Learning Humility From a TheraBand Workout

Learning humility is as easy as trying to work out to a YouTube exercise video.

Having been in bed for the better part of the past month, plus eating nothing but bread many days as that was all I had, looking in the mirror now is hard. I have gained a significant amount of weight and whatever I’ve gained looks even worse since my muscles are totally untoned.

Being a dancer once upon a time, and, let’s face it, far younger, I still seem to have the mentality that I can lose ten pounds in a week. I used to be an avid walker before COVID-19 compromised my ability to leave the house, so I started planning a return to exercise with that exercise in mind along with the idea that I could easily start losing weight withing a few days and see a difference by the end of a week. Delusional much?

Day One — I put on some leggings and a sweatshirt preparing to go out for the first time in weeks. First, a few stretches to warm up. Calves, quadriceps, adductors, hamstrings, hip flexors, glutes, calve raises, calve stretch again, biceps, triceps, pects. Already breathing heavy, I wrapped a scarf around my nose and mouth, put on gloves, grabbed my keys and. . .

Put the keys back, unwrapped my face, took off my gloves and shoes, hung up my coat, and went to lay down, exhausted.

Day Two — Still feeling the effects of Day One, I skipped the whole thing.

Day three — Feeling stronger, I went back to the plan. Stretches and warm up, okay, that was better, and I still felt like I could walk. I decided to do a minute of an aerobic warm up and then keep walking around my apartment as I did the wrap up against the virus thing. Set the stove timer for a minute and when it went off . . .

Breathing hard, went to lay down.

Day Four — Fever back, a repeat of Day Two

Day Five — A repeat of Day Four

Day Six — Fever down and back in the mood, I did the warm stretches and minute long aerobics (who am I kidding — it was a few leg raises with some arm movements). Still okay, I wrapped us, grabbed the keys, made it out the door and down the steps and . . .

Breathing hard, all but crawled back up the steps, into my apartment and went to lay down.

Day Seven — Repeat of Day Four

Day Eight — Repeat of Day Six but made it through the outside door and into the fresh air before dragging myself back upstairs, into my apartment and into bed.

Days Nine through Twelve — Slowly worked up to a scaled down warm-up and walking outside. Day twelve which was yesterday, I managed to make it around the block once albeit pretty slowly, then celebrated in my head, as I lay down exhausted from the exertion.

Day Thirteen, Today — Looking in mirror as I passed it to the shower, disgusted, I realized that walking wasn’t going to do it, even when I managed to make it past the front door. Things had gone too far and I needed more.

Thinking back to a conversation I’d had with my mom, I remembered that she had talked about one of her workout classes which used a TheraBand. She went on about what great exercise it was, and how with the virus, her teacher had started putting classes on YouTube.

Now, even on a good day, my mom puts me to shame. Before this virus fiasco caused us all to be locked away inside our homes, she was taking two exercise classes a week. Oh, a little fact I forgot to mention — she’s 97 years old. She looks maybe 60 at the most.

Okay, time to take mom’s advice. I mean if she can do it at 97, surely, I could do it even after being in bed for a month. Ah, pride thy name is Natalie.

Having a small credit on Amazon from selling books there years ago, I had ordered a TheraBand set months before getting ill. It was still in its box and I’d largely forgotten about it, but now I got it out. There were actually two bands, one was medium resistance and the other heavy.

First, I warmed up carefully. So far so good. Then I looked for TheraBand videos, hoping for something short and easy to start with. I found a ten minute one for abs and core strength, figuring that was a good place to start. I could move on to arms and legs afterwards.

The exercises didn’t look to hard so I grabbed my medium resistance band and got down on the floor. Made it through four reps of five of the exercises (I was supposed to do three sets of fifteen reps for eight different exercises), and couldn’t managed to even get myself into the starting position for the other three. Time elapsed — 25 minutes. Time actually exercising — less than four. When did I get not only horribly out of shape and fat, but old as well? I wondered.

