Working with what you've got

If I were to look at my overall health like buying an old house, it's a new build but it's not a tear-down, either.

Heart's in good shape. No diabetes. Cholesterol is in synch. Numbers look good.

Starting at the lowest level -- ankles and legs -- there are some foundation cracks. Arthritis is my nemesis. It has cost me two knees, one of which is still jacked up two years after surgery. Mobility means a lot to me. I've never been an athlete but I like to be active. Life is far more fun when you can move. 

My core, buried somewhere under all that belly fat, needs a lot of work and a Dumpster is needed for all the junk in the trunk and scattered everywhere else.

Then when we get to the attic -- the brain -- that's when we need to call in the engineers. 

Buried deep in the back of my head is an aneurism. It's been dormant since its discovery a few years ago and as long as it doesn't decide it needs more space, we can co-exist. Selfies of my brain also featured what I like to call "flashes of brilliance" but are really busted blood vessels that led to a teeny tiny, itty bitty stroke almost three years ago. 

While it may sound like these are major challenges, they are really the least of my cranial worries. 

My mental health has been a lifelong challenge. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and clinical depression in the 90s, but it's been a lifelong struggle for me. 

Getting control of anxiety and depression is like trying to catch smoke in my hands.

I take a pill to fire up my neurotransmitters since my hippocampus is apparently as lazy as the rest of me. It's also a shitty communicator with my amygdala and between the two of them no one seems to know what's going on or how to respond to any situation appropriately. So I take another pill for that. 

One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. 

So there's improvements to be made at every level, but I'm limited on time and supplies so I have to work with what I have. I'm in good basic health but I need trimmed down and toned up while keeping my brain calm and quiet.

My body is a fixer-upper.

Experience has taught me that when my body feels physically strong, my brain seems to follow along. It doesn't keep up like a running buddy, so the pills are still needed, but the more active my muscles are, the more likely it is that my emotions will stay in check. Maybe it keeps them too busy to freak out or makes them too tired to care.

Cardio is tough because of my perpetually screwed up knees but I live in a very walkable neighborhood and I have a treadmill in my home office so I can stroll even when it rains and snows because this is Ohio.

I also have a gym membership that includes a pool so I can raise my heart rate without endangering my creaky joints. 

Strength training is imperative. Getting started, however, is like taking the sledge hammer to the first wall you need to remove: it's going to hurt.

But that is why Kroger sells Aleve.

I just wish I didn't HATE to sweat. When you lift weights, you sweat. The idea of electing to make myself hot when menopause does that for me several times a day that fills me with cringes.

But it has to be done. So step one of my master wellness plan is: EMBRACE THE SWEAT. Pull back the hair, grab those baby weights and start pumping that iron.

It's demolition day.