ENDGAME, PART II: CORRECTIVE MEASURES
It
was my mother who first had the idea to do something about my
frame-impacted physical condition. It was early June, maybe mid-June
(the days and weeks all kind of blur together now, months later) and I
was mostly focusing on the fact that the splint was gone, which was
rather exciting. Granted, my midsection had devolved into flab and
jiggled uncomfortably whenever impacted and had expanded to the point
where when I looked down at my feet they were mostly obscured by
stomach. But those weren't major concerns. The major concern was with my
leg, where the imprints of the pins were still a vivid purple color and
the x-rays showed bones which were almost but not quite continuous.
In other words, when my mother informed me I was going on a diet, I was a bit alarmed. But I traipsed upstairs to the bathroom scale (not using the backwards one-legged hopping motion from the days of not bearing weight) and checked. When plugged into a BMI calculator on her phone, the weight officially put me into the overweight zone for the first time ever, which was a problem. I mean, for what felt like eons I'd been dancing on the line between normal and overweight, never quite easing over into the Zone of It's Time To Get Worried.
And now, thanks to a 2.5 pound metal device, I was in that dread Zone and significantly farther than I wanted to admit from the goal of not being fat. According to my then-two-years-old learner's permit, I was 6'0" and ought to weigh about 165 pounds. I actually weighed in excess of 190.
Nor was I particularly humored at the idea of dieting. I agreed with it in principal (and with my mother's reassurances that it wouldn't be for very long, just long enough to cure the lingering proof of my surgery-produced months of inactivity) but at the same time…it was embarrassing. While I was getting my head around cutting food intake and mandatory exercise days, my brothers were diving into summer swim season, waking up early for sometimes multiple practices for days, lounging around the house sans shirt so as to best show off the physical benefits of the pool.
I think that's one of the key things at the crux of my frame experience. So many of the people around me, from my brothers to the track team, are very athletically inclined. Generally speaking, I'm not (or at least, I wasn't). The frame, on top of correcting my leg 11˚ and boasting the approximate monetary value of a small car, amplified this aspect of my life. Even now, months removed from the events in question, these blog entries are probably the most difficult I've written. On some level, I know that the reasons I slipped to what I slipped to were valid, but so much of me rebels at the thought of cashing in on mere excuses and… And what it really comes down to is I'm ashamed of my body. Less so now in December, but in June and July and August into September and October, I was ashamed. But more on that later.
My dieting experience could best be described as brief. The day before the experience was due to start, I accompanied my mother on a Whole Foods run to stock up on supplies. I'm rather fond of grocery stores, enjoying the colorful packaging and the dangling of free samples. The Whole Foods trip, while balanced with the realities behind it, was rather fun. After all, it was the first Whole Foods I'd been to in ages and it was bright and there were interesting scents. So I survived that just fine. I also made it through a meal, maybe two, a snack, and a walk around a small lake close to the pool the brothers were practicing in and was showing no signs of giving up. Yes, a full half-day of diet and I was going strong, before my mother decided I probably didn't really need to be on the diet.
Since it was much more fun to choose my own food for lunch, I concurred and concluded the experience.
The funny thing, writing about all this now in December, with the snow fluttering from clouds invisible against the gray of the Minnesota winter sky, the frost accumulating in snowflake patterns on the window, is that I hardly remember the experience. I remember talking to my mother and being less than absolutely helpful at Whole Foods. I remember the duration of the experience. And I remember the shock I'd felt when she suggested it to me, when the combination of the bathroom scale and the app on her phone proved the need of the experience (or at least highly suggested it).
I came up with a new strategy before too long.
One summer day, I decided to gather a brother with me and go for a bike riding expedition. We live close to one of Minnesota's more than 10,000 lakes and fortunately, our lake is surrounded by a bike path. On top of that, our house is in a fairly quiet neighborhood as far as vehicular traffic goes.
