Content heads up: this post discusses Binge Eating Disorder and Intuitive Eating. If reading this type of stuff isn’t your thing, I recommend skipping this post. I’m sharing my own processing here. Take me with a grain of salt.
If you’ve been around for a while you probably know I talk a lot about conscious habit cultivation. In this post I want to talk about some habits that were unconsciously formed as a result of a childhood eating disorder.
Meandering post ahead….literally.
I am enjoying swimming with minimal gear. When I was a teenager and would swim, I had a waterproof sports watch that could count splits and time laps.
Now, I have no watch, no lap counter, no underwater music player. To keep time, I blink and take blurry glances at the clock on the wall to see how long I have been in the water. I have no idea how long it takes me to swim any given lap. I have no idea how much faster I swam today than I did on my first day back in the pool.
This is a very different experience from lifting weights. I always know how much I am lifting. The program is laid out in advance and I follow it. I can see how much I have improved in a year. The numbers are objective and ironclad.
If I was running or walking or cycling, I would have some concept of distance traveled. I would be somewhat driven by landmarks (e.g., “I will walk as far as the post office, then turn around.) Perhaps I would map out my route in advance with distance in mind.
Swimming laps is different. Back and forth. Since I don’t count my laps, I have no idea what distance I cover in the amount of time I spend in the pool. My only goal right now is to get to the pool three times per week. I pay attention to my body and swim as long as it feels good. Some days that is 25 minutes. Some days that is 75 minutes. I vary my strokes as it feels good, depending on how my muscles feel. I feel proficient in three strokes: freestyle, breaststroke, and backstroke. When I fatigue on one stroke I move on to another. If I need a rest, I hang from floats in the deep end and allow my legs to dangle, like they showed me in physical therapy.
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If you’ve been here a while, you have probably read my habit series, and maybe you recall that, for me, it all started with setting two goals for 2015: eat a green vegetable every day, and do 150 strength workouts. Maybe you recall that I tracked my habits on a spreadsheet, and I added a bunch over the course of the past year and a half. And that all worked quite well for me for the first year and change.
Earlier this year, I wrote about how my habit practice was changing and evolving, and I was considering taking a break from tracking all my habits on a spreadsheet.
Well, I did stop tracking them, so I haven’t written about my own habits for a little while. Here, I am, checking in with an update, for those who have asked/wondered.
I am still very happy with how my habit practice is going. Several habits have become second nature. Here are some thoughts about specific habits, in no particular order:
So, those are some of the habits I had on that spreadsheet, and I’m quite happy that a bunch of them are sticking well and helping me feel as well as I can.
I’m working on a new habit, and experimenting with tracking just the one habit at a time with an app on my phone (I have an Android and am using Habitbull). The new habit is Intuitive Eating related: asking myself “why do I want that?” when I want to eat something, then naming the feeling (hunger, boredom, no-particular-reason-just-habit, etc). Since “all day long” is probably too tall an order, I am specifically focusing on dinner, up to and including bedtime. Though I’m actually finding the rest of the day reasonably easy as well. So far this new habit feels good. Some of the habits I had on my spreadsheet can still use some more consistency, but I’m feeling like prioritizing this one now.
And, speaking of habits: this blog is one year old! I stuck with it for a year! Yay! Thank you for being here and encouraging me and reading my stuff :).
And, only tangentially related, for those who have been asking about my injury: I haven’t had any back aches since I discovered that the hot tub worked magic on my back muscles! I’ve been using the hot tub 3 times per week after swimming and it has worked wonders for the aches. I still have occasional tingling in my right leg when standing or walking for longer periods. I have a follow up appointment at the spine doctor next week.
So, there you have it. An update for those who were following for the habit stuff :).
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The first time someone ever asked a friend of mine “when are you due?,” I was in college. My friend had a baby blue empire waist top in a soft flannelly fabric that she like to wear. She felt beautiful when she wore this top; however when she would sit down while wearing it, her belly was accentuated. One evening she wore this top and went out to dinner with her boyfriend. She came back devastated because the server had asked her when she was due.
