Month: January 2013

motivation

Working out alone and with others

Tracy I11 Comments

51v5+SxQxyL._SS500_This morning when the alarm went off at 6:15 for our Monday workout my husband hit snooze. We are trying home workouts for awhile because we feel as if we have worked with our trainers long enough. So, we have committed to being each other’s training partner.

One of the reasons I’ve worked out with trainers or training partners at different times in my life is accountability. Many a time, I wouldn’t have made it out the door if I hadn’t promised someone I’d be there.

During this morning’s snooze, I found myself hoping, wishing, almost praying even that my training partner would suggest that we sleep in later. I hoped this, knowing full well that if we did sleep in later we would be less likely to work out (time pressures). But I didn’t want to be the one to suggest it. After ten minutes, the snooze ended, the alarm came on again, and Renald said, “Okay, let’s get up.” And we did. And within a few minutes (because I’m the kind of person who, once out of bed is pretty much good to go), I was really glad I did.

And that’s been my experience with just about every workout, yoga class, run, swim, bike ride, walk of my life. Get me as far as the gym, mat, door and I’m in! But my general disposition in many things, including running and swimming, is to do it in solitude. As valuable as a partner might be for getting me past the initial irrational resistance, one of the real allures of these sorts of activities for me is the time alone.

I’ve been reading Haruki Murakami’s running/writing memoir, What I Talk about When I Talk about Running. Some of the things he says about solitude resonate strongly with me. For example:
I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring…

…the hour or so I spend running, maintaining my own silent, private time, is important to help me keep my mental well-being. When I’m running I don’t have to talk to anybody and I don’t have to listen to anybody. All I need to do is gaze at the scenery passing by. This is a part of my day I can’t do without.

I feel the same way. When I see packs of runners going by, I occasionally feel a bit of envy for the camaraderie, but my more visceral reaction is aversion. Why? Because I love this time alone. I have always sought solitude and silence, and running is a perfect opportunity for it.

The first endurance sport I did with any commitment was swimming. I know you can swim with groups. Samantha pointed out in the comments on her great post about working out with others that she would never have done alone the drills she did with the Master’s swimming group. She mentioned something similar in her post about training with groups. And that may be. I myself am thinking that for specific drill work, the energy of doing it with others might be necessary. But in general, what I loved about swimming was settling into a silent rhythm.

Before I practiced meditation, swimming had a meditative effect (I’ll be writing about meditation in a separate post later this week). I’ve found the same with both walking and running, and more recently with cycling.

I don’t want to sound completely anti-social, so I will add a qualifier. What I liked most about Samantha’s post about running and riding with friends was her suggestion that it forces you to mix up your pace in a way that doing these things consistently alone will just not do. Alone, I know that I am going to settle into my own pace and rhythm, and that won’t be all that different from what it was last time unless I am *very* conscious of it, as for example when I do intervals.

Doing these activities with friends who are either slower or faster, or who are better at maintaining a recovery pace or a fast run as the day’s plan requires, can make the world of difference. It can also just be a fun thing to do with a friend instead of going out for lunch or coffee. In other words, the benefits don’t have only to do with benefits to training.

Samantha recently emailed me some information about group runs. There is one club that meets just at the top of my street and has regular programs. I got as far as reading about their 10K training workshop. And if I wasn’t traveling so much over the next couple of months, I might even have signed up. But I didn’t.

They have group runs every Sunday morning, right around the same time I head out the door myself. I could wander up the street to join them, but so far I have not felt inspired to do that. Sunday morning is my favourite time to run alone. At this point in my life, I feel as if I would be giving something up, not gaining something, by joining a group.

I won’t really know what it’s like until I give it a try. And I’m not averse to trying at some point, most likely when I embrace a more serious distance goal beyond the 10K.

Crossfit

The women of CrossFit

Sam B17 Comments

One of the things I love about CrossFit is its emphasis on strength, especially for women.

You also know, if you’ve been a reader of this blog that I love its account of fitness (see Fitness, yes but fit for what?) and that there are some aspects of CrossFit life with which I’m less comfortable (see Six Things I Love about CrossFit and Six Things I’m Not So Sure About.)

But here I want to venture into murkier territory, the issue of the CrossFit women, advertising, and community aesthetics.

Let me begin by stating my own preferences up front. I love muscles, on me and on other women. Frail people have always made me a bit nervous. And for a long time, I associated skinny with frail.  And yes, I know there are people who are naturally very thin, just like there are people who are naturally very large. And I know we can be beautiful and healthy at every size, but here I’m just stating a purely aesthetic preference. Make of it what you will.

