A Little Heavy Lifting Goes a Long Way

I started a new workout regimen a few weeks ago after months of doing hardly anything at all except an occasional yoga class.  I had a hard time figuring out when I could fit in exercise during the spring without running from work to pick up the kids from daycare, to cook dinner, to eat, to pack up and drive to the gym, and then to home for baths and bedtime.  While Brandon was on the road, there just wasn't a way to do that without eating takeout, which kinda defeats the purpose of working out.  Kinda.

But Brandon has been mostly home since the end of May (yayayayayay), and as we've readjusted to living together again, it's occurred to me that, yes, maybe I can go to the gym for an hour a couple of times a week.  I'm also on summer hours, which gives me an additional hour of daylight at home with the kids (we work 7:30-4 during the summer, with a half-hour lunch), plus the kids have been going to bed a little later than they would on a school night.  AND since Brandon is around more, I don't feel like going to the gym when he is around is going to cut into quality time together.

I can come up with lots of excuses not to work out, and they are pretty legitimate excuses.

Over the last few weeks, though, I started weight lifting after hearing my friends talk about weight training.  They recommended The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess.  With a title like that, who wouldn't want to give it a try?  Good job, marketing department at Avery Trade.  The book offers a case for lifting, a helpful training program that includes using all of the equipment on the "man's side" of the gym-- barbells and dumbbells and benches weight machines-- along with a helpful diet and nutrition guide.

We've adopted rather healthy eating habits in the Wells household since last spring when we tried the Whole 30 program, and we probably stick to a Paleo diet 70-80% of the time (Friday is always pizza night... I still eat ice cream because it is heaven in a bowl... etc.).  My metabolism must be relatively high, and my genes must be pretty decent.  I'd be okay with my figure for the most part if I stopped drinking all of that whiskey with my husband (but who wants to do that?).

Benefits of good nutrition aside, I like the idea of being toned and in shape. Weight lifting is something I haven't done much of before, besides bench pressing Henry on the floor and the occasional half-hearted dumbbell workout after a half-hour on the elliptical.  So I started this workout.  I walked into the gym the first time, my textbook on lifting in hand, and self-consciously maneuvered from station to station.  I felt like I would probably hurt myself, and the boys with their pecs and their biceps would offer to help and then snicker later.  I felt kind of blubbery and noodle-y.  Unsure.  Insecure.  I felt the way I did on the drill team in high school - lanky and out of place.

But after the first workout, my muscles burned and tensed.  And although I did manage to drop the long metal bar used for lat pull-downs on top of my head in the second workout (twice), I was starting to get a feel for the gym equipment.  I'm on my fifth workout now, and here's why I'm going to keep at it:

Last night at yoga, I held eagle pose, twice.  I held half-moon pose with the help of a block.  The week before, I held crane pose.  After an hour of a challenging yoga class I was ready to keep going, partly because my body is actually stronger physically, but mostly because I felt confident.

I can lift the weights on the big-boy side of the gym.  I can squat a barbell with weights on the ends. I can do twelve regular push-ups.  I feel stronger.  My muscles exist and they hurt a little but mostly they are making themselves known, maybe even celebrating being used for something more than carrying in groceries.  I don't think I look any different.  I am pretty sure I've actually gained weight (the scale can go weigh itself).  But that's fine, because it isn't just muscle I'm building.  It's strength, physically and mentally.

I talked after yoga for a little bit with a friend about this holistic approach to health.  I think we can be strong spiritually and strong mentally, but if our bodies are weak and we lack self-esteem, those other areas of our person aren't going to operate as well as they could.  Our whole person wants to be healthy, and if one area of our lives is out of whack, it's going to affect the rest of our bodies.  

This is true in a negative way and it's true in a positive way - so if everything is operating decently and I'm getting by with my pretty good health, adding in a new routine or a new habit (maybe meditation, prayer, running, weight lifting, yoga, cutting out soda, eating more vegetables, completing more crossword puzzles, reading more books)... whatever it is, is sure to enforce the other areas of strength in my life.  I might actually be able to do more than I thought.  And that might actually build my confidence.  And that might make me feel kind of good at the end of the day.  

I can come up with lots of excuses not to work out, and they are pretty legitimate excuses.  But if a few hours of strength building can buy me more energy for my kids and husband while improving my overall self-image, then maybe that's a good investment of that time.  And I can't wait to post photos of myself looking like this:

JUST KIDDING.

Books 4 & 5, 2012: A Double Life and Bring Down the Little Birds

In the quiet hours after my children fall asleep, after the whining and the bickering, after the requests for snacks and meals and drinks and games and puzzles and cars and hold me and carry me and tuck me in and sing me a song and just one more song, after all of that, I am the mother in Bring Down the Little Birds by Carmen Gimenez Smith.  All I want is me for a minute.  Me.  Who is that?  Separate from mother, distinct, other-- is there such a division?  Can there exist such a division?  Bring Down the Little Birds is a quick and unsettled memoir searching for identity, balance, and some kind of reconciliation... or perhaps at least a handshake... between the many roles, wants, and needs of a mother who is also a daughter who has a mother who had a mother once too, who all had other selves they protected or neglected or hid or buried or dissolved entirely from their lives as mother.

I hear Edna Pontellier.  In those quiet hours alone, sometimes I hear myself.

---

Tonight I rolled on our bed with Henry, blew raspberries on his belly and he laughed and squirmed and laughed. He patted my face with his pudgy palm.  He concentrated on the blank screen of my phone and pushed with all his might to make it do something.

Earlier, I watched Miss Lydia kick a soccer ball and felt my heart swell with pride and wonder at how she's gotten so tall and fast, how determined she is, and I wondered at the complicated blending of personality and skill sets and talents and looks and how similar and different she is from her brother, and how much alike and different the boys are from each other, and so on.  How we are a unit.

I was frustrated to be standing out in 40 degree weather watching a soccer game with my kids and also proud of myself for managing all three kids, proud of her competitive drive, proud of my boys under blankets in the wagon, proud to give this to them, this part of myself, this time.

The more I give of myself the more I seem to get back.  The more I give of myself while retaining my self, my identity, the fuller I experience my life.  It is not this or this or this, not one piece of myself exchanged for another without negotiation.  It is this and this and this and this.  And all of these things make me.  This is the reality echoed in Lisa Catherine Harper's book, A Double Life.  In it, she celebrates with awe and wonder the changing self, the changing sense of who she is as writer, wife, and now mother, how each feeds the other, and how both home and self/career are good and important places.  She shares with the reader the transition of becoming mother and what that can look like.  It is a memoir that celebrates a relatively normal pregnancy, a relatively normal delivery, and a relatively normal first year.  It is a memoir that celebrates.

Two memoirs about motherhood.  Two vastly different approaches, both real and true and beautiful.  I recommend both.