I dragged myself out again this morning. Rubbed my eyes to make sure they were actually open since I could see nothing. I made it to the pool to the shock of my coach who thought I might have wussed out already. Even more surprised were those people who didn’t know I’d been there last week. They looked like they’d seen a ghost. 

Progress was made. I swam even more than last time though my mind went blurry trying to keep count. I suspect I did about 1200m this time. My timed swim was a bit worse than last time but since i had done more distance I didn’t worry about it. I was exhausted by the end of it but my strokes are looking good. Apparently I “look good for an old-timer”.

Mentally I feel alive and awake though I know my body will crash in a few hours. Trying to see if I can make it to 5pm at the office. Two days down, so many more to go.

Many things in life involve making sacrifices. When it comes to starting an exercise program, thos sacrifices play a huge part in keeping it up. We sacrifice time, we sacrifice other activities (like sleep ), we sacrifice spending the time with other people etc.It can also provide fodder for conversations and jokes after the fact. 

A partner makes these sacrifices seem easier, if only because we like to share our misery. It helps to know that someone else is sacrificing when we are. It can also provide fodder for conversations and jokes after the fact. But having a fitness partner helps to keep you accountable. You would have to explain to someone why they must go when you stay home to sleep. 

Most people are also competitive and don’t like to look like failures which if you have a standing partner as witness is a possibility of you give up. 

So far having a partner in my endeavours has proven to be very useful, and is definitely helping to convince me to get up before the sun when I would rather roll over and go back to sleep.

Humans measure things. We know how many years we have lived, how many inches from head to toe, how many pounds we weigh, what grade we got in class, how fast we were driving. Measurement is a key part of human life.

In many human endeavours, besides just a simple static number, measurement is used to to gauge progress toward a goal. To know where we started, how far to get where we’re going and where that end-point actually is, we must measure something.

Of course, measurements can be in non-units. Weight can be measured by how our clothes fit. Fitness can be measured by how we feel at the end of the exercise routine. But there is still some measurement even if it is subjective.

In my latest venture back into swimming, there will be multiple measurements for me to track my progress. How many laps I swam in total (how many total metres), how many consecutive laps of any one stroke I can do without stopping, how many strokes I use in one lap or from the flags to the wall, how many strokes without breathing, how long a rest between sets, how long my entire routine takes, how fast I do a particular distance.

I will of course also have the subjective ones, like how tired I feel after the training, how energized I feel for the rest of the day, how much sleep I need that night, how early I crash at the end of the day, how easy it is for me to get up and go, how much pain my muscles feel afterwards.

Tomorrow morning I will get up and head off to my second day of training. I will be tired and I will be in pain afterwards but hopefully I will have made some progress even if minute. Maybe I will shave one second off my timed swim from last time. Maybe I will swim one more lap than last time. Maybe I will feel less tired afterwards. Maybe none of those will happen.

But I will have made progress just by doing it again.

As a teenager, I never ‘exercised’ but I was the fittest I have ever been in my life. The key to that fitness though I never thought about it was my level of activity. Back then I used to swim, play water polo, dance, play tennis, never once thinking that I was exercising. I was just doing things that I enjoyed, that just happened to be great exercise.

I recently came to the realization that this is where my life needs to go back to. I cannot exercise for the sake of exercising. It is difficult for me to exercise even for the sake of getting fit, or improving my health. Somewhere in my warped mind, those goals are not worthy. My slightly hedonistic tendencies need me to do things for fun, because I enjoy them, to derive pleasure.

So the solution is simply that – to return to my youthful life approach and identify activities that I enjoy. This time there will be some conscious effort to make sure that I do select activities that make me work.

My regular latin dancing arose from this because I admitted that I enjoyed it enough to go regularly and recognized that it was definitely a heart-pumping activity that could help get me moving. I have been successfully going dancing once a week initially and now twice a week ever since August. At first I would be panting after each song and need some rest but now I can keep going for an hour or so without much complaint.

Next I added the swimming I used to love. Again I can’t just go and swim laps to no end so I contacted my coach from days of yore and enquired about Masters swimming. So I am now going to see if I can keep up the training, eventually increasing the amount and eventually compete again.

So far I am enjoying my approach to exercise and fitness and wholly recommend it to anyone looking to jumpstart their fitness and healthy living.

Among the reading matter that I enjoy, fitness information has always played a part. Even though I do not normally apply most of what I learn, I absorb that knowledge dearly and even impart it on friends looking for advice for their own fitness programs.

One of the things I have always known is the value of cardiovascular fitness to overall health. Of course, in my laziness that is the part that gets left out more often than not, because the cardio part is “too hard”. 