After wrestling with the bike's tires, the brother and I were off. Instead of heading around the lake, we turned onto the roads, relying on our instinctive survival skills (and the lack of cars) to avoid being run over. The ride was brief and to the point.
The leg didn't complain and I wasn't thoroughly winded. I biked behind my brother, allowing him to take the lead. Generally speaking, I was taking fewer pedals per arbitrary unit of distance than he, coasting fairly frequently. But, most astonishingly, during those pesky uphills, I was fine. Well, we didn't really tackle a challenging uphill. Still…
I started biking every night. Why biking? Well, mostly convenience. Walking's kind of slow-paced and I love the aspect of biking where you can explore (at least, explore along reasonably unused roads and designated bike trails, which is still an awful lot, at least in Minneapolis). Running, while it would obviously solve the pacing issues inherent in walking, carries its own set of risks, including the fact that I was unsure of my leg's stability…but beyond that, I wasn't sure if I was physically up to it. I've always linked running with some concept of massive difficulty and after months on my behind, well, it just didn't seem like a good idea, not least because I wasn't sure how the bone growths along my knee would take to it. As for swimming, the YMCA pool is a solid 20 minutes from our house by car and I can't drive (first it was a lack of interest, then when I became a bit more interested, I didn't have the time to learn with the frame looming over everything, then I wasn't interested again). From a transportation point of view, it just wasn't feasible.
Almost every evening in the summer, I straddled my bike and glided down the alley, steering my way past the myriad potholes lining out portal to the world at large. Some nights I flew along the sides of residential streets, keeping my eyes open for cars backing up or loose dogs. I'd go down block after block, relishing the ease I slid over all that asphalt. Those rides were, generally speaking, shorter than the bike path rides. Let me assure you, I did my utmost to explore every bike trail within about a 30 minute radius of the house. Some of the trails were once-and-done experiences, poorly maintained by our parks and recreation board with a zigzag bump running down the center. Some of the trails were expertly maintained, smooth and joyous to ride. Some trails crossed roads, some had devastating hills in the center. I grew more confident in gliding downhill, accumulating speed until I felt I could allow my momentum to carry me another mile, at least, not thinking about the uphill I'd be facing on the return home. Some trails ran alongside lakes, some alongside creeks, some were actually just parts of roads linking other bits of trails. I grew increasingly used to waiting for traffic lights to tell me I could go. Some nights I headed off with my brothers, some nights I ventured out alone.
But I was attacking the problem my mother and I found at the beginning of the summer. I was striking at the weight of the frame (or at least, the weight of the five months I spent with the device).
Before too long, I was setting distance goals for myself. Soon, I was edging up to (beyond, even) ten miles a night. In the beginning, I wasn't allowing myself to go much more than three.
I decided that my goal for the summer was to bike to the Mississippi River and back. The problem was that such a venture would require a companion, probably my father if I expected my mother to sign off on the venture.
It was at least a month after I started asking for the adventure to the Mississippi that my father agreed to join me. On August 10 (a date I've checked through the magic of Facebook), we set off.
It was at once a culmination to my final summer at home before college, a truly lovely summer day spent with my father, and a major physical accomplishment. Not so much in the distance covered, but in the general fact of the thing. I'd been talking about biking to the Mississippi for years and, at long last, I got the chance to try it. And I did it.
Most of my evening bike rides couldn't really be described as intense. I favored a gradual pace without any quick accelerations or decelerations. The main allowance I made towards their status as exercise rides (though they were also scenery rides and get fresh air rides and have a moment of quiet rides) was that I tended not to stop for breaks. I never felt particularly sweaty or gross when I returned home to my chosen armchair.
The bike ride to the Mississippi was less hard-core. Most of it was accomplished on bike trails at a fairly gentle pace. Then again, the pace had to be gentle—there was a lot of ground to cover. The first four, five miles (probably more) were familiar territory for me. Sometimes my father and I chatted, sometimes we didn't. When we came to the end of familiar territory, my eyes started to rove over all the greenery we passed, the glimmers of lake and creek, the vague road-covered swells and dips of hill, the arching trees and the summer flowers.
