The irony...

CrisEBTrue

Oh, the irony and the agony of being out of shape and having to exercise to "get in shape" or at least stay moving.
I swear, my stationary bike laughs gleefully when it sees me coming. "How can I stall her out today?"

I'm approaching 64 years of age and... let's be frank. I am probably the only person in the history of mankind to have
actually flunked PE in elementary school..

I hated it. I was always picked last for every team. I wore glasses and I was completely freaked out by
the idea that I might get hit in the face with a ball and blinded for life by my broken glasses. (Thanks, mom) I spent recess daydreaming about the books I could be reading instead of standing around sweating in the hot sun. A few times I managed to spend recess time hiding out in the bathroom.

In high school, the PE coach would make fun of me.
In college, I took tennis. ("oh! this could be fun, I thought") Went out to practice with a guy (whom I later married but that mistake is probably best left unremarked). I kept missing the ball. By now I had contact lenses but I was still freaked out by the
concept that a speeding ball was coming toward my head. The young man kept chiding me for missing. I was laughing.
"I'm just having FUN!" I said..... His response? "It's NOT supposed to be FUN!!" (Yes, the warning signs WERE ignored..)

So the die was cast.

So, it is not surprising that since that day, about 15 years ago when i realized that my thighs were ballooning and I wasn't get any younger, that I have continually struggled with exercise.

There was a brief period between 2005-2009, when I did manage to make a routine of it. There was a free gym at work, and a pool in our townhouse complex. Between the 2, I managed to lose 20+ pounds.

I know it's not going to get any easier, and Yes, I know. Walking is the Best form of Exercise.
But. Winter has been rough here. I'm looking forward to spring. There's not really a good place to walk but..

Well.
I need to go drink some water now. At least that's ONE thing I can do right! :laugh:

retirehappy

I'm approaching 64 years of age and... let's be frank. I am probably the only person in the history of mankind to have
actually flunked PE in elementary school..

I hated it. I was always picked last for every team. I wore glasses and I was completely freaked out by
the idea that I might get hit in the face with a ball and blinded for life by my broken glasses. (Thanks, mom) I spent recess daydreaming about the books I could be reading instead of standing around sweating in the hot sun. A few times I managed to spend recess time hiding out in the bathroom.

In high school, the PE coach would make fun of me.
In college, I took tennis. ("oh! this could be fun, I thought") Went out to practice with a guy (whom I later married but that mistake is probably best left unremarked). I kept missing the ball. By now I had contact lenses but I was still freaked out by the
concept that a speeding ball was coming toward my head. The young man kept chiding me for missing. I was laughing.
"I'm just having FUN!" I said..... His response? "It's NOT supposed to be FUN!!" (Yes, the warning signs WERE ignored..)

So the die was cast.

Substitute golf for tennis in college and this could have been written by me. I took golf because the balls are going away from you.

Oh and I took the books out into outfield with me. There was a shade tree near by, I sat on the side away from the home plate and just read through the whole recess. No one wanted me to come to bat, because I was so awful. The one new teacher that made me come in from the field later regretted it, my glasses got hit and my face was a bloody mess.:sad: No teacher ever again called me in again after that escapade.

High School was torture, they had a gym, and basketball ruled there. That was worse than grade school's softball sessions. I finally volunteered to clean the library shelves and reshelf all the books instead of gym,and got the principal to agree to that after collapsing in his office in tears when he tried to talk me into going to play basketball. At that time I was a tiny thing, short and thin, with my glasses dominating my face. If I had looked more like the other kids I don't think I would have gotten away with it.

I thought I was the only geeky kid from back in the day. :bigsmile:

CrisEBTrue

I think you're my new BFF.

:bigsmile:

The only ball that really ever got me was--a football. Sure, it was gradeschool but it hit me in the middle of the back..pointy end forward, just like a good pass should be thrown.
Knocked all the wind out of me and left me gasping and wheezing for breath. The teacher blew it off... but I had a BIG bruise as a result.

BobbieInCA

I can't believe it...there are THREE of us! I got the glasses at age ten, but always preferred reading to any form of active game or exercise. I did even better in Jr. High. Managed to get a doctor's note and never did take P.E. at all, even in High School. College required a sport, but after the golf and tennis instructor's gave me up as a lost cause, I discovered archery, and managed to fulfill the requirement (no ball or eye/hand coordination required.)
At age 35, two things happened: I was diagnosed as having a low thyroid and started on replacement therapy, and I discovered that I couldn't keep up with my sons climbing a hill on vacation. I joined a gym and started jogging, too.
No glasses anymore, although I still pass on anything to do with hitting or catching a ball... Clyde is the tennis player in the family... but I love to dance, and look forward to my time at the gym. Old pup/new tricks?

