Author: lassery

Fell off the health wagon -- well, sort of shoved off! A sudden change to a low-movement/high-stress lifestyle was my choice, and I should have been better prepared for it; the hypothyroid that kicked in was Not my choice, and pummeled me. Now I need to develop a plan for health, and adhere to it...

Whose Body?*

I’m going to get my body back.

I am not good at this. Research says that making major life changes benefits from accountability: you have to answer to someone for your efforts and admit your flubs. I’d like to be answerable, but to whom?

Have you ever noticed that there is not a stereotype “Pilates’ Body”? We all know what to envision when people say “Dancer’s Body”, “Football Player”, or “Weight Lifter” – but there is not a vision for a “Pilates’ Body”. It’s one of the things I love about Pilates: it suits all body types.

Thing is? I did have a “Pilates Body”. It wasn’t something non-Pilates people could see and identify, but something felt. It was a point in my studies where I could confidently and consistently extend myself. We talk about ‘stretching and strengthening’? There is this amazing point where you feel exactly what that means: where you can open your spine in swan and have it fully supported – no vertebrae crunching down on each other; where you reach out your legs into front splits smoothly — no knees clenching or wobbling…

I went back to school in my 40s to train for a new career. I had to leave a physically active day job, and a physically active night job, to SIT. For 8 hours or more a day. Sitting on the commute, sitting in class, sitting to study…and unlike my university years, every class was in one room, in a building with no stairs…there was no running about between classes…no free time to work out…I started to gain weight. I kept my Pilates muscle at first, but gained weight.

Then the stress triggered a hypothyroid condition – and I gained more weight. I fell asleep every moment I wasn’t studying. It took a year to get it diagnosed and treated – during which I gained more weight.

All told, I gained about 85 pounds in under 3 years.

And I lost muscle.

I literally do not recognize myself. When I catch my reflection in a widow, I startle, because I don’t see me. More importantly, when I move I don’t feel like me. I wobble. I sink. Joints settle onto each other with a crunch. I don’t move with confidence in my stride…

But now I’m back in town. I completed my schooling one week ago, and have some room to breathe. I’m going to get my Pilates body back.

Working out is going to have to become routine again.

Nutrition is going to have to change, radically, both to lose weight and to maintain it in the face of the someday-inevitable menopause compounding the thyroid thing.

I am not good at this. Research says that making major life changes benefits from accountability: you have to answer to someone for your efforts and admit your flubs. May I answer to you?

 

* Whose Body? is also the title of a British, 1920’s murder mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers. (I’m a book nerd.)