More Fit in 6 Minutes or FISM

We've begun.  Yesterday at the gym we started the Fit in 6 Minutes (FISM).  Unfortunately I can't remember what my heart rate went to:  was it 150? 146?  as I was paying more attention to how Richard was going.  He was trying but not hard.  His HR got to 81, not nearly high enough.  Trying to tread that fine line between encouragement and nagging, I did convince him to up his game enough that he actually became a little breathless for the final attempt.  We have to do four sessions of 30 seconds, 3 times a week. 

So.  Today I showed him the charts regarding age appropriate heart rates.  Fifty percent capacity for a 70 year old is 110.  Took his resting HR last night, 62 BPM, which is good (mine 72, above average).  Suggested that someone he doesn't like, who will remain nameless as this is a public space, was chasing him to 'have a chat'.  Brought up the transcript from the Catalyst program and read him appropriate parts.  Why wouldn't the FISM program be helpful for Parkinsons as it is also a disorder of the nervous system?  The segment on the mice who have been genetically engineered to age faster (how cruel is that?  that's a whole 'nother post) and who, with a tailored exercise program (running on a treadmill) didn't age at the same speed as the non-exercising control group, is very telling. 

Richard has never been sporty since I've known him.  He walks with me and is going to the gym, which is so outside his comfort zone and something he would never do under normal circumstances, and I'm very proud of him for that but he needs to be keen enough to experience real discomfort.  For instance, on one of the arm press machines, where the bar is pushed up, he was still on the lightest weight.  In all the months he'd been going it never occurred to him to push the weight up a little and he's been going for a few months longer than I!  So I encouraged him to increase the weight.  Ditto the bike.  Suggested that he could go higher than level 2.  Yesterday he was on level 7.  Yay!

He is also an old hand on the quadricep machine, the treadmill and the cross trainer, machines he avoided because they were too hard.  Therefore I am confident that with practice and getting used to the fact that working out hard for 30 seconds hurts, he will master FISM. 

In April, after four months of FISM, it will be interesting to take our resting heart rates again.   I trust that both will be improved, that we'll have less abdominal fat and more muscle.  And that maybe I'll notice that Parkinsons (and/or Alzheimers) will have less of a grip on Richard.

I am excited by the prospect.  This might be the answer.  No cure for old age and death but if we can feel good, stay active and mentally capable until we keel over, terrific.  Can't ask for more than that (except by the time we die all the animals are or will be looked after and loved and if I go first, that Richard is also looked after and loved).  Happy New Year!

Physically Fit in 6 minutes per Week

When information is presented to you which is the information you need right now, it can be nothing but proof that the Universe is connected to you in a personal and unique way.  Yesterday, a Sunday, a day for not doing too much, the telly was on while I attempted Technique #2 Wet on Wet with water soluble coloured pencils.  The ABC's Catalyst was on.  And the information it had was a showstopper.  Richard was doing the after lunch dishes.  I called him in to watch it. 

You can find the transcript or video here :  http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4319131.htm 

The program was about the benefits of doing six minutes of flat chat cardio a week.  Not six minutes all at once but twelve 30 second sprints.  Sprints on the bike or running up hill or whatever.  It all has to do with improving mitochondrial function in the cells.

Narration
"In fact, in all of us, mitochondrial function gradually declines as time wears on."

Professor Mark Tarnopolsky
"Although they're very efficient at repairing themselves, eventually we can't keep up and the cells start to drop off in energy. When they drop off in energy, they lose their resilience and the cells end up dying and we can't replace our cells."


Professor Mark Tarnopolsky
"More recently, we've discovered that there can be acquired mitochondrial dysfunction that can occur in the presence of more common diseases such as Alzheimer's, obesity, type 2 diabetes and, in fact, human ageing has even been linked to mitochondrial dysfunction."

But, happily, research has shown that going flat out, to quote one of the researchers, as though you are running for your life, can reduce or reverse many of the effects of aging. 

