{The irony of the title of this piece compared with the title and post of my last entry is not lost on me! Please read the post prior to this one ("Forgotten, But Not Gone" - published earlier today, 4/5/2022) to understand the pertinence of me posting this piece at this time.
This piece was originally written 9/7/2016, revisited 5/32019 and still did not get published until now.}
What once was, is now gone. I am not talking about the
hair on my husband’s head, the pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice
cream in the garage freezer or my excitement to read Harper Lee’s Go Set a
Watchman. I am also not talking about 3AM feedings, diaper changes or the struggles
to teach a 7-year-old to ride a bike without training wheels. Nor am I
referencing the piles of paper on my desk and credenza that need action or filing;
the endless loads of dirty laundry; or my enthusiasm for all things Fast &
Furious, Star Trek, or Transformers. My husband lost his hair more than a halftime
of a life ago; the Ben & Jerry’s only lasts as long as two episodes of The
Blacklist and Harper Lee should have left well enough alone with To Kill a
Mockingbird. My youngest child is already double-digits and I now have three
kids in three separate schools. I feel time slipping away exponentially each
day. All of these things that once were, are now gone. On the other hand, the piles
on my desk and credenza are like the dirty laundry in my house and my
excitement for Vin Diesel, Chris Pine and Optimus Prime: they are constants in my life and clearly not
going anywhere, anytime soon.
However, I am talking about my girlish figure, my
youthful glow and the expectations I have of a 47-year-old body that has given
birth to three children.
For many years, I put off working out each year well
after the New Year’s Resolution phase of the rest of the world because I “knew”
my body and I could whip it into shape in a short matter of time. A few
sporadic weeks of spring workouts were always enough to bring my body back to
an acceptable toned nature in time for my June birthday and the donning of
shorts and summer dresses. I never had to work hard at it. Except for pregnancy,
I have weighed the same amount, within 3 pounds in either direction, since I
weighed in for cheerleading practices in the fall of my junior year of college.
Weight and body image have never been an issue for me.
That is not to say that I have a perfect body. I am short
and not full-bodied in most feminine-preferred areas, but I have a muscular
figure that has maintained most of its presence, at least in my arms and legs. I
have never had a flat stomach. (Unless
you count the miraculous benefits of breast-feeding for the first 6 months of
all three of my children’s lives. Alas, it was fleeting. Stop the
breast-feeding and the familiar “pooch” returned.)
I noticed slowly over the years that I felt
“squishier” and more weighed down at the end of the winter, regardless of what
the scale said. I started backing up my workouts earlier in the year to
accommodate a schedule that would still get me “swimsuit ready.” I continued to
take the fall and early winter off from working out.
So, imagine my surprise 2 years ago when I was not at
all happy with the results of my diligent 5-weeks of a Sean T super-fitness
routine. I put in the focus, I got it done, and I looked the same when it was
over. A year later, I tried 21 Day Fix…Extreme. I did not need to lose weight,
but I wanted to “get shredded!” Year 2 of disappointments. There was a lot of
sweating, plenty of grunting, and even a bit of swearing at the TV, but this
body did not get shredded. I even
(mostly) followed the eating plan. I lost a total of 5 pounds and 3.5 inches,
and as soon as I stopped eating her way, I gained it all back.
Last year, a few back-to-back fall/winter business
trips with my husband to warm-weather climates predicated the necessity for
carrying the workout routine into the fall and winter. Suddenly I realized that
I had been working out for nearly a year. A look at my weight and measurements
in March showed no real change from the year before. I had more or less
continued to work out year-round and yet hadn’t transformed my body back to its
20-something days. Or even my 30-something days. Not even my just-turned-40
days. I was maintaining a figure that I woke up with somewhere around age 45.
Gone are the days of being able to eat whatever I want
and not have it affect me. (It’s a whole other article about what food does to
my body now!) No longer can I sit around for 9 months out of the year and
expect to look great in a tight pair of jeans. My shirts all need to be long
enough to partially cover my dropping rear-end. (My husband used to love watching me walk away
across a room.) I am saddened and disgusted to know what a muffin-top is. I
prefer the banana/cranberry nut kind that The Sturbridge Coffee House sells,
rather than the one at my waistline.
We all know and expect that our bodies will change as
we get older. We anticipate being winded from doing simpler and simpler
activities. We prepare for the aches and pains of first morning light and trying
to walk across the floor to the bathroom without reaching out to hold onto something
to steady ourselves. We accept that we will find ourselves saying, “What did
you say? I didn’t hear you,” and “Can you read that? I can’t see it without my
glasses.”
So, it should come as no surprise that a workout regimen
changes from a transformative hobby into a maintenance routine. Yet, it does
take us by surprise. We refuse to accept it at first, going for a heavier
weight, a double-session, dietary changes and more swearing. We do not want to
believe that our body will never be the same again. It was hard enough to
accept the changes after pregnancy and childbirth.
A mid-life crisis seemed imminent, until I realized
that I am actually already past mid-life. Statistically an American woman can
expect to live to 78.9 years. I passed the halfway point nearly 8 years ago. When
I look at it that way, I guess I should be thankful that I did not notice
bigger changes sooner and that in the last half of my life, I am still holding
tight to 120 pounds. The second half of my life is sure to be marked by more
losses in my physical world: less
mobility and less activity, as well as the loss of loved ones. Age defines who
we are at nearly every stage of our life, and yet most times we are unaware of
the meaning until we have already passed out of a particular stage and entered
into another.
My once pain-free, voluntary, semi-active lifestyle is now a slightly painful required dose of activity that will help to keep my body moving and my mind as tarp as a shack.