[Read what FitNotes is all about over at the FitNotes About Page. Then, I'll see you back here real soon--or look for me on the exercise floor.]
In any of you have seen the movie Wall-E you might know what I’m talking about. By the time I showed up for my annual physical last fall, at the age of 50, I felt just like one of those metal cubes of junk that Wall-E, the trash-compacting robot, endlessly spit out of his compressor stomach. I’d had three to six months of near-total inactivity except for the 12 to 16 hours each day I was sitting (or reclining) typing on my laptop. The price of sudden business success had left me with a body that felt as creaky, rusty and cubicular as one of Wall-E’s junk cubes. Dr. Lisa Ramey, who has been my physician at Jaffrey Family Practice for 12 years, responded to each litany of my body woes in the same way: “You probably need some exercise.”
Chris Halvorson, eating something good for her
I had a left shoulder that seemed to be getting frozen in place. It wouldn’t let me put dishes away in my high cupboard or get luggage into the overhead bin on an airplane My right hip, plagued for five years with mild and controlled bursitis, was giving me trouble when I lay down too long or walked too far. Meanwhile, blood pressure that had been chronically low my whole life suddenly spiked upwards, not quite to the danger level, but still a significant rise for me. And, of course, weight gain came along with all my inactivity.
“You probably need some exercise,” Dr. Ramey calmly said.
Don’t you just hate demanding doctors? Where were the pills that could cure me?! Where were the lab tests?! The x-rays?!
I had deluded myself into thinking I was getting exercise—I was enrolled in a local Jazzercize class, yet either its schedule or mine often prevented me from actually attending. When I did go, it felt like a good workout, but clearly it was not enough.
Dr. Ramey didn’t insist, you understand. But I knew in my heart of hearts it was time to return to The Wellness Center. I had been one of the first members in 2000, when this place opened, but my husband and I had let our membership lapse in 2006 when we saw that we were not using it enough. Again, we had become too busy.
Today, all signs were pointing toward that brand new Parmlee Road for me: “Get thee to exercise or continue your slide into becoming a rigid, metal cube in your rapidly approaching old age!”
So, I picked up the phone and made that call. It was a first step toward reform, which, in my household, always begins tomorrow. This time, I meant for it to begin today.
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