Excerpt from the book, "They Shoot Old People Don't They?," Available at Amazon
When I was in my twenties, I was an exercise warrior. I played tennis seven days a week, two to three hours a day. I ran three times a week at an average of three to three and one-half miles each time. Now I am an exercise wuss who complains if she has to walk across the parking lot to a store. I puff when I go up and down stairs to do the laundry. Vacuuming one floor makes me feel like I should get a tee-shirt, or at least one of those stickers like you get after you vote. You know, “I vacuumed my house today. Have you?”
So yes, I unabashedly and openly admit my exercise wuss-ness which rates at a 9.5 out of a 10 on the wuss scale. I get a half point for doing house work and going to the grocery store, including carrying the groceries inside and unpacking them. I am addicted to a sedentary lifestyle, but am not on a Twelve-Step program for this, since they haven’t invented one yet.
What happened to me? Thirty years happened. Well, a lot of other things happened, too. I became the sole caregiver for my disabled husband, starting at age thirty-one. I was more vigilant about finding good employment opportunities, which meant that, although I had a good-paying job, I also worked longer hours and sacrificed most of my free time since I was caring for hubby when I was off.
Although these are good reasons why my exercising slacked off, it isn’t a good enough reason for stopping all together. Yes, I have had bouts of physical activity, brought about by weight gain and short spurts of determination mixed with insane dreams of being my former ideal weight. Those dreams always turned to nightmares. How? Well, in the middle of my sudden spurt of exercise fervor, I’d have visions of my former self, exercise-warrioress-extraordinare. After all, at one time, I had to be a cross between Wonder Woman and Jane of the Jungle. These visions were flash-frozen in my mind, and urged me to up my game—more reps, longer jogs, faster peddling on the stationary bike until its tires smoked
What followed was a disabling injury, usually something I couldn’t pronounce like, chondromalacia patella. Why can’t they just say, “inflammation under the kneecap?” Anyway, these injuries always resulted in one or more trips to the doctor and the physical therapist for rehab.
Despite all my medical bills, every few months or years, I continued to try and exercise. I know some of you out there can relate. At least once in her sordid ghost-of-exercise-past, virtually every woman my age had or used a Thigh-Master. Most of us also owned and regularly worked out to a Jane Fonda LP or eight-track. Some of us even sweated to the oldies with Richard Simmons.
At one point I owned a stationary bike. In the 1990s, I also bought a Health Rider. It was a combination rower and stationary bike. What was the problem with these? First, the stationary bike wasn’t very heavy, so it wasn’t that sturdy when I got on it. Besides, it was boring.
On the other hand, the Health Rider was very sturdy and an expensive piece of equipment. I remember that I paid in excess of $400 for it, and that was around 1995. It lasted about a month. Correction, I lasted on it about a month. I placed the Health Rider in from of the TV so I could watch television while I worked out. However, my husband, who was also watching TV, would carry-on a running commentary about what I looked like while I did it, complete with occasional bursts of laughter. No, that wasn’t fair or nice, but it gave me someone to blame for my failed attempt. Yes, I know that blaming is a selfish behavior, but it was his fault. The exercise equipment was then relegated to the function of expensive clothing racks until I finally sold them for far less than what they’d cost me.
Now you know how I fell off the wagon. If you don’t exercise regularly, or at all, what are the most reasons you don’t?