So when I see the quote below from strength training coach Mark Rippetoe, I’m not offended. It makes me smile. Sorry if that puts me in the Bad Feminist corner but there it is. I’ll see you when my detention is over.

Rip: “You would look better if you gained about 10 lbs of muscle” Woman responds with look of utter horror.

Rip: “Trust me, I’ve been looking at women a long time, and I’m really good at it.”

– Wit and Wisdom of Mark Rippetoe, http://startingstrength.wikia.com

I know a lot of women interested in improving their fat-lean ratio who think the best and only approach is to diet. But since almost all weight loss is an equal mix of fat and muscle, that’s tricky. Losing just fat without losing muscle is hard, especially for women since our bodies set out to preserve fat (for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with hormones and reproduction.)

For most women in the normal weight/BMI categories the best way to improve your fat-lean ratio is by building muscle. And you do that best by moving heavy things around repeatedly.

So it’s nice to hear women being told to gain weight, get bigger, get stronger.

So far so good. But here’s my worry.

I worry that images of women who represent CrossFit in advertising and in CrossFit community publications don’t match the diversity of women I’ve met who actually do CrossFit. Tracy has written about how pictures of impossibly fit people aren’t really inspirational and about the need for more diverse images of what fitness looks like.

That’s definitely true in the case of CrossFit.

I like that there are people out there who admire women with muscles. There are lots and lots of Tumblrs filled with pictures of the women of CrossFit. Here’s some:

http://girlswhodocrossfit.tumblr.com/, A collection of awesome girls who live the motto “Strong Is The New Skinny”.

http://crossfitbabes.tumblr.com/, CrossFit Women | Fit and Sexy (NSFW, depending on your definition of “safe,” “work” etc)

http://womenofcrossfit.tumblr.com/

And I’ve met lots of amazing looking women at CrossFit, it’s true. But these images do not do justice in anyway to the range of women who actually do this activity. The images are almost all young and lean, able bodied and white. Now I’ve only been to two CrossFit locations and I’ve been doing it for less than a year but what I’ve seen so far is a lot more diversity than I see in the images about CrossFit.

These images aren’t advertising, of course. Instead, they are the collections of photos from CrossFit community members and fans. But insofar as they do perform some work as promotional material for one of my favourite physical activities, I worry they are doing that activity a disservice.

If you’ve been thinking of giving CrossFit a try and find the super fit, super lean images off putting rather than inspirational, set the images aside and come see the reality. It’s a very supportive community of real people, in a range of shapes, sizes, and ages, all aiming to get stronger, faster, fitter, and more powerful.

Among the women, there are teachers, nurses, professors, students, derby girls, runners, rugby players, and triathletes. There are some very fit people who’ve been doing it for years, some brand new people, some new to regular exercise even, and loads of us in the middle.

My favorite ‘woman of CrossFit’ is Jean Stewart, the dead lifting grandma. If I made a tumblr of CrossFit women, she’d be my first entry.

You can read more about her here, http://community.crossfit.com/article/jean-stewart-deadlifting-great-great-grandma

athletes · body image · cycling · fashion · triathalon

No way am I wearing that! Body conscious clothing as a barrier to entry to women’s sports

Sam B11 Comments
A tri suit–good for swimming, biking, and running

There are quite a few advantages to having grown up with a body outside the norm and to having lots of comfort with the size and shape one is.

One of the times it really hits me is when considering some sporting activity that requires tight fitting, shape revealing clothing.

“But it makes me look so fat,” shrieks the thin to normal size woman on seeing herself in a fitted bike jersey and cycling shorts. (Don’t get me started on the reaction of said person to a skinsuit worn in time trials in both road and track cycling.)

“I’m not wearing a unisuit until I absolutely have to,” said one of the women I do Masters’ indoor rowing with. No one looks good in those things, she went on to explain. Another rower, former university athlete, said the unisuits explained the lack of sexual tension/romantic attraction between rowers. I laughed.

When I joined a Masters’ swim team and went to order a team swimming suit for racing, the coach automatically ordered a size down. It’s your race suit, she said. They’re supposed to be very tight. You don’t want any excess fabric. It will slow you down.

The worst of all might be the bikini tri suit, a two piece affair you’re supposed to swim, bike, and run in. I’ve never worn one of those but not for modesty or body shame, more worries about thigh rubbing and discomfort. Okay, and the belly jiggling while running might be distracting! 🙂

But I don’t really worry about being seen as fat in sports specific clothing because lots of people think I’m fat no matter what I wear. If you’ve been seen as fat in regular clothing, sports clothing is less worrisome, more life as usual.