CrisEBTrue

I can't believe it...there are THREE of us!

WooHOO. Welcome to the club

Old pup/new tricks?

It sounds that way!!!

I started taking thyroid medication at about 35 too...
I'll never forget that. I had taken my younger son to the doctor.. we were remodeling our house and he fell off the roof, so I wanted to get him checked out. When the doctor came in and said "How are you?" I burst into huge, gulping sobs.
He just looked at me and said I needed thyroid medication.

haha

gspieler

Wow...sounds like a really tough time.

High school was horrible. People say it was the best years of their lives.

Not that I've ever heard of. Most everyone I know says it was horribly insecure.

Hope things get better for everyone.

ker95texas

Thank you for your post! I was that chubby, uncoordinated girl whose great accomplishment was that she could actually jump rope and skip without falling over her own feet. Usually :laugh:

High school, I may not have been quite as chubby but oh, man I was a klutz. I had to do a 'make up test' in PE -gymnastics (now there's a talent that was nowhere to be found in my genes)-as a senior in high school IN FRONT OF THE BOYS (oh the humiliation LOL) if the school was going to let me graduate with my class.

Now a gazillion years later, I'm more than chubby but working on it, still a major klutz and sticking with walking now as my exercise since that's something I can usually do without tripping/losing my balance/collapsing or being out-of-sync with everyone.

Happy Monday (going to try and laugh at those not-so-fond memories!)

-Marilyn (ker95)

CrisEBTrue

Oh dear... welcome to the Klutz Club...LOL

Remember President Kennedy's Physical Fitness Challenge?? :sad:
For awhile there, I actually hated the man. At least during PE class.
Some of the things they thought up for that test must have been out of the Marines' training program.

" The Bent Arm Hang" !! PLEASE!!! I still maintain that it is physiologically impossible. Obviously in my case it caused lasting
psychological trauma. And I wasn't really "fat" then. The ONLY girl in the ENTIRE school who could do it was my girlfriend, who was wiry and very thin; probably weight 98 pounds soaking wet. And when she managed to do it (for 4 seconds) it left her shaking like a leaf.

Today's vent: Did somebody set my SCALE forward instead of my clock?
For some reason Springing Forward caused me to gain 1 lb.

Talk about depressing. That's 1/3 of the weight I'd lost so far.

:noway: :embarassed: :sick: :sad:

ireallyneedit

WOW I SURE DO RELATE TO THE INABILITY TO PLAY ANY SPORTS AND HATING GYM. I AM VERY UNCOORDINATED AND HAVE A BALANCE ISSUE AND HAVE WORN GLASSES FOREVER.

retirehappy

Well now I know I was not the only one who hated recess, PE, gym and any other thing they wanted to call it. Here's to the girls who didn't DO gym. :glasses:

Never had to do the president's fitness stuff. I am from a tiny school. My whole town population was smaller than my husband's class size in Cincinnati.

bvifun

Thank you for the laugh I just got from remembering those days. May I join the Klutz Club please? I can so relate to your stories (except for the glasses). The advantage of being older is that I no longer hope that some day I will be coordinated. At the Sports Club people keep telling me I am not too old to learn to play tennis and I tell them I could never get the ball with my hand and they want me to try with a foot and a half extension to my arm. Strange, they give me a weird look and head back to the court. They just don't get it except for DH who has watched me walk into the side of doors for years.

CrisEBTrue

Welcome to the Klutz Club! I'll hold the door open for you---please don't walk into the doorjamb...

:noway: :laugh:


I remember, one day I was in my mid-50's and I was in line at the grocery store. I looked over at the magazine rack and
read a couple of the blurbs on various covers.. It was with GREAT relief that I realized I no longer cared about trying to

"Lose that winter flab NOW so you can fit into this summer's bikini!"