My heart sank. This friend had a history of eating disorders, including a flare-up in the past year. When I heard that the server had asked when she was due, I felt so angry and scared for her that she was going to have another flare-up.
Over a decade later, when my son was about 2 years old, I had taken him to the park to meet up with a friend. We saw another mother that we didn’t know, who had a four or five year old child, and I felt sure that she was pregnant, as her belly look so round compared to the rest of her body. And I was super excited for her and I asked her when she was due with number 2.
She was not pregnant. I couldn’t believe I had made such a mistake.
Rookie moms like me are not the only ones who can make an error in guessing whether a woman is pregnant. Jennifer from Mama Lion Strong, who is a personal trainer specializing in prenatal and postpartum training, has admitted to making this mistake as well. She wrote a blog post about how embarrassed she was. She couldn’t believe that she had made this mistake of humiliating this woman, when she should know better.
Today, I am in some online groups where women talk about healthy habits and self care and treating their bodies with love. Sometimes a woman will start a thread in which they say something like “Ladies, I’m so I’m so embarrassed and angry. A friend I hadn’t seen in a long time / my uncle / the stranger on the bus / another mom asked me when I am due. I feel so angry and embarrassed and I feel so bad about the way I look now.”
And other women will start to try and comfort her and empathize with her:
“Oh honey. I’m so sorry that happened to you. That is the worst. Hugs!”
Or they will say “what kind of asshole says that to a woman? Don’t they know you should never comment on a woman’s pregnancy unless she tells you she’s pregnant, or she is crowning?”
Now, I happen to agree with those people who say “don’t they know you should never comment on the woman’s pregnancy unless she tells you she is pregnant?” However, not for the reason that I think society means.
I agree with those people because I am in favor of not commenting on another person’s body unless I have been invited to do so. Many people have fraught relationships with their bodies, and even if they don’t, there are more interesting things we can talk about than the way somebody looks. Sometimes people have painful histories with infertility, infant loss, eating disorders and well.
BUT….
I don’t actually agree that mistakenly assuming a woman is pregnant is the worst possible thing you can do to a non-pregnant woman.
When we ask a woman “when are you due,” what we are really saying is “your belly looks round and I have noticed that, and I have come to associate round bellies with pregnancy, so I am trying to connect with you in a positive way by commenting on what must be a very big and exciting thing in your life.”
And when a woman feels devastated because somebody has asked her when she is due and she is not pregnant, what she is likely feeling is “somebody noticed that my belly looks round and I am so ashamed because in our society a round belly is about the worst physical feature you could possibly have. Unless you are pregnant; then it is okay. Since I am not pregnant, my round belly is an embarrassment and I feel shame.”
And when all her friends chime in to say “oh honey! That was a horrible thing that person said to you. Nobody should ever say that to a woman. How insensitive of them”…what they are really saying is:
“You are correct. There is no worse thing you could possibly say to a woman than ‘your belly looks round,’ unless she is pregnant; then it is okay. If she is not pregnant, it is not okay for a woman to have a round belly, and it is certainly not okay for others to acknowledge that they have noticed that she has a round belly. Round bellies are taboo and if we do notice them, we shouldn’t say anything because having a round belly is shameful and calling a woman’s attention to it will embarrass her. Nobody should have ever said that to you and I am sorry that happened to you.”
Think about that. Why is saying “I noticed you have a round belly” the worst thing you could ever say to a woman? It’s because we’re trained to hate round bellies, unless somebody is pregnant. We are indoctrinated into the fatphobic belief that round bellies are horrible. We are indoctrinated into the belief that a round belly means you are ugly, that you are worthless, that you’ve “let yourself go.” We are indoctrinated into the belief that a round belly is shameful, unless you are pregnant. So when a woman who is not pregnant hears “when are you due? ” all those feelings and issues can come up for her. And when her friends agree with her, that cultural programming about round bellies is reinforced.
