Fitness Fest Or Torture Test?

I have been a mostly regular exerciser since I was in my mid-twenties. It's just always been a part of who I am, although it wasn't until I hit my forties that I discovered my inner jock girl and really let her take control. It was awesome! I think I realized at the beginning of my forties that really, it wasn't ever going to get any better than it was at that moment and I got things UNDER CONTROL with the help of Jock Girl. I even worked for Weight Watchers.
And actually, my forties were probably my best-looking decade. I'm serious. I actually, for the first and only time in my entire life, liked the way I looked.
And I didn't feel so bad either.

And then came my fifties. Ah-yah, as I say.
I got a bum knee and it took quite a while for that to heal although when I couldn't walk, I started bicycling. I hated it but I did it.
But I just wasn't as obsessed as I'd been before. Maybe because we moved here and I was just...happier. Who knows?
Then a few years ago I got a wake-up call in the form of a cholesterol test and I went back into obsessive mode. I exercised very regularly and I just ripped my diet up and reworked it. I ate GOOD. I followed Michael Pollen's advice before I'd ever heard it:
Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.
Honey chile- I gave up CHEESE!
And I got fairly happy with the way I looked and felt again.
And then...oh dear. I don't know what happened. I stopped paying so much attention. One tiny sin led to others. My foot got fucked up. I got stuck in traffic. The check got lost in the mail.
You know.
And actually, I believe that one of the things that happened was that as my fifties progressed, I realized that I'd hit a point where no matter what I did, my body was just not going to be what it had been. Every day brought new revelations of the pull of gravity, the weight of age.
It was discouraging.

And the weight has crept up and the arms have lost tone and the, well, really. I don't want to sit here and target all the things which disturb me so greatly about my body because hell's bells! I'm fifty-five years old and I'm just not as concerned with it all as I once was.

BUT, this is not to say I want to slip quietly into old-age spread. I love having muscles, even if they're hidden beneath drapey skin. I WANT to be able to wear clothes that, when wearing, I look and feel okay in. I'm never going to be Miss America and I'm never going to be Miss Body Builder USA and I'm never going to be Madonna either and I'm aware of that but there's nothing wrong with being the best that I can be, or at least not the WORST I can be. You know?

So I've dusted off the hand weights. I'm back to doing the crunches. I have actually walked fairly TWO DAYS IN A ROW! Ha-ha-ha! And I realized today that the main thing I'm going to have to do is get up earlier and not spend the first two hours of my day here on the internet and I'm going to have to make that walk my first priority every day because it's just too damn hot to wait until ten-thirty in the morning to get out there.
How hot is it?
Well, it's so hot that the only way I know I'm having a hot flash is that I have that horrible urge to pee.
TMI?
Well guess what, my little chickadees- I'm talking about YOUR future. Unless you're one of those blessed ladies who doesn't have the hot flashes. Ever.
Or a man. In which case you picked the wrong day to visit Blessourhearts.

So there I am in the woods, so hot I think I might explode or melt or just fall over, trying to figure out where to pee, so damn hot that if a bear suddenly burst through the trees I'd merely lay down and let him rip my guts out.
"Take 'em!" I'd tell him. "I'm too hot to run."

So. Must change my routine. Must change my life. AGAIN! Because dammit, every time in my life that I have thought for sure that I'd gotten this whole exercise and diet thing down, I've had to come back and ruefully admit that no, I had not.
Not forever. Not by a long fucking shot.

Sigh.
Well, as I told Jessie today, going for a walk in this heat is sort of a physical fitness test I can take daily. If I can do THAT, then surely, I am not about to die.
It's crude. It's unpleasant. But it's probably true.

And again I must say BUT. This is no way to run a life. After a walk like that I am mostly ready to lie down and pass out. Okay, not really. But two hours later? Oh boy. I sure am. When my core temperature approaches normal, I'm not good for shit. Which sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think?

All right. I'll let you know how this life-altering plan goes. I sure hope it works. Because honestly? Once again I am forced to admit- it's not going to get any better than this and if I don't work at it now, I'll be one of those people limping around a dead mall clinging to my walker with The Greatest Hits From World War II playing on my iPod. Wearing the ugliest polyester work-out clothes you've ever seen. Size Gazillion. Thinking to myself, "Really, Ms. Moon, it's not going to get any better than this."

And I can almost bet that I'll be having hot flashes and honey, you can't just squat and pee in the mall.
Well, you can. But they arrest you. And then put you in a nursing home. Where they make you do chair aerobics. Wearing Depends.

It's never going to end, is it?