This is huge.  Enormous.  Literally life changing.  And Richard watched it with me.  We are going to the gym 3 times a week so the basis is already there.  Now to convince him that he needs to start going hard at it.

He just came in and I outlined a plan.  If he tries to go flat chat for 30 seconds four times tomorrow he won't.  It will be too hard and the experiment will be over before we've started.  We've worked out that he will try to go 5 seconds as hard as he can four times.  Then on Friday, he'll try for 7 seconds (or 10 if the 5 second attempt wasn't that hard).  At any rate, build up to the 30 second interval. 

This is so exciting.  Kept giving thanks for the information, that we were there at the right time to catch this episode of Catalyst.

There was another bit of information which was interesting.  I've wondered why I have this spare tyre around my middle that I can't shake.  I'm pretty active, my weight is ok (55kg for 5'4") yet this ring of fat sits around my waist.  Catalyst explained that it is because of menopause.  It's common in menopausal women to have 'visceral fat', bad fat because it coats my internal organs.  And it doesn't look good either and makes fitting clothes that bit more difficult.  This explains much for it seemed to appear out of nowhere and my basic shape, that I've lived with all my adult life, had significantly changed without  the changes in my eating/exercise habits to account for it.

I'd already started, not knowing what I was doing, 15 second 'sprints' on the cross trainer, first legs, then next 15 seconds, arms, with 15 seconds of light exercise in between.  Yesterday, before watching the program, I upped it to 20 second sprints with 20 second rest in between.  Tomorrow I may go for 30 seconds - although I'm not sure I'm fit enough to go as hard as I can for a full 30 seconds.  Maybe, like Richard, I'll build up to it and try for 25 seconds.  At any rate I'll try.

I am so excited about this as I suspect this will really help allay the effects of Parkinsons in Richard and if I'm correct in thinking he has the beginning of Alzheimers, it will help that too.  There is hope for us after all.  Our future is looking much brighter.  Thank you Universe.

Another Christmas

Another Christmas.  How they whirl past, one after another.  We have, save for a quick gift delivery to neighbours, spent it at home.  We had planned to drive to either Picnic Point or the  Range Lookout this morning, while the roads were still quiet, to have a coffee and enjoy the view.  Rain, however, put an end to that.  The promised rain has not eventuated, this morning's drizzle not counting for much so it's been quite a pleasant day - although I would've preferred a cozy rain confined day at home.  The grass has recovered but still we are in drought.  The soil is bone dry beneath a very narrow band at the surface.

The last vestige of small talk and small writing; the weather.  I have these thoughts I want to explore when I am no where near the computer (or a notebook) and have no chance of pursuing them.  

One of them is the nature of guilt and punishment.  Again.  I'm not Catholic but repeatedly I return to this train of thought.  If I don't get what I want or something bad happens, is it punishment, is it karma?  Am I not holding my mouth just right?   This house still hasn't sold and there's a part of me that believes it's my fault, that I don't deserve to live in a place more suited to me than here which is, although beautiful, killing me slowly as I watch the .... have to say it, environmental vandals/philistines/rednecks destroy it by degrees.  For years I've watched as the bush is chipped away through burning and now, tree clearing, which seems to be the new tool of the cognoscenti farmer.

I cry when I see, almost daily, the results of the latest attack.  Or at least my eyes well up with tears.  Perhaps I now qualify as a silly old woman for crying about the loss of the bush.  And maybe it's selfish to not want to feel bad when I see the new piles of freshly bulldozed trees waiting to be burnt.  But I do.  So I feel guilty because I'm still here, the house hasn't sold and I must be doing something wrong. 

Or am I being selfish to influence Richard this way?  He'd stay if I said I'd stay.  He doesn't ride through the bush so he doesn't feel as strongly as I do about its demise.  If I talk about the creatures who die when they burn it hurts him so I don't talk about it.  So I suppose I am being selfish in pushing for this but in the end, I have to.  Being old here is out of the question (or should I say older).  Is it sinful to want more (or something different) when I already have so much and billions of people have next to nothing?  There is much guilt attached to that.

