Weighty Matters

When I was my heaviest weight and my right knee was its weakest, I always felt so damned awkward.  I hated feeling like at any minute I could overshift one way or the other and simply lose my balance and have to catch myself with a hand against a wall or stagger my feet.

Doing anything the least bit physical took extra effort.  It’s a good thing that I’ve always been pretty strong because I’ve had to compensate a lot for the extra pounds.

In addition to the weight loss providing a general, overall improvement, I’ve been studying and practicing Tai Chi for about 18 months.  This has been a huge help.  As my body size reduced, my leg strength increased.  Gradually, my balance improved.  I’m more flexible.  My knee is greatly improved.  I have much better control over my movements.

I can feel it when I do the moves of the Tai Chi set.  We pay attention to weight shifts, the way that our hips move, the rotation of our bodies around our spines.  The instructor reminds us that there isn’t any momentum in Tai Chi.  Moves are done with intention.  Our arms don’t just flop around or our feet fall where they may.   For example, if I start with my weight all on my left leg, raise my right leg for a kick and then place the right foot back down, I don’t fall forward onto that right foot.  Instead, I put it down to the floor in an “empty” step, meaning no weight until I deliberately shift forward.

It takes control, balance, flexibility and strength, particularly when we slowly proceed through the 108 moves of the set.  I’m so much better at it than I was 18 months, a year, or even six months ago.  My joints are much more flexible.  I can pretty much pivot a full 180 degrees now, which demands cooperation from my ankle, knee and hip.  Even my right knee agrees.  Trust me.  It was not participating in that full pivot when I first began.

I’m one of the three most experienced students in the class now.  All three of us take turns serving as “set leaders” for the instructor.  Tonight, I was in the front left corner.  This means that I open and close the set and establish the pace the class is supposed to follow.  When everyone’s facing “front”, they follow my timing.  When the moves turn us in the other direction, we follow the set leader in the back right corner.

There are many beautiful series of moves throughout the set.  One of my favorites is called Wave Hands Like Clouds.  We repeat this move in three series (five times, seven times, three times) throughout the set.  Tonight we also did extra practice on it to work on the timing of the side steps, coordinated with the movement of the arms, moving our shoulders and hands, shifting weight from leg to leg.

After we were done practicing that section, before we realigned ourselves to do a full set for the end of class, the instructor made a point of telling me that he could tell I’ve worked on the move.  “You were very graceful, with a beautiful flow,” he said.  That was high praise indeed.

It made me think of all of my movement, whether doing Tai Chi, walking the dogs, climbing in or out of the boat, or just getting up from a chair.   Nothing’s a struggle.  I’m in control.   I no longer feel like a lumbering bear, but envision myself moving with strength and grace.

When I was younger, my parents used to tell me that I carried myself well.  Finally, after many years of not experiencing that anymore, I once more believe it.

More than a year and a half post-weight lost surgery, I think it’s a good thing that I take stock and reevaluate my program.  I realize that’s what I’ve been doing.  Yes, this is partly prompted by the slower weight loss rate.  I honestly understand that it’s natural to not lose as rapidly as I did when I had 200 plus pounds to lose.  I swear I’m trying not to make myself crazy.  (Or is that crazier? 🙂 )

I watched Extreme Weight Loss again earlier this week.  A young woman weighed 414 pounds and her journey was truly amazing.  Normally, I don’t like this show because as the people move closer to goal, there is a huge emphasis placed, it seems, on whether the doctor will approve them for skin removal surgery.  However, there wasn’t anything else of interest on television the other night, so I just sort of had this on in the background.  I’m glad that I did because something happened that resonated with me.  When the woman was a bit more than half-way through her year long effort, she exhibited different eating disorder and food issues.  While continuing a massive exercise effort, she began to cut way back on her daily calories, believing that this would help her lose weight faster.

Instead, it seems that her body reacted as if it was being starved and her weight loss slowed to a crawl.  Trust me.  I am in no way developing this same problem.  However, her experience made me wonder if I’m eating too many or too few calories each day.  I no longer know.  I have an appointment with my surgeon at the end of next week and I’m going to ask him if, at this stage of the game, I need to shift my daily calorie and nutrition goals.  How many calories should I consume, in what configuration of protein and carbs, each day?   How much emphasis should I place on gross number of calories versus what I net after my daily exercise?

I’m familiar with the basal metabolic rate — the number of calories I burn in a day just living and not doing anything else.  (Right now it’s 1650.)  So, I could eat 1650 calories a day and maintain my weight.  That means that on days that I eat fewer than 1600 calories, or that I burn more calories via exercise, the numbers add up to losing weight.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I consumed 1600 calories in a single day.  We already know that I do some sort of exercise every day, so most days I net fewer than 1000 calories.

In the early post-surgery days, I was instructed to eat around 800-900 calories a day.  Obviously that worked out great.  I suspect that as time has gone on, my body’s made some adjustments.  Hence, to reevaluate with my surgeon makes sense.

I’m also doing some personal reevaluation of my exercise.  Am I honestly doing enough high energy/cardio work?  Do I need to do more strength training, since muscle burns more calories than fat?  Maybe I just think I’m exercising at an adequate amount because, frankly, it’s a hell of a lot more than I’ve every exercised in my life.

I walk my dogs twice a day almost every day, but to be honest, they aren’t high energy pups.  So while we put in the time, I’m probably not getting the intensity.  There is some cardio benefit to Tai Chi and a heck of a lot of leg strength building and flexibility enhancing, but it isn’t like lifting weights.  Okay, maybe I could make myself a little crazy here.  Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m going to reinstitute my in-home walking program, following the DVD.  Doing two miles in half an hour is definitely a better burning pace than the one the dogs and I achieve.   I can tell you that, as hot as it is right now outside, I can maintain this pace more effectively indoors anyway.

I’d like to point out that right before my surgery, I could barely get through the 15 minute long, one mile program.  Burning through the two mile one now is amazing.  I don’t coast either.  I may move myself up to the three mile version soon.

I’m not loving the pilates machine that I bought.  I don’t quite have the balance or some of the strength to correctly do some of the exercises.  If I had experience with an instructor, I might be doing better, but I’m sort of learning as I go along.  I’m not giving up on it yet, but in the meantime, I’m searching for something else.

I saw an article on Prevention.com that described the four best exercises to do if you don’t have a lot of time.  Doing a set of each of the exercises takes about 15 minutes and the article recommended shooting for three times in a day.  The exercises include a chair dip, push ups, squats and planking.  I’m going to try the routine in a few minutes and will report back.

Okay, I got a little distracted there.  Sorry.

Anyway, in recent days I took stock and reevaluated my hydration intake.   I’m carefully tracking my food intake each day and will discuss this with my doctor at the next appointment.  I’m going to add the in-home walking at least twice a week for starters to go along with my weekly Zumba class, twice-weekly Tai Chi class and almost daily set practice, and the walks with the dogs.

If I’m consistent over the next two weeks, I should see good progress.  If I don’t, then perhaps more evaluation is needed to tweak the program.  In the meantime, my progress might be slow, but at least it’s still moving in the right direction.  Down.