(As if I ever had been able to wear a bikini) ha

:drinker:

2essie

Ah, I know how you all feel. I was always last at every race we ever had. My mother must have been a saint. At sports day every year she used to turn up to see me come last. The egg and spoon race, the sack race, the obstacle race, I was last in them all. No one wanted me as the wheelbarrow in the wheelbarrow race.:sad:

The heads of high school decided we should go on a cross country run. This was to take up the first two periods in the afternoon. I walked the whole way round, got lost and missed the last two periods which I think were maths and something else. They never sent us again. Hurrah.:drinker:

I did however, become captain of the rounders team (I know, little me). Rounders is a UK game similar to baseball for those who don't know. Not because I could run, but because I could hit the ball far enough to walk round the bases, thus using the least amount of energy.:laugh:

Ah! The good old days lol

cloeyeddie

I love this. I couldn't believe There were so many of us with the "close my eyes -a ball is coming towards my face", I was laughing at some of the experiences described and thought I.would share!
both my kids and my now x-husband could snow ski since they were grade school age, so after watching them having fun one too many times while I waited in the lounge, I decided that it couldn't be that hard! So rental skis, two hours of falling on the bunny slope later, I was once again holding onto the tow rope to go to the top of the bunny hill and fell, my skis got caught in the rope and I was dragged 2/3 of the way to the top before my screaming son was able to get the attendant's attention (who was busy talking to one of the cute snow bunnies). That ended my career of downhill skiing" Books in the lounge was so much better!

CrisEBTrue

OH!!!

:laugh:

Your skiing experience (or is that a Near Death Experience?) reminded me of another Event with my Ex-Husband To Be when we were dating in college. ((SOO many things that should have given me a clue but.. I digress....).

Ok. He wanted to go skiing. As I've already pointed out, I am and have always been about as athletic as an overboiled noodle.
So, feeling adventurous and eager to please, anxious to at least try. I went along.
I did not have any proper ski clothes, just jeans, a sweater and a regular jacket.

We were broke students. We bypassed the rental place. I think he had borrowed skis and boots from someone for himself, and for me, he had brought boots and skis that probably dated from the 50's. The boots were HUGE. I remember they strapped on to the VERY LONG skis with leather straps and springs. (Maybe they really dated from WWII? they were definitely Antique even by 70's standards)

So. Off we go. We were at Heavenly Valley at Lake Tahoe, California.
We get on the lift.
It was beautiful. It was going up.. UP UP... yes, UP to the very highest runs on the mountain.
I remember looking down at Lake Tahoe and... it was about the size of a dime. I started getting scared.

Getting off the lift was a disaster, I just flopped.
We sidled over to an open area. There are no bunny slopes at this level.
Everywhere I looked, it looked like the mountain fell straight away from me... sheer icy slopes going straight down to
H-E-doubletoothpicks.
I stuck my LONG poles in the snow and would not move. They had to PEEL my hands off the poles and shove me out of the way.

Somehow we ended up on a run... it was, I found out later, an intermediate run..maybe it was for cross-country skiing because there were narrow tracks in the snow. I fell. Repeatedly.I fell on my skis to the left, I fell to the right. By the end of the day
I was a MASS of bruises.Exhausted. Crying. BEGGING for mercy.

I don't remember much after that. Of course I was wet to the bone (wearing those jeans) and shaking like a leaf.

The next school day, when I got dressed, my roommate took one look at my legs and demanded that I wear slacks rather than a dress. I was a mass of bruises from my ankles to above my knees from falling sideways on the skis.

Years later, when our (yes our) kids were growing up, we all bought ski equipment. I had my own boots, skis (short!)... powder pants.. the whole nine yards (boy, wish I were still that size.)
I did master a couple of bunny hills but I NEVER became an enthusiastic skier. That old vision of Lake Tahoe becoming smaller and smaller, the memories of my poor beat up legs... I never got over it..

:sad:

rachael52

I agree with everything everyone said. Damn, I hate exercise. BUT, I just got back from Costa Rica where we had to walk up and down lots of hills every day and I actually feel really good. The thing is: we were GOING somewhere. We weren't just taking a 45 min. walk before work on the same road in front of my house.

People in Paris or NYC are often in great shape because of all that walking. They don't (usually) need to get on stairmasters.

I'll be 62 in a few weeks. I don't want to be in pain as an old person any more than I can help, and maybe I can force myself to do some exercise every day, just a bit, because right now I'm feeling and seeing the effects of two weeks of walking and it does feel good.

I still say, cutting back on carbs and sweets are the key for me.
Good luck everyone.

CrisEBTrue

Hang in there.. we can do it. I was down 1/2 lb a this morning after MFP chided me yesterday about eating "too few calories."
I felt FINE.

There are no sidewalks where we live now, so it's hard to "go for a walk'. I'd have to drive 3 miles, back inside the city limits
where there are miles of lovely, gentle rolling hills and sidewalks lining the road.