As a fat woman with a round belly, I am no longer willing to reinforce that cultural programming. Yes, I have a round belly, even when I am not pregnant. No, I don’t think it is shameful. And next time I hear a woman saying “I am so angry/embarrassed/ashamed; someone just asked me when I am due,” I am not going to tell her that is the most horrible thing anyone could have said to her and I am sorry that happened. I am going to instead say “I am sorry that our cultural programming makes that question so hurtful. I am sorry that our cultural programming makes you feel ashamed and embarrassed when someone points out a round belly and glowing complexion. I am sorry that our culture makes you feel like a round belly is a badge of dishonor. Despite what you may have heard, there is nothing wrong with you if you have a round belly, and you are okay just the way you are.”
If I were to continue to reinforce that cultural programming, I would be oppressing myself as well as all other women. I am not going to speak that way about my own body or other women’s bodies anymore.
And if someone asks me when I am due, I plan to answer matter of factly that I am not pregnant; I just have a round belly. I am not ashamed of it.
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Swimming laps over the past few weeks has given me a lot of time to think, away from the constant distraction of preschoolers, work, and technology.
One thing I started thinking about was, “if I know that I still have movement options available to me, and I know that intense heavy lifting is not necessary for good heath, why am I so up in arms about having to take a break from heavy lifting?” I mean, aside from the abrupt changes in routine and hormones, there was another feeling there. What was it?
It was fear. Logically, I knew that I was going to be okay. What was so scary? This was about more than fear for my health. I knew my health would be fine.
One day I realized that the fear was about the need to “do something special.” Or to be seen as special by others. When I lift heavy weights, people tell me they are impressed with me. In an age of fitness on social media, people lifting heavy things are “badass” and “inspirational.”
I realized that I very strongly felt the need to be seen as doing something inspirational and special. That felt really profound. I decided to sit with that, and have some curiosity about it. What was behind that?
It took me a week or so of sitting with that self-awareness, and then I realized what was behind it.
I never felt like I met the cultural standard of beauty, in a culture that very much values physical beauty in women. From a young age I felt like an outsider. I didn’t fit in. My parents stressed about my weight and even though I know that they were concerned about my health (not my appearance), at the time, it added to all the noise and messages I received on a daily basis that I was not beautiful, and therefore, I was less valuable than other girls.
And so, in order to feel valuable, I had to be something else. I had to be smart. I had to be talented. I had to be the best at something. I had to do things that other girls weren’t doing. I had to be seen doing these things, so everyone could see those things as well as my fat. I couldn’t just BE, as a fat kid, a fat girl, a fat adult. I had to be fat and AWESOME at something, or I would disappear and be forgotten.
Looking back, I can see that this need to be seen as special and valuable drove a lot of things in my life. I was an accomplished musician with a conservatory music education, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore, and I felt lost. Why else would I, as a non-runner, decide to train for a marathon, instead of setting a goal to consistently run a mile 3 times per week, or to run 5ks consistently? I thought that by doing things other people didn’t do, I would be special…and therefore okay.
And so it didn’t seem like enough to just exercise like a normal human being. I had to do marathons 10 years ago, and in the past year and a half, I had to learn to lift as heavy as possible. To have a goal of a 300lb deadlift, and then be devastated when I learned it won’t be a good idea for me to pursue that particular goal this year.
Deep down in my subconscious, I believed it would be okay to be fat if I could also deadlift 300 pounds. I looked to Olympic athletes like Holley and Sarah as models. And I pursued those goals, rather than work on the belief that it is unconditionally okay for me to be fat. It is okay for me to be fat even if I don’t accomplish anything extraordinary or special or inspirational or badass while fat.