The other side of me says, I am already blessed in being well fed, clothed and housed.  I just want to change locations, spend Christmas in the Tweed Valley rather than the Lockyer Valley.  So get over it, stop feeling guilty and just get on with it!

watercolour and graphite and ink

One way to overcome my art paralysis, which occurs because of wanting things to be perfect and not make mistakes, is to teach myself watercolour.  Have always been terrified of watercolour.  The ultimate anal retentive bugaboo; uncontrollable watercolour.  Watercolour that dribbles and drips, runs and leaks, smears and smudges.  Watercolour that works from dark to light so you'd better decide where your highlights are because once painted you can't change your mind.


Happily with my book collecting tendencies I have instruction.  Actually thought I'd start with water soluble coloured pencils.  The resulting disaster shown on the previous post.  Figured if I did an exercise a day from Painting with Water-Soluble Coloured Pencils by Gary Greene I'd have to improve.  Plus, it doesn't hurt to form good working habits.  As it is I'm a bit haphazard in my approach to art.


And time is running out.  I'm 60 and if I want to learn how to draw/paint I'd better get at it.  (A sad comment on getting older.  Went to the local reject shop looking for cheap watercolour brushes.  At the checkout the young man said that if I had a Seniors Card I'd get a discount.  That was sad enough.  What was sadder was that I did indeed have a Seniors Card to produce!  There is no escape.  Old age and death awaits and the clock is ticking.


Anyway, I have finished a drawing. It's mostly graphite with some ink.  The photo has cut off parts of it.  One day I'll learn to take good photos with a good camera.  It's called Metamorphosis.

A Gasp from the Past

Kathy, a childhood friend, sent a link to the Sentinel Leader, the newspaper for Sparta.  I have spent most of today doing searches for references to Mom and Dad and Sparta Aviation. 

A couple of things of note.  When Tam was 9 months old, Mom and a woman called Irene Heft rented a house in Ft. Myers Florida for a few months.  Why?  I know Mom and Irene were friends and then had a falling out.  Over what I don't know.  Perhaps Tam does.  I did meet her, have a vague memory of going to her house when I was young.  Met her again in later years and have a somewhat dim recollection of her being a bit overbearing or gush-prone.  She is mentioned another time in the paper with Mom, a social visit to another woman. 

Mom had obviously come to know a columnist on this small paper, Carol Holmes Kurtz.  Perhaps because Mom for a time wrote a small column called Hangar Talk.  Anyway, Mike, Mom's last cat came from Mrs. Kurtz.  She writes about it here :  http://spartahistory.org/newspaper_splits/The%20Sentinel%20Leader/1958/The%20Sentinel%20Leader%20-%2007_1958%20-%20Page%2015%20.pdf

Another issue:  http://spartahistory.org/newspaper_splits/The%20Sentinel%20Leader/1945/The%20Sentinel%20Leader%20-%2012_1945%20-%20Page%2018%20.pdf has a photo of Dad and his grandmother Mrs. Combs after he had taken her for a flight on her 84th birthday.

Found too that Dad had been a Captain in the RAF.  If he mentioned that during my childhood, I missed it.  Dad was many things but he wasn't one to skyte about his achievements.  He loved his time in the Transport Command, said it was the happiest time of his life, but he didn't brag about it.  He flew bombers to England and to Africa.  Would've been a pretty thrilling time, to say the least, especially flying the North Atlantic, notorious for its storms.

I was mentioned once,when I was 2 and known as Cupcake.

A Few Brief Moments of Losing My Mind

Something quite creepy and impossible to explain has happened.  And I did it.

