Tomorrow I’m returning to you, gym, after I’ve missed almost three complete weeks. I am deconditioning as I write.

I had one light workout the week before BlogHer, but most of that week I was distracted and feeling stressed. I worried that my lack of focus might inadvertently cause me to hurt myself, so I let caution be the better guide. I stayed away from your steel weights, your medicine balls, your foam rollers, your cardio.

This past week I was working through a case of influenza. The anxiety would pop back up, but I knew it was the exhaustion of the flu. I rested a lot, took plenty of fluids, and tried to be good to myself. So I stayed away.

It’s not that you are not good for me, a hard cardio workout would help me mentally deal with stress and anger but I was physically incapable of moving like I should. I honestly knew I did not want to be inside a gym.

Now I’m getting scared.

Scared to go back to the gym.

It’s been long enough since a hard workout that I know I’m a bit deconditioned, so where do I set my limits? How far back should I go? Start over or start where I was 6 weeks ago? Let my muscles or my mind guide me?

I don’t know what to do, so I feel scared. I haven’t been “unvoluntarily” out of the gym since my surgery in early ‘07. That’s almost 17 months. Then I slowly worked my way back in: 15 minutes of cardio a day moving up to 30 as I healed. Nothing else until I got the all clear from the surgeon.

By that time I’d spent so much time around the sweat and noise and steel that I was craving it. It was “hold me back” before I push too far. I wanted everything at once. I think I could have workout to the point of total collapse that day, poured a protein drink down and started again.

Today I’m much more like the person who first walked through the doors. Uncertain.

What should I expect from myself?

Ah.. the BIG question: what should be my realistic expectations for today?

I need someone to greet me at the door with a smile, tell me you’ve missed seeing me. Someone to take me by the hand and simply guide me through a workout. Pretend I’m a kindergartner. Tell me that it will be OK. Talk softly and laugh a lot. Encourage me.

Can you remind me that I’ve been here before and that it will all come back to me like riding a bike. (oh, I suck royally at riding bikes. Can I show you the scars?).

Later, like maybe day three??, you can let me kick my butt. I’m probably planning this in a secret corner of my head. A drop-weight death match that will be the talk of the free weight room for days later. (That woman was Killa! Did you catch her super-set at the flat bench? My shoulders didn’t forgive me til today for just watching it!)

But right now? I simply need the friendly accepting nature you sometimes show. And maybe some apple slices and a protein shake when I’m done.

It’s been a whole week since I blogged anything here. A long weekend conference (BlogHer 08) pulled me physically away from the keyboard as I spent time interacting with 1000 people face to face.

Then, when I returned, it was with a case of influenza. I’ve been taking care of myself (lots of rest, lots of fluids) but I’ve had no energy or ability to concentrate.

I feel like I’m cheating by even writing this, except that we all have times when we are overwhelmed by demands over which we have no control. What can we take away from this?

There are ways to plan ahead to lessen the chances of getting ill. The typical hotel-catered meals were too heavy in simple carbs and completely lacking in the protein and vegetables that are the mainstay of my every day diet. I could have taken the extra time to simply forego the “free” fare and walked to a nearby cafe to have a healthier meal.

By Sunday I was dehydrated by all the conditioned air in the hotel. I should have made sure I drank a bottle of water every hour or so to keep myself hydrated, thus lessening the chance of getting ill.

I could have used the hand sanitizer that was given to me more religiously to keep germs from being transmitted.

I didn’t. And now I’m paying a price. I am slowly getting enough energy to think about carefully about preparing healthy food. I won’t return to the gym, or even try to exercise at home until I’m healthy. Exercise now will only delay my recovery.

I can’t believe that I don’t even want to go to the gym. That’s how tired I am.

So if you excuse me, my third – no fourth – nap of the day beckons.

A couple weeks ago I celebrated my 56th birthday. As a traditional part of the day, I had my semi-annual bloodwork.
This seems a good time for me (and all of us) to take a moment and recognize the state of our body.

I will report on key issues with my own (and plans to correct problems in necessary). I invite you to do the same. In fact, let’s turn this into a group!

Better Every Year’s State of Her Body

Body age: 56

Real Age: (from the website) 47

Weight: holding steady at 122#

Resting Heart Rate: 72 BPM

Blood Pressure: 122/70

Blood Cholesterol: 162

Blood Glucose: 94

Strengths:

My cardio capacity is high for my age, allowing me to exercise at the same level of a healthy woman about 42 years of age.

