Recalibrating: Fitness and Pleasure--Planning Two Challenges

Tomorrow, we're on the road again.

Today, though, I wanted to give a brief follow-up to yesterday's talk of recalibration, getting back on track, and using the blog for accountability, sharing and fun. I have two challenges in mind that I'd like to share here over the next few months (in addition, of course, to talk about my writing program!)

Fitness

I'm exploring the idea of working with another blogger and doing some sort of 'fitness challenge' that I'll post about. Since I leave for Tacoma for my MFA program residency in less than a week, however, it would probably be best to hold off until the second half of August when I get back. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, I know that for this body, "exercising more and eating less" is too simplistic, especially with my extremist tendencies. I've done that before and, depending on the time of my life, it's had one of the following outcomes:

-emaciation, despair, near-death

-slow results physically and emotional rockiness, followed by adrenal crash and chronic fatigue.

In order to get in shape, I will need to be consistent and accountable, both with the regularity of exercise and with regularity of rest and appropriate food. I know that giving my body the signal that it's under duress and starving is counterproductive. Other people's bodies might cope better: mine used to. It takes a toll that can't be reversed: the silver lining to that is that it becomes imperative to care for yourself and listen to your body when working on fitness.

This week, I've been doing more and more rebounding. I love my rebounder! (See this old post for pictures and our idiosyncratic way of storing it.) It's great to have a form of exercise that I really enjoy, and I'm always thinking up new moves to do on it. One possible "fitness challenge" would be to pursue a rebounder-based workout that's been rigorously designed, as opposed to my own improvisations.

Today, I've spent a total of 1 hour on the rebounder! (Three separate sessions.) In addition to being fun, it's also excellent for moving lymph, which may help to get rid of my current inflammatory situation. Well, it definitely "moves stuff:" let's just say I had to run for the outhouse each time I finished my session today! (Sorry tmi...) Yesterday and the day before, I spent less time rebounding, but also rode my bike.

I've also been doing the Five Tibetans, which I mentioned a while ago: I'm now up to fifteen reps of each pose, and throw in pushups and crunches too. I do that every morning first thing, no matter what. I've also been doing squat-jumps, pushups, crunches, planks at random times throughout the day. I intend that I'll continue to do these bodyweight exercises, and that I'll figure out some substitute for rebounding and biking while I'm away from here.

Pleasure in Food
Delighting in beauty and allowing our senses to give to us is surely one of the highest ways of being.

 And yet, it's too easy for me to sweep all pleasure out of my own esthetic zone with a big, bristly broom! I recently read about the connection between highly palatable and 'rewarding' foods and obesity. It makes total sense that 'industrially processed food in a competitive marketplace' is specifically designed to keep people eating, to the point that their satiation signals are overridden. The flaw in my follow-through was to extrapolate that I (who never eat processed food anyway and am not obese, even if I have more body-fat than I'm used to or comfortable with) should not eat any rewarding foods at all (except for plain fruit)--roasted veggies gave way to plain boiled, favorite spices and flavorings dropped out. Extremist much? It's been pointed out to me that if anything, my problem lies in allowing myself to enjoy palatable/rewarding foods. It's too easy for me to get my pleasure fix vicariously: create a goodie that's full of gluten and dairy, and enjoy everyone else's enjoyment while sipping on cleansing tea!

This is something about which I feel so conflicted: I'm not even sure that I want to change it. However, I was inspired by an older post by the wise and brilliant Gena to think that I should try something different. Since I think it might be fun, and I might learn something from it and share something in the process, I'm going to take on the challenge of preparing a 'rewarding/palatable' dish that's also Ela-friendly once a week, and blog about it here. This will be a dish that isn't of my creation, and I'm only allowed to do minimal recipe tweaking: no drastic 'healthifying' moves. I will draw inspiration from other blogs, from recipe books, and I might start with something from a handout of recipes for an 'elimination diet' that a doctor gave me years ago: it's very 'virtuous' and probably the least intimidating place I could start, but it's also designed to help people who are accustomed to 'regular' foods adjust to living with allergies, so it's supposed to be 'tasty food.' Let's just say, I've never made anything from it yet because there were too many ingredients I used to think were no-no's.

I will do my first post of this series before I leave for my residency next week. While I'm away and probably don't have the chance to prepare food, I'll try to buy some 'goodie' that I wouldn't normally dare to, and blog about that in lieu of a creation.

Sound like a plan?
I would love for this to be an interactive process: if you have a recipe that you'd like me to prepare and feature, please send it to me!
Likewise, if there's a fitness move you'd like me to work on, please send it in!
One more question: I've had to sew up my rebounder twice--it was a very cheap one--and I'm thinking I probably ought to spring for something higher-quality. Any ideas on the best kind of rebounder would be most warmly welcomed.
Much love.