Minor epiphany re: exercise
Thanks to a friend's q on FB, I think I nailed down why I hate exercising for its own sake:
If my brain doesn't have something else to focus on, the only thing I can think of is how much pain I'm in and how exhausted I am. Walking around for an hour shopping, birding or sightseeing? I don't notice as much, until I'm finally in the car and it hits me all at once. Walking around for an hour for its own sake? I'd never get through it.
I think people who have never had to deal with chronic pain and fatigue don't get how excruciating exercise can be for those of us who do. It's not the "feel the burn" thing of good muscle exertion--people expect that, and tolerate it for other reasons. It's the stabbing pain radiating through joints, connective tissue and fascia. It's feeling like you're being beaten with a sledgehammer. It's feeling like the bones in your feet are actually cracked and broken.
Then, add in the exhaustion. My body is lousy at using glucose properly, and at turning fat stores into glucose. Once I've worked through the top level of free glucose in my bloodstream, my body starts screaming at me for more. And because it's not getting it--because of the insulin and conversion fail--it starts shutting down and going into energy conservation mode. I get slammed upside the head with tired as soon as that first bit of glucose is gone. Know that spacy, staring into the distance, foggy-headed, god I wanna sleep thing that happens when you haven't had a meal in a long time and are past the stomach-empty hunger? That's me 15 minutes into a workout.
Some people feel energized after a workout because their body has started burning fat stores, and they now have a new supply of glucose. Doesn't happen for me. All I want to do after working out is dive headfirst into a vat of pastries and take a nap, because my body thinks I've just tried to run a marathon after starving for 24 hours. (And, something most people don't know: that trauma actually changes metabolism for the worse. The more times I make my body think it's starving to death, the more it adjusts for that, slowing me down even more, and pushing me to intake more glucose to stave off death.)
Then add in the other stuff: Lungs seizing up when I'm breathing too hard. Muscles screaming because they're not getting enough oxygen because I don't have enough iron. Head pounding because my sinuses are angry about whatever particulate matter I've been huffing in with the heavy breathing. Body swelling up like a water balloon if I'm not scrupulously careful about hydration and electrolytes, because I sweat like a racing horse.
All that, even BEFORE the psychological panic sets in.
A single, hardcore workout can therefore turn into an actual traumatic experience for me. I hit my peak of what I can manage, and then I shut down and cry myself to sleep, and my brain chemistry has been altered in such a way to make me avoid doing that again.
It shouldn't be surprising that when I finally stopped dieting and working out, my weight stabilized and I actually started feeling healthier. When I stopped putting my body through regular trauma, it stopped reacting in panic. Add in getting some of the other stuff fixed, and I physically feel better than I did 100 lbs ago. Yes, really. For the last ~10 years, my weight's fluctuated only about 5% back and forth, unlike my teens and 20s, when I was desperately trying to lose weight, and ended up putting on 50 for every 20 I lost.
Truthfully, I would like to be a little more active than I am, for reasons of easing stiffness and maintaining cardiovascular health. The one exercise for its own sake I can tolerate is swimming, since it takes away a lot of the gravity- and impact-based pain, and affords me greater speed and range of motion than I can have on land. If I had my own pool, I'd be in it every day. But the only pool nearby is well crowded, and I also can't stand the fact that we're expected to be naked or near-naked around strangers in order to do it, so I don't go. So for now, I'm limited to some stretching and general everyday activity, and getting out and watching birdies and seeing cool places now and then.
I imagine someday, technology will be such that I can find something else I can do that's not going to murder me, and also keep my brain active enough to ignore the transient pain. Maybe a Kinect RPG or something would be cool. If I could get some activity via smacking some orcs around with a fake sword, I might be up for it. But as it stands now, the only time I can get through this is if I do something very gentle and very brief that has another purpose to keep my mind off of the pain.
I actually do envy people who get exercise euphoria. I get that some people love it so much that they do it all the time, and don't understand why everyone doesn't do it. And that's because they simply don't get that their experience with it is not universal. Fitness fiends talk about how great it is to "get in touch with" their bodies, and "listen" to them. Frankly? I can't STOP listening to my body because of the constant pain. Why would I want to turn up the volume on it?