Yesterday I had a play with water soluble coloured pencils and a new water brush (Koi).  I don't do watercolour so the result was pretty awful.  The pencil sketch of Natalia wasn't too bad but the painting is hideous.   That isn't the creepy bit though.  On the left hand side, in ink I wrote 'first attempt water soluble pencils, no highlights!'  Now the creepy bit.  I also wrote 'Rather lots of spinach. Fat horse on DGR not truly seen by O."  This is written on the same slant in the same messy cramming-it-in-on-the-side handwriting, which means it looks as though it was a natural continuation of the comment on the painting.

But I don't remember writing it.

And I don't know what it means.

Why would I write about spinach?  We eat spinach, a fair amount actually but we didn't have any last night (we had Thai Peanut Fried Rice).  As for the fat horse on Dry Gully Road not truly seen by O, I assume that O means owner.  I do have a fat horse, Dakota, who is confined to the Peach, aka Jenny Craig, Paddock because he has grass foundered again.  So that makes a bit of sense, as though I wrote about myself not truly seeing he was getting into difficulty by getting too fat (even my farrier is surprised that he founders so easily as he isn't cresty nor does he have that typical cellulite dimpled hindquarter).  In any case, that sentence could make sense but why write in the third person and why don't I remember writing it?

I clearly remember writing about the painting, shown here: 

It is a mystery.  Unless I am going senile.  There are some other possibilities; that I fell asleep or into some kind of daydream and that allowed physical expression, ie writing, at the same time as I dreamed.  Or I entered into some kind of fugue state (Britannica.com...psychogenic fugue, or fugue state) presents as sudden, unexpected travel away from one's home).  Home in this case being a normal, ie conscious, state of mind.  

Guess I'll never know.  I do know that despite the frisson of fear (what if I am losing my marbles?) having a mystery is rather nice.  A good dollop of the unexplained to liven things up.

    

The Power of Cranky Prayer

Raining. 

I give thanks a lot.  It is not so much a thought but more a sort of visceral breath which emanates gratitude.  I say this to contrast it with the exasperated prayer of yesterday.  My prayer was, 'Just make it effing rain, right?' 

 For days, nay weeks, I have watched the radar as  storms brew up to the west, march toward us in a wall of blue and yellow and orange only to split and pass to the north and south, reform on the other side and carry on to the coast.  I try, I really do try, to remain composed and indifferent to the vagaries of the weather, I try to remain aloof and non-judgmental when neighbours burn the living crap out of their land year after weary smoke filled year.  I try to welcome all that is as It Is What It Is and I'm damn grateful to be here experiencing another 'ordinary day'.  But sometimes, just sometimes, I get fed up, shake my fist at the sky and in bad grace invoke grace.

And it worked.  Despite a totally different forecast, I woke to the sound of rain and although at 2:30pm, it is just about finished, it has drizzled all day. 

Wonder if I can invoke, 'just let us win the damn lotto,' would have the same outcome.  Or 'sell the damn house!' 

Sometimes I coast along quite happily here (especially after it's rained) and don't mind that we are not on the coast but other times it's a hunger.

Coincidentally, a program on the community TV about an eco-village in Currumbin Valley.  Wouldn't suit us as we've all the animals but I could feel the coastal vibe.

Bring it on!  Right?

Richard, as I write, is in the Princess Alexandra hospital in Brisbane.  He fainted again.  Like he did a year or more ago.  We'd gone to Anthony's 50th birthday party.  He was standing at the kitchen bench talking to someone when he fainted.  I was around the corner, heard the crash and was, I was going to say instantly by his side but as there were two paramedics, a nurse and a doctor surrounding him, the closest I could get was at one remove.  But he was conscious and talking, a bit vague, as to expected but at least conscious.  The previous faint he was out unconscious for half a minute?  Time seems to expand during something like that, when the nature of reality tears ever so slightly and the fragility of existence is exposed through the rent.