The reality is I have no idea what I want to do with myself and my time if I don’t spend time on something that makes me appear special or different or inspirational. I had this deep seated need for so long, because I felt like I wasn’t okay. But knowing and acknowledging that I have that fear driven need is helping me to move past it. I feel seen and understood, if only by myself. I feel better able to ask myself “what do I need to care for myself today” and have it be okay and enough to say “laps in the pool. However many I feel like.” I am able to differentiate between “things that will make me feel healthy” and “things that will make others see me as special /inspirational /valuable.”
So here I am, doing my thing, parenting my kid, working my job, rehabbing my injury, swimming my laps like the older people at the gym. Physically it feels quite satisfying. Mentally it is an adjustment. Having the awareness of why it is an adjustment is helping me settle in and enjoy it for what it is. It is taking some practice. Facing it head on, however, is helping me feel more peace about not being able to lift for a little while.
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Content note: This post contains mentions of previous and present weight gains and losses (intentional and unintentional). It also contains considerations of how my symptoms may be affected by my current weight, and how I plan to handle that. If that’s not your thing, you might want to skip this post. I am saying these things in the most matter of fact way. I don’t mean to convey shame, as I would have in the past when speaking about weight; just transparency.
Here’s how things are moving along in injury-ville:
My mood is getting better as I am getting more used to my new routine and the new season at work is getting into a groove.
Movement-wise, I have a full plate of activity between swimming 3 times per week and physical therapy twice per week, plus physical therapy exercises to do at home. Swimming is getting easier and I am able to enjoy it now. So much, in fact, that I would consider continuing even after I am cleared to lift again! I have physical therapy exercises to do at home, and sometimes I do bodyweight exercises like assisted pull ups or incline push ups at the park. I am anxious to get back to lifting but nervous too because I don’t want to make my spine worse. I still sometimes feel some tingling in my feet or in my right quadricep. I have a follow up appointment with the doctor in a couple weeks.
I still have back aches when standing or walking for too long. That definitely makes me miss lifting.
I’m starting to feel more open to the idea of losing some weight. Well, I guess I was always open to the idea, because of the whole thin privilege thing, but it didn’t factor into my decisions on what habits to choose to work on. If only diets worked for more than a minority of people in the long term (ha!)…..
A bit of history: When I was 8, 9 and 10 months pregnant I had back aches when standing or even sitting for long periods of time. Back aches are common in pregnancy so I treated them by going for massage twice a week in the later weeks and resting my back a lot.
After my son’s birth, my body went down below my pre-pregnancy weight very quickly and without any effort on my part. It hovered about 10 to 15 pounds below pre- pregnancy weight for about a year. (Before you say “aren’t you lucky,” ask me how I felt physically during that year, with undiagnosed sleep apnea and a high needs baby who didn’t like to sleep and liked to nurse 20 times per day until he was over a year old.)
Currently, I am not pregnant, and I weigh 25 to 30 pounds more than I did when I was at my heaviest in pregnancy (so, about 80 pounds heavier than I was during my son’s first year). Some of that weight gain is undoubtedly muscle from increased activity and lifting heavy weights. But knowing how these things work, I doubt that more than 15 to 20 lbs of it is muscle. So, we are talking at least 60 to 65 pounds of water, glycogen, and fat gain. My body naturally gains a lot of fat above my waist (belly and boobs), and very little below the waist. So, according to my back muscles, I doubt this weight gain feels any different from my pregnancy weight gain (though the muscles are stronger and had a higher limit this time…since I did not gain as much weight during pregnancy).
So, knowing my experience with back aches while pregnant, and knowing that my body is now holding a similar or greater amount of weight in my upper body as it did while pregnant, I am pretty sure that my back aches can be partially explained by weight gain. (And of course, partially explained by my two herniations and older compression injury).
Now, what does that mean for me in the context of knowing that diets don’t work, and most people who lose weight in the short term regain it in the long term, and often gain more weight than they lose?
Well, I am feeling slightly defeated, in all honesty. I am regretting the years I spent dieting. I am wishing I wasn’t put on my first diet as a child, which damaged my relationship with food.
