Beth got NEW PINK GOGGLES! And she has to wear the NEW PINK GOGGLES all the time! This right here is why I went to the pool every day this week.
I wasn’t trying to overdue it (honest!), but I think I did. My second week of The Plan started out great, with salads and swimming happening right off the bat. And then, as you look at the calendar, you can see it just didn’t let up. Beth got new goggles, and she had to use them ALL THE TIME. I am not kidding. Have you every seen a kid try to eat Cheerios with basically no peripheral vision? Awesome.
I swam with her every day, and I was busy busy busy with errands, trips, out-of-town visitors, and housework. I haven’t been sleeping great, as I often respond to overwhelm by stealing solo time late at night, when the house is asleep. This usually means a movie, and that usually means I don’t go to bed until 2am.
I’m so zombified I can’t even socialize without wearying. Right now, as I type this, the guys and a bunch of our friends are sitting out in the living room, watching a movie after playing games. The kids are crashed out in their beds – Beth and I swam for an hour today with Auntie Sonja, and Miles did a 3-mile bike ride with his school, and then all three of us went to a park for an hour with friends. I’m in my room, wiped out, alternating between reading and dozing off. After I write this, I’m going to make some tea and whine about being old.
I can feel my body getting tighter, as if it’s trying to rally itself for the next week of grueling activity. Batten down the hatches! She’s going to drive us into the ground again! What’s funny is that this week’s tally, while impressive for me, isn’t actually that much activity. I mean geez, maybe a half hour a day, average, of my heart rate being up? Yet it’s a lot more physical exercise than I usually get, which is pretty sad. And here I wonder why I’m fat. It isn’t fair, man! Why can’t you burn more calories through typing?
Don’t you get t wear pink goggles, too?
Please just promise me that you won’t be angry at yourself if you don’t swim/exercise as much next week. The frustrating thing about moderation is the ebb and flow of it all. (All things in moderation, including moderation!) Some weeks you’ll get in 5 days of exercise, some weeks only one, and that’s ok. I think the main thing to look out for is burnout.
And, really, 30 minutes a day of exercise is far more than what most Americans get, so don’t be so hard on yourself! Enjoy that feeling of your body getting tighter. Something I really like about exercise is the awareness it gives me of my body that I had trained myself away from when I was larger. It can be scary, though, at first. I remember those first yoga classes, so frustrated and embarrassed that I couldn’t bend the way I though I was supposed to. There was, well, stuff in the way.
And I’m not sure about how many calories can be burned through typing, but it may have something to do with distance from keyboard to kitchen. Yesterday I had one of those evenings that I just couldn’t keep myself away from the kitchen…SO HARD.
Good for you! It is wonderful that you all are getting out and doing so much more. Swimming is one of the best things you can do for overall fitness and I think you will be surprised how fast you get to looking forward to it. I swim everyday if I can and really miss it when I don’t go. You just have to get used to always smelling like chlorine :)
Ivana – I wasn’t angry at myself, don’t worry. I was just remarking on how easy it is to get away from doing any exercise at all, so that just half an hour feels like A LOT. When you look at people in other countries, especially more walkable countries like Europe, or countries where the standard of living doesn’t include paved roads everywhere and door to door driving; then you see how half an hour of movement is pretty paltry.
Julie – HI! :) Thank you! Yeah, I love getting out and doing more. While we were in the pool yesterday, Sonja said something like, “Do you realize we’ve been in Seattle about two months now?”, and it blew me away that we’d been here so short a time but we’ve done so very much. In a single week I get more exercise, more socialization, and more travel than I did in a month in Ellensburg. Sonja said she could really see how much happier Greg and I are, and that felt good, to get that perspective from someone who knows us so well. I feel like that’s true, too.
And yeah, I DO always smell like chlorine! I like to wave my hand in front of Greg’s face and say, “SMELL ME! I’m SO CLEAN!” Swimming hasn’t made me less obnoxious, apparently.