bearing blog

Schedule questions.

The more you encourage me to write about The Last Three Pounds (note:  new category), the easier it will be for me.  No kidding.  Those of you who are sick of reading about my diet, think of this as the pledge drive.  Keep me obsessed just a little longer, and then we'll go back to regularly scheduled programming!  (Except on the hour and half hour.)

MrsDarwin: "Can I ask about the time frame for all this? I'm embarking on a weight loss routine, so I'm curious to know how you structure your evenings at the gym."

Admit it, Mrs. D.  It's the bridesmaid dress, isn't it.

We belong to the local YMCA.  I live a mile from the closest branch.  In January , Mark and I resolved that I would swim twice a week.   I shoot for 40 minutes in the water, and if I really hurry in the locker room I can get in and out in one hour five minutes.  I began with the 400-yard workouts here and worked my way up to 1200 yards.  Three different 1200-yd workouts, plus a speed trial that I can complete in 20 minutes if I'm in a hurry, are written in a waterproof notebook that I take to the pool's edge.  Each time, I swim the one that feels right for the day, but once I've picked it, I follow the workout exactly.

I decided not to try to exercise more often, or any other way, until "I swim twice a week" had become a firm habit.  

I swim Mondays and Thursdays, usually in the evening.  

On Thursdays, I plan a light dinner that's done ahead of time.  The kids and I eat a substantial snack around four o'clock, and we try to have the table set and the cleanup done.  At 5:45 we meet Mark at the Y.  We drop the 2yo off at the child care room, and Mark takes the boys to their swim lessons while I head to the locker room.  Mark can do about 20-25 minutes of weightlifting while the boys are in swim lessons before he has to fetch them.  I'm usually done and showered and changed about the same time the boys are.  We go right home and are sitting down to dinner around 7:20.   

Mondays there's no swim lesson schedule to follow.  We decide each week (when I plan the meals) how we're going to make it work.  Often the schedule's similar to Thursday, but about an hour earlier, and with the boys joining the 2yo in child care (Oscar generally brings schoolwork to do).  Other times I go by myself after supper, Mark having exercised at work before coming home.  

(If Monday evening exercise is impossible for some reason, I will swim Sunday night, Monday very early morning, or Tuesday very early morning; or I will take the kids midday Monday, but I use the treadmill if Mark's not there because it's a pain to have the child care staff come get me out of the pool if the kids need me.)

Where does Mark's workout fit in?  Well, first of all, he's been running and biking to and from work; that takes care of a lot of cardio.  He also lifts weights, and can do it at the Y or in his workplace gym.  He's got enough options that he generally works around the rest of us.

We developed this routine over months.  My advice is to make one commitment at a time, and make each one a commitment that you really can stick to, and don't add on until the previous commitment is a thoroughly ingrained habit.  The first habit was a few years ago, literally because of doctor's orders:  "Mark works out three times a week."  Not too long after that came a once-a-week "Family Gym Night" including the swim lessons and incorporating one of Mark's workouts.  We added "Erin swims on Family Gym Night and on one other night each week" in January.  In the spring, Mark decided to start running and biking to work, which actually made the workout schedule a lot easier because we weren't trying to fit his cardio in.

Ten months later, I am starting to add a third, non-swimming exercise session to my week.  

Dumb headline of the week.

Or perhaps "of the weak."  From the WaPo:  "New Guidelines Make It Easy To Get Fit"

Because you know, what's been holding us all back all this time has been those outdated old guidelines.

Monday I did something I've never done before in my whole life.

I tried to get faster.

Since winter I've been swimming "endurance" workouts, which are supposed to strengthen me and steady my pace, and "form" workouts, which are supposed to improve my strokes.  I have also had a "speed" workout ready to go, written in my little waterproof notebook, but up till now I've been kind of afraid to try it.  

For one thing, all the swimming stuff I read seemed to indicate that form was most important, and endurance next most important, and I only have time for two workouts per week.