After about 6 miles, we stopped at a Dairy Queen, hearteningly close to the river itself. I stood guard over the bikes outside while he grabbed ice creams and clear little plastic glasses filled with water. We stood and chatted and enjoyed the soft-serve while he caught his breath. By then we'd gotten far enough from home that we were scarcely alone. There was a bike rental stand just nearby doing impressive business. And it was a truly stunning summer day. Unlike so many August days, it wasn't broiling, it wasn't humid. The sun was out and there were a few clouds in the sky.
There are a few other days that summer which gave August 10 some competition as far as being the best day of the summer (it's hard to argue with a day riding roller coasters with the family). Still, I have no qualms in labeling August 10 as one of the at least three best days that summer.
We had our ice cream and meandered through Minnehaha Park, doing our best to avoid four-person pedal cars. Sometimes we stuck to the actual paths. Sometimes in order to find our way we went through the grass. We stopped and listened to an old-time band from Northfield, Minnesota, about an hour southish of the Twin Cities, recording a video we sent to my mother. We took pictures in front of the Minnehaha Falls and continued on our way.
The primary weight of biking along the Mississippi River was, for me, the fact that I'd made it far enough to bike along the Mississippi River. The paths were fine—I can't remember them being particularly memorable, one way or the other. The views of the river itself, flowing wide so many feet below us, were lovely. We stopped for pictures (of course), perching atop a small wall to capture the river in the background before getting back on our bikes.
On the way home, we stopped at a Caribou. Really, there was an awful lot of stop-and-go on the way back. There's only so much bike time the untrained human rear is capable of taking and our trip to the Mississippi was pushing those boundaries.
My knees hurt the next day and for a few days after. Just a slight soreness, nothing earth-shattering. The frame hasn't entirely fixed my legs; there is still motion-aggravated pain from bone growths situated near the joint.
But at the very least, I'd made it to the Mississippi River. I wouldn't call the bike ride a major fitness goal, but while it was no completed 5K, it was definitely a priority and a step in the right direction. Even better—my weight had started to decrease. Sure, my waist still struggled to fit in my jeans and I filled out the t-shirts I'd purposely chosen as being too large, but I'd made progress.
I'd made progress.
In other words, when my mother informed me I was going on a diet, I was a bit alarmed. But I traipsed upstairs to the bathroom scale (not using the backwards one-legged hopping motion from the days of not bearing weight) and checked. When plugged into a BMI calculator on her phone, the weight officially put me into the overweight zone for the first time ever, which was a problem. I mean, for what felt like eons I'd been dancing on the line between normal and overweight, never quite easing over into the Zone of It's Time To Get Worried.
And now, thanks to a 2.5 pound metal device, I was in that dread Zone and significantly farther than I wanted to admit from the goal of not being fat. According to my then-two-years-old learner's permit, I was 6'0" and ought to weigh about 165 pounds. I actually weighed in excess of 190.
Nor was I particularly humored at the idea of dieting. I agreed with it in principal (and with my mother's reassurances that it wouldn't be for very long, just long enough to cure the lingering proof of my surgery-produced months of inactivity) but at the same time…it was embarrassing. While I was getting my head around cutting food intake and mandatory exercise days, my brothers were diving into summer swim season, waking up early for sometimes multiple practices for days, lounging around the house sans shirt so as to best show off the physical benefits of the pool.
I think that's one of the key things at the crux of my frame experience. So many of the people around me, from my brothers to the track team, are very athletically inclined. Generally speaking, I'm not (or at least, I wasn't). The frame, on top of correcting my leg 11˚ and boasting the approximate monetary value of a small car, amplified this aspect of my life. Even now, months removed from the events in question, these blog entries are probably the most difficult I've written. On some level, I know that the reasons I slipped to what I slipped to were valid, but so much of me rebels at the thought of cashing in on mere excuses and… And what it really comes down to is I'm ashamed of my body. Less so now in December, but in June and July and August into September and October, I was ashamed. But more on that later.
