked grit and crab cake drenched in andouille cream sauce. I still feel enormously full and sick.
I am trying to remind myself that I’ll be at the YMCA tomorrow. And of my fantasy to lose fifteen pounds and gain muscle tone by January. Because when that happens, I have a better fantasy, which is to train for a triathlon. In the past few years, three of my friends have trained for and ran marathons. And now, yet another friend is training to run one. Seems like all of them but one began training after floundering through some major life-changing event. I’m not much on running, but I can understand how climbing toward this immense physical exertion and then completing it could catapult one into a state of change – could land you in a place of mental health (or at least mental readiness) to forge ahead after having just emerged from a shaky transitional state, one entered into after some major life change.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking on the elliptical machine at the Y, and I happened to glance up. I noticed in the mirror that I was full-on jogging. And I wasn’t panting uncontrollably. That was a pretty good feeling considering that my electronically generated fitness report from the earlier week had said that the majority of the time I have been spending on the elliptical, I’ve been in “strolling” mode. It sure didn’t feel like strolling while I was sweating and gasping for air.
I suppose, during these days of change, I am for the first time concerned about what’s going on inside of me - physically. I don’t want, as my mother did, to be diagnosed with diabetes in my late thirties. And I don’t want, like mom did, to undergo triple bypass surgery at age 52. And of course, like mom was, I don’t want to be blindsided by a massive stroke when 60 comes my way. There are too many other ways in which I would much prefer to emulate my mother.
I am trying to remind myself that I’ll be at the YMCA tomorrow. And of my fantasy to lose fifteen pounds and gain muscle tone by January. Because when that happens, I have a better fantasy, which is to train for a triathlon. In the past few years, three of my friends have trained for and ran marathons. And now, yet another friend is training to run one. Seems like all of them but one began training after floundering through some major life-changing event. I’m not much on running, but I can understand how climbing toward this immense physical exertion and then completing it could catapult one into a state of change – could land you in a place of mental health (or at least mental readiness) to forge ahead after having just emerged from a shaky transitional state, one entered into after some major life change.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking on the elliptical machine at the Y, and I happened to glance up. I noticed in the mirror that I was full-on jogging. And I wasn’t panting uncontrollably. That was a pretty good feeling considering that my electronically generated fitness report from the earlier week had said that the majority of the time I have been spending on the elliptical, I’ve been in “strolling” mode. It sure didn’t feel like strolling while I was sweating and gasping for air.
I suppose, during these days of change, I am for the first time concerned about what’s going on inside of me - physically. I don’t want, as my mother did, to be diagnosed with diabetes in my late thirties. And I don’t want, like mom did, to undergo triple bypass surgery at age 52. And of course, like mom was, I don’t want to be blindsided by a massive stroke when 60 comes my way. There are too many other ways in which I would much prefer to emulate my mother.
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