Over 40, Exercise and the Exercise Trap

Often times we as women feel that as life slips speedily by, we need to get rid of the extra bags that gravity has sneakily pulled onto our bodies. Hitting 40 hard and fast, we begin to take stock of ourselves and maybe how we have let ourselves go. We’ve got bags of excess weight sitting around the waist line, under our eyes. These bags quite happily sit on our butt cheeks so that we no longer have a beautiful curve but more of an elongated hump.

Can you imagine, the house going up in flames during the middle of the night and having to leap outside with nothing on but your headscarf and woolly socks? Nevermind facing the world during the day looking like Miss Bo Beep who had lost her sheep inside her stomach or ever expanding cheeks, but imagine having to face the world in the all-to-gether…totally nude? RESULT.

So therefore, we race to the gym, impatient to tackle our ever expanding frame. We want to do a lastminute.com and reverse years of bad habits in two weeks and at all costs. The "no pain, no gain" theory silently creeps into our minds, pushing us to greater lengths to shift in a short space of time something that has taken years to put on.

Our plight, would be to defy gravity as it rapidly continues to take control of our faculties and body. We cut back on food, starving ourselves until we begin to hallucinate – Mother Theresa as a Lady Godiva or Ghandi in a bikini. Or we starve our minds so bad that it starts to scream in pain because of the dizziness whilst friends and family get fed up with us giving them a ‘concussed look’ followed by a constant series of "huh? Sorry? Pardon?" By which time our stomachs would be shouting "stop depleting your brain of the food it needs, woman, feed your brain, feed your brain"
Then after two or three weeks of total starvation and hitting the gym 7 days a week for 3 hours at a time, we'd be thinking to ourselves as we're fed food by our Day Nurse, in some dark and dingy hospital in the outback, with intravenous drips wired to everything but our tonsils that maybe next time, we'd do things a little differently. Maybe next time, we'll try not to outrun the hectic pace of gravity by going on a total bender, shocking our system into melt-down. Next time, we're going to pledge to take things slow and easy. Next time, we're going to get ourselves a pair of decent trainers which can take the impact of our excess baggage rather than rehearse death in a pair of plimsoles that we’d found at home from two decades ago. Next time we are going to listen to the gym instructor and not try to overload our bodies with exercise without giving our muscles times to relax and heal. Next time..........oh so many next times.

But ladies, let’s try to keep things real. Getting fit and remaining fit is a life long journey believe me. My legs are beginning to complain a wee bit because of the pounding they have taken over the years – but they still keep me standing, for now and its nice when I turn to the side and look at myself in the mirror that my body actually follows me without taking an extra two days to do so.

Dedication and perseverance are two words that come to mind on the journey of keeping the body in the trim. Yet it is all certainly achievable. Just take it nice and easy and you will reach whatever target you are aiming for. So on that note, I’m heading off to the gym myself and remember you can eat in between times you know and always remember to drink loads of water and breath.
Auntie E