Exercising! Also, musings on mortality.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Again. And maybe this time I'll stick with it.

Got a lot of exercise while I was in Hawai'i, what with swimming and walking and randomly doing pushups when I was in the hotel room and bored. As my swimsuit fit marginally better the last day I put it on than the first day (though still nowhere near 'well', mind you) I figured I ought to keep this up.

So, I've walked at least a little every day since Monday (least being 'up to the store', most being 'up Blue Mountain'), and I've either done situps/pushups/leg lifts or a set of Chinese stretching exercises that fosveny's uncle gave me a couple years ago.With the result that I've been exhausted and in some pain for the last two days, but it's the good kind of exhausted-and-in-pain.

Still makes it hard to keep it up, mind you. And I see a day totally off in my near future, but with luck (and determination) I'm gonna keep it up _this_ time and actually get my ass into shape.

Given my recent cholesterol count (closer to 300 than 200) and the way I've been getting out of breath going up a flight or two of stairs...I think I have more motivation than usual. :/

--

See, physically I very much take after my father, who took very much after _his_ father. Grandpa died in 1983, aged 67, of a massive stroke, after a series of smaller ones. (Followed shortly by a slightly-unusual March blizzard, but I digress...) Dad died in 1993, aged 57, of a totally-out-of-the-blue heart attack. (Followed shortly by an out-of-season April blizzard, but I digress...) Which leads me to thinking that 'heart disease' is something I should be thinking about, which makes the high cholesterol and out-of-breathness really worrisome. (Also makes me hope I don't buy it in July, or the harvest that year's gonna have issues, but I digress...)

I don't want to die. Okay, it happens to everyone, but. I don't want to die like my father and his father; both were young for it, my father especially so. I'll admit I was a bit worried in spring of 2003, given the pattern set; I'm gonna be a lot more worried when I'm 47, given the _other_ pattern set. Yes, superstition, but.

The greater issue is the problem, though. And it's what's been getting me off my ass and on my feet all week, when mostly all I want to do is nap, or sit and read, or even sit and _write_. Writing is brilliant and I'm actually in the mood to do some again, but I gotta not be dead first, y'know?

I'm doing all right. I've lost probably eight or nine pounds since the doctor's visit when I found out about the cholesterol. I've improved my diet (okay, 1% milk on my cereal is teh suck, but I can deal with it) and I'm on drugs for the cholesterol, too. (Fortunately not the ones that kill your liver...) I'm _feeling_ better physically (yes, even with the aches). All of these are good and happy things.

But I'm still scared like hell of dying.

Comments

[montuos]

**hugs** Yeah, dying's a sucky thought, isn't it.

I'm hoping I'll feel better enough next week to get back into my walking routine. I'm still pretty tired at the end of the day, plus it's kind of hard to walk seriously when you have the urge to grab the incision site to hold yourself together because it doesn't feel so good when you move...

[kellan_the_tabby]

Yes, well, 'just had bloody _surgery_' is a perfectly good reason to put off exercising...

Hope you feel enough-better soon, though. If you feel like you have to hang onto the incision site? Not-enough-better!

Take it easy, and you'll get there.

*hugs*!

[montuos]

Well, it's not like it actually hurts; it's just uncomfortable. If my belly weren't all fat and jiggly, I'd probably be fine. (Well, apart from the doctor shredding my skin by yanking the tape yesterday, but that's a different issue.)

[kellan_the_tabby]

Yeah, but there's a level of _wrong_ that's worse than pain, and having an incision that just doesn't feel _right_ is that level of _wrong_. (Okay, I'm working from recent experience with my pinkie finger which isn't nearly as much as a belly incision, but. You know.)

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Do not let me become your future. :-)

[kellan_the_tabby]

Ya know, I'll admit I've had that in mind...

[torin3.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Sandy and I are trying to start walking again regularly so we will have an easier time walking around Pennsic. However we really do need to buckle down and exercise more. I need to lose about 50 pounds, and she would like to lose about 30. However, she can't really jog comfortably, and we don't have bikes, so we don't really push ourselves on the walk.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Walking is brilliant exercise, though. Yeah, it takes longer to be effective than biking or jogging or something more strenuous, but it's less likely to damage you, too...

[wanderingpixie.livejournal.com]

and the way I've been getting out of breath going up a flight or two of stairs...

It's always the little things that are eventually convincing, for me at least. After 3 years of the ob/gyn telling me that I was getting "obese" (I hate the BMI) and that I should do something to stop gaining weight, it was actually not being able to walk all the way up the hill to work without having to stop and catch my breath that did it.

Good luck with the exercising!

[kellan_the_tabby]

I trust my body more than I trust the verdammten useless BMI, I tell ya. :P

My doctor gets big, big points for _never_ having referred to the BMI in my presence. And wisely so; I would have taken him apart for its inadequacies.

Thank you!

[anda.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I trust my pants more than the BMI ... my pants and my ability to do ... certain things ... without too much stopping in the middle because I can't breathe.

[kellan_the_tabby]

*grins* Yes.

[amykb.livejournal.com]

No dieing. Not allowed.