Today is Day 70 of my intended 101 consecutive days at the YMCA. I’d allowed myself a day off every week (like Lent), and I’ve taken 4 of those in the 7 weeks (tornado warnings, illness and really rotten tired) so far.
The shape of my body is slowly changing — I’ve lost a few inches in strange places — like one in my underarm circumference. I can stay on my feet longer without sore knees. I’ve tried Flow Yoga and Body Combat (don’t need to do either again — too much up and down in the former, the latter, too percussive for my store-bought hips although I love the punching). I do really enjoy TRX, where we hang from bands suspended high on the walls. When I don’t feel like death on a cracker, I plan my day around the gym now, even leaving home in the dark to get my aerobic exercise in before work.
I don’t jiggle as much. I hesitate to say my body’s harder because I don’t want you thinking I have any illusions of becoming a hardbody. That ship probably sailed about half a century ago
I’ve got rid of 10 pounds — that’s a pound a week which is OK by me. Right now I’m 10 pounds heavier than my lowest since re-joining Weight Watchers in April 2016. I’ve changed my membership so I can keep on logging exercise, tracking what I eat and scanning bar codes on food, but I no longer go to meetings. Don’t feel as though I need them, being at the Y every day.
I’m varying my workouts as much as possible, which means I’m not going to become a (regular) yoga expert just yet, but I’m also not going to tire of or hurt myself overdoing it in any one class. When I’m a really old lady I plan to swim, yoga-cize, walk and maybe do some lifting. I’ll try not to be crazy except when it comes to cats. (Kids in second-grade swim classes asked me this week how old I am really, and when I answered “100,” didn’t seem the least bit surprised.)
Because I don’t feel just super, as everyone seems to expect, I went gluten-free four days ago to see if that makes a difference in achy muscles and fatigue. It shouldn’t make those any worse.
Clothes are beginning to fit again, and armed with fresh, local sweet potatoes, whole milk yogurt and Ezekiel bread, I can at least try this gluten-free regimen for a few weeks.
“You can’t out-cardio your diet,” is the smartest thing I’ve read during this time, realizing I was expecting to do exactly that. Now I’m tracking food points again (30 a day for me) and, sadly, turning down the yummy-looking gluten-free granola bars Stoic bought me because I can’t afford the 10 points (!!!), even with all my working out.
As to the “Me, too”: I worked in The Charlotte Observer newsroom for a total of about 14 years. During that time the editor of the whole paper hosted a big bachelor party for a metro editor in a strip joint (can you see how women might have felt excluded?). Another editor popped my bra strap when he walked behind my chair. But far more bothersome to me was that same doofus objecting to my food writing at home (where there was, like, a kitchen) because “how will we know what you’re doing, JoAnn?” Well, I guess the same way you know what the male sports writers are doing — by the copy they publish.
And then there was the time the publisher told me the newsroom was no place for a woman with a young family. The sad, sad thing is things don’t seem to be much improved almost 30 years later. In fact, I feel as though we’ve been having the same conversations since the mid-’70s. Sad. Frustrating. Stupid.
youcanteaticecreamintheshower 
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