Always in Motion

Friday I talked to a nice friend named Bess at the gym.

She’s going to her daughter’s in California for Christmas.

Bess turned ninety on June 28. She swims for an hour three times a week at our gym. We love her; she’s an inspiration to us.

Bess was a social worker before she retired..

She comes into the club in her ankle-length white monogrammed robe, her hair in an elegant white turban and matching white slippers. When I see Bess, she reminds me of refined 1940s-era Hollywood movie stars in my mother’s scrapbook photos.

Everyone else seems to do an hour on the elliptical every other day. The only way I seem to lose weight is doing two hours every day. What’s up with that? I think I’m now doing the equivalent of cross-country skiing nine-plus miles a day.

Can I keep it up? I go to the gym twice a day! My blood pressure and resting heart rate are EXCELLENT. I feel great. And I get reading done on the elliptical too.

I was kind of bummed when I looked at two basal metabolic rate calculators online and found out that to maintain my current weight — which I don’t want to do; I want to lose weight — I can only eat about 1,400 puny calories a day. That doesn’t leave much room for pizza and ice cream. I even subtracted 20 years and I could only get away with 100 calories more a day. What’s that — a banana?

By doing the extra exercise I’m burning 1,300 EXTRA calories a day. Well the good news is that I don’t worry about what I eat now but I just watch it, and I slowly lose weight.

I think I can do this.