Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

The other reason I’m dragging my feet getting back to swimming is what happened on Monday.

See, we’ve rearranged our modem/router location, and now I’m mobile again. But Hubby has decided we should turn the modem off at night. So what happened on Monday?  Well…

When I went to bed Sunday night Monday morning I switched everything off and thus, when I crawled out of bed got up later on Monday morning, I couldn’t be bothered turning everything on. So I had my breakfast, did several loads of washing, ironed, cleaned the kitchen, did a science experiment with the kids, all before lunch time. After lunch we lazed around on the computer, visited a furniture shop, went to the park for a play, Macca’s for an ice-cream, then to the bank before making it home at 5pm. All in all, the day was calm, quiet and, most importantly, fun.

Swimming three times a week takes up a lot of time. Even if all I do is go, swim and come home, I’m gone for at least two and a half hours. If I stay for a coffee it’s 3 hours minimum. Adding in study next week (eeek!) will make things more chaotic. I do love swimming, but doing it with 3 kids is tiring. But at the same time I really need to keep doing it for my back. Added to the fact Miss Moo is getting beyond the age she can happily remain in her pram for an hour with little to no input from me and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up. Or what to do about it.

My Dr is at me to lose weight (for a number of reasons - I don’t really consider myself overweight, but I could lose 5 - 7kg and be healthier for it) and it’s just so hard with three kids at home. I have contemplated Wii Fit, but someone is looking out for my bank balance at the moment cause when I went into Target today to put it on layby there were none left.

Any suggestions? Or just suck it up until they’re at school and I can swim/exercise in peace?

I was going to title this “Where’s my swimsuit?” But it sounded a bit pretentious.

I haven’t been swimming for 3 weeks now. For over a week I was away, and then I came down with another damn cold/flu. This one has hung around like a bad smell. I have never been sick so often before in my life. I am over it!

Before I went away, I had only been twice since going back after the last cold. I am totally struggling to get over all these colds and back into the pool. And I miss it. Going back is going to be hard. Uni goes back in a week, and my six week “holiday” will be over. I have enjoyed the time off. But back to the swimming. I had planned to go yesterday, but on Sunday night I was just. not. feeling it. And I couldn’t find my swimmers. And I sat up til after 1am playing on the internet. Heh.

Several things have to happen here to get me back to the pool.

1. I need to find my swimmers. Hmmm, could be tricky. I’m sure I’ve seen them recently somewhere.
2. I need to pack a bag for me (and the kids) so I don’t need to think about it or run around like a headless chook in the morning
3. I need to get some money and put it aside for a new 10 pass card. I should have done it before I went away.
4. I need someone to make me acocuntable.

And number four is where you come in. Now I’ve posted this (well, when I hit the publish button in a few minutes) I will have you to prompt me to go tomorrow and “dip my toe” back in the water. Even harder will be doing it all again on Friday.

So who will volunteer to be my friendly kick in the bee-hind? If I don’t get up and go soon, I’ll probably never go back.

There will be more next week on how the walking is or is not going, as the case may be.

While I’ve previously said my motivation for exercise such as swimming or walking is simply to get fit, I do have another motive.

When I was 12 I was diagnosed with scoliosis. At that stage the only time I had heard of scoliosis was in the book Deenie, by Judy Blume, so you can imagine my fear about what was going to happen. But the only thing that happened was I saw a physio every six months, then an osteopath and finally a chiropractor for relief. But the truth was that none of these provided any real relief.

For some reason when I’m pregnant the specific pain I’m used to goes away (and is replaced by other pain which is equally annoying), but returns with avengeance once the child is born. As it has this time. For the last five months I’ve been suffering muscle pain as a result of my scoliosis, and it was becoming worse and more frequent. So last week I toddled off to the doctor to see if there was anything to be done.

It appears there isn’t .

The solution, long term no less, for my muscle pain is paracetamol. Three to four times a day. For, well, probably for the rest of my life. We did discuss other things I can do to help with the pain, and probably cut that back to twice a day, maybe once a day when Miss Moo gets old enough that I am not at her constant beck and call. Oh, and she gets a bit taller too (even though she’s nearly half my height ). But for now, there’s not a lot more I can do beyond taking paracetamol, continuing my exercise plan (which we discussed at length) and perhaps investing in some core strength training (either with a trainer, physio or on my own).

