The story of my flabby butt
 
After six months away, we returned to the gym yesterday.
 
Yes, you heard correctly.  We had not gone in six months...
 
I didn’t put on much weight, but I did lose muscle.  It was enough that three of my favorite pairs of shorts don’t fit right.

My body shape definitely changed without the exercise.  My muscle turned to fat.  I’ll need to “earn” those shorts back.  I have put them away for now, but I look forward to wearing them again.
 
Here’s what happened...
 
Or, I guess you could call it, the story of my flabby butt...
 
When the winter rains started last November, our son, Alex, began to feel very achey and stiff.  He had great difficulties finishing the Kickboxing class he was taking over at the gym.  I’d give him three children’s Tylenol before the class.  (He still takes the little baby ones.)  But, he’d still be dragging.  He was hurting.
 
“Mom, I don’t want to do this anymore,” he said, “this used to be fun.  But, it’s not anymore.”
 
(No, I am not blaming my flabby butt on my son.  That is all purely my own fault.)
 
I’m glad his Dad and I know he has fibromyalgia, so we’re not pushy parents when it comes to sports.  When he played soccer, we let him play for as long as it was still fun for him.  He finished out the season, then decided he was done with soccer for a while.
 
He tried out baseball and basketball at summer camps.  He is actually very good at basketball, despite being short, but has never expressed interest in joining a team.  So, we’ve never pushed it.
 
With Kickboxing, we told him we wanted him to finish out the class, which still had 2 1/2 weeks left.  He agreed.  We like him to “finish what he starts.”
 
But, there was more to it than that...
 
I knew he was sore from his fibromyalgia because the rainy season had started.  I was feeling it, too.  
 
There was another life lesson here...
 
Fibromyalgia is an incurable disease.  While the Guai Protocol will help both of us tremendously, he will have to learn to live with this disease for the rest of his life.  And, even with Guai, he may still have flare-ups from time to time, (if he inadvertently “blocks” the medication with salicylates, or he forgets to take the medication.)
 
So, along with reading and writing, one of the life skills my son needs to learn, is how to function in life with fibromyalgia.
 
So, he finished out those last two weeks of Kickboxing, and then we put our gym membership on hold for six months.  (My husband and I normally worked out right after Alex finished his twice-weekly class.  Alex would play in the Kids Club while we worked out.)
 
To be honest, we were all glad for the break.  I was totally exhausted after three grueling months of writing the California Distinguished Schools proposal.  I’d pulled so many all-nighters getting the project done on time that I’d sent myself into a flare.  I could barely move.
 
My husband was traveling like crazy, so he wasn’t even home to work out anyway.
 
My son was still have problems holding a pencil properly, and forming his letters.  It was a relief to not have to rush through homework, get changed into his boxing gear, and head over to the gym.
 
As the cold rains poured down outside, we spent extra time on homework each day, and I bribed my son to do extra homework.  Ten cents a sentence.  We would finish his regular homework.  (No payment for that.)  Then, we would write sentence after sentence on special writing paper for beginning writers- (the stuff they use for kindergartners and first graders.  I found some at Staples.)  
 
My son was happy, because he loves saving up for Lego sets and buying them on his own.  Ten cents at a time, he earned himself new Lego sets.   (At that time, he was buying Lego “Roadsters” which were $5 apiece.)  I was content, because I felt like I was getting the rest my body needed to settle down the flare I’d sent myself into.
 
By the time the rains ended, my son’s handwriting had gone from illegible scribbles to actual readable letters.  (I owe a tremendous debt to his two teachers as well.  His teachers are both amazing, amazing educators.  One of them will be teaching first grade next year.  I will be thrilled if my son is fortunate enough to have the same teacher again.)
 
When the sun came back out again, I was hesitant to start exercising again.  My body felt stiff.
 
Instead of riding bikes to school, I continued to drive the family minivan.  I justified it by saying it was “too cold” in the mornings to ride the bikes.  And, I guess it was.  Despite the fact we live in California, we had a frost every morning, right through April.
 
Even though I vowed I would never pick up this quirky California habit, I soon started hosing the frost off my windshield, rather than trying to scrape it off.
 
This whole “hosing frost off the windshield” thing has been a long-standing joke between my husband and I.  The first time I saw him do this, I was horrified.
 
“You’ll crack the windshield!” I shouted.
 
I was raised in New York, and early on, my father told me that hoses and cold temperature DO NOT MIX.  If you EVER try to apply water to frozen glass, the glass will CRACK.
 