FTR: Yes, some of my pain is weight-related. I do know that my structure is probably designed to take only about 2/3 the weight I am now, and that that aggravates some of the osteo issues. But weight's not all of it. I've been hurting in various ways like this since I was a kid. I was energetic and even athletic when I was little, but I was also quite sickly, too. Constant rounds of bronchitis and tracheitis--irritation from living around heavy smokers and dry, dusty, smoggy air. And the metabolic and anemia stuff kicked in when I hit puberty. I probably also had the sleep apnea as a kid, too--I remember snoring even when I was little. Theoretically, I was supposedly healthier when I was half the weight I am now. Realistically? Nope. The stress alone was slowly killing me, and it's only now that I'm finally putting the brakes on that decline.
It's taken me years of trying--and failing miserably--to treat my body the way conventional wisdom says I should to understand that this just doesn't work for me. I've had to acknowledge that my body is simply different from most, and that one-size-fits-all nutrition and fitness are not only not going to work for me, but will actually make me sicker.
I realize I look like I'm going to drop dead any second because many people my size are in truly dire shape. Those who gained their weight by eating garbage and never moving at all have undoubtedly done other harm to their bodies that shows up in the numbers that matter. But I've made it to 40 without going diabetic or having enormously high cholesterol and BP, and I feel better now than I ever did when I was trying to do it the "right" way.
I don't smoke, don't drink, don't do caffeine or mammal flesh. I do low-fat dairy and heart-healthy cooking fats. I get plenty of protein, fiber and calcium. I take vitamins to correct for various deficiencies. I am, even at my size, probably living a healthier lifestyle than the vast majority of Americans at ANY size. But I don't "diet" and I don't "work out" and I never will again, because I already know that doing those things will make me worse, not better, and also make me miserable in the meantime.
It's entirely possible that as I continue to improve my overall health, some weight may slowly--very slowly--come off over the years. But it ain't going away entirely, and it ain't happening on a short schedule. I am, for all intents and purposes, going to be this size, or close to it, for probably the rest of my life. This is what I have, and this is what I'm working with. And I AM working with it, even if small-minded, prejudiced people think otherwise.
I just wish there were an easier way to tell this to the world--to get them to trust that I DO know my body quite well, and manage it in the way that gets the best results for me. Because the constant body hate in my culture is the one thing that's making me sicker than anything else.
If my brain doesn't have something else to focus on, the only thing I can think of is how much pain I'm in and how exhausted I am. Walking around for an hour shopping, birding or sightseeing? I don't notice as much, until I'm finally in the car and it hits me all at once. Walking around for an hour for its own sake? I'd never get through it.
I think people who have never had to deal with chronic pain and fatigue don't get how excruciating exercise can be for those of us who do. It's not the "feel the burn" thing of good muscle exertion--people expect that, and tolerate it for other reasons. It's the stabbing pain radiating through joints, connective tissue and fascia. It's feeling like you're being beaten with a sledgehammer. It's feeling like the bones in your feet are actually cracked and broken.
Then, add in the exhaustion. My body is lousy at using glucose properly, and at turning fat stores into glucose. Once I've worked through the top level of free glucose in my bloodstream, my body starts screaming at me for more. And because it's not getting it--because of the insulin and conversion fail--it starts shutting down and going into energy conservation mode. I get slammed upside the head with tired as soon as that first bit of glucose is gone. Know that spacy, staring into the distance, foggy-headed, god I wanna sleep thing that happens when you haven't had a meal in a long time and are past the stomach-empty hunger? That's me 15 minutes into a workout.
Some people feel energized after a workout because their body has started burning fat stores, and they now have a new supply of glucose. Doesn't happen for me. All I want to do after working out is dive headfirst into a vat of pastries and take a nap, because my body thinks I've just tried to run a marathon after starving for 24 hours. (And, something most people don't know: that trauma actually changes metabolism for the worse. The more times I make my body think it's starving to death, the more it adjusts for that, slowing me down even more, and pushing me to intake more glucose to stave off death.)
Then add in the other stuff: Lungs seizing up when I'm breathing too hard. Muscles screaming because they're not getting enough oxygen because I don't have enough iron. Head pounding because my sinuses are angry about whatever particulate matter I've been huffing in with the heavy breathing. Body swelling up like a water balloon if I'm not scrupulously careful about hydration and electrolytes, because I sweat like a racing horse.
All that, even BEFORE the psychological panic sets in.
