Thoughts on exercise.
Jan. 9th, 2012 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflykikiOr maybe I mean bitchiness? Either/or.
Thing that my family, friends, doctor, la la la media universe EVERYONE EVER have always said is: you will feel better if you exercise.
me: When?
Everyone: Right away! Go exercise! Come back and tell us how good you feel!
me: *after exercise which has left me hot, sweaty, on the verge of an asthma attack, and still 100 miles from a runner's/athlete's high* I HATE THIS SO MUCH. SHUT UP.
Everyone: *sadface* You're not doing it right.
me: I'm not doing it at all. It's boring and icky and it hurts and it doesn't work, you lie. Go away.
*wash, rinse, repeat through most of my life through high school etc.* The only exercise I got in college was swimming, and biking everywhere because I didn't have a car.
...anyway. As part of dealing with the diabetes, I've had to exercise regularly over the last year. Walking, mostly, but also going to the gym. I still don't love it, but I've gotten to the point where I don't hate it. Partly because I now take a hit of albuterol before I start (something I could not do before I was diagnosed in my mid-twenties); partly because I have books on my MP3 player that keeps me from being ragingly bored. It's gotten a bit easier, a bit more a feeling of accomplishment; but still. I wouldn't call it fun.
I haven't been doing as much this week-- bad weather plus too much to catch up on plus bad planning-- and I've noticed my anxiety has kind of... ramped up again. Since I started taking Zoloft in October, it seems to have not gone away, but just leveled out, a bit. The panic-moments aren't so frequent or so intense, or so blitheringly inexplicable. I don't just randomly stand somewhere going, "what the hell do I do first? IT IS TOO HARD. LIFE. WHY? LIFE. OH, HEY, LET'S STARE AT THE WALL UNTIL WE CAN MAKE A DECISION. Like an hour." Which, yay for Zoloft. And maybe, maybe the exercise has something to do with that too. Just bleeding off excess body-and-brain energy that will apparently cycle like an overheated hard-drive if I don't work it off. I didn't notice at the time, but now, with its absence, I'm wondering if the recent bits of high-tension are due to that lack.
Why don't people try to explain exercise *this* way? Why the frak do they try to sell exercise as a happy-happy-joy-joy-high? I've spent too much of my life inside my head to even notice what's happening to my body half the time; I am not a physical achiever. Exercise is work. It is physically uncomfortable. I don't value it enough for its own sake to get some magnificent feeling of accomplishment for it, and considering I'm not winning marathons and probably never will, the entire health/phys.ed/whatever industry is still so completely not targeted at me. I would still, if it wouldn't kill me, probably eat way more than is acceptable and not exercise at all. The entire health industry is, it seems to me, geared to people who are either way more vain, way more in touch with their bodies, way more sensitive to runner's high, or way more... I dunno, *something* than I am. Why are they marketing it like this?
Instead of just, "Hey. It's like getting an oil change for your car. It costs you something. It's not that exciting. But, it extends your warranty. And possibly makes your mental and physical engine run smoother. You won't notice it right away, because you are not calibrated to notice every knock and ping that those Ferrari-built Olympians are. But your boring Nissan Sentra of a body will not crash, burn, overheat, or lose its navigation so much if you do this. So don't feel bad that you don't go vrooooom! You're normal for you. Get a chai tea as a reward afterward."
See? Like that.
Yeah, that was definitely bitchiness, but I feel better.
Thing that my family, friends, doctor, la la la media universe EVERYONE EVER have always said is: you will feel better if you exercise.
me: When?
Everyone: Right away! Go exercise! Come back and tell us how good you feel!
me: *after exercise which has left me hot, sweaty, on the verge of an asthma attack, and still 100 miles from a runner's/athlete's high* I HATE THIS SO MUCH. SHUT UP.
Everyone: *sadface* You're not doing it right.
me: I'm not doing it at all. It's boring and icky and it hurts and it doesn't work, you lie. Go away.
*wash, rinse, repeat through most of my life through high school etc.* The only exercise I got in college was swimming, and biking everywhere because I didn't have a car.
...anyway. As part of dealing with the diabetes, I've had to exercise regularly over the last year. Walking, mostly, but also going to the gym. I still don't love it, but I've gotten to the point where I don't hate it. Partly because I now take a hit of albuterol before I start (something I could not do before I was diagnosed in my mid-twenties); partly because I have books on my MP3 player that keeps me from being ragingly bored. It's gotten a bit easier, a bit more a feeling of accomplishment; but still. I wouldn't call it fun.