Of course all I wanted was for him to fix it, and the pain to go away. But it seems I’m going to be stuck with it, and trying to remember to take tablets multiple times a day for quite a while yet. Did I mention I’m useless at remembering to take tablets? Maybe I should get my kids to remind me….

What, I can’t just be sick for two weeks and not exercise AT ALL and go straight back to swimming as I was? Well that’s just. not. fair.

Ok, so I get that you know, I have been sick and all. But still. It was tough swimming yesterday. Tough I tells ya. My coach kept telling me to take it easy and not push too hard. And where times were involved I was working to much lower times than I was before the exam/sickness induced hiatus. But, I got there. I made it through the full session, swimming a total of 2.3km (or 46 laps). But I tell ya, I’m feeling it burn today.

It is hard getting back into exercise after being sick, and it is necessary to take it slow and ease back into it, which is even harder. I want to be able to do what I was doing three weeks ago. But it feels like I’m starting from scratch. And with that comes a real risk of stopping altogether.

But, I have a few techniques I can use to keep myself motivated and get to swimming.

1. I still have 3 passes left on my 10 pass card. This is important because I have to use them or they’re wasted. There’s a time limit on them too, so I can’t muck about. When I get down to 2 I’ll buy another one to keep me motivated.

2. I have made a standing appointment for coffee with a new friend who lives near the pool. This way once a week I have to go swimming so I can keep the coffee date.

3. Tomorrow I’m going to call the mother of some friends of the girls (her girls are 16 months apart, her eldest 4 months older than M&M and her youngest 2 months older than Kiki) and arrange for a school holiday play date after one lesson a week.

Hopefully by then I will have regained the momentum I’ve lost, and be back training to where I was.

Then maybe I can start working on this whole walking thing.

NB I wrote this on Monday night, intending to publish it Tuesday. It got lost somewhere in the ether, and published itself on the 4th June instead of the 24th of June. Ok, so I probably put in the wrong date. But it still applies. Yes, it’s been 10 days now.

I’m sick. Again. Still. Whatever. It’s driving me insane.

Not sick as in, dying in bed, can’t get out of bed or even function sick (although if I was male….), but sick enough that it’s annoying. I won’t go off on a rant (again) about the lack of medication available for breastfeeding women (this time!).

See I understand that Miss Moo is taking my immune system from me, or at least drastically lowering it’s effectiveness. I know this because despite the fact I’ve been sick for over a week, she’s barely had a sniffle, and is as happy as ever. M&M & Kiki as well as Hubby have had brief flirtations with a cold, but nothing like the ongoing snot explosions that are still coming from my direction eight days on. And the headaches. And the general feeling of “blurgh”.

But I want it back!

This is a classic case of not appreciating something you have until its gone. I never truly appreciated my immune system until 3 pregnancies and subsequent breastfeeding in 5 years left mine in tatters. I’ve always had an excellent immune system. I recall missing one day of primary school due to illness, and if memory serves that was one afternoon with a headache in the office (Mum worked at the school) that was probably the result of the heat at lunch time. All the time I missed in high school was related to *ahem* “women’s issues” or glandular fever, which both form whole other rants. I’ll spare you those today.

So what I’m saying is I now truly appreciate my immune system. I recognise its value in allowing me to function without catching every bug my children bring home from daycare, and eventually school. I appreciate that it allows me to get through the winter without the need to buy shares in the tissue manufacturer. And now, more than ever, I appreciate the drugs that work with my immune system to fight off bugs while allowing me to get through the day and keep my children fed and alive.

So can I have it back now? Please?

So, it turns out trying to add to a regular exercise regime during exams just. doesn’t. work.

I was up at 6:30 this morning, but with a take-home exam due at 5pm tomorrow, decided that working on that was more important than a walk. I am though still swimming so getting out of the house, away from the computer and exercising.

So walking is going to be put on hold until after my last exam, next Tuesday.