Yet, the hose seemed to be the preferred method for many people in the Bay area to get the frost off their cars.  I guess it has to do with the climate here.  It is just cold enough to get a frost here, but not cold enough to snow.  (The last time it actually snowed in Silicon Valley was 1976.  The snow only lasted for a few minutes, and then melted.  It will snow on Mt. Hamilton, our tallest mountain, where Mt. Hamilton Observatory is located.  It also snows on top of the Santa Cruz mountains, but this snow is often slushy.)  
 
On the “Valley floor,” where all the rest of us live, we get frost, but not snow.  We are simply a couple of degrees too warm to get the lovely fluffy stuff.  So, we get frost every morning, and then rain, but never any snow.  I miss snow.  I loved the stuff, as a kid growing up in New York, and even as an adult, I’d always get excited when the skies turned grey in November or December and the first flakes of the year came down...
 
Because of this couple of degree temperature difference, by the time the sun comes up, and it is time to go to work, it is ABOVE freezing.  
 
So, you can hose off your car.
 
I was still horrified by this thought, and stubbornly refused to do it.
 
So, I went searching for an ice scraper.  Surely, our Super Wal-Mart would have such an item.  We have the largest Wal-Mart in all of northern California in our town.  (Yeah, us.)
 
I couldn’t find one.
 
I even got an employee to walk the aisles with me, looking for one, so intent was I on my quest...
 
All we could find was a squeegee...
 
I bought the squeegee...
 
I went to AutoZone.
 
I could not find an ice scraper.
 
I walked the aisles of AutoZone with an AutoZone employee.
 
No ice scraper...
 
Surely the convenience marts would have them!  Our town is located right off Highway 101!  People headed north to Tahoe would need this essential item!  It snows in Tahoe!
 
No.  There were colorful condoms, and caffeine pills, and Krispy-Kremes, and 19 flavors of coffee, (OK, maybe not 19, but it was a bit overkill on the coffee), but not one single ice scraper...
 
So, after trying to scrape off ice with a credit card, and my squeegee, there I was, just like a native California, HOSING off my car...
 
And, lo and behold, the windshield never cracked...
 
Once the weather warmed to the point that neither hose, nor squeegee, nor credit card was necessary to see out the windshield in the morning, I knew I could no longer justify driving to school...
 
I had to get the bikes out...
 
I actually had to exercise again...
 
Oh, dear.
 
Boy, did my muscles protest!
 
It is amazing how out of shape you can get with just a few months of inactivity!
 
Now, as I have moaned and complained about many a time, my son’s school is located atop a steep hill.  

I wouldn’t care if it was at the BOTTOM of a hill.  If it was, then I could coast downhill in the mornings when my muscles are the most stiff, and I hurt the most.
 
But, unfortunately, no such luck.  It is roughly a mile, almost all of which is steep hill, all of it first thing in the morning...
 
It really, really hurt.
 
So, yeah, I am not totally done clearing.  There is definitely still some “fibro-crap” (as I so colorfully call it) left in my legs.  I felt it most in my hipbones.  Last time, I was mapped by Dr. St. Amand, it hurt when he pressed down on these areas.  I noticed all of the areas he marked down as having calcium phosphate deposits were tender when he pressed on them.  And, yes, they coincided with my areas of pain.
 
For those of you not familiar with the mapping process, please see my text page, and video, on the topic.  There is also a page on Dr. St. Amand’s site on the topic.
 
And, just so you know, mapping does not consist of Dr. St. Amand pressing on you and saying: “Does this hurt?” and then him making a mark on the paper.  He is completely silent while he checks over your entire body by touch alone, feeling for lumps and bumps in the muscle tissue that should not be there.  These are the calcium phosphate deposits and these are what makes us hurts so much in fibromyalgia.
 
Oh, it did hurt to start exercising again after a whole winter of inactivity.
 
I gritted my teeth to make it up that hill.  I actually had to use mental imagery and pretend I was someplace else to just get through it.  And, yes, I know you are not supposed to do that, exercise to the point of pain when you have fibromyalgia, but I knew I could do this bike ride.  I had done it everyday in the fall.  I was just out of shape.
 
When my husband was home, he would ride with us.  I said nothing to him, or my son, about the pain I was in.  But, I could not talk to them either.  
 
If they tried to chat with me, I would tell them I was “out of breath” and could not chat.
 
