News

I’ve spent most of my life living inside my head as if my body was just a container for my imagination. The first hint I had that there might be more to the whole body thing was Judo in college which led to weights and running. For the first time I saw the potential in this physical form. It was a new concept for me. I had been a bookworm and drama geek in high school. I was thin because of genetics and luck, but college would be the first time I tried to shape my body, make it stronger, better, so I could do more with it.

I experienced my first runner’s highs, and the satisfaction of doing that throw on the mat that I couldn’t do the week before. Weights and running were all to get better on the mat. Then there was that night that a lower belt broke my leg in two places and cracked it in another. I would also end up with a second degree burn on the leg from the temporary casting material setting and not having enough padding between it and my flesh. Not a good night. It sort of cooled my interest in Judo. My injury rate had always been high.

I would go back to weights and running a few years later, but when my work out partner moved out of state I just didn’t keep it up. I was too busy writing to worry about it. But in the last few years I’d gotten caught up in the cycle of exercise, eating plans, and it would work for awhile, but every time I got off the habit I not only got out of shape, but gained back just a little more weight than I’d lost. You know the drill.

I finally realized that exercise and eating right isn’t just about a plan, or a single goal, it is a new way to look at my life and my body. It is a permanent change in how I approach my life. My husband, Jon, and I, along with our daughter, Trinity, all started eating better, healthier. Let me say that low fat is not good for us, low calorie yes, but Jon and I found that we needed some fat in our diet for our digestive system to function well. We lived and learned. Now, thanks to Carri, good friend and assistant, and her wife Pili, also good friend, we are all dedicated to eating right, exercising and enjoying the body we’ve been given.

One of the things that’s helped me stop taking my able bodied status for granted is an injury that I managed about two years ago. What started as a twisted ankle has become a permanent problem, but not an insurmountable one, as I proved tonight with thirty minutes on the treadmill at the gym. A half hour with a sustain top speed of 3.1 which is a record for me since I first hurt myself. It felt so good to do it. Not only feeling good from the exercise, but just knowing how far I’d come and how hard I’ve worked to get there. It was a moment of personal triumph.

I’ve talked enough about my injuries that people have asked me how to exercise with their own injuries. I finally realized that I’m not a doctor, or a physical therapist and I don’t know what they’ve injured, or how bad it is, so I urge everyone to find a good orthopedist who isn’t surgery happy, a good chiropractor, a good massage therapist, and even a acupuncture. I’ve used all of it at one time or another to help me get better. But it was my doctor telling me that if I’d had more muscle built up around my joint I wouldn’t have injured myself so badly that got me back into the gym when I could do no leg work at all.

Carri is my workout partner and we match up how we work in the gym. I exercise more like a man, and so does she. What do I mean by that? We want to lose some inches, yeah, and keep a good weight, but we also want to add muscle. We both like to hit the weights heavier than the aerobics. Though, admittedly, Jon and I both enjoy yoga, though we’re between instructors now since ours left town for her dream job. Happy for her, but having trouble finding an instructor that we like. Pili and Jon are exercising, too, but not with us. Jon and I have found that exercise is one area we do not compliment each other in, in fact, we get on each other’s nerves. Its one of the few areas that we can’t work together in, and having accepted that, we are both happier. Jon doesn’t want to bulk up, and hates weights, though he lifts them. He doesn’t see the weight room as a reward at the end of the day like Carri and I do.

Today I did seventeen pages on the newest Anita book, Bullet, and was finished in time so Carri and I got to the gym before five. We got two hours of stretching, treadmill, and weights, plus abs. This was my first day back in the gym since Saturday’s triple header of the crud that Carri over-shared, a migraine, and a sinus migraine, all hitting on the same day. Today was the first day that I felt even remotely able to try the gym, but I’m so glad I did.

I discovered something while I was trying to be healthier. There are things that affect my mood a lot. I had no idea how my moods were affected by my body until just recently. To be in a good mood I have to do certain things almost every day. I need to meditate, I need to write eight pages or more, I need to exercise and it needs to be pretty serious exercise, eat right, and sex. I could leave that last out of the list, but it is part of what helps me feel good and maintain the productivity of my writing. That little list is the minimum of what it takes to keep me in good spirits and doing well in my life. Out of five things that I need to do to stay happy, healthy, and sane, three of them are physical, and only two are more intellectual. Yes, yes, it all crosses and combines, but the point is that by paying attention to my body and its well-being I’ve discovered the way to keep my mind, my mood, and my writing healthy, up lifted, and more productive than I’ve ever been, with spirits brighter, for longer, than I’ve ever had before.

People are always asking me how do I and my muse work so well together? How do I write two best selling series and turn out two books, or more, a year, and keep the quality up? How do I come up with all those ideas? I’ve done it for years with a handicap that I didn’t know I had. I’d divided my muse and I from the flesh and bone that we were sitting inside. Now that we’re all working as a team inside and out, its all working so much better. Eating right isn’t just about losing weight. Exercise isn’t just about losing inches, or toning thighs. Its about fine tuning the imagination, and giving a jump start to productivity. Its about making the connection that the more good things I do for my body, the farther and faster my muse and I can run.