Hey y’all.
I swear I’m going to get to the Taubes book project. It’s coming.
I’ve hit a passel of little bumps in the road:
1. Learning an awful lot about blood (it needs our respect, this goo), about clotting, and about electrolytes, and the system that keeps blood volume in balance, and stuff like that. Not sure it’s going to be of general interest here, but you’ll likely hear about it all anyway, once I feel enough on top of it to report coherently. Meantime, let me just say, drink your dang water, will you? At least 2 liters a day. Make a point of attending to it. Get a bigger mug. Commit to lots of herbal tea, mkay? Because it just may be that those of us who work hard at dieting (too hard?) and exercise put ourselves in a particularly dicey place where consistent blood volume is concerned. Isn’t that one more lovely worry to worry about?
This learning is not entirely at my leisure. I am being studied. It’s interesting to be a lab rat. You know that feeling you sometimes have that you’re sitting on your own shoulder, watching the proceedings of your life? This living-under-study stuff is very much like that but moreso, because you can’t talk yourself out of the feeling. You really are a lab specimen. And I really have to collect perfect data. Collecting data about body fluids is plain awkward. You can extrapolate and understand.
2. And then the hubbub of the holidays, for which I am never actually ready, no matter how much I flatter myself that I’m on top of things.
3. And now that 2-week cold that we’ve been nursing at the office came home with me, and is all bronchial and sinusy and gut-grotty.
4. Oh, well, and I got a Kindle. And have been downloading and reading almost everything at Manybooks.net while nursing my cold. And thinking a lot about the Transcendentalists, and Hawthorne, and Austen. I love my Kindle. It’s my second ebook. And it’ll be awhile before there’s a perfect ebook in the world, but if anybody’s going to get there, I’d put my money behind Bezos. I’ll likely write about that over on my company’s blog site one of these days.
(Speaking of blogs. I’m also acutely aware that I am trying to keep up around 6 blogs. That seems like a lot, doesn’t it? I may have to think about that little problem one of these days. Who needs six? Who needs one?)
So, I’m late on my homework, but still intend to sum up Taubes, and still interested in participating in that discussion, but just a lot of stuff is jumping in the way. I beg your patience, if, in fact, you’ve been worried. Which is assuming a lot, I realize…(smile).
First on my list, even before Taubes, is getting out from under clots and colds and getting a new/old sort of daily movement program underway. One of my docs wants me to return to swimming (to avoid injuring myself, causing bleeds, starting inflammation). And I see the sense of it. I need to rejoin my old pool, and reestablish my early morning habit. It would be a far easier thing to do in July than in January, let me tell you. I well remember the cold transition from icy parking lot to never-warm-enough showers to never-warm-enough water in January.
But I have just this one body, and this is what it needs. So there it is. Taubes is coming.
Here’s what I’m thinking on this January 1, 2008 for my Skinny Daily friends. Be gentle with yourself this year. Excessive dieting, excessive exercise — these can cause more problems in the long run. I continue to learn about this the hard way, and don’t want you to have to repeat my mistakes.
And you’re in this for the long run, right? Do change your habits to lose weight, because it’s a healthy and wise thing to do, but take pride in changing as slowly as you can so that you know you can sustain your new habits over time. Drama is for the stage, for the screen, but certainly not for a delicate system like your body.
So… I’m not a fan of resolutions, but do like the idea of taking a day like this to assess my life and habits. I need to think about how much and how often I’ve tried to fix my body as fast as I could. How most of my diet efforts have begun with a frenzy of change and rather severe restrictions, goals, and expectations. I have even encouraged that sort of thing here now and then, and regret it.
So these few holiday pounds I’ve found? I’ll worry only if I haven’t dropped them by June.
This will be the year of going slow. As slowly as I can. To gain as much as I can in health and longevity and daily well-being.
That’s what I’ve decided. How about you? Any ideas for today?
Posted in Exercising, Rewards | Tags: 2008 resolutions diet exercise health new year