I haven't been doing as much this week-- bad weather plus too much to catch up on plus bad planning-- and I've noticed my anxiety has kind of... ramped up again. Since I started taking Zoloft in October, it seems to have not gone away, but just leveled out, a bit. The panic-moments aren't so frequent or so intense, or so blitheringly inexplicable. I don't just randomly stand somewhere going, "what the hell do I do first? IT IS TOO HARD. LIFE. WHY? LIFE. OH, HEY, LET'S STARE AT THE WALL UNTIL WE CAN MAKE A DECISION. Like an hour." Which, yay for Zoloft. And maybe, maybe the exercise has something to do with that too. Just bleeding off excess body-and-brain energy that will apparently cycle like an overheated hard-drive if I don't work it off. I didn't notice at the time, but now, with its absence, I'm wondering if the recent bits of high-tension are due to that lack.
Why don't people try to explain exercise *this* way? Why the frak do they try to sell exercise as a happy-happy-joy-joy-high? I've spent too much of my life inside my head to even notice what's happening to my body half the time; I am not a physical achiever. Exercise is work. It is physically uncomfortable. I don't value it enough for its own sake to get some magnificent feeling of accomplishment for it, and considering I'm not winning marathons and probably never will, the entire health/phys.ed/whatever industry is still so completely not targeted at me. I would still, if it wouldn't kill me, probably eat way more than is acceptable and not exercise at all. The entire health industry is, it seems to me, geared to people who are either way more vain, way more in touch with their bodies, way more sensitive to runner's high, or way more... I dunno, *something* than I am. Why are they marketing it like this?
Instead of just, "Hey. It's like getting an oil change for your car. It costs you something. It's not that exciting. But, it extends your warranty. And possibly makes your mental and physical engine run smoother. You won't notice it right away, because you are not calibrated to notice every knock and ping that those Ferrari-built Olympians are. But your boring Nissan Sentra of a body will not crash, burn, overheat, or lose its navigation so much if you do this. So don't feel bad that you don't go vrooooom! You're normal for you. Get a chai tea as a reward afterward."
See? Like that.
Yeah, that was definitely bitchiness, but I feel better.
Re: Exercise and Stuff
Date: 2012-01-11 06:55 pm (UTC)You know, it does explain a lot, though. I mean, it's not like exercise was working before I was on the diabetes medication. Or like I could diet or manage my food intake or whatever we want to call it, effectively. I'd get hungry, I'd eat something with carbs, I'd end up craving food, I'd give in and binge, it'd be this whole stupid cycle. And I couldn't lose a damn pound because of the glucose intolerance I probably had long before it tipped over into full-blown diabetes. My body does *not* work like theirs. ...sigh.
And your description is how *mine* has always seemed to work too. It's a bit better now-- that's probably the meds-- but yes. Flail. Exhaustion. Shut down. I mean, I got that doing it excessively was bad, but I never really got why any exercise I did seemed to have *no* effect.
Now, I can track my blood sugar, and yes, there's an effect. It may not be weight-related, but it's definitely there. And too, it works (much more slowly!) on my weight and mood.
But yes. The 'you're doing it wrong' message makes me so angry. I'm sorry you had to go through that, and from your doctor too, of all people. Or the people who say 'hang in there' and... it just doesn't work the same way. I wish this was better known.
Re: Exercise and Stuff
Date: 2012-01-12 07:00 pm (UTC)Has your library given you an opportunity to see either of Gary Taubes's books on this? His Why We Get Fat lays out this metabolic mechanism so simply and clearly that I have had an intellectual crush on him ever since I read it. I think every health professional in the world should read his book. When I have enough money for such whims, I am going to buy copies for everyone I love...
So: yeah! The human body is programmed to use up all carbs first, before any protein or fat, every time (because we have no mechanism to store carbs). The human body is also built such that there's a lag between gearing up to use carbs (insulin!) and getting back to the ability to use protein and fat. (Some of us have longer lags than others.) So when we eat many carbs, our bodies burn them all right up, and then can't access our fat, 'cause they are still all revved up for carbs. Then, because our bodies cannot access any fuel -- the carbs are all gone, and the fat, which is right there, is blocked a wall of hormones -- they get hungry and tired. Eating refined carbs begets hunger begets eating begets... aaaargh!
When I tried to live on under 1300 calories a day to lose weight, I was exhausted all the time. I had to nap or guzzle caffiene every day. I wasn't safe to drive. My fencing performance plummeted. Conventional wisdom labels that all "lazy." Really, though, my body was shutting down for lack of fuel! It couldn't reach the ample fat I was carrying, because the carbs/insulin were running interference.
Gotta eat vegetables, of course. And fruit. Not all carbs are evil! But good golly, why is it not common, conventional wisdom that the ingestion of carbohydrates, as a matter of incontestable science, temporarily blocks the metabolism of fat and protein in humans?
♥ Mr. Taubes. He's apparently working on a new book about sugar...