Exershopping
Wed., March 12, 09:03 AM
Today, a day when I don’t have to go to work, I will do my version of exercise. Believe me, I have a lot of respect for those of you who have the wherewithal and the discipline to visit the gyms regularly and work out. I’m just not one of you. I can give you dozens of reasons – and excuses – why I’m not, including time, money and convenience; but my biggest problem is that working out is boring. I’ve always felt that way, and earphones don’t help. Forty years ago, I thought doing the twist might be a good method of exercise. (I wouldn’t be caught dead doing it in public.) BORING
Throughout most of my life, however, I didn’t worry about exercising. I walked. I walked to school, from kindergarten through high school. At a college where you couldn’t have a car unless you were disabled, my classes were often on opposite ends of the campus, since I was taking very diverse courses. Often I had to run to get to class on time. I walked to and from the railroad stations when I commuted, and I never even applied for a driver’s license until I was thirty-seven years old.
There is also housework, though I do try not to get involved in that. (A whole other subject altogether.) Husband and I don’t dance any more – not that I wouldn’t be interested. He was a better ballroom dancer than I, but he was losing interest even before he broke his hip. Swimming might be good, except that outdoor swimming is not an option in New England for more than, say, three months of the year. The public gyms, unfortunately, all seem to be closing up their pools in order to make room for more exercise machines. Pfui.
Meanwhile, exercise has become vital – not for weight control but for sugar control. Again and again I meet diabetics who find that they can work out every day and never lose an ounce – but their sugar is down. Obviously, I must walk. Not easy in my neighborhood – dead end street means there’s only one direction to go – toward the loud dogs. I’ve done that, you understand, but right now it’s too darned cold. So I will go shopping.
If you’ve finished laughing, I will continue.
We (U.D. and I) began with supermarkets. If you walk every aisle of the market, even a small one, you’ll cover a lot of ground. (Borrow a pedometer and check it out.) Park your car at the far end of the lot, and you’ll add at least another block, coming and going. Don’t bother reading the ads; you’re going to check out every special that’s on the shelf.
If a supermarket is good, a warehouse store is better. It’s larger, and there’s more to see. In addition, it’s not arranged as conveniently as a supermarket, so you have to walk through every aisle, just in case there’s something you didn’t know you wanted to see. In other words, I can walk a lot if there’s something to occupy my attention.
Strangely enough, malls don’t seem to work for me, although I’m aware that “mall-walking” is becoming a popular senior sport. I think malls are designed to make walking uncomfortable, so that you’ll just duck in here or there (where the air-conditioning is better or there’s carpet on the floor…) and spend a few bucks. That’s not my objective.
Because I’m on a budget, I usually go to stores where I intend to buy something anyway (thus the supermarkets a lot). Staples, Burlington, Home Depot – you can walk all the way through a Home Depot and come out with a fifty-cent doohickey. I did Sam’s and Stop & Shop last week and spent all of $15.
Diabetes Update: It’s five years since I was diagnosed with diabetes. This was no surprise; both my father and his mother had it. So I take my meds and try to control my diet and walk (and climb stairs regularly), but I feel as if I’m not doing enough. My sugar seems to be within the parameters I was given, but it seems to be above normal.
Recently I volunteered to participate in a medical study for a new diabetes drug, one that would be administered in addition to the medications I take now. I’ve done this sort of thing before. Even if there’s no ultimate benefit from the medication (it could be a placebo), I have the advantage of medical monitoring. So I spent a morning having blood drawn and answering questions and so forth. I was weighed and measured, and I was glad to see that my weight is what it was when I was diagnosed. But I won’t be in this study, because the nurse phoned yesterday to tell me that my sugar is too well controlled for me to participate. That’s worth the trouble, isn’t it? I must be doing something right.
