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An
Athlete's Stomach
Just about a month ago my family doctor, a very
serious man who thinks two cups of coffee a day are a heinous excess,
told me I was 6 sugar points away from diabetes. He has put me on a very
strict diet. And a regimen of 2 hours of exercise every day.
The diet is not so hard. I have never had an eating disorder, tried most
diets, to very little end. I have always had low blood pressure, a slow
pulse, a slow temper and a slow metabolism. I am not an athlete. But due
to the circumstances of my childhood, and probably my nature as well,
I have always been fairly active. As a kid I worked very hard at my chores,
which were abundant, and my paper routes - I had four. I was on the swimming
team for awhile because my father thought it would be good for my character
to do something that was difficult for me. (He pulled me out when I was
winning - apparently doing something I was making progress in was not
good for my character.)
As a young adult I never left the dance floor with dry hair, I hiked,
took karate, walked almost everywhere, and always had at least one job
that required strenuous physical activity. So I stayed in pretty good
shape - but I was never an athlete, per se. Somewhere around 30, after
I had been making most of my living as a writer and no longer worked at
least one back breaking job, I started to gain weight. So, somewhere around
thirty, I climbed up onto a trampoline while I was already exhausted,
convinced I needed some physical exercise, and shattered my left leg to
bits.
I spent the better part of a year bed ridden or in a wheel chair. Then
I had to learn to walk again. They didn't think I would get that far.
Dancing, hiking, out of the question. I tried to press the limits of my
physical limitations, and my weak leg, which was also numb from mid calf
down, would crumple under me without warning. I pressed harder. On one
such occasion I fractured a disc in my back. That was enough for me -
no more pressing the limits - I was simply going to be gentle with my
body from then on. Over the years since that major injury I gradually
acquired more and more weight that I found almost impossible to get rid
of.
Dieting did absolutely no good, and what exercise I did do was not enough
to make enough of an impact. We are not sure whether diabetes caused the
weight gain or the weight gain is causing the diabetes. Diabetes runs
in my family. But the doctor is almost certain that if I can lose weight,
my sugar numbers will go down. (But then, he said to cut all refined starch
out of my diet - which was already limited to pasta and the occasional
croissant -- and my sugar numbers went up.)
So here I am. I must do something that makes a significant impact, and
I must do it now. Do you know what has kept me out of gyms my whole life?
It's not because I hate moving my body, or even exercise. I have owned
exercise machines that I have used faithfully at home. Now, you see, I
have to work with an injury recovery trainer - and there is a cross section
of equipment required. In other words -- a gym. No, it is not that I am
slothful, or lack commitment or motivation. It is that I am mortified.
My father was right about me not wanting to do anything that didn't come
easily - or at least not wanting to do it in front of anyone. The talents
I have acquired in my life are talents I have acquired in private, at
least most of the time. The gym is a place where people can watch you,
every day, struggle through pathetic attempts to do things that they have
probably been doing most of their lives. I get up at the ungodly hour
of 5-5:30 to make it to the gym by 6. I go before coffee, breakfast or
medicine. I am not awake. I drop my keys on the way to the car. I don't
hit anyone on the way to the gym.
This is a good thing.
I get out of the car and I drop my purse. I pick up my purse and I drop
my water bottle. I pick up my water bottle and I spill my cd's all over
the parking lot ground. I hastily gather up my precious music (without
which I would be lost) and I forget my water bottle in the car. I get
into the gym, without a gym bag. (By now I have learned to shower at home
- less things to drop in front of strangers.) I do my crunches - my hair,
neatly pinned before I left, is now a complete mess. I look in the mirror
and there are still traces of mascara under my eyes. I wipe my eyes. I
try to straighten my hair. It falls back down. It occurs to me - I'm going
to have to buy &#@!ing sports gear! I get onto the treadmill with Prince
blaring as loud as the cd player will go and get up to a really good aerobic
rate, faster than I have ever been able to go before. I am holding onto
the side rails, even though you are not supposed to, to provide balance
to compensate for my bad leg. My headphones slip because my hair has gotten
tangled in my ears. I reach up to adjust my headphones - and am shot off
the back of the treadmill into a swirling fan, a couple of stationary
bikes, and a series of well meaning on lookers who, of course, only add
to my mortification.
How can I possibly keep this up indefinitely? Presumably at some point
one gets good at it. I find I actually like weight training. I have fantasies
of being able to dance again. But really, how am I going to make it from
here to there? I know everyone starts somewhere - but I don't see anyone
else in the gym making such complete fools of themselves. (Of course,
I am not the sort of person who looks around a room and points HA! There!
What a fool!) I see lots of people doing beautiful, heroic, graceful things
that I want to be able to do. But no one who looks like they are struggling
just to be there.
Fact: There are some 3,000 members at the gym I belong to.
Fact: About 150 to 200 of them show up an average of once a day. I am
in the latter group.
So what do the other 2800 members look like? Are they struggling, like
me, to make it out of the house - only they haven't gotten as far as the
car yet? Obesity will soon replace heart disease as America's number one
killer. Contrary to popular belief, I don't think that most of this comes
from over eating - much as our society likes to emphasize that. I think
that not only are our daily lives bereft of the smallest bits of exercise,
but physical fitness programs are being cut out of schools as an unnecessary
luxury rather than a foundation for a healthy life. Also, I don't think
Americans need sugar added to everything we eat.
I have mostly been a cook-it-fresh sort of gal, but in recent years I
had begun eating things like healthy power bars in place of meals because
I was too busy to cook. Or eat starches because they are quick to make
and inexpensive. Being so sugar sensitive now, I am examining the ingredients
of everything I put in my mouth - and, even in the diabetic aisle - there
is sugar in almost everything. The South Beach diet my doctor wants me
to follow recommends Metamucyl fiber with meals to slow digestion --there's
sugar in it and all its like brands.
Sugar free Metamucyl has a high carbohydrate alcohol based sugar substitute
that may as well be sugar. Go into the diabetic aisle and you will find
row upon row of things made with things like Maltinol, which is definitely
very sweet - but isn't going to cut down your carbohydrate level down
any. I don't think eating only protein is the answer. I tried the Atkins
diet for 9 months, and for those it works for, more power to them, but
it didn't help me at all. If you look at their recent advertising, you'll
notice a shift in dairy fats - like cheese - to the top end of the pyramid.
Is the answer, after all, not so much what we eat, but what we do? Maybe.
As recently as a generation ago, our families were far less sedentary
than they are now. Between video games, the internet, cable - and changes
in the way we do our jobs at work - almost all tasks take place seated
in front of a screen. So how much exercise is enough exercise?
When my doctor told me 2 hours a day I was floored. Everything else I
had been told was 20 minutes a day, or 40 minutes three times a week -
which made no impact on me either. We will see where 2 hours a day takes
us. I can't do it yet, but I'm working very hard to get there. And being
humiliated at the treadmill kept me out of the gym for a few days - but
only a few days. It's diabetes I'm facing, so essentially, I will make
this work -- -- or I will die trying.
by
Sarah Byam
25th April 2004
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