My dieting experience could best be described as brief. The day before the experience was due to start, I accompanied my mother on a Whole Foods run to stock up on supplies. I'm rather fond of grocery stores, enjoying the colorful packaging and the dangling of free samples. The Whole Foods trip, while balanced with the realities behind it, was rather fun. After all, it was the first Whole Foods I'd been to in ages and it was bright and there were interesting scents. So I survived that just fine. I also made it through a meal, maybe two, a snack, and a walk around a small lake close to the pool the brothers were practicing in and was showing no signs of giving up. Yes, a full half-day of diet and I was going strong, before my mother decided I probably didn't really need to be on the diet.
Since it was much more fun to choose my own food for lunch, I concurred and concluded the experience.
The funny thing, writing about all this now in December, with the snow fluttering from clouds invisible against the gray of the Minnesota winter sky, the frost accumulating in snowflake patterns on the window, is that I hardly remember the experience. I remember talking to my mother and being less than absolutely helpful at Whole Foods. I remember the duration of the experience. And I remember the shock I'd felt when she suggested it to me, when the combination of the bathroom scale and the app on her phone proved the need of the experience (or at least highly suggested it).
I came up with a new strategy before too long.
One summer day, I decided to gather a brother with me and go for a bike riding expedition. We live close to one of Minnesota's more than 10,000 lakes and fortunately, our lake is surrounded by a bike path. On top of that, our house is in a fairly quiet neighborhood as far as vehicular traffic goes.
After wrestling with the bike's tires, the brother and I were off. Instead of heading around the lake, we turned onto the roads, relying on our instinctive survival skills (and the lack of cars) to avoid being run over. The ride was brief and to the point.
The leg didn't complain and I wasn't thoroughly winded. I biked behind my brother, allowing him to take the lead. Generally speaking, I was taking fewer pedals per arbitrary unit of distance than he, coasting fairly frequently. But, most astonishingly, during those pesky uphills, I was fine. Well, we didn't really tackle a challenging uphill. Still…
I started biking every night. Why biking? Well, mostly convenience. Walking's kind of slow-paced and I love the aspect of biking where you can explore (at least, explore along reasonably unused roads and designated bike trails, which is still an awful lot, at least in Minneapolis). Running, while it would obviously solve the pacing issues inherent in walking, carries its own set of risks, including the fact that I was unsure of my leg's stability…but beyond that, I wasn't sure if I was physically up to it. I've always linked running with some concept of massive difficulty and after months on my behind, well, it just didn't seem like a good idea, not least because I wasn't sure how the bone growths along my knee would take to it. As for swimming, the YMCA pool is a solid 20 minutes from our house by car and I can't drive (first it was a lack of interest, then when I became a bit more interested, I didn't have the time to learn with the frame looming over everything, then I wasn't interested again). From a transportation point of view, it just wasn't feasible.
Almost every evening in the summer, I straddled my bike and glided down the alley, steering my way past the myriad potholes lining out portal to the world at large. Some nights I flew along the sides of residential streets, keeping my eyes open for cars backing up or loose dogs. I'd go down block after block, relishing the ease I slid over all that asphalt. Those rides were, generally speaking, shorter than the bike path rides. Let me assure you, I did my utmost to explore every bike trail within about a 30 minute radius of the house. Some of the trails were once-and-done experiences, poorly maintained by our parks and recreation board with a zigzag bump running down the center. Some of the trails were expertly maintained, smooth and joyous to ride. Some trails crossed roads, some had devastating hills in the center. I grew more confident in gliding downhill, accumulating speed until I felt I could allow my momentum to carry me another mile, at least, not thinking about the uphill I'd be facing on the return home. Some trails ran alongside lakes, some alongside creeks, some were actually just parts of roads linking other bits of trails. I grew increasingly used to waiting for traffic lights to tell me I could go. Some nights I headed off with my brothers, some nights I ventured out alone.
