Get out of the gym and into the garden

I used to be one. Amongst the other gym rats I would sweat away indoors. First I aerobicized, then stepped, then kick boxed. I never made it to spinning. The name made me think I would end up puking all over my sneakers. I wasted countless dollars on days I skipped and eventually wasted more money never going at all. The closed, crowded space and smelly re-circulated air made me feel like I was on a really sweaty airplane - uck. I just wanted to get outside into the sunshine.

But I usually didn’t get outdoors. I went back to my grey cube at the office. I worked too much, stressed a lot and sweated the small stuff. Then I made a major life change. In 1999, my father’s heart problems drew me back to New England. My husband graciously found a way to move his job to Boston and we relocated our family from San Francisco to the Boston suburbs.

A life change
Soon after the move closer to my father, I developed some health problems of my own. I went to many medical professionals trying to find out what was making me feel so sick. I was falling asleep in my dinner every night. My brain was fuzzy. My hair was falling out. I lost all confidence in myself. I bounced from doctor to doctor searching for a reason. After a year of no success, my husband said strongly to a doctor that “this is not my wife, something is really wrong.” His advocacy worked and a new doctor quickly diagnosed hypothyroidism and anemia as my problems.

While I was feeling sick, I had to take time off from work. Meanwhile, my mum taught me the family tradition of perennial gardening. I found it took my mind off my problems. Gardening made me feel grounded and provided a form of spiritual meditation. I didn’t have terms for it at the time. I just knew it made me feel better. I had not joined a gym on the East Coast and found that I didn’t need to. Gardening and long walks suited me just fine. Now that my medical conditions are under control, I still find the mind and body benefits of gardening irreplaceable.

Get out of the gym and into garden and you will:
Get Fit – Body and Mind
Save Money
Make Great Gardens

Keep reading this blog for advice on gardening and keeping fit while you garden.

My Definition of Slender

Let me say early on here that when I talk about slender, I don’t mean Hollywood slender. I don’t mean Major City slender – NYC, LA or Paris. Slender in those places equates to "waif" in my view. Let’s face it – looking like a model or a 20-something starlet is just not realistic or appropriate for the rest of us. I watched the movie “the Devil Wears Prada” with my 2 daughters. They were confused by the line in the movie that labeled the tall actress fat at size 6. Of course it was meant as a joke in the movie. The only reason it is funny is because it is true. In the modeling world you must be tall and size 4 and under. Well, not here in suburban America.

My definition of slender has more to do with how you feel about yourself. When you pass by that cute dress at the mall, do you say to yourself “Oooooo! I’d look great in that!”? Do you go in and reach for the smaller sizes that correspond to your height? At 5’ 3”-ish, the sizes that I feel slender in are 6 and below. However my girlfriend from college is a gorgeous 6’ tall. Slender for her would be a size 10 or 12. But, numbers are just numbers. The important fact is that you think of yourself as slender.