He'd only had one beer and had had a little bit to eat, not much as it was a catered party with hors d'oeuvres and finger food, but something.  He'd had a good lunch.  Everything was normal except for the nature of the party itself.  The physicality of a cocktail party is illustrated by standing, small steps and maybe sitting with a small plate balanced on your knee.  Richard hadn't taken a seat in the hour and a half we were there.  He'd moved all of six or eight feet between the deck and the kitchen.  Suspect the blood pooled in his legs and wasn't getting pumped around his body, much less to his brain.

Spoke to him this morning and he sounds okay.  I've got his hearing aid and he hasn't had his Parky medication so a bit muzzy.

Just got off the phone from Anthony.  He's going to the hospital to sit with him and hopefully bring him home to his house.  I'm going to head off about 10 and pick Richard up - all being well.  Should be no reason why they need to keep him in another night.

At least we can guard against this happening in the future.  Trips to the hospital and tests and all that muck is not going to be our new reality.  Except for the parky meds and panadol for his back, Richard is on no medication which is pretty good for his age.  He walks 3km 7 days a week, goes to the gym 3 days a week and eats extremely well, a mostly vegetarian diet save for a daily serving of fish.  His attitude is good, he loves and is loved, oh how he is loved.

So, although I am thankful we live in a world where he can be taken to the hospital and examined by competent and caring staff, it's a perk I would rather not have to enjoy.

What Misogynists Fear

Have been inspired and horrified by a storm taking place on another blog Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford ( http://clementinefordwriter.blogspot.com.au ).  She a feminist and a writer which seems to be license for men (I use the noun reservedly) to come out from under rocks and abuse her.  Abuse her with the most vile and vulgar language, sometimes with vile and vulgar photos attached, one can imagine.  I had no idea there was so much hatred of women by men who often appear in their facebook photos with wives/girlfriends and most bewilderingly, avec leur famille.

The second thing that strikes me is how normal they look.  They look like the guy in line with me at the grocery store, the guy at the gym, the guy that lives up the road with his family.  It seems almost all of them are in their twenties and thirties and they all seem to have this sense of entitlement, that  the right to verbally abuse, even threaten women, is theirs by divine decree.

Which brings me to the third thing.  We generally hate what we fear.  These macho men who describe in excruciating detail what they will do to Clementine if they meet her in the street, are AFRAID of women.  Sure, they might be married, have girlfriends, love their mother and their sister, but beyond that they are terrified.  Why are they so frightened of us?

Clementine was attacked because she wielded a pen.  In a physical contest, she's no match.  I remember my mother warning me (she knew, as all women knew) that the weakest man is stronger than a strong woman.  Perhaps now, in this day of strength training and gyms that might not be universally true anymore, but 50 years ago, when this advice was given, it certainly was.  Stay safe, don't put yourself in danger, stay small and quiet and acquiescent because a weak man is stronger than a strong woman.

Unless she parries and thrusts with a pen, then by god, she's any man's equal.  To a man who marches through life on muscles and testosterone, that's anathema.

The other reason these types of men are afraid is because we SEE them.  We are not blinded by physical appearances, we see the frightened little boys who are afraid they will be caught out as little men.  Any woman who has had an intimate relationship with a man knows he isn't always manly.  Manliness implies courage, respecting oneself and others, being comfortable in ones own skin.  The lightning quick ferocity with which these men struck out at Clementine illustrates how emasculated they feel when approached on a level playing field.

They remind me of  dogs made aggressive by fear.  Fear aggression was scary to deal with at the vet clinic.  The dogs were in a heightened state of arousal; eyes bulging in an attempt to see everything at once, lips curled back showing teeth, hackles raised, tail either straight or curled between their legs.  They attacked with an abandon fueled by terror.  To them it was a matter of life or death.  They didn't know we just wanted to give them an injection or trim their toenails.  Their reaction was out of all proportion.

Just like these trolls on social media.  If they weren't so dangerous they'd be pitiable.