But I can’t change the past. I can only ask myself “what can I do today to care for myself and manage the aches and set myself up for less pain and better function in the future, to the degree that it is within my control?”
Knowing that diets don’t work for most people (statistics), and knowing my own personal outcomes from dieting (both physical and mental), dieting is not an option.
Looking at my current lifestyle and habits, an area where I do have some room to play is with Intuitive Eating. Specifically honing in on “distracted eating / distraction eating.” I never thought of myself as an emotional eater because I don’t tend to eat when I feel sad or angry. But recently I realized that I do tend to eat sometimes when I am not hungry. For example, needing to take a break from what I am doing, and reaching for a snack even if not hungry (distraction eating). Or, taking seconds at a meal even if I am not hungry, because the meal tasted good,or because I am watching TV and not thinking about it (distracted eating). I wouldn’t so much call it emotional eating as eating out of habit. I am realizing that these are long standing habits. I remember staying up late in college and we would eat snacks or go to “fourth meal.” My husband and I have had the habit of snacking at night too (incidentally, my husband is thin and always has been).
So for the past week or so I have been working on establishing a new habit: if I am eating, I ask myself “why do I want this?” If I am hungry, that is an easy question to answer. If I am not hungry, the answer is usually “I need a break or a distraction” or “I need to decompress at the end of the day” or “eating this is pleasurable” or “I dunno, I am just reaching for it out of habit.”
Then, once I answer the question of “why do I want this,” I have the option of choosing what I want to do with this information. For example:
Notice that I said “I have the option of choosing what I want to do with this information.” I did not say “I have the obligation to do a certain thing with this information.” This is very important for me because I have a history of being forced and coerced by others into dieting. When I was growing up, “are you sure you are hungry for that?” was always a loaded question, dripping with fear and concern. Now that I am an adult I don’t want to put myself through the same sense of obligation and coercion. So I’m just experimenting with it to see how it feels.
One concern I have about trying this habit that may lead to some weight loss is that I may become attached to the outcome of weight loss. The past year and half has felt wonderful for me mentally, as I shifted my focus onto other things. I fear the possibility of going back to a place where I obsess about the way my body looks and nothing is ever good enough. For now, in order to mitigate that concern, I remind myself the following:
I have some concerns about what this means for me and fat positivity. But I am tired of having back aches and so I am willing to explore this rather than holding onto an ideology. Rigid thinking hasn’t worked out for me in the past. So I can absolutely advocate for fat acceptance and treating fat people with respect while also trying something that might help my back stop aching.
And for anyone who thinks this means that because I am experiencing a health problem means that HAES doesn’t “work”, have a read: Am I Healthy At Any Weight? by Dare to Not Diet.
Now, we all know that IF weight loss happens, it may be very slow and it will likely not be permanent. So I find it helpful to ask what else can I do TODAY to help me feel good and manage the back aches, besides tuning into my feelings when I want to eat (because IF that helps with back pain, it will be “eventually,” not “today!”).
Today I can go swimming. The water helps. This morning I had some back pain. I tried an aqua Zumba class, then swam laps for a few minutes. Then I sat in the hot tub for a few minutes, applying the jets to my lower back. That helped a lot. So, consistency with movement that feels good to my current body is something I can do today.
Pacing myself with activity that requires standing and walking for long periods is something I can do today.
Doing my physical therapy exercises at home is something I can do today.
Having patience is something I can do today.
Keeping my self talk constructive is something I can do today. When I find myself thinking “I wish I could hike like I did last summer,” I can acknowledge that feeling, and then be glad that I can go swimming instead at least, and that swimming feels great.
Those are some things I can do today.
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The most common question I am getting asked this week is “how is swimming going?”
Swimming is coming along well. I am getting used to it again. I swim laps. Right now just freestyle and breast stroke. Sometimes I play with a toy like a kickboard or noodle, but mostly I find that boring and I prefer just swimming laps. I still need to focus a lot on my rhythm, form and breathing, so it feels very meditative.