Not having this today, I forced myself up and found what again seemed to be a quick, easy video for arms and legs, and again it was deceptively so. One set of eight for biceps and triceps and I was done.

I now write this from a prone position, lap desk on my stomach, propped at a slight angle by my bent knees. I would truthfully prefer to be watching Netflix, repressing the sad reality of the state of my body but if I’m going to keep addressing it, I think I have to let myself feel bad. Besides, my rate of publishing this past month has been pretty pitiful, and I need to get that back where it was as well. Hopefully it won’t take as long as reshaping my body.

Part of feeling bad and holding myself accountable, is putting this online despite the embarrassment I feel doing so. I know there are those out there who will talk about it as a means of raising their own self-concept but I also know I have no control over this part. Hopefully, there are more who might relate to it and feel understood.

Even though I am worn out from the little bit of exercise I did today, I also feel empowered. There were so many days I spent laying in bed unable to do much of anything, that even though minuscule amount of what I can currently do is nothing compared to what I once did or even what I was able to do a few years ago, I made a start. Often this is the hardest part to any kind of behavior change.

To be truthful, I didn’t stop exercising just when I got sick. I have been living in my current apartment for three years and the last time I worked out regularly was around when I moved here.

Other than walking when it’s not too cold or the rare occasions when it’s too hot, I mostly am sedentary. This is one of the drawbacks to writing full time. We spend so much time in our heads that we often forget about the well-being of our bodies. This also lets us go into denial or alternately, justify not engaging in physical activities. We can always point to a deadline, set by others or self-imposed.

I have never bought into those sayings about age just being a number or growing old gracefully, which usually means to accept that getting old is an inevitability instead of fighting against it. I don’t believe that accepting shortcomings and limitations as part of life is necessarily the way to go if they can be altered. At the same time, different things make different people happy and each of us has to determine the order of our own lives.

As far as my life is concerned, I have decided enough is enough in terms of the weight gain, cellulite explosion and inability to fit into a single thing in my closet. I am not willing to just accept that growing older means it’s impossible to continue looking good, and far younger than your age. I don’t know how much I can do on my own without any equipment but I intend to find out.

I realize that my physical appearance plays into my mood, willingness to interact publicly with others and even using any kind of online video conferencing, something that could help me businesswise. As the quarantine goes on longer, more things will be done online and instead of avoiding everything with a video conferencing component being able to capitalize on this technology socially and for business purposes will help me feel less like I’m just treading water waiting for things to go back to the way they were.

Truth be told, I don’t think this is actually in the cards as even with a vaccine, the effects of lengthy social isolation and dealing with becoming ill, the constant fear of contagion and the massive loss of life will have a long term if not permanent effect on those who lived through these times. Learning how to live a different life from our homes is the only way to remain invested in a life outside of them. I have to fact that for me, my physical appearance plays into my ability to do this.

Some things I can’t do anything about right now. My hair is down almost to my waist and it is one of the things making me look older. I asked on Quora how someone can cut their own hair evenly and all the answers I got back said you can’t so I suppose that will have to wait until businesses reopen. I use someone at a beauty school and they are out until May 1st at least and their teaching salon may possibly be closed until the school year starts up next September.

But with endless time on my hands and access to YouTube, I should be able to do different kinds of workouts to lose weight and improve my body’s appearance. If this increases my self-confidence as well as my energy, health and possibly even ability to sleep, it will impact every area of my life. So, despite how hard it is to just get to the point of doing more than walking at a relatively slow pace around the block once or do a few exercises a few times, the more I improve the more likely I’ll be to keep going.

So, here’s to Day Fourteen and whatever physical challenges I manage to face and overcome then and beyond. Dare I hope to achieve a warm up complete with two minutes of aerobic leg lifts with arm waving and six reps a piece of those exercises I can actually do? Yes, I dare to dream.

Natalie Frank has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and often writes about how to create a more satisfying and successful life. She is an editor for The Partnered Pen & One Table, One World and is Editor in Chief for Promposity & Mental Gecko, both of which she created. She is also the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found here on Amazon.

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