But I was attacking the problem my mother and I found at the beginning of the summer. I was striking at the weight of the frame (or at least, the weight of the five months I spent with the device).
Before too long, I was setting distance goals for myself. Soon, I was edging up to (beyond, even) ten miles a night. In the beginning, I wasn't allowing myself to go much more than three.
I decided that my goal for the summer was to bike to the Mississippi River and back. The problem was that such a venture would require a companion, probably my father if I expected my mother to sign off on the venture.
It was at least a month after I started asking for the adventure to the Mississippi that my father agreed to join me. On August 10 (a date I've checked through the magic of Facebook), we set off.
It was at once a culmination to my final summer at home before college, a truly lovely summer day spent with my father, and a major physical accomplishment. Not so much in the distance covered, but in the general fact of the thing. I'd been talking about biking to the Mississippi for years and, at long last, I got the chance to try it. And I did it.
Most of my evening bike rides couldn't really be described as intense. I favored a gradual pace without any quick accelerations or decelerations. The main allowance I made towards their status as exercise rides (though they were also scenery rides and get fresh air rides and have a moment of quiet rides) was that I tended not to stop for breaks. I never felt particularly sweaty or gross when I returned home to my chosen armchair.
The bike ride to the Mississippi was less hard-core. Most of it was accomplished on bike trails at a fairly gentle pace. Then again, the pace had to be gentle—there was a lot of ground to cover. The first four, five miles (probably more) were familiar territory for me. Sometimes my father and I chatted, sometimes we didn't. When we came to the end of familiar territory, my eyes started to rove over all the greenery we passed, the glimmers of lake and creek, the vague road-covered swells and dips of hill, the arching trees and the summer flowers.
After about 6 miles, we stopped at a Dairy Queen, hearteningly close to the river itself. I stood guard over the bikes outside while he grabbed ice creams and clear little plastic glasses filled with water. We stood and chatted and enjoyed the soft-serve while he caught his breath. By then we'd gotten far enough from home that we were scarcely alone. There was a bike rental stand just nearby doing impressive business. And it was a truly stunning summer day. Unlike so many August days, it wasn't broiling, it wasn't humid. The sun was out and there were a few clouds in the sky.
There are a few other days that summer which gave August 10 some competition as far as being the best day of the summer (it's hard to argue with a day riding roller coasters with the family). Still, I have no qualms in labeling August 10 as one of the at least three best days that summer.
We had our ice cream and meandered through Minnehaha Park, doing our best to avoid four-person pedal cars. Sometimes we stuck to the actual paths. Sometimes in order to find our way we went through the grass. We stopped and listened to an old-time band from Northfield, Minnesota, about an hour southish of the Twin Cities, recording a video we sent to my mother. We took pictures in front of the Minnehaha Falls and continued on our way.
The primary weight of biking along the Mississippi River was, for me, the fact that I'd made it far enough to bike along the Mississippi River. The paths were fine—I can't remember them being particularly memorable, one way or the other. The views of the river itself, flowing wide so many feet below us, were lovely. We stopped for pictures (of course), perching atop a small wall to capture the river in the background before getting back on our bikes.
On the way home, we stopped at a Caribou. Really, there was an awful lot of stop-and-go on the way back. There's only so much bike time the untrained human rear is capable of taking and our trip to the Mississippi was pushing those boundaries.
My knees hurt the next day and for a few days after. Just a slight soreness, nothing earth-shattering. The frame hasn't entirely fixed my legs; there is still motion-aggravated pain from bone growths situated near the joint.
But at the very least, I'd made it to the Mississippi River. I wouldn't call the bike ride a major fitness goal, but while it was no completed 5K, it was definitely a priority and a step in the right direction. Even better—my weight had started to decrease. Sure, my waist still struggled to fit in my jeans and I filled out the t-shirts I'd purposely chosen as being too large, but I'd made progress.
I'd made progress.
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