Why going to the gym is so entertaining, or not...

Okay.
I've been going to the gym seriously for months now. Three times a week, give or take, an hour at a time, weights and machines and stretching and all that stuff. I usually come home and collapse, body in spasm and totally wiped out. The thing with MS is I don't get to progress upwards like "normal" people - as I exercise, I feel like I should be getting better, stronger, quicker ("We can remake her, better, stronger...").
But it just ain't so. One day I cheerily work through a 30 minute elliptical session without dying. The next day I can barely do 10 minutes. I'm trying to increase my walking capability so I can go on this boat cruise in Newfoundland - which involves a 3 km walk through moose and bug infested territory. I can deal with the bugs, but outrunning a moose might be challenging, and I really don't know how they'll react to my walker...but the views look fantastic and I really really wanna go. So I struggle on, pushing my unwilling cramping muscles through yet another session.
Today I got extra exercise plotting the demise of an exerciser on one of those bouncy machines. She was doing extra knee lifts and swinging her arms around in circles and punching up in the air and lacked only the leg warmers to pass for Olivia Newton-John getting physical. She was working on the machine at level 15 and increasing the level every few minutes.
I wanted to push her over.
Just a little bit.
She was so damn perky.
She even had perky HAIR, for gawd's sake. I instantly hated her with a vile passion matched only by the vileness of my sweat as it flattened my non-perky hair to my skull.
What made it even worse is that my favourite gym guy, the one with the sexy accent, was flirting with her. The flirting was bad enough, but what I really envied was that she could do her high fast stepping while swinging her arms and listening to music and flirting back, without falling over! How the heck?
I was falling over walking on the treadmill. Slowly.
Totally annoying. I much prefer the overweight older men who sweat honestly and suffer along with me. We at least have the honour of our suffering.
Couldn't kill her lest I lose the fondness of the sexy gym guy. So I pretended to find her funny while I turned a delicate shade of green. Why the hell didn't I use my body more when it worked properly?
Ah well, too late, she cried, and waved her wooden leg (as my parents-in-law would say). I'm obviously going to have to find another reason to keep going to the gym. Hmm. Maybe this would work...
http://youtu.be/NOMOwyHCHmQ

In praise of Wii Fit Plus

There are some wonderful technologies available that help me cope with my everyday degradation with MS. I like Dragon Naturally Speaking if I can't type, for example.

But the Wii fit stuff - both this program and the other fitness videos - well, they are a good help for me generally.

I like to exercise within my capabilities, but it's so hard to estimate these with MS. I can set out on a walk, feeling fine, only to realize I have planned badly and ended up far from home, unable to walk without pain. I haul my sorry hide back, step by painful step, afraid of the time when that won't be possible.

My legs are completely numb. My feet feel nothing today, and I am numb all the way to my hips. Exercise can be dangerous in this state - it's easy to get myself into a position where I can do myself damage. I'm not sure where my legs are in space, or how I am balanced. But I need to move, or lose my senses completely, to say nothing of my muscle strength.

The Wii fit gives me feedback for every exercise. While I can't FEEL where I am in space, the little mark on the yellow circles tells me how to hold my body to get the best stretch, to balance effectively. The more I can focus on keeping myself in the yellow area, the better my core strength gets, the better I hold myself, the safer I am with regard to my life.

I am always amazed at how much better I feel even with a very little bit of exercise and stretching. The Wi Fit isn't a difficult workout, really, though after an hour of it, you'll feel it. I mix it up with the Fitness Coach one, and Just Dance. I still try walking although that is not working out very well of late. I SHOULD go biking or exercise biking - there's a gym across the street that remains untouched by me, lazy as I am.

But there's always that fear of doing myself an injury. It takes me such a long time to get back from injuries now....

The Wii Fit, though, fills me with confidence, allows me to focus my workout to match my energy, and tells me all the time how well I am doing. The feedback is invaluable, the coaching helpful. I highly recommend it.

And one and two and one and two

Update on exercises, brain plasticity and all that...
Still slogging through the Wii 30 day challenge although it kills me for the day after each exercise session - and I deleted squat jumps out of the plans for yesterday as my knees felt this was altogether too much to ask. Still, my running is getting better and I can smash the targets in boxing...
So today, as my body needs rest, I thought I would try exercising my brain - and ooh, is it rusty! I know I've been choosing simpler books to read and avoiding mental challenges but I didn't know my slumming had had such an effect. I signed into a site by Luminosity: http://www.lumosity.com/ and signed up for their 7 day free trial of the games.
They are great - much better and more challenging and also cuter than the ones on Brain Age 1 and 2. You do math, identify things through memory, create words, match shapes and colours. Most of the games are a bit like the Swope test - you have to do two things at once, and the results highlight how your brain reacts to these two demands.
For example, in one game, you must click on a spot where a bird appears while remembering the letter that appears at the same time. The letter is put into a hangman-type format and you can guess the bird's name or fill it all in with "snapshots" (each bird you click uses one shot). Sometimes, while looking for the bird, you forget to look for the letter. Or you just see an edge of it. You get higher points for clicking more accurately on the bird and for solving the puzzle earlier.
Or there's the penguin maze puzzle, which I found really hard. You are racing another penguin through a maze to catch a fish (it seems nice that the other penguin moves so slowly except when he beats you and you feel very stupid) - using the arrows on your computer to direct your little penguin. The trick? The maze rotates and you have to remember the orientation of the penguin with relation to the arrow on screen to use your arrow keys successfully. I got completely confused and couldn't make my mind figure it out, no matter how hard I tried. But the penguin is cute when it catches the fish and oh so sad when it loses it so I'll be back and try again.
Math is done with raindrops...each drop has a puzzle in it and you must solve it before it adds to the pond. Sundrops come along that evaporate all the raindrops. This one I'm sure I will get after more practice - it seems when I don't do math regularly, I really forget sums and etc.
After each puzzle you are given a rating, and if you fill out your profile, you can be compared to others your age. It was quite terrifying today for me - I was only in the 38th%tile or so overall. The program rates you on several parameters, so it's easy to see where you might need more practice.
After the 7 day free trial, signup is around $10 a month or less if you subscribe for a year or more. They add new puzzles all the time and the site is backed by research.
I'm hooked. I'll keep up for the next 7 days and if it continues to be as interesting, challenging, and fun as today was (I could feel my brain aching!), I'm going to sign up.
But for now, I am taking my aching body and mind for a rest.
.

Aiming for health

Before I moved, I purchased this exercise game for the Wii my youngest son generously left for me when he took off for places unknown. I finally tested it today. On lowest intensity, and with a half hour workout, I was sweating freely and it felt glorious! Kick boxing was wicked fun, and even the running was amusing, although I had some problems with the leg strap (I believe it is used to people with longer and or skinnier legs).
So I've started the 30 day challenge. Each day, more exercises. Different exercises.
The game gives you instant feedback, demonstrates the exercises effectively, and saves everything to adjust your next days' workout. I can't wait to see what it will have for me tomorrow!
Best thing? No weird looking coaches like the bluish ones in the Wii Fit program that gesture at you with gently swinging arms. I do still like Wii Fit's strength and yoga exercises, though.
Also, unlike Wii Fit, Sports Active doesn't make your body look exactly like yours does in reality - I come off as rounded but not spherical which is better than my tiny donut Mii from Wii Fit.
Much fun - highly recommended and I'll let you know how I get on, MS et al, with this tool. Apparently they are coming out with an expansion pack of new exercises soon, but I think this main program will keep me busy for some time. AND I can exercise scantily clad and gasp in the privacy of my own home...