Why I’ve decided to take fitness seriously – again

We’ve floated the Kaw River with a strong head wind.  We’ve floated the Kaw in the rain.  But a week ago we floated the Kaw with blue skies, 80 degree temperatures, lunch served on the bank and all kinds of fun and interesting people.  And while I much prefer gentle water on a blue skied September day, each time I’ve enjoyed myself immensely.  There is something in my body chemistry that feels in sync when I’m outdoors doing something physical.  

Kaw River Flotilla

 

These kinds of activities require a certain level of fitness.  Until a couple of years ago, I felt that I was actually getting stronger every year.  I was a scrawny teen ager in an era that provided few athletic opportunities for girls.  Beginning in college, I decided to be more active.  I became involved in sports (swimming and a pitiful attempt at softball) and outdoor activities.  I did gain strength and found myself able to ride further and paddle longer as time went on.  Like many people, I gained a pound every year or two but I started so underweight that at first it seemed like a good thing. Those pounds helped to increase my endurance rather than slowing me down.  

Unfortunately you can’t gain a pound a year for decades without becoming a bit chubby.  As my weight crept up and my body aged, it has become more difficult to pop into a kayak and begin paddling.  In the last couple of years, squatting – to get into a kayak, take a book off a low shelf (I’m a librarian), get into a tent, reach some cobwebs in a corner  – has become increasingly difficult.  I’m not overweight based on the charts, but I’m just a few pounds short of it.  I decided it was time to do something about it.  I want to keep kayaking for quite awhile longer.   

So the end of July, I joined weight-watchers online and began exercising regularly – again.  

One way to encourage yourself to stick with an exercise plan is to have a fun goal to reach for.  Mine is cross country skiing in Yellowstone National Park.  Years ago some friends did this for their honeymoon.  I’ve wanted to go ever since.  This February we are planning to go and I want to be fit enough to enjoy the trip.  

The result so far: 

•  Down 3 ½ pounds since mid-July.  Not much, but I’m moving in the right direction. My goal is only 10 pounds loss so this is good progress.
•   Some form of aerobic exercise at least three days a week.
•  Weights at least twice a week.  Got to keep those bones strong.
• I’ve added some flexibility exercises as well.  I want to be able to look over my shoulder.

How are you handling fitness and exercise?  What do you do to remain strong and fit?  Do you have any great stories to tell about what has motivated you to begin and stick with a fitness regime?  What programs have worked for you? 

Some web links about exercise for those middle-aged and older: 

An article from Time Magazine:   Exercise to Protect Aging Bodies — and Brains. 

Who would have thought of linking weight loss to de-cluttering?  Here’s an article on just that from AARP.  While you are there, you can read some of their other material on exercise and fitness.

The National Institute on Aging has some great resources on exercise and activity.  NIH also has stories of older adults (60’s through 90’s) who remain fit.

The author of Strong Women Stay Young – a great book for women ages 40 and older beginning a weight program – has a website, Strong Women with more exercises. 

And to motivate you, the Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) Program has many enticing active adventures.  Search on activity levels 5,6, and 7 to find hiking, biking, and other active vacations.

Adventures in the Second Half

We have an applet on our computer that displays our photographs in a bar on the side of the monitor.  So as I write, snapshots of Bill, myself, family, and our friends rotate through. 

Today the first picture is of our friend, Tom standing by his bicycle in Montana with a big grin on his face, followed by Aunt Helen at her 90^th birthday surrounded by nephews and grandsons,  and then a picture of a grandson petting a llama, followed by Bill and his sons on one of their ball park weekends.  Now a picture of more friends on bicycles, in front of tents, in kayaks, at ball games…  It is a glorious life most of the time, isn’t it!

This weekend I went out to dinner with an old friend and a new one, the three of us past the age when brown hair comes naturally.  Over lasagna and wine we spoke about our adventures, one friend backpacking in Canada, the new friend enjoying white water rafting, and my more moderate bicycling and kayak trips.  Our new friend told us that people often asked her, “What if you get hurt?” when she tells then how she likes to spend her time.  And we all agreed that the pleasures of truly being in these places made up for any risks. 

To tell you the truth, the risks that I take are pretty mild.  I educate myself about places I’m going and prepare for the unlikely possibilities.  Before kayaking in the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior we took a safety class and changed our course when facing waves that made us uncomfortable.  In Alaska, we chose to go on a guided trip with people who understood tides and the local wildlife.  Still each of us has had a fall or an unexpected illness that has sent us back to shore or to the nearest emergency room.  Even so, I would rather take these slight risks to go kayaking in Alaskan waters teeming with whales, otters, and seals than live to 100 watching reality shows.