I wasn’t aware of what a barrier fear of ridicule and feeling fat is to women’s participation in sports and outdoor activities until I read the results of a study on the reasons why women choose not to exercise. The whole story is quoted below but here’s the one number that got me and that counts against both cycling and rowing: “67% of women say they wear baggy clothing when exercising in order to hide their figure.”

If that’s right then unisuits and cycling shorts (tight fitted, worn alone, no underwear underneath them) might rule out rowing and cycling.

Mountain bike shorts and baggy bike jerseys have their place, I think, and that place is a nice stretch of single track, when riding a mountain bike.

On a road bike it’s much more aerodynamic not having excess fabric flapping in the breeze.

I guess there are two very different responses one could have to this clash between women’s body self consciousness and sporting attire.

One is to encourage women to adopt athletic as opposed to aesthetic values. (See my earlier post on the difference between athletic and aesthetic values.) This is a case where having athletic values makes a huge difference.

But the other response, and I admit I’m not that comfortable with it is to see what we might do to make performance oriented athletic clothing more attractive on a wider range of women’s bodies.

Looking good isn’t the prime purpose of sports performance wear and that is likely much more of an issue for women than for men. I think gender and the need to look good while working out is a topic for a later post. Happily, for me I actually like the way I look in cycling clothes. I feel most like me and that makes me smile.

Of course, if you do suffer from extreme body anxiety or you are modest for religious and/or cultural reasons, let me recommend Aikido! We wear very baggy white pajamas that cover skin from ankle to wrist and reveal next to no details of our shape.

Nine in ten women over 30 scared to take part in outdoor exercise, says mental health charity Mind

Low self-esteem among barriers to getting active as charity highlights benefits of walking, cycling and other pursuits

The charity Mind says that lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem causes nine in ten women aged over 30 to avoid taking part in outdoor physical exercise such as cycling, and has launched a campaign to encourage females to overcome barriers that are potentially harmful to both their spiritual and mental wellbeing.The study, based on a survey of 1,450 women, was carried out as part of the ‘Feel better outside, feel better inside’ campaign from the £7.5 million Ecomind initiative, run by the mental health charity on behalf of the Big Lottery Fund.

While initiatives such as the Cycletta series of sportives, endorsed by Victoria Pendleton, and British Cycling’s £1 million National Women’s Cycling Network, launched last year, both aim to get more females on two wheels, the findings of Mind’s research suggest that for the vast majority of women there are huge barriers to doing any kind of outdoor physical activity, let alone cycling.

According to the survey, nearly all respondents – 98 per cent – were aware of messages telling them that getting involved in exercise would help their mental and physical health, however Mind said that low confidence in their bodies, low self-esteem and other barriers to exercise prevented many from getting active.

Its research found that eating comfort food or finding a way to be alone, both at 71 per cent, going to bed, at 66 per cent, or spending time social networking with a response level of 57 per cent, all ranked higher than taking part in physical exercise.

The charity highlighted some of the specific barriers that prevented women from taking part in exercise:

  • 2 out of 3 feel conscious about their body shape when they exercise in public
  • Many doubt their own ability compared to others; 65% think it’s unlikely they’ll be able to keep up in an exercise group and almost a half feel they will look silly in front of others as a result of being uncoordinated
  • 60% are nervous about how their body reacts to exercise – their wobbly bits, sweating, passing wind or going red
  • 2/3 feel that if they joined an exercise group, other women would be unwelcoming and cliquey, with only 6% feeling they would be very likely to make new friends.

It also highlighted some of the ways in which women who did participate in exercise sought to overcome what it described as “the risk of embarrassment”:

  • Over 50% said they exercised very early in the morning or late at night solely to avoid being seen by others
  • Almost 2/3 of women choose to exercise in a location where they’re unlikely to bump into anyone they know
  • Over 50% don’t leave the home when exercising, so as not to be seen in public – even though exercising outside is more effective for lifting mood then inside
  • 67% wear baggy clothing when exercising in order to hide their figure.

Beth Murphy, head of information at Mind, commented: “We all know that walking, cycling, even gardening are good for our mental health, however for many of us exercising in the great outdoors can be incredibly daunting, especially if already feeling low and self-confidence is at rock bottom.

“At these times you can feel like the only person in the world experiencing this, but Mind’s research highlights that far from being alone, 90% of women are in exactly the same boat,” she continued.