But, in reality, I was focusing so hard on being someplace else to block out the pain that I could not do that and speak at the same time.
 
I regretted putting my gym membership on hold.
 
I knew if I had kept up with exercise throughout the winter that I would not be feeling this way now.
 
But, I guess I didn’t have a choice.  I’d been in a flare because of that huge project I’d worked on, and my body had needed the rest.  Hopefully next year we won’t be nominated for any big awards, and the same thing won’t happen again.  (Although, there is some talk that we are now eligible for some White House award since we won two other big awards this year... Mental note: we need more parents at the school who can write proposals.)
 
I found I had good days and bad days when it came to riding that bike to school.  It was easier when I rode my husband’s bike, which I did when he was traveling.  His bike is about 15 years old, but it’s a Specialized bicycle, and much higher quality than my run-of-the-mill Schwinn bike.  Guess there really is a difference when you spend money for a good bike.  

But, more than that, some days, it just felt like some days my muscles were working with me, and some days they were working against me.  Some days it actually felt good to make that uphill climb.  Other days, I just breathed in and out deeply, like I had when I was giving birth to my son, and counted off the seconds until we’d arrive at the school.  I just wanted to be done.
 
Each day got easier though, and I could feel the strength returning to my legs.  After about a month, my calves began to look like they had last fall, before we’d stopped going the gym.
 
By the time we went surfing on my birthday, I had my full strength back, and my leg muscles were once again nicely toned.
 
So, now that we were back from Hawaii, we re-instated our gym membership.
 
In some ways, it was like we had never left.  All the same people were there, working behind the counter, and they all recognized us.  (We’ve been members for four years.)  My son happily ran into the Kids’ Area and hugged Deanna, the lady who cares for the kids.  She really likes Alex, and he adores her.
 
But, in other ways, the gym was a new and strange land.  My husband and I walked into the cardio room, and it was totally different.  
 
Everything had been re-arranged into a different formation, and at least half of the equipment was new.  I was tempted to sit down in one of the older machines, so I wouldn’t look foolish struggling with unfamiliar controls.  (There is always that fear factor of looking dumb at the gym.)  
 
But, then, I repeated my mantra in my head: “I don’t know any of these people, so what do I care what they think of me?”
 
I selected one of the new machines, and plopped myself down in it.
 
The seat was much too close.
 
Darn.  Now, I’d actually have to figure out how to adjust the seat.
 
I reached down, hoping there was some easy to find lever, and I wouldn’t have to get off the bike and search all over for it.
 
Yes!  My hand immediately found the lever.
 
Now to operate the lever...
 
I pushed down and the chair instantly slid...
 
Hooray!  It was actually user-friendly and intuitive!
 
What are gyms coming to?!  Friendly and intuitive gym equipment?!  Go figure!
 
OK, I am now ergonomically seated.  Now, on to the controls...
 
I took a deep breath and turned my attention to the screen.  I pedaled a few times and the screen blinked to life...
 
Hooray!  I felt like I was Maj. Samantha Carter on SG-1 and I’d just hot-wired an enemy starship...
 
The buttons on the dashboard, er, screen, looked just like the controls on a microwave.  I pushed the button marked: “Popcorn,” (just kidding,), I pushed the button marked: “Warm up.”  The whole screen sprang to life, giving me instructions, with a clock ticking down, (this thing wasn’t going to blow up, was it?)  It started encouraging me, telling me I was doing a great job.  (Positive re-enforcement IS always nice.  The old machines never said anything nice to us.  That makes them quite rude and ill-mannered in comparison.)  A little map showed me where I was on an imaginary course.  In no time at all, I had finished a 5-minute warm-up.
 
Did I want to continue?
 
Yes.
 
This was actually fun.
 
The machine patiently waited for me to push another button...
 
Hmmm.... I studied the screen...
 
Was there a “pizza” button?
 
No.  
 
I selected “Moderate Hills.”  That didn’t sound too painful.  I figured if I could make it up the hill to my son’s school, I could make it up a “moderate” hill.  There was nothing moderate about that darned hill I’d been going up each morning to school.
 
What level would I like?  1 - 20?
 
Wow-- I get a choice on that, too?
 
I was tempted to just put in “1,” but I selected “2”...
 
Hey, it was my first day back.  I didn’t want to overdo it...
 
Before I knew it, I had ridden 5 miles.
 