We know that there will come a time when we can’t do these things.  Tom had to take a break from bicycling to have back surgery.  Another friend, in his early 80’s has quit sleeping on the ground though he comes along for the hikes.  We ride shorter distances, hike slower, but see as much or more.  Part of the reason for aiming for an early retirement is to have the chance to enjoy these things before the day comes when we cannot.      

What about you?  Have you been able to remain active?  What activities do you enjoy?  What have you had to give up?  Which risks are worth it and which are not?

• Alaska Discovery
• Trek & Trail:  Apostle Islands
• Adventure Cycling
• Elderhostel:  active outdoor programs

Pawpaws, the recession, and our retirement

It’s almost pawpaw season.  Two Septembers ago, on a cloudy Saturday, my husband asked if I’d like to go pick pawpaws.  He had noted the location of some fruit bearing trees in a park a few miles from our home.  So we took some cloth bags and trooped into the woods.  The ground was wet and my walking stick sunk clear to bedrock as we balanced on a slope just above a stream.  To really get this picture, you have to remember that we are not youngsters.  We are well into middle age and have quite a few grey hairs between us.  We laughed and had a lovely time.  Bill shook the trees and I scurried around chasing the oblong  fruits that fell and rolled down the hill. 

pawpaw seedlings

On the way home we turned philosophical and told ourselves that if our retirement plans did not work out as expected we could still have a great time doing things like picking pawpaws.  I think that this autumn day in 2007 was the first time that we articulated a growing unease about the economy.   The newspapers were still reporting rising housing prices and the stock market had been soaring.  I don’t know what news story or intuition told us that things couldn’t continue in this way.

Most people don’t really know what a pawpaw is.  Perhaps they remember the song, “Picking up pawpaws, put them in the basket” from their childhood. This is not a fruit that you will find in most supermarkets.  The pawpaw is the only temperate climate member of a group of tropical plants.   The flower is deep burgundy and smells a bit like rotting meat.  In Missouri pawpaws often grow as an understory shrub or small tree.  The yellow fleshed fruit has a sweet tropical flavor.  I used my pawpaws to make sweet bread and cookies.  And I saved the seeds to grow trees for our backyard.   

Of course the stock market dropped later that October in 2007, and again in 2008 on into 2009.  The housing bubble burst and a lot of people found that they weren’t as rich as they thought they were.  Bill and I have always been the slow and steady kind of money managers so while we aren’t quite as well off as we thought we were, we’re fine.  We didn’t refinanced our house to pocket its equity or put all of our retirement money in the stock market. Our retirements will probably proceed as planned, though perhaps postponed a bit. 

But that lingering uneasiness remains.  Are we stepping back from the brink or is a financial depression still a possibility?  How might that affect any of us?  And so we react, sometimes in anger, sometimes believing every rumor that we hear.  The world isn’t how we thought it was and that makes it easy to doubt our old assumptions.  Perhaps we should all take a deep breath, take a walk in the park, pick pawpaws and bake some cookies.

Mead’s Milkweed

The Mead’s Milkweed is listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to help collect some seed of this rare plant from a field that was soon to be hayed. The seed will be taken to a local botanical garden to propagate new plants that can be returned to protected prairies. 

August in the Midwest can be sweltering and I was concerned that this outing was planned for one in the afternoon, when the sun could be expected to be at its cruelest. Fortunately, the day was overcast and not excessively hot. Our small crew found our way – after a few wrong turns – from a Kansas State Park to the farmer’s hayfield.

The group’s organizer had been out earlier in the summer to mark the Mead’s Milkweed plants with poles and red flags. He had also covered the seed pods with netting to help protect them from the deer and to contain any of the silky seeds that might mature and float off early. The landowner had agreed to postpone his haying until the seed had formed. But he was planning to hay this field in the next week. The proper permits to harvest seeds of an endangered species had been obtained.

We were armed against chiggers with insect repellent and socks tucked into our pant legs. Some people think that human’s love of an open expanse of grass is genetically programmed from our early days on the savannas. Though I love to visit the mountains or oceans, the landscape of a sea of grass and wildflowers in a gentle breeze is one of my favorite sights. And I was out here on this day collecting not just the Mead’s Milkweed seed but other seeds for prairie restorations in Missouri and Kansas. Some of my companions were amateur experts in the plants of the prairies. And they were happy to share their knowledge. What an incredible afternoon.

You might ask how these milkweeds happened to be in this place and not others. Scattered throughout the Midwest are fields that have never been plowed. For whatever reason, these fields have been used for grazing or hay production but not row crops. The field that we were wandering in was a true remnant of the tall grass prairie that once spread across a large portion of Missouri and Kansas. All around us were native grasses – bluestems, Canadian rye, prairie dropseed. This time of the year a variety of sunflowers were the predominant forbes in bloom, most as tall or taller than we were. Only 1 percent of this ecosystem remains.

This is what retirement is meant for. I’m so grateful to have the time to be able to participate in this kind of activity.