Two things are official. I am now old. And I still love science.
Here’s more context: my maternal grandmother died of Alzheimer’s in my early twenties. It was too soon and my maternal grandfather lived another thirteen years after her death. So I should have had at least five more years with her, in her right mind if not for the disease. She would have been able to meet her great grandson and see me start two businesses… but alas she did not.
So this Alzheimer’s diagnosis has been hanging over my head for more than twenty years. But now that I’m forty? I’m trying not to panic, but now I’m way more careful checking my cholesterol and incorporating more omega threes into my diet (still can’t bring myself to eat the canned sardines tho-). I’ve also entered into the perimenopause blogosphere because my period is starting to do weird things. Minor, but weird. So imagine my delight when I stumble onto a podcast called “Unpaused”. Now you’ll expect that I am a bit skeptical of this whole subspace of women’s health and you should be too. But I have learned a couple of interesting things.
- Movement is just about the most magical thing you can do for your body. Especially with cognitive impairment in your familial bloodline. The episode I listened to is called, “understanding your brain through perimenopause”. And it’s mostly okay but starts to feel a bit woo-ey when they start talking about creatine. But what the podcasters say is that moderated exercise multiple times a week is extremely good for your heart and your brain. But this is a bit of a no-brainer (see what I did there?). And I wasn’t too surprised.
- This is the interesting bit. According to this episode, reaching your V02 max while working out is extremely beneficial. And I forget about the metrics they talked about. Maybe once a week for a couple minutes? It wasn’t a lot and I felt that it was totally doable. This particular tidbit was a but surprising. Personally, it’s a hard thing to stomach getting to my V02 Max. Especially after having a kiddo who didn’t sleep well for the first 3.5 years of their life. So, it feels bad in my body, but I think more than that, I feel bad about my limit. As if I’m judging myself for being out of shape without taking into consideration what my life has been like the past four-ish years.
So I’ve been scrambling to find a place to work out. I need a trainer and I need someone who will push me to my limit, both for my heart health and for my brain. Thankfully I found a gym in Victoria BC that is woman owned AND focuses on personal training for adults 40+. Bingo Baby. More importantly they rely on science to create their programs both for strength training and nutrition (I bet they’ll recommend sardines…).
So I’m stoked. My little one is sleeping now which means my body is more regulated that I can give myself some time to poor into my own personhood. Something I haven’t been able to do a whole lot of for the past couple years.
Science is wonderful and hopefully it’ll lead me through the best years of my life.