Avoiding the Spread in 2009

Gone are the days of gowning-up in a bunny-suit in the yellow lab, inhaling the acetone-soaked air through the tight surgical mask. Gone are the beakers full of photo-chemicals that splash an experimental material onto the plastic protection screen. No more running from bay to bay like some space being trying to save the planet. I am now office-bond. A broken foot and a lateral change of job title has placed me in front of a computer screen. I now spend nearly all day trying to assemble or verify circuit design patterns. These are the circuit patterns 'on paper' before they make it on to a real microchip. Using computer assisted design tools, I sit and stare and hours pass while I think...okay this is a beautifully elegant circuit.....but my hips must be expanding by the second! To add to that, I gave myself a compound fracture on a middle toe back in July, keeping me in a plastic boot for 2 months. I have slowly tried to reintroduce the Pilates to the other parts of my body. I am finally back in a normal shoe, ready to make up for lost time. Back to the weekly sessions with Marie and I am walking at least 4 or 5 days a week (since mid-September). I'll need to make a goal of some type to quantitatively measure an improvement. Back to the drawing board till I figure that one out...

Pilates Instructor gets on CitySearch

The Pants Don't Lie...

One of the pairs of pants that I couldn't get into, I can get into now- there's still too much hip action going on though. I have faith that I can comfortably fit into them by Thanksgiving.

Tuesday and Wednesday are the hardest days to workout for me, since they are my meeting nights. I can never get up in the morning to work out. I'm going to try my hardest to exercise tonight after bookstudy.

My Russian ballet teacher Elena is really unique when it comes to dance teachers. She knows that the almost all of the children and adults who take her classes do not have their sights set on a professional career in ballet or dance. She teaches our class with a view toward increasing one's body awareness and for the sheer pleasure of dancing and challenging her students with new ballet skills. As any dance teacher, including Elena, will tell you --- I'm actually not ready to go en pointe. In fact, I'm nowhere near it. (You're supposed to have a certain amount of demonstrated strength, turnout, alignment and balance before you qualify for pointe work.) She has encouraged me, however, to buy pointe shoes so she can have me and some of the other students do about 10 minutes of pointe work in each class so we can slowly build up to it. She doesn't recommend it for everyone, but she's allowed me to buy pointe shoes because she knows I'm not going to try and go en pointe at home, without her supervision or do anything that might result in me breaking my neck. I guarantee you, no other dance instructor would be so liberal when it comes to pointe shoes.

Buying pointe shoes involves visiting a trained professional (mine was a former professional level ballet dancer from the Royal Academy in London), who looks at the shape of your foot while your toes are pointed. I spent an hour trying on about 10 pairs of pointe shoes (each are handmade and the fit can vary dramatically even in the same size). I went en pointe near a barre built for 3 year olds (it literally went to my knees), and did demi plies in second position in each pair before she finally picked out the "right" (i.e. most forgiving) pair of pointe shoes for me.

*Note: In this picture, I'm not en pointe, but am positioning my foot so you'd get an idea as to what being en pointe looks like.

Last week, Elena marked on my pointe shoes where I should sew my elastic and ribbons (the stuff that keeps the shoe attached to your foot). As each person's foot is as individual as your thumbprint, sewing your pointe shoes is a very individual thing, and you will need a professional opinion as to where to sew what. Having finished my sewing last week, I was finally ready for my first ballet class with pointe work tonight. After padding my toes with protective silk pads, we spent about 15 minutes doing various pointe exercises. It was really exhilarating doing pointe work for that tiny span of time. It's definitely the next level up and it's given me a new incentive to work much harder. It's also increased my body awareness dramatically. En pointe, you have to concentrate a lot harder and think about what every muscle in your body is doing in order to keep your alignment and balance all your weight on your toes. Suck in the stomach ("more, more, more" Elena barks at me), squeeze the cheeks hard, pull the knees up all the way, relax the shoulders, raise and elongate the arm but break the wrist, pull up your chin and neck but keep them relaxed. There's so much to think about, but it's an exciting new chapter in my ballet hobby. For my own sake, Elena is also cracking down on improving my technique when it comes to the barre exercises. When they're actually done correctly, you feel every muscle working to the pointe of exhaustion. "Oh, it's supposed to hurt like that" was my latest revelation tonight. "Chin up! Chin up! Pull up your knees! Correct your sous sous! Fourth position!" Elena barks. As we're all trembling on our tippie toes, barely hanging onto our balance, Elena purrs "Enjooooy the pain, ladies!" while we wobble and sway like buildings in an earthquake.

The Temptations of Toast

I have been pretty loyal to my twice a week Pilates and twice a week walks. I have been taking all the vitamins I'm supposed to take and some. I've cut the coffee down to one or two excellent daily cups and have upped the fiber intake to make sure the plumbing is working well (sorry). I still have one incredibly evil force working against me. It is the force of toast. I try to limit it to brown breads, of course. I even try to toast it to within an inch of burning, since it is nearly carbon already I'm thinking it will digest easier and cost fewer calories. I think of the thin elegant toast on sliced european bread. I like the thick sliced Sanrio-style Japanese 'Pan' stuff (so 'bread' is the same in Spanish and Japanese? go figure!). I like anything toasted in the oven with butter and or cheese on top. Pumpernickel bagels toasted with cream cheese and lox...sooo good. I can't get these images out of my head. I think it is the crunch followed by the warm soft dough. I have not found a low carb replacement and I am opening up the floor here to ask: what suitable crunch/toast replacement can satisfying this unique texture craving?

Measuring up

It's been about 6 weeks since I started exercising again. When I started out, I measured my arms, my thighs, my waist, my hips and my calves. I've been lifting weights and doing various types of cardio --- swimming, running, and ballet. So far, I've lost 3.5 pounds and it's all probably water. While that might seem discouraging, I decided to measure myself and see if there was a difference. The difference was amazing. I lost about an inch on my arms and a 1/2 inch everywhere else. I can see the improved muscle tone in my arms, so I knew that regardless of the weight number, I was improving my body.

Pilates on the Ball

Last night I was doing my walk in my neighborhood. I was on the phone with my brother. He was getting nervous because it was already dark and he wanted me to turn back and go back home. I did, but I felt like I needed more exercise so I tried one of my DVDs. It's called "Pilates On the Ball." It's difficult but it's also fun. The ball helps to stabilize me and allows me to do movements that are normally too difficult to do without the ball. You really work up a sweat. I made it halfway through the workout and then turned CNN on. My goal is too get better and better at this particular workout.