At physical therapy they have me hanging out from these floating dumbell things in the deep end, dangling my legs to take some pressure off the compressed portion of my spine. So, at the Y, I started leaving some dumbbells at the side of the pool, at the deep end of my lap lane. Then, if I get bored or tired and need a rest, I rest in the deep end instead of the shallow end, just hanging out dangling my legs. It’s pretty relaxing.
I have a good system down for showering at the Y now.
Oh, and I signed up for an Aqua Zumba class that starts next week. I am looking forward to trying it
The one piece of the routine where I dropped the ball last week was packing food to eat after swimming, so I could just go on to my next thing without going home. I also had a very busy week at work, and I started physical therapy. I ended up buying a lot of meals out last week, as a result.
So this past Sunday, I chose to to stay home instead of going to visit my inlaws with my family. I needed to decompress before the next work week. I didn’t feel emotionally up for a two hour drive one way, and getting home late on a Sunday before a work week.
I stayed home, cooked a bunch of food for the upcoming week, and binged on season 4 of Orange is the New Black. It was a good choice. I made a huge veggie tray, hardboiled eggs, baked teriyaki chicken, a couple meals (lentils and rice with fried onions, and noodles with sausage, bitter greens and broccoli). Plus a birthday cake for my husband.
Last night I knew I was planning to go to the pool today, so I packed a couple sandwiches for us ahead of time. So far this week is going more smoothly, thanks to giving some conscious effort to self care this weekend. It is a new routine and has a learning curve but I am starting to get the hang of it.
.
If you have been following along, you know I have been having a hard time with feeling anxious over the past week, as well as lots of feelings coming up, and some routine changes in my week. To be honest, I might not have done nearly as well as I did this week without my husband picking up a lot of the slack around the house and with parenting. I probably ate way more take out than is wise for our budget.
But, to give credit where it is due….this week I:
Filled a prescription for an antidepressant
Took another step towards making swimming logistically easier.
Got to the pool 3 or 4 times in the past 7 days, and physical therapy twice, even in the busiest time of the year for me at work.
Got my shit done at work during the first week of CSA pick ups and didn’t lose it until late Friday afternoon.
Only stayed up late one night this week (including last night when I exercised amazing self control and only watched one episode of OITNB)
All things considered, I think I fucking killed it this week.
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I’m having trouble knowing what the right thing to do is, right now.
I’m on a break from lifting, because of a disc herniation. I just started physical therapy for it. I know that if I allow the herniation to worsen, the consequences could be pretty serious.
But I am feeling challenged in this moment, because without being able to lift regularly, I notice that I have back pain a lot more frequently, and I feel sadness or anxiety much of the time. Lifting was my primary way of managing both back pain and depression, and without it, those symptoms are coming back. That scares me. It makes me feel anxious as I ask myself “am I doing the right thing here,” knowing that the consequences can be serious if I make the wrong decision. Which makes it a vicious cycle.
I’m considering going back on antidepressants for the first time in over a decade, because I don’t have my primary depression management tool available to me right now.
I’m also considering waiting another week or so. It happens to be the busiest month of the year for me at work, so I know I am under a lot of pressure right now and that could also be a contributing factor.
I’m also considering going rogue and doing some lifting again. Only certain lifts that won’t put pressure on my spine (no back squats!), and only at 50% of the weights I normally lift, to see if it makes a difference in my mental symptoms and/or back pain, without worsening my nerve symptoms.
I’ve written before about how keeping my body a comfortable place to live is my primary motivation right now. I feel worried that the best way to do that right now is unclear. I feel scared that I might not feel well for a while and there may be nothing I can do about that, other than do what I can so I don’t get even worse.
Today’s self care plans include my physical therapy exercises, a swim, a visit to the garden. Possibly some bodyweight strength work while I am at the park. My husband is on vacation from work this week, and my kiddo is currently all about dad, so I should get some peace and quiet too.
