The fitness police.

 

When the dark clouds fill the sky shown in this moody photo by my daughter

www.jacquelinerackhamphotography.com

This week, something that has made me happy, is that I have been able to have a back to normal chat with my sister Burnhild.

Well actually she was my sister-in-law, when she was married to my brother. Now once removed, as many in-laws have been when divorce comes along, we have both faced unpleasant divorces and found a wonderful new life.

The good thing about our situation is that we still both think of each other as sisters. We were friends from the first meeting and our friendship has survived the battlefields and we are both living very different lives from those old days.

The reason for me referring this week’s chat as being more normal is that she is recovering from major heart surgery and for a while there, I was very worried because she didn’t have the strength even to talk for a short while.  The bad times come to us all and we can only do our best to fight our way back to normality, no matter how hard it feels at the time.

Yesterday when my sister rang me to thank me for the flowers we had sent, and it lifted my heart to feel that I could start to try to offer some encouragement to get stuck into doing her rehabilitation programme. She has never been keen on exercise we have laughed about that so it will not be easy for her.

Well my dear it isn’t easy for anybody after a big operation the last thing you feel like is putting up a fight, but fight you must.

While she was at her weakest I had spoken to her son, my nephew, who on my umpteenth query about how she was getting on, was she starting to move around a bit, getting about a bit better.

His response in her defence was “She’s not like you Aunt, she doesn’t like exercise, she doesn’t do exercise”.  

She is roughly five years younger than me and so has those years on her side at least.

He has managed to get her outside and doing a little bit more walking each week.

So, over the last couple of calls I have hade a few gentle suggestions as to what she could try.

From yesterday, she did say the she had taken a little of my advice and looked on You tube to see if there were any suggestions for post heart operation people who want to get back to a better life again.

There are in fact hundreds of classes of all sorts and as I said to her during my gentle nagging session; when you are following a class on TV there is nobody else looking at you and the instructor is not going to make you stay in after class if you don’t get it right.

I pointed out that she could join in where she wanted to and rest when she wanted to but as much as she can.

Tiny bits of gentle movement however, are very much better than no movement at all.

There is not much I can do but offer a little encouragement mainly because she lives near Manchester and I live on the South coast.

The current situation is also a big barrier and so there is no chance of any group therapy.

If you are in a situation similar to hers, all you can bear in mind is that YOU are in charge of you.

You are your own fitness coach.

If you cheat by missing your little walk one day the only person you cheat is yourself.

The only person who knows exactly how you feel is also you and you alone.

It’s worth the fight my dear.

below is a photo of one of the patnership known by our friends as, The Fitness Police.