Wheezy Whitney and the Search for a Routine

During a little dinner party while I made her stir the risotto in my kitchen tonight, my friend Em asked what I’m trying to accomplish with this little project—to lose weight, to be eat healthier, to exercise? Yes. I want to do all those things, and they go together, right? I don’t want to diet. My other amiga Kate and I discussed this in length this week: it’s about lifestyle or it’s not really about much at all. I do know one thing: the desire to fit into those hot Levis again is STRONG. And partially the basis for this mindful writing and exercising and eating approach is that I’ve never really TRIED to pay attention to these things. So here I am, trying in front of you. It’s going ok.

On the food front, I’ve sometimes been all about the veggie healthy wagon—eating a giant bowl of greens for lunch and including protein and all that; and then kind of falling off by having beer and ice cream and wine and Starbucks lattes. Is this what moderation is all about? Having veggies and exercise and lattes all in one week? Or is this just my bi-polar way of trying? One thing’s for sure: I need to do that wretchedly tedious food diary thing where you write down everything you eat. Because I’ve got to see what my attempts at eating well look like on paper, not just in my foggy memory of healthy successes and startling failures (have you ever eaten an entire bag of those honey twist pretzels in one sitting? Mmmmmm.) So, that diary starts tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’m not going to put the whole thing up here. Maybe just a highlights reel.

But now to the happy news: In the past 7 days I’ve worked out three times. That’s a coup for me in a big, big way. I can’t remember the last time that many actual visits to the gym were all concentrated in one week because, well, it may have never happened before in my life. So, it’s really going to be a new thing for me to embrace exercise as part of a routine. A brief walk down exercise lane:

In grad school, I just walked a lot around Madrid and across SLU’s campus, and that fended off pounds. In undergrad I’d visit the rec center in spurts, but I think mostly my metabolism was just keeping it real for my ass. Same goes for high school; back then I liked to eat sleeves of Starburst for lunch. Our HS gym class was lightweight stuff like archery and pickle ball and rotated with Religion, which did not keep me skinny but certainly made me very afraid of sex.

Anyway, end of flashback. At the heart of this is the fact that I’ve had pretty bad asthma since I was a kid, which eventually made me afraid to exercise. It was horrible to run around and then feel like I was sucking for air, especially since I sucked at running anyway. (I always kind of flailed my arms like the episode of Friends when Phoebe runs FREE.) Thanks to fabulous new medications, I don’t worry about that any more. (The wheezing part. The sucking at running thing can’t be cured.) I can take my asthma meds in the morning and then push myself on the elliptical until I’m a sweaty mess, and I won’t wheeze even a note. But a little bit of that fear remains. I’m not a runner, not a player, not an athlete. And it’s taken me a long time to discover what I like about working out—yoga, feeling awesomely sore the next day, rocking the elliptical by seeing which songs make me go the fastest. I’m open to more—those classes with balls and steps and weights that I’m entitled to attend since I paid that giant gym membership fee—but I need to stop being scared of them. I’m healthy. I’m not wheezy. I can go to Butts and Guts and Core Strength Mega Hour, and I’m not going to end up in the nurse’s office. Though someone might have to bring me an ice pack when it’s over.