Which is handy because my bedtimes are all over the place trying to find some quiet time in this mad house to get some work done. Far, far easier said than done. Plus it’s hot. I know it’s hard to believe since officially it is winter, but the temperature has only really dropped to a comfortable level in the last half hour or so (it’s now nearly 1:30 in the morning).

So back to the exam, and Thursday next week will be the new date for my walk. Which will be handy cause I need to buy me some socks before I try anything silly like putting sneakers on.

In addition to my swimming, I have decided I’d like to add running to my routine. Leigh introduced me to Treadmill Trainer which I’m going to give a go, but I have a fair pit of preparation to do first. Like finding time to fit it in.

I looked at my schedule and decided that if I was going to do this it would have to be in the mornings. Which would mean changing my sleeping habits. Miss Moo is sleeping well, but I’m not going to bed until midnight, and crawling out of bed when Hubby leaves for work at 7:30. Because he leaves then, I’d have to be back by 7am. So up at 6am leaving plenty of time for a 30-40min walk and be back before Hubby leaves for work.

So, going to bed at midnight, and getting up at 6? Not working so well. This week I’m going to start going to bed earlier. 11pm at the latest. Then next week 10:30. This week I’m going to be up by 7am and next week 6:30am.

I guess what I learnt from swimming was that starting small and building up is the way to go. I can’t imagine ever lasting if I’d started swimming 3 times a week straight up. Same goes for walking/running. As I’m already swimming Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll focus initially on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Not this week (obviously ) but next Tuesday I want to be out the door and walking for at least 20 minutes and back by 7am. From there I can increase the number of times a week I walk and the amount of time I walk. After a couple of weeks I can try the Treadmill Trainer, and see how it goes.

I might be competing in that triathalon yet 

But in a good way.

I’ve been swimming for 6 weeks now. This will in fact be the first week I’ve managed 3 full sessions in the week. I started swimming with the intention of getting fit, and hoping the weight would go of its own accord. You know, without me doing anything like dieting, actual exercise I dislike (I love swimming), and basically, any more effort than getting in the pool.
I hadn’t weighed myself for a few weeks, and was disappointed to find last week I hadn’t lost anything since starting. I hadn’t noticed anything else changing either (silly me didn’t take measurements when I first started - I was too scared). I kept going because I knew I was getting fitter, and that’s the whole point. I’m not much “overweight”. According to various BMI indicators or whatever, something like 3-5kg I could lose and be “healthy”. But everything seems to be coming together.

One of the training drills we do is swimming 50m easily, then swimming back as fast as we can. Our coach times us and we try and beat our previous time. Or at least try not to go any slower. We do this 3-5 times in a row, depending on what else we’ve done. Bear in mind with these times I’m wearing fins, so I basically go twice as fast as I normally would.

Last Friday when we did this, I tried to focus on kicking when I normally would have slowed down (around the 35-40m point). My times were, in order: 51 seconds, 45 seconds, 41 seconds. Wow - 10 seconds off in a session. I was pretty chuffed with myself (especially considering previous times had been around the 50-55 second mark).

Today we did the same thing again, but also counted our strokes and tried to bring those down as well. I didn’t reduce my strokes (43 for a 50m lap for those playing at home), but my times improved again. From 43 seconds, to 38.5, to 37.5.

In the space of one week I’ve gone from being able to swim 50 metres in 51 seconds, to doing it in 37.5 seconds.

And that’s not all.

I weighed myself yesterday. I’ve lost 2kg.  Clothes I bought in early March, that were in need of adjusting to do up, fit, and are even, just slightly, loose (until I eat a big meal). All my pants are looser around the thighs. People have noticed I’ve lost weight, I look healthier and I feel it. I can pick M&M up again (heffalump she is at 21kg). I get through the housework quicker. Hanging up the washing doesn’t hurt my arms. Little things like that.

And to be honest, little things are far more motivating than loosing weight to keep me focused on going to the pool. I have structured my week around it, I buy a 10-pass to give me more incentive, and the social aspect is not to be overlooked with talk of a Christmas in July party for the “swimfit” gang (used to be girls, but we have two guys now, have to be PC and all that).

Stay tuned for more of my fitness endeavours, and let me know if you need some motivation so I can kick your butt into gear give it to you