Sense of humor. I can get through a variety of tricky situations with my goody sense of humor.

Sense of optimism.

Problems:

Chronic insomnia treated with Atavan. Without the medication, I still awake during the dream portion of sleep, getting a very poor night’s rest. My goal: resolve enough of the stress-inducing problems to be able to wean myself off the drug within 18 months.

Over-use tendon pain in wrists. Find a more ergodynamic way of working on my computer. I can’t really cut on the computer down much more, so this is the only option.

Still need to convert about 5# of adipose fat (belly fat) into muscle. I recognize that I’ve had this fat for a very long time and that it’s the hardest fat to lose. I will continue to tweek my diet to encourage fat burning. Consistency, in this case, is the curse to success.

Poor balance. Still working on developing an improved sense of balance. This will serve me well as I age, helping to prevent injuries that might limit activities. Broken hips are not in my future plans.

24-Hours Fitness's Biggest Loser program/!!) should try to build a social/team-building component into their gym offerings? It seemed to work for the tv show (where they have teams competing). Or suggest that people combine gym memberships with a social program like WW?

I'll admit I found the food part of the weight-loss program at 24-Hour totally worthless; though I know other people benefitted by it. They made me do a whole "I will eat these foods/ I will not eat these food" inventory, and asked a whole lot questions. I told them I am allergic to cow's milk. Their "food plans"? Had milk at each of the 6 meals/day. And a note: You mentioned you had a food allergy. Please make adjustments to this to accommodate your allergy.

So after saying: I will not eat milk, cheese, cottage cheese. I am allergic to milk, cheese, cottage cheese. What did they do? Told me to eat them and “make changes as I see fit.” Great plan, guys!

It was also a plan that relied heavily on their own products (not that that’s a surprise) and convenience foods that I was eliminating (instant white rice?). It did not emphasize clean, simple foods. While this was probably because they were aiming their service at people for whom these were still going to be big changes, it was the most frustrating part of the program for me.

However, when I belonged to WW several years ago, I did not find that program any more helpful.

I’m just saying, that eating healthy has been a long, slow, painful journey for me. I’m still not “perfect“, but I’m getting better. And perfection is really a road to self-destruction, so I’m not taking that detour either.

So I appear to be among the lucky rarity: that person who joined a gym to lose weight and get fit, who kept it up and became a success.

Guess I can say it: Yay for me!

Have you read the latest news? According to a study reported in Reuters, those individuals who keep a food diary are more successful in losing weight than those who do not.

These food diarists were not simply a little bit more successful at maintaining their diet, they lost more than twice as much weight as those dieters whose plans did not require them to write it all down.

From the article posted on Yahoo:

“For those who are working on weight loss, just writing down everything you eat is a pretty powerful technique,” Victor Stevens of Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research in Portland said in a telephone interview.

“It helps the participants see where the extra calories are coming from, and then develop more specific plans to deal with those situations,” said Stevens, who helped lead the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

I have advocating using Nutrition Data or FitDay maintain your food diary; however, this study shows that the mere act of writing it down is often sufficient for an individual to start becoming aware of their eating habits and make adjustments to more healthy choices.

If you are trying to lose weight, the evidence is in: writing it down increases your chance of success.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to continue getting most of my cardio exercise in by hitting the gym this summer. You see, I live in Northern California and the smoky air has made it just unhealthy to spend long periods of time outdoors.

Working on the same machines all the time makes any body lazy. It knows what to expect, adapts nicely and you just might not get the same workout even while doing the same work.

Want to know a secret to up your cardio just a little without pushing your workout any harder?

LET GO.

If you are on a treadmill, elliptical, stairclimber or even a bike, simply choose to let go of the handles and support your weight through your core. Stand (or sit) up straight. You may have to lower the incline or slow your pace down just a bit, but that’s OK.

When you get your whole body involved in doing the work, you should see an uptick in your cardio workout. For me, go hands-free always raises my heart rate about 10 beats per minute. A long duration cardio workout doesn’t beat my legs any harder (like increasing speed or incline might), but it does challenge my heart to do more work. It also makes my stomach, back, shoulders and hips carry more of the load.

I get a better overall workout simply by letting go.

Give it a try.