“It’s time we start talking about how exercise makes us feel. We urge women to take the first step, invite a friend on a nature date and begin to support each other in taking care of our mental wellbeing.”

Mind cited the positive impact that taking up outdoor exercise had brought to the life of one 37-year-old woman, who said: “I have been taking anti-depressants since last February, but honestly feel that exercise has a more noticeable effect than the drugs.

“I can’t believe I am saying this, but discovering outdoor exercise changed everything. I was petrified, I knew I would sweat, go red, have trouble keeping up and that everyone else in the group would be super fit. I was so incredibly scared and thought I’d be humiliated.

“However – the other people in the group were all normal – all different shapes and sizes – and no one cared what you looked like or did.

It was the most liberating experience ever. My initial reason for exercising was to lose some weight, but from that first session I realised just how good it could be for my state of mind. From there my confidence grew,” she concluded.

The Ecominds section of the Mind website contains a variety of hints, tips and online tools aimed at encouraging women to become active by helping the overcome some of the issues discouraging them from taking part in outdoor exercise.

Aikido

A very happy day!

Sam B8 Comments

 

ABC
fitness · health

Workouts and Colds

Tracy I2 Comments

I woke up the other day with a sore throat for the second time in just over a month. I hate to interrupt my training schedule, especially the running. I am so slow at building up my distance that taking too much time out will set me back. And since I think of all of my fitness training as part of an overall commitment to taking good care of myself, it would be counterproductive to push on in ways that make me worse off.

And it’s just not all that inviting to go out into the cold when you have a cold. I’m not the right kind of doctor to be dishing out medical advice, but I’ll tell you what I decided to do based on a bit of internet research I did.

Most of what I read said to “listen to your body.” But they also suggested, as a general rule: If it’s above the neck only, then go for it. If it’s below the neck (i.e. in your chest and affecting your breathing, accompanied by any stomach issues like vomiting or diarrhea, fever, muscle ache), then it’s probably a good idea to take a break.

Of course, the main issue is that no one wants to make the cold worse by compromising the immune system. A 2003 study by the American College of Medicine showed that moderate intensity exercise doesn’t make a cold worse. However, the same study showed that high intensity exercise appears to weaken the immune system in people with colds.

Based on the little I read, I decided to go running that morning. I kept to my usual pace (it’s not all that demanding) and broke it up (as I always do at the moment), with short periods of brisk walking. I felt good when I was out there. And I even had the energy to go to a hot yoga flow class a couple of hours later. I’m glad I did.

Another good piece of information my reading yielded is that people who engage in regular moderate exercise don’t get as many colds. I like the idea that an active lifestyle can boost your immune system. It makes sense that part of overall fitness is a strong immune system.

One thing about colds is that if you do NOT have a cold, it’s kind of unpleasant to be around people who do. I’m a bit germ phobic at the best of times, so I feel this intensely.

Especially at places with shared equipment (like gyms), or contained spaces like the hot yoga studio, it’s inconsiderate to push ahead with my schedule if I am sneezing and coughing and sputtering all over the place. If I feel well enough to work out but appear sick enough to make others nervous to be around me, common courtesy usually nudges me in the direction of modifying my routine to minimize contact with other people.

Of course, the usual stuff applies: whether you have a cold or not, wash your hands regularly; if you have cold, don’t overdo it (because intense activity does make it worse); and pay attention to your symptoms. If they get worse, you might need to take some time off. And you might need to see your doctor.

This discussion is all premised on the view that a strong immune system will make you less susceptible to colds.  Jennifer Ackerman has suggested otherwise.  Meanwhile, if you don’t shake my hand this winter, I won’t shake yours, okay?

Some sources:

WebMD: Exercise and the Common Cold

Got a Cold: Should You Work Out?

About.com: Can I run with a cold?

To Run or Not to Run? What to Do When You’re Sick

body image · weight loss

On feminist philosophy and weight loss

Sam B11 Comments

There isn’t a lot of feminist literature on the experience of losing weight and keeping it off so I was very happy to read Ann Cahill’s paper “Getting to My Fighting Weight” published in the Musings section of the journal Hypatia (25 (2):485-492, 2010). It’s a very gentle piece of philosophy, light on prescription, rich in personal experience and narrative.

I love the idea of  “fighting weight” as a concept that goes beyond boxing and martial arts though I admit that’s what I originally thought Cahill’s piece would be about. I expected a piece on “making weight” or “weighing down” the way one does for fitness competitions, races in light weight rowing, and martial arts competitions.

Cahill also notes there isn’t a lot of feminist work out there