Yeah, it surprised me, too.  The chair was so comfortable... it had armrests, PADDED armrests.  What a difference those armrests made!  The old machines didn’t have armrests.  I never realized how much more comfortable it was to have a cozy place to rest your arms when you were cycling...
 
I had my iPod and my “Coffee Break Spanish” lessons and printouts with me.  I finished off Chapters 46 and 47 while I was cycling.  (Verbs about dining/going out, and the verbs “ser” and “estar.”)  
 
(Don’t ask me to use them in a sentence.  I can read and comprehend Spanish at this point, but I cannot speak it.  The verbs are still a jumbled mess in my head, and I keep getting them confused with French and German.  I think eventually my brain will make a separate compartment for French, German, English and Spanish, but it hasn’t happened yet.  When I try to form a sentence with a Spanish speaker, and pull Spanish words out of my head, I can’t do it.  The other languages I know keep coming out in a jumbled mess.  Surely that goes away at some point?)
 
One weird thing happened on the bike, my left leg got tingly and sort of fell asleep.  I could still peddle just fine, and when I got up to get the cleaning stuff to wipe the machine down, I could walk on it just fine.  So, it wasn’t totally asleep.  I figured this is just some nerve thing with my back.  I’ve had back problems ever since I injured it when I was 23, so I just don’t worry when stuff like that happens.  I figure it’s just normal for me.
 
I decided to do some really light arm weights after the bike.  When I see “light,” I mean light.  I did a rowing machine on the absolute lightest weight possible- 10 pounds.  A guy walking by gave me a funny look because I was changing the pin in the weight stack from 70 pounds down to 10 pounds.  Then, a muscular lady walked by, and she gave me a look, too.
 
I gave them the “whatever” look back.
 
I gently pushed out on the weights.  Since I surf, I try to arm weights related to paddling.  Things that will help me cut through the ocean waves better.
 
An odd thing happened on my 3rd of 4th repetition.
 
I felt my back crack.  
 
You know how you are stretching, and you feel your back go cr-ack-ckkkk?  Or, when the chiropractor is popping your back, and you feel a whole bunch of vertebrae pop at once?
As I was pushing out on this weight, I felt 4 or 5 vertebrae all pop at once.
 
Odd.  It didn’t hurt.  It felt rather good, actually, like the pressure had come off of a nerve or something.
 
So, maybe my leg had gone numb on the bike because a vertebrae was pressing on a nerve.  And, maybe that very light workout with weights was just enough of a stretch to put everything back into place again.
 
It would be nice to think that these days my back is correcting itself BACK into position, rather than always popping OUT of position, like it did for the longest time.
 
Just to be on the safe side, I only did one set of repetitions on those weights.  (One set of repetitions is up and down with the weights ten times.)
 
And, that was it.  End of workout.
 
That is all I did.
 
But, I still felt good about it.
 
It’s the next morning now, and I’m not the least bit sore.  Matter of fact, I’m already looking forward to going back to the gym again.
 
I truly believe exercise has been key to my recovery from fibromyalgia.
 
Exercise is key to everyone.  I’ve said this before, but I will say it again.  Exercise truly is the lost fountain of youth.
 
My Mom is 70, and she does Pilates so well that her gym has told her she should be an instructor.  In 30 years, she has only gained one pound, going from 117 to 118 pounds.  (Each year, her doctor teases her about this “weight gain.”)  
 
Her Mom, my Oma, never owned a car, and rode her bike for all her errands, right up until she passed away, in her 90s.  (She lived in Germany.  Folks in Europe are much less car-dependent than we are.  
 
My husband just returned from a six-country European tour.  He was amazed at how folks in every country he went to rode their bikes to go to work, grocery shop, go out to dinner, etc.  It was raining in the Netherlands, and everyone was still riding their bikes, not caring that it was raining.  They just wore raincoats.)
 
Well, I need to go clean the house.  We have company coming for the next five days.  Happy 4th of July!  Go celebrate by taking a nice long walk... and then skip the potato chips, corn chips, hot dogs (nitrates), and soda (high fructose corn syrup)....  One can have a truly, happy celebration, and be nice to their body at the same time... :)
Finally went back to the gym- after 6 months!
Friday, July 4, 2008
This was taken in Kauai last week. We went sea kayaking.  It’s a little tricky getting the boat launched, and back to shore, because Kalapaki Bay has a “shore break.”  (The waves break on shore.)  But, it was super fun.  We just timed it the way you would if you were outrigger-canoeing and rode a wave in and onto the beach.  We saw sea turtles.