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This week I joined a nearby YMCA. I’ve gone swimming twice.
The first day I think I was too ambitious. I brought my kid with me. I put him in the childcare room while I swam. I went to the lap pool and attempted to swim laps and was surprised that I couldn’t swim more than 50 yards continuously. I swam a lot of 50s with rest in between. I played with some of the toys like kickboards and noodles. I lasted maybe 30 or 40 minutes, then sat in the hot tub for 10 minutes or so.
Then I went and got my kid, and we ate our lunch in the lobby. Then I took him to family swim. I didn’t bring anything inflatable for him to float in, so I had to hold him in the pool. I lasted about half an hour at that. My back was killing me by the time we got done showering and changing and walked to the car. I laid down for the rest of the day. I was too achy to fight with my kid when he didn’t cooperate on getting ready for gymnastics class. I called the gymnastics studio and told them we wouldn’t be coming. I cried for an hour on the couch. I felt really sad and hopeless and angry that I couldn’t lift. My kid went upstairs, came back downstairs with one of my husband’s bike bags, and told me “It’s okay mom; I have something that will make you feel better,” and whipped out a fucking power drill. That got me off the couch really fast. I hid the power tool and sent an angry text to my husband. Good times, really.
As far as the actual swimming, it wasn’t that bad, but I was surprised by how out of practice I was. I took years of swimming lessons as a kid, and I couldn’t believe how awkward I felt in the water. Also, my CPAP machine has me pretty well trained to nose-breathe, so mouth-breathing in the pool felt awkward. I felt very uncoordinated.
Today, two days later, I tried again. Since my husband was home I brought him along. We went during family swim time. We brought an inflatable tube for kiddo. Since this Y has family locker rooms, I had help getting kiddo ready and didn’t have to lug all the gear myself. I started in the shallow end of the pool with my family. Then I left kiddo to play with my husband while I swam laps.
I felt much less awkward than the other day because I figured out a good stroke rhythm for a pace I could sustain. I realized that I needed to slow my strokes WAY down. If I am not used to sprinting on land, there is no reason I need to do it in the water. At first it didn’t feel natural to slow my strokes down because on land it would feel way too slow. But the water adds extra resistance, so using a speed that feels natural on land will be more difficult in the water. So I decided to visualize manatees leisurely floating under the surface.
Visualizing manatees helped me slow my strokes down and feel more coordinated. I was able to maintain a breaststroke for several hundred yards at least, without a break. (I’m not sure exactly how many because I don’t have a watch and I haven’t taken the time to figure out a lap counting system yet. ). For freestyle, I was able to go at least 100 or 150 yards continuously, once I slowed the stroke down and figured out a good breathing pattern for me.
I didn’t swim laps continuously; I took a few breaks to check in with my family, and to use the bathroom (I know Michael Phelps confessed to peeing in the pool, but I still can’t bring myself to do it). I also sat in the hot tub for 10 minutes after swimming, which felt great (my husband and kid were still playing in the pool). I didn’t count laps or time anything, but I know my family was in the pool for roughly two hours, and I was probably in the pool for maybe an hour and a half or so. I’m not concerned with counting my laps or times right now. I know that right now, it is more important for me to create the habit of going to the pool than it is for me to stress about what I do once I’m there. In fact, in order to create the habit, it is really important that I remove as much stress as possible.
My lower back feels fine. My traps feel fatigued. Having my husband there to help with kiddo and gear helped make it a lot less stressful.
Takeaway: It may not be realistic for me to always bring kiddo swimming when I am on my own. It may be more manageable for me to leave him in childcare on some of those days, and then bring him to family swim on days my husband can join us.
Also, I feel kinda calm and tired and mellow, so maybe swimming later in the day is a good option when possible.
I thanked myself for giving swimming another try today even after the first day didn’t go so well. I reminded myself that my first night of CPAP use went horribly too, and I am so glad I stuck it out. So, hopefully I can make this work too.
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Power, Peace, and the Porch Gym 