Me and Mom in Venice 1993

The good news about this photo: I’m in a gondola in Venice with my mother. The bad news:  At that point I weighed close to 200 lbs.

I’ve had a “weight problem” ever since I can remember. Growing up in Los Angeles in the ‘fifties and ‘sixties, with a dad who worked in television, meant that no matter how thin I got (and I tried Weight Watchers, fasting, amphetamines, and everything in between), I was never thin enough. I was never going to be long-limbed and blond; I could go down to Malibu beach and watch the surfer girls ride the waves and listen to the Beach Boys all I wanted, but I could not turn myself into one of those mysterious creatures.  Of course I knew that on many levels, I didn’t actually WANT to be one of them, but I envied their ease with their bodies, their strength, their tiny bikinis, their tans, how easily they fit into the prevailing ideal for California Girl Beauty. The fact that even at fifteen, I was an intellectual whose most physical activity was pawing through the classical music bins at our local record store, never stopped me from wishing I could be like “them”.  Ongoing pressure from my parents about my weight didn’t help. They were sure no one would marry me (someone did) and that I’d be crippled in my attempts to find a good career (I wasn’t). They had my best interests at heart, but their “concern” about every morsel I put into my mouth and my size made my teenage and college years not-so-much fun, a struggle dominated by endless diets and pills and self-hatred.

By the time I hit my fifties, I, who am five feet tall on a good day, found myself weighing nearly 200 pounds. My grandmother and aunt died of complications from diabetes, my mother developed it too. But still I was blocked about what I could do that might actually work and not destroy my health, and became hopelessly stuck after a scary ride on fen-phen. But somehow, a few years ago, I was able to approach the massive project of taking it off with some strength and commitment. Bit by bit I have slogged away at it, with  several “vacations” from the journey caused by horrific stresses in my personal and professional life. Despite the “time-outs”, with perseverance and a lot of experimentation, I have managed to drop close to 70 pounds by now. I still have a way to go but the worst of it is over. Of course people want to know how I have done it, but there hasn’t been any specific formula or program; it’s been my own weird variations on Dr. Atkins, Paleo, the Primal Blueprint, and being patient with many plateaus and stops and starts along the way.  Thus far, I have managed to bash my way from size 20 pants down to 10 petites, and there is no denying how much fun I have had – pobrecita! – HAVING to replace every single item in my closet – down to the underwear – with stuff I can fit into now. And normal sizes! Shopping in the regular sizes – what a blast!

But now I am in the “you’d better add exercise” phase because my skin is hanging off me in places, and at age 65 I was starting to have some of the aches and pains that plague so many people “our” age. It’s great that we can get a 50% discount on bus tickets with our “senectud/Third Age” old age cards from the Mexican government, but it IS sort of a memento mori to have been able to apply for them. Climbing up stairs was starting to hurt, my back was starting to hurt, all that stuff. Arnold also said he wanted to do something so we began working out with a personal trainer three times a week. But our trainer loves to travel, so I figured that I’d better just bash myself over the head (counts as exercise!) and put together a routine I can do by myself if/when he nips off for a week or two. My sister treated me to some dumbbells while she was here last week and I bought some ankle weights and a barbell and now I’m trying to decipher the worldview of the person who actually USES this stuff and works out a few times a week.

It’s all trial and error. If you read books (of course I have an intellectual’s approach to all this, spending weeks READING about it before I would actually do anything, god help us, physical) some of them say “a 65 year old can do just about anything a 35 year old can do” but there are also books and websites that say “over 65 you have to be really careful” and everything in between. Who knows? I guess you have to be your own lab rat. So far I have indeed been cautious, as I’ve gotten injured on these physical fitness forays in the past and I do have any aging person’s share of leftover weird stuff from having been rear-ended a few times, bad feet and a wrecked ankle, bouts with sciatica, and so forth.

But our trainer got us going with very light weights and neither of us got injured or horribly stiff as we edged sideways, sort of crablike, into our little beginner’s fitness regimens. But now I’m ready for more.  My original “fitness goal” of being able to lift my heavy Kitchenaid stand mixer out of its lower cabinet up onto the counter with ease has been met. Where do I go from here? Ironically, pretty much the only thing I used the Kitchenaid for was baking or making mashed potatoes with its cool balloon whip attachment, and that’s been long thrown out the window on a low carb diet, so I may as well replace THAT object-to-lift with something else. Enter the barbell.

So I spent last evening working on an exercise chart, how many reps and sets of which exercise (here is where the “senectud” comes in, I lose count along the way).  I am going to try for four or five circuit workouts a week using a tattered old Gold’s Gym weightlifting book from the 70’s (have had it for years) as my guide. I figure they ought to know about this stuff and that book seems as good as any.

Wish me luck!