Blood, sweat, and tears

So. My knees still hurt. If I sit or stand still too long it’s like the last two years never happened and the poor, puffy things make squeaky noises. (Metaphorical - I can’t get my ears that close these days...)

It’s not all tragedy and the painful consequences of pushing myself too hard too early. I forgot to mention some other bits of progress:

Sooner than I would have anticipated, my heart-rate at top exertion, if the gym bikes are to be believed, is 10 bpm slower. Since this matches symptoms (chest feels less crushed, doesn’t hurt, none of that unilateral jaw ache I associate with a scary level of blood pressure), I’m choosing to trust this assertion.

(It’s now in the 170s rather than 180s. Yes, I know that’s still problematically high.)

My muscles feel... well, actually, they feel quite achey, truth  be told, but also... Look, I don’t want to say that they’re bigger, because I’m not convinced that four weeks will see that much difference, but they do feel more present, somehow. And, of course, I appear to be trusting them more, which is nice.

My waistline appears to be no different whatsoever. This is disappointing but, again, being nigh-on 39, only having done this for four weeks, and, having made little change to my diet in terms of fat and carbs, I don’t think I can expect anything too spectacular in visual terms yet.  Mind you, when I tense them, the wall of abs feels more dense.  Under the spare Fay, that is.

Sensible suggestions for reducing abdominal fat and statistically improving my lifespan odds (apparently) would be gratefully received!  If I see no change in the next month, I’ll talk to a nutritionist.  You know - a proper sciencey one, not a Gillian McKeith-style opinionated random.

Another bit of family history for you: pretty much all my antecedents are Celtic/ Nordic.  My blood family hail from South Wales, Central and Northern Scotland, Ireland (that bit’s all a bit vague), the West Midlands/ North Wales, and Denmark.  Why’s this important?  Well, I’ve already been exploring what it means to be me, in this body, and understanding my genetic inheritances (limits and advantages) could prove useful. Anyway, while my brother looks like a strong mix of the dark Scot and Black Welsh (brown hair, brown eyes, tans at the snap of a finger), I take most strongly after the Northern Scottish/ Danish side, with enough of the Midlands/ North Welsh sprinkled in to keep it interesting (after all, recessive hair and eye colouring has to come from both parents...).  I have blonde hair (though not the white-blonde of my early youth... mind there’s enough silver springing up these days...!), blue-green-grey eyes, and couldn’t tan at gunpoint.

My mother’s cousin was invalided out of the army while serving in India - I’ve seen a small, black-and-white headshot of a blonde man with my chin and cheekbones; have imagined him, hair bleached white, gasping and scarlet, unable to sweat off the heat, stretchered to the sea.

Sharing this interesting genetic weakness (I also picked up the asthma - dad’s side (skipped a generation), eczema - mum’s side, extra-bendy joints - both; mind you, I skipped the short-sightedness and got the curly hair, mimicry, persistently looking-younger-than-your-age, and stubbornness, so it’s not all bad news) makes for funtimes in the gym.  Now I’m getting to a point where I can exert myself more on the cardio apparatus, I’m overheating.  In fact, I seem to feel generally warmer (a blessing while the heating was broken!) the rest of the time.  This feels like a nice return to “who I used to be” - i.e. someone who was always feeling too warm, as opposed to the person who has spent the last few years shivering and trying to find comfort in the fact that she overheats less in summer.  I am starting to become slightly damp (my equivalent of dripping sweat) at the gym after cardio especially, which is something I’ve had to train myself in the past not to automatically treat with alarm (the only experience I’d had of perspiration was during fever).

I carry a towel in the gym because we’re told to, but I use mine - when I do - to soak surreptitiously with cold water in order to provide myself with fake sweat on my face and to rub away the strange, stinging stickiness.

So, short version: experiencing body changes (and returns) in some ways and not in others, and have successfully muntered my knees with overdoing stuff (also my shoulders, but we haven’t discussed that yet).