Personal sustainability

A little over three months ago, I had my annual check up. I've been seeing my doctor, Polly Young,  for over twenty years, so she is someone I really trust. I told Polly that one of things bugging me this year was that I'd get aches and pains if I did anything slightly heavier than usual around the house or garden. This didn't used to happen, and it was bumming me out.

Polly immediately recommended this book: Strong Women Stay Young. My first thought was that I couldn't possibly fit weight lifting into my schedule. I already get up at 5:00 am in order to do aerobic exercise (brisk walking) 4 to 5 days a week, also at Polly's suggestion. There was no way I was getting up any earlier!

But Polly said the program described in this book took only 30 minutes, twice a week. I said I would consider it. By the time I got home, I had decided to buy the book.

I started at the beginning, a very good place to start. The opening argument is truly compelling: basically once we women hit the age of 35, we are on a steep slope downhill from the perspective of bone loss, up to 1 % per year. After menopause, it goes up another 1 to 2 % per year. That is a lot of bone loss! Photographs show scary blown sugar candy-like structures that are actually some poor woman's bones.

The good news: lifting weights actually reverses the loss. You can build it back up. This is the first age-related downward spiral I've run into that actually has a reverse lever. I was convinced. Iris bought into the logic as well.

We went shopping for hand-held dumbbells and ankle weights, following the guidance in the book. Starting three months ago, on Sundays and Wednesdays, for about 30 minutes, we go through the 8-exercise routine outlined in the book. After about 1 month, I began to feel results: my weekend aches and pains were gone! Now, after 3 months, I have some muscle definition too, which wasn't my goal, but it's kind of a kick in the pants.

I'm calling this post "personal sustainability," and I know that label can cover a lot of territory, but surely skeletal structure is part of the picture. Given that I used to come in from my heavier garden work all beat up and sore, and now I don't, for me there's actually a direct link between weight-lifting and run-of-the-mill sustainability. So, here's to a bunch of dumbbells! They're smarter than you'd think.