For another, the speed workout is, well, sprints.  "Swim one length as fast as you can and then rest for 30-40 seconds.  Repeat."  Later, the same with two lengths.   The other workouts are vigorous but they don't make me push myself -- there's no "as ____ as you can" in them.   So they're relaxing at the same time.  Push myself to go fast?  When I was a kid I hated running.  Come to think of it, I still hate running.   I thought sprint-swimming would probably be as unpleasant as sprint-running.

For a third thing, it's not like I'm entering any races.  What's the point?

Anyway, on Monday I happened to have extra time for my work out, so it seemed like a good day to try something new.  I turned to the "1200 yd speed" page and got started.

Three 25-yard sprints into it, I thought:  This really, really sucks.  There is no way I am going to make it through 9 more of these, let alone 10 50-yard sprints.

Eight 25-yard sprints into it, I was huffing and puffing.  Thirty seconds' rest between sprints was starting to go by alarmingly fast.

After I finished the twelve 25-yard sprints, I looked at the clock.  Wow.  Speed drills take longer than the other kind, because of all the resting.  I would definitely not finish this workout in forty minutes.  Hurray! I thought.  I'll have to quit early!  And then I remembered that I chose this workout because today I happened to have extra time.   Darn it.

Two 50-yard sprints:  This really, really sucks.  There is no way I am going to make it through 9 more of these, let alone 200 yards of cool-down.

And it went on like that, and I hated every yard of it.  (Especially because I had to share the lane.  That always makes me really self-conscious.)  But at one point, I realized that I was swimming the last sprint.  

I swam 200 more yards, slowly, marveling.  Did I really just do that?  Did I really voluntarily keep doing these sprints, even though I really hated every minute of them?  

The workout took fifteen minutes longer, and it's true that I might not always have time to swim twelve hundred yards of it.  I might have to make my speed drills shorter than my other ones, at least till I actually get faster.   But I'm glad I finished it at least once.  I'm glad I won't be able to dismiss myself with "Oh, I could never swim the whole 1200 yards anyway."  

I still probably look like a doofus when I swim (although Mark claims I look like a real swimmer now), but... inside for sure, something is getting better at it.

Easing into the water.

Back when I struggled with finding the time to exercise, I would never have thought that someday I'd be swimming laps twice a week.

Point one:  I wasn't a very good swimmer.  (Lessons took care of that problem.)

The bigger point, the one I thought was a major obstacle:  Swimming isn't exactly a simple operation.  You can't just put on your shoes and run out the door or hop on a bike, and be done with your workout when you get back.  You can't improvise equipment from household materials like you can with weight training (unless you have a lap pool in your back yard).  You can't put The Machine in your rec room in front of the TV and slip in a three-miler while your kids nap.  

Instead, you've got to get yourself to the pool and change before you can even get started.  And when you're done, the shower and change isn't optional.  And you've got to get back.

CJ at Light and Momentary (writing about exercise during pregnancy, specifically with a heart arrhythmia) summed The Problem With Swimming quite well:

If I can run without harming the baby, that's my first choice. Life is really busy, and running allows me to get 30 minutes of exercise in 30 minutes. Swimming is nice and will be my next choice if I decide to go unmedicated, but I have to drive to the pool, get changed, swim, get changed, drive home. Getting 30 minutes of exercise takes more like 60 minutes if I'm swimming.

She's right about the time, of course.   It's the same for me.  40 minutes of swimming = 65 or 70 minutes total.  And it's been more lately; our local Y has been closed for remodeling, so I'm driving 15 minutes extra each way to get to a different one.  This week they'll both be closed, and I'll be driving 30 minutes extra once.  

Which is why I've been surprised to discover that I enjoy the extra time that the swimming workout takes.  

Granted, I have cheerful, enthusiastic support from Mark, who sometimes has to watch the kids when MJ is refusing to stay in the child care facility at the Y.  That helps.  I wouldn't enjoy the extra time if I thought it was taking away from my family.  

But given that, I do enjoy it.  Even the extra commute I've had for the last few weeks.  

