Written by Linda Eaves

On the 90^th day of March 1st, 2020 I was doing my usual commute from  bedroom to bathroom, finally arriving in the living room with my coffee mug to boot up my work laptop. I paused briefly to run a quick mental inventory.

Late 50’s, Seattleite, been on every type of diet ever (even had weight loss surgery and regained) and currently – TIRED. Measure, weigh, count, chronicle, all in the hopes of shrinking my body. Squealing brakes sound…pause, stop and regroup. “My Body Is Not An Apology.” – thinking of those words from Sonya Renee Taylor’s book about radical self-love.    What sounds pleasurable, loving, and expansive instead? Have about let’s have fun, reduce stress or, how I respond to it, preserve mobility, and be able to dance.

You see, I have lipedema from my waist to my knees, so movement was on my mind. I suspected I had lipedema since middle school, and finally was properly diagnosed in 2017.

I could tell something was going on with my hormones because recently my weight increased to the high 200s. I hear that’s common at “this age”, and I’m mindful of keeping my mobility. I’m in no way close to done, I have a lot of dancing to do. As I get older, I find I’m more sensitive to stress. This includes exercise stress. For example, my fingers and limbs tend to puff up when I walk long distances or walk too fast. I need to work on my stroll.

I love to dance, move, and get things accomplished. yet I need to remember to drink more water, rest and relax too. S-T-R-O-L -L.

I needed to find a gentle way to move my whole body. An indoor alternative would be ideal as all the pools were closed due to local health directives in response to social distancing.

I’d heard about LifePro and the “shake-shake” machine (vibration plates) through other lipedema social media groups. After some price research I took the plunge and ordered a Waver from Amazon in February 2020. Frankly, it sounded like fun. I love to laugh and jiggle. I was excited when my blue machine arrived a week later.

The first month I did 5 minutes at level 1 manual setting daily. Increasing my time slowly, now I do 2-3 sessions daily for 10 minutes at a time. The Lifepro VIP Facebook group is helpful, many tips over there too. Joel and the crew are welcoming and responsive to people’s questions.

So far my experience of the positive impacts of whole-body vibration include: increased circulation, less swelling in legs, legs feel lighter (!) no longer like water filled balloons.

Whenever I feel stress I jump on and it calms me down. It’s been beyond helpful during remote working. Currently my life is about responding to emails and participating in Zoom meetings while supporting people from a distance (I’m an office manager), and having this machine close by means I’ll use it when I need to release tension or anxiety.

Have you heard of whole-body vibration before? What do you know about it? Let me know what you think.

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