Have you ever had one of those weeks or months where exercise and eating right fall to the side? Well, April was my month. I had the best intentions to pick out nutritious dinners to make, find healthy snacking alternatives and to really kick up my exercise routine. Then I received two phone calls on April Fool’s Day.
The first phone call was letting me know my 93-year-old grandmother had just past away. The second about 40 minutes later was my best friend telling me that she was headed into the hospital to receive a double lung transplant to help her fight Cystic Fibrosis.
As you can imagine my world changed. I was no longer planning meals for the week but planning transportation to my grandmother’s funeral and trying to find out if I could help my friends’ family in any way. In a split second I became depressed, scared and upset. I went to my grandmother’s funeral and for the next few days ate nothing but junk. I didn’t exercise because I just didn’t feel like it or care. I was drowning in self-pity.
Then one night as I was just lying around, I began to think about both my grandmother and my friend. These two women, who were total opposites but meant everything to me, had so much I could learn from.
My grandmother survived the depression and World War II, had a family and took care of a home while also running a very successful bakery with my grandfather. She was an extremely healthy woman up to about 2 months ago. I began to think about her health and how she made it to 93.
While she didn’t necessarily exercise in the traditional sense she definitely did workout. She cleaned her house top to bottom each week. Getting on her knees and scrubbing the kitchen floor, base boards, bathtub, etc. You name it she cleaned it. Think of how exhausting cleaning is for us now and we have tons of gadgets and cleaning supplies that make it easier. She never did. That to me spells major work out. So I decided to look at see what type of calories are burned cleaning. I found a website the breaks down how many calories you can burn.
Did you know scrubbing the floor on hands and knees can burn around 387 calories for a 155 pound woman? That’s not bad at all and you get a really clean floor! I also found an interesting article in the Daily Record UK about how cleaning is a better exercise then Wii Fit.
She didn’t exercise or count calories, but what she did do made me very proud and I found a whole new respect for her. After this revelation I felt more at ease about her passing for some reason. She lived her life and lived it well, making sure to take care of not only her family but also herself.
My friend is similar story. She has never exercised to lose weight or gain muscle; in fact she could barely breath sometimes because of her Cystic Fibrosis and asthma. She has always had to take dozens of pills and medicines each day just to help her live a somewhat normal life. She is not healthy nor has she really ever been.
Despite knowing the odds of a Cystic Fibrosis patient living past 40 aren’t great, she still manages to wake up each morning with a wonderful attitude and continue on with her day. She has had two children, which is a huge accomplishment. She takes care of all of her families needs and manages to clean her house and find time for play dates at the park or dance lessons for her daughter. She very rarely feels sorry for herself. It’s like she understands her fate, but doesn’t except it as a ticking clock. She is a wonderful person to know. I personally believe it is her attitude and zest for life that has kept her going.
From both of these women I have learned a valuable lesson. Do not feel sorry for what you don’t have, enjoy what you do have. For me that is my friends, family and health. I have every intention of keeping it that way. So it’s back to planning those meals and cleaning the floors for me.
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I am sorry you had such a hard month. Life really can smack us around sometimes.
But I love your attitude adjustment and that you are looking to take the examples set by people important to you and aplpy them to your own life and choices.
Part of enjoying what you have is keeping what you have. Enjoying good health, for example, requires maintaining good health, which in turn, requires good diet and exercise.
May has been my month like your April. We just have to keep on keeping on in the best way that we can manage. And we are so lucky to have people in our lives to inspire us to keep our eyes ahead. I hope things have been better for you this month.
This is a really inspiring story. Thanks for sharing it with us. This is the kind of legacy I talk about in my blogs. Your grandmother and friend have done/did a great job at making the rest of us become better persons.