The time of leaving the house, of driving, of driving home brackets the workout.  I have that time to get into the workout frame of mind.  Sometimes I trudge out to my van thinking Urgh, I just don't feel like I'm going to enjoy it today.  I hit the garage door opener, turn the key, put on some music.  A few minutes pass; I start to be aware of my own self, my intent.  No one is  yelling MOM, none of the reminders of  Things I Have To Do are there.  It takes a few minutes of aloneness to remind me that the time I spend swimming -- and the time I spend getting to the pool and getting ready to swim -- is time that is a marvelous gift.  From me to myself and especially from my husband to me (since he's home with the kids).  

Getting to the locker room, disrobing, putting on the suit (and don't I look better in the suit these days? I get to say to myself) -- all those steps make up a transition, a ritual, a marker.  Leaving the rest of my life for a moment, getting into the water.  I've learned not to stand in the cold water shivering and getting up the nerve.  I've learned to jump right in and start swimming.

When I'm done, there's the showering and getting dressed, returning to real life; another soft transition.   When I walk across the dark yard towards the lit windows, and I can see my children lined up at the kitchen counter eating their bedtime snack while my husband unloads the dishwasher, I'm glad to be home and so thankful for everything.  It's a little retreat and a happy return.

Metric.

I didn't have much time for my swim workout last night -- I didn't get to the gym till quite late -- so instead of a workout I swam a time trial instead -- fifteen minutes, as fast as I can.

The last time I timed myself was in April, and I swam 375 yards in a little over 15 minutes.  Last night I swam 550 yards in just about the same time!

This still makes me a pretty crappy swimmer, but I am measurably less crappy than before.  Hurray!  Now I'm really going to be in the mood to watch the Olympics.

Minor milestone; and the hidden advantage of being a dumpy, sedentary high school kid.

Mary Jane is 22 months old.  This morning I stepped on the scale and saw the same number I saw the day that I learned I was pregnant with her.

It's about time, hm.

About eight of the 21 extra pounds I still had after I gave birth to MJ (counting from eight weeks postpartum, by which time the extra water weight ought to have been shed) came off "on their own" over the first year, and then for a long time I was steady.  I think upping the swimming to twice a week made a pretty big difference.  Doing that made me a little more motivated to practice some portion control, which I've been meaning to do, since MJ's recently cut her nursing back to only 2-3 times a day.  Some combination of the extra exercise and fewer calories is doing something; over the last six weeks or so I dropped 13 pounds. 

(Nobody is allowed to make any comments about how it must be time to have another baby.)

Feels pretty good, but I think I need to go buy myself some new pants.  I kind of want to wait a little bit, though, and see if any more weight comes off.  I'm still 10 pounds shy of moving from BMI-overweight to BMI-normal.  

Speaking of physical fitness. My husband Mark was a track and field guy in high school, has always been more or less pretty fit and never overweight, periodically would run or lift weights for exercise in college, tries to keep in shape so he can ski as much as he can in the winter, runs a 5k now and then, recently took up rock climbing and weight training for that too.  

We were talking the other night about getting older -- he can feel it now some.  He's 35 (I'm turning 34 this fall), and for him the muscle soreness takes longer to go away, the joints are a little stiffer, etc. 

In a way, I have a sort of advantage over him.  I was, erm, not a track and field person in high school.  I was about as dumpy and sedentary as I could be.  I was incompetent and frequently humiliated in gym class.  My family made fun of me for being clumsy and awkward.  At seventeen, I never rode a bike, I couldn't swim, I was much heavier than I am now, I couldn't really climb more than a couple flights of stairs without getting out of breath.  All that lasted until well after I finished college.  Since then, and especially since I went home to raise my kids, I've found plenty of physical activities I enjoy. And so as the years have gone by, I've pretty much gotten fitter and fitter, healthier and healthier.  (Discounting fluctuations from my three pregnancies.) I feel better now than I did when I was seventeen.    Every year I am setting new records.  Getting older, for me, at least from the mid-twenties to the mid-thirties, has been getting better.  

Not that I want to endorse being dumpy and sedentary in high school.  But it has been wonderful to discover I didn't have to stay that way.