Swimming, 6 weeks in
So, Maria and I are swimming.
Maria tends to take after me, in that she can look at food and gain weight, and she rather enjoys food. We both eat our emotions, and emotions we have aplenty.
Right after the new year, I noticed just how crotchety I felt, even at 36 years old. My back hurt constantly, I had little energy, I couldn't deal with stress, etc. Maria was enrolled in swim classes last year and we found out she had limited range-of-motion in her right arm, basically from atrophy.
Atrophy at 8 years old. Yikes.
The doctors recommended swimming as a low/no-impact full-body aerobic workout, and I readily agreed. Every morning from 6:30 to 7:30 or so we're at the local rec center swimming.
I've got to admit: The first week nearly killed me. Between getting up at 5am again and just the activity of swimming < 50m was exhausting. Right before snowpocalypse 2015, I was really questioning if we were making any progress at all. My weight was actually up, not down, and M was improved, but not much.
Then we got back in the pool this week after laying-off the previous week. Holy crap have things changed: M can do half-laps of the pool by herself in half the time she did when we started. We're actually diving to the bottom of a 4.5' pool for rings and stuff, where before she was barely competent to tread water.
And me? I did a full lap of the pool today, for the first time ever. I'm putting my head down in the water for a forward crawl and it's just...easy. As in, natural. Sure, it's exhausting and a great workout, but it's getting fun, much the same way running got fun for me 10 years ago.
I'm very encouraged. This started as a lark, now it's quickly becoming a habit.
Maria tends to take after me, in that she can look at food and gain weight, and she rather enjoys food. We both eat our emotions, and emotions we have aplenty.
Right after the new year, I noticed just how crotchety I felt, even at 36 years old. My back hurt constantly, I had little energy, I couldn't deal with stress, etc. Maria was enrolled in swim classes last year and we found out she had limited range-of-motion in her right arm, basically from atrophy.
Atrophy at 8 years old. Yikes.
The doctors recommended swimming as a low/no-impact full-body aerobic workout, and I readily agreed. Every morning from 6:30 to 7:30 or so we're at the local rec center swimming.
I've got to admit: The first week nearly killed me. Between getting up at 5am again and just the activity of swimming < 50m was exhausting. Right before snowpocalypse 2015, I was really questioning if we were making any progress at all. My weight was actually up, not down, and M was improved, but not much.
Then we got back in the pool this week after laying-off the previous week. Holy crap have things changed: M can do half-laps of the pool by herself in half the time she did when we started. We're actually diving to the bottom of a 4.5' pool for rings and stuff, where before she was barely competent to tread water.
And me? I did a full lap of the pool today, for the first time ever. I'm putting my head down in the water for a forward crawl and it's just...easy. As in, natural. Sure, it's exhausting and a great workout, but it's getting fun, much the same way running got fun for me 10 years ago.
I'm very encouraged. This started as a lark, now it's quickly becoming a habit.
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