My recent venture into swimming after a decade-long hiatus went much better than expected. Although I was exhausted by my efforts to move the sludge that is chlorinated water, I realized that I was not huffing and puffing and gasping for air as I have done in the past when I attempted this same feat. Even my coach commented that I did better than she expected.

One reason for this is that I have been secretly (secret from my lazy self that is) working on my cardio for the last couple months. I went from my totally sedentary lifestyle, where walking too fast up a flight of stairs was grounds for my chest to complain, to one where some light intensity was achieved twice a week. My secret activity? LATIN DANCING. Dancing twice a week has seemingly given me that headstart that I needed to not feel like I was dying in the pool. 

So now with the swimming added to my regular schedule (even if just once a week), my cardiovascular strength can continue to develop as I add further benefits.

This morning my alarm clock went off at 4:30 a.m. ‘A tad early’, you might be thinking. And I definitely agree, in fact I went back to sleep for half an hour. When I awoke for the second time, it was still pitch black outside. This time, however, I got up and prepared myself. I left the house shortly after, noting the cool darkness and contemplating whether I should have waited till summer to attempt this when at least the sun would be up at that hour.

Where was I going before sunrise? This morning, I started swimming again. That’s right. I went to the pool where my long time coach greeted me warmly. And off I went to attempt to get through 1000m. A mere 1000m that in years gone by I could have knocked out as an individual event (actually my events were 800m and 1500m back then). 

My strategy each time I pushed off the wall (no diving, cause I had no energy to climb out once I started) – I channeled a bit of Dory from “Finding Nemo”. My silent mantra was “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” I just tried to keep moving once I started (even if the pace was that of a water-mobile snail.

Though I prepared myself for an hour of swimming, I was headed home by 6:15 a.m. I got through a total of 1100m (the last 100m being a cool-down). I felt better than I thought I would though I was totally exhausted with pains in muscles I forgot existed. I also came away with a benchmark to measure my progress as the last (official) 100m was “on the clock”, meaning it was timed. I won’t disclose it here but suffice it to say that I have a long way to go before my times are presentable (it was under 2 minutes though).

The plan for now is for this to continue once a week. So next Friday I will be back (hopefully fully recovered by then). The plan for today? More sleep.

Wow! People may really just be born to be couch potatoes! Such is the possible results from recent studies with mice.

It seems they have found genetic indicators that may affect the level of activity the subject is inclined to participate in. This has some serious implications on the health and fitness industry which has for decades proclaimed that everyone can just do it. It may help to explain why some people, despite knowing just how could exercise could be for them, and realizing they need to increase their activity level, just can’t seem to get started.

Now us lazy folks have an excuse.

Of course, on a scary note, can you imagine genetic screening for laziness?

Whew!! Ok, my schedule is now returning to the lazy, slow-paced life of the unemployed. For the last month I have been exploring another creative venture, i.e. dancing, via the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA) Summer School programme in the School of Dance.

This is not something new I wanted to try, but in fact a return to an activity from my youth – I danced as a child and again in sixth form and first year UWI. I always missed it and decided to give it a shot, partly for the exercise. It was a great learning experience (besides the obvious examples of technique and different dance forms):

• Consistency is key – The intense schedule of 3-hour classes Monday through Friday generated tremendous improvements in most of the students not just in technique but in fitness, strength and muscle tone.
• You’re not as old as you think – The squeals of joy resonated through the studio as people realized they could now touch their toes or go down into a (near) split.
• It takes all types – Taking a class like this helps to teach appreciation for your body because you have to focus on what it can do and not on what you look like. The important thing is learning to work with your body and push its limits.
• Support of friends goes a long way – A knowing look or a small smile can be all that’s needed to get you through a difficult moment. Knowing that somebody else is there with you rooting for you to achieve always helps.
• Have fun – It’s not worth it if you’re not having fun, both in life and dance.

I’m not sure yet whether I will be continuing to make dance a regular part of my life again, but it was an intensely fun (and exhausting) month, filled with new friends and new muscles.

It always helps to have a reward system in place to motivate yourself when working towards a goal. Fitness is not generally something I worry about too much though I know I am nowhere near the fitness level I used to have once upon a time.

One of my goals more recently has been to get toned (not lose weight cause I like my size just fine). The first milestone I set myself was to have abs reasonably worth showing by the time the first Mas Camp Friday rolled around. Definitely on my way there in time for Friday. There are actual definition lines starting to show.

The next milestone will be Carnival itself at the end of April. By then I will come up with something else to keep me going.

Wow!!! I believe the road march was as hard as going to Blue Mountain Peak. Now granted I did the peak back in ‘95 so I was a decade younger but I think the fitness level is about the same (which in itself is sad). I don’t know if I can do this carnival thing again!! (At least not with these feet) (more…)