This is not where I had intended to restart my blog from,
but I’m in my daughter Emily’s apartment in Cedarburg WI. Suffice it to say, Em’s
been sick and I am The Mom. Ergo, I am here. I’ll be taking over her babysitting
job for a few afternoons so she can get caught up on her school work, and I’ll
be cooking and maybe do a little cleaning.
Emily is also getting nervous about spending the summer here in Wisconsin where she has accepted a good paying nanny job. So while I'm here we'll work on our calendars and come up with a schedule for her weekends. Sometimes she'll come home, sometimes to see Leah, Jason, and Nicholas in Chicago, and maybe sometimes to see her friend Erica who lives here in WI. I'm in Mommy Mode and I'm loving it.
What I won’t be doing while I'm here is gaining weight, or going backwards
on my exercise. I’m mapping out a plan for walking 3 or 4 miles every day while she’s
in class. And of course I’ll be making healthy dinners for us and Billy and
whoever else shows up hungry. In a college town, hungry kids wanting
home-cooked food shouldn’t be too hard to find.
But I digress! This blog was to have been my Quarterly Report, to let you know how the first three months of The Adventure have gone.
First, the weight. In 12 weeks, I lost 18 lbs. YAY FOR ME!! That’s
1.5 lbs per week on average, which is close to the center of the acceptable
range set by Weight Watchers. I’m on plan, I’m losing, and I’m feeling great.
My workouts are still not regular, set days of the week,
because I still have to closely monitor how I’m feeling and what I think I’m
capable of on any particular day. But I will say that my stamina has increased,
my muscle tone has improved, and my overall sense of well-being gets 4 ½ stars
out of 5! That’s up from two or at most three stars in December of last year,
Pre-Adventure.
Remember my first workout in the pool? I lasted 25 minutes
and had to leave. Now I regularly-ish do half an hour on the treadmill, followed
by another half hour on the recumbent bike and then a half hour in the pool. I
WORK OUT for an HOUR and a HALF at a TIME. Yes, me, Linda T Meier!! Holy smokes!
On the treadmill, I do 4 minutes with my heart rate in the “fat
burning” zone, then 2 minutes at a higher rate, in the "cardio zone." I do that 5
times. By this time my shins are aching, and paying attention to the Cardinal
Rule of Fibromyalgia and Working Out, I do not push through the pain. I allow
the pain to guide me, and I stop when I hurt. The half hour goes pretty fast when I
remember to bring my earphones and my smart-phone-loaded-with-oldies!
On the recumbent bike, I mimic the 4 minute/2 minute workout
set up by my trainer for the treadmill. I use my earphones to plug into the
little attached TV which is powered by the bike. Again, the time goes quickly.
I don’t get any upper body work on the machines, since my
sprained arm is very slow to heal, so after cycling I go to the pool. I may
have described them before, but I use these ‘barbells’ made from dense waterproof
foam to give resistance when I push them into the water, and it gives me a very
gentle strengthening workout for my arms. I alternate using the barbells and
swimming laps. The last 5 minutes in the pool I just stretch everything out.
Afterwards I go in the hot tub till I can’t stand it, usually
no more than 5 minutes. Then I go in the steam room and breathe in the
mentholated steam till I can’t stand it, usually no more than 5 minutes. After
a nice, long shower my “workday” is done!
The results are impressive. Weight, looks, stamina, well-being: all are improved. On Easter Sunday at church, in my new clothes and new hairstyle, I received numerous compliments on how good I'm looking. Man, I needed that!
If this is the result from just one quarter, what will my Annual Report look like at the end of December? Can't wait to see. It can only improve, because God is with me, His Holy Spirit encourages me, and I know that I can do all things through Christ His Son, who gives me strength. AMEN
PS - Have to mention here that Phil has lost 25 lbs, and
walk/runs a 5k every morning on the treadmill before work. He just always has
to win. J
