Summer-Ready Body (Not)

 I had my fitness evaluation at my club recently, and the results were very . . . let's say . . .  disappointing! I knew I’d fallen down the fitness slope, but not to the extent revealed. After my trip to Spain (where I ate and drank freely because that’s what travel is about, and I’m not sorry), I returned home to my routines, but with the addition of desserts (cake, ice-cream, baklava) each day, along with shaving many minutes off my gym workouts. The result: decreased muscle mass (by 8 lbs.), increased body fat (by 14%!!).

So, this summer is going to be the summer of reversing that. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself now. And I mean to stick to it. I do. But the day after the test, I met a friend at a café and ordered a cinnamon bun (I finished it, it was delicious!). But then I went to the gym. Balances it out.

I’m not so concerned with the weight (okay, I am a little bit, especially inches creeping around the middle which is the unhealthiest place to store fat), I’m more concerned with muscle mass. Because decreased muscle mass means decreased bone strength, decreased energy…possibly decreased life span or enjoyable life span. As I’ve said here before, I am aiming to age healthily and enjoyably and independently. I have no interest in a summer-ready swimsuit-body, but every interest in a fit, energetic, healthy, year-round body that can still play tennis and pickleball, travel, and take long walks.

The fitness evaluator gave me a little lecture on the importance of weight-bearing exercises, protein, calcium, water, all of which I know already, but it is far too easy to slide. I do not go on diets, never have, never will, I’m not one to deny myself pleasure, and food is very much a pleasure. 

So, I’m stating it here (so that I will stick to it and be accountable): I will get more serious about my gym workouts and not cut them short, neither will I try to get away with using lighter weights because it’s easier and I just want to be done with it! I like easy a little too much. Check back with me in a couple of months. I will report back.

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I’ve had a couple of spectacular reads lately: HEART THE LOVER (Lily King) who needs no introduction, and the lesser-known LOVED AND MISSED, Susie Boyt, great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. I highly recommend both books. I’ve also had some less than spectacular reads, and one rom-com with cheesy dialogue, cardboard characters, and banal writing that was mediocre rom and very little com. I kept reading (along with frequent eye rolling) but only so I could get to the end and be done! I’m not going to name it here because writing a book is hard, I get it, and the author is Canadian, and I just can’t do that. But the book was traditionally published. Of course, part of me thinks it’s unfair that such books get published while there are good writers struggling to get their books out into the world. But then again, the publishing business is not necessarily a fair one (life isn’t fair! Why can’t baklava be a health food?), and it’s just that – a business. So, if this book makes money and garners attention for the author, then why not?

I’m not a rom-com hater. I’ve read some darn good ones. I was having this conversation with a friend the other day (the same one who sat across from me while I enjoyed that cinnamon bun), and she stated (disdain written across her face) that she dislikes any book whose description includes the word ‘romance’. I asked her why she was against romance, was she being too snobby about books? She said it sounded ‘frivolous’, but I said – is love frivolous then? And then we talked about books about love, and the classics and moderns and a lot of them are love stories, aren’t they? Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Gone With The Wind, Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice. 

She concluded she didn’t like romance, but she liked love in books. And it got me thinking – maybe I do too. So if a rom-com has no depth of emotion, doesn’t feel like it’s taking me through a love story, even if it’s light-hearted one (but not shallow characters), then it’s not for me. It may be for another reader, just not for me.

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On one of my recent walks, this little bunny let me get awfully close.

It eyed me warily as I took a couple of pictures but was reluctant to let go of what it was nibbling on. It hopped a few paces away, then returned to its patch. I walked away to allow it to peacefully enjoy its snack. After all, I know what it’s like to take pleasure in eating. I fully endorse it, within reason.