A single, hardcore workout can therefore turn into an actual traumatic experience for me. I hit my peak of what I can manage, and then I shut down and cry myself to sleep, and my brain chemistry has been altered in such a way to make me avoid doing that again.
It shouldn't be surprising that when I finally stopped dieting and working out, my weight stabilized and I actually started feeling healthier. When I stopped putting my body through regular trauma, it stopped reacting in panic. Add in getting some of the other stuff fixed, and I physically feel better than I did 100 lbs ago. Yes, really. For the last ~10 years, my weight's fluctuated only about 5% back and forth, unlike my teens and 20s, when I was desperately trying to lose weight, and ended up putting on 50 for every 20 I lost.
Truthfully, I would like to be a little more active than I am, for reasons of easing stiffness and maintaining cardiovascular health. The one exercise for its own sake I can tolerate is swimming, since it takes away a lot of the gravity- and impact-based pain, and affords me greater speed and range of motion than I can have on land. If I had my own pool, I'd be in it every day. But the only pool nearby is well crowded, and I also can't stand the fact that we're expected to be naked or near-naked around strangers in order to do it, so I don't go. So for now, I'm limited to some stretching and general everyday activity, and getting out and watching birdies and seeing cool places now and then.
I imagine someday, technology will be such that I can find something else I can do that's not going to murder me, and also keep my brain active enough to ignore the transient pain. Maybe a Kinect RPG or something would be cool. If I could get some activity via smacking some orcs around with a fake sword, I might be up for it. But as it stands now, the only time I can get through this is if I do something very gentle and very brief that has another purpose to keep my mind off of the pain.
I actually do envy people who get exercise euphoria. I get that some people love it so much that they do it all the time, and don't understand why everyone doesn't do it. And that's because they simply don't get that their experience with it is not universal. Fitness fiends talk about how great it is to "get in touch with" their bodies, and "listen" to them. Frankly? I can't STOP listening to my body because of the constant pain. Why would I want to turn up the volume on it?
FTR: Yes, some of my pain is weight-related. I do know that my structure is probably designed to take only about 2/3 the weight I am now, and that that aggravates some of the osteo issues. But weight's not all of it. I've been hurting in various ways like this since I was a kid. I was energetic and even athletic when I was little, but I was also quite sickly, too. Constant rounds of bronchitis and tracheitis--irritation from living around heavy smokers and dry, dusty, smoggy air. And the metabolic and anemia stuff kicked in when I hit puberty. I probably also had the sleep apnea as a kid, too--I remember snoring even when I was little. Theoretically, I was supposedly healthier when I was half the weight I am now. Realistically? Nope. The stress alone was slowly killing me, and it's only now that I'm finally putting the brakes on that decline.
It's taken me years of trying--and failing miserably--to treat my body the way conventional wisdom says I should to understand that this just doesn't work for me. I've had to acknowledge that my body is simply different from most, and that one-size-fits-all nutrition and fitness are not only not going to work for me, but will actually make me sicker.
I realize I look like I'm going to drop dead any second because many people my size are in truly dire shape. Those who gained their weight by eating garbage and never moving at all have undoubtedly done other harm to their bodies that shows up in the numbers that matter. But I've made it to 40 without going diabetic or having enormously high cholesterol and BP, and I feel better now than I ever did when I was trying to do it the "right" way.
I don't smoke, don't drink, don't do caffeine or mammal flesh. I do low-fat dairy and heart-healthy cooking fats. I get plenty of protein, fiber and calcium. I take vitamins to correct for various deficiencies. I am, even at my size, probably living a healthier lifestyle than the vast majority of Americans at ANY size. But I don't "diet" and I don't "work out" and I never will again, because I already know that doing those things will make me worse, not better, and also make me miserable in the meantime.
It's entirely possible that as I continue to improve my overall health, some weight may slowly--very slowly--come off over the years. But it ain't going away entirely, and it ain't happening on a short schedule. I am, for all intents and purposes, going to be this size, or close to it, for probably the rest of my life. This is what I have, and this is what I'm working with. And I AM working with it, even if small-minded, prejudiced people think otherwise.
I just wish there were an easier way to tell this to the world--to get them to trust that I DO know my body quite well, and manage it in the way that gets the best results for me. Because the constant body hate in my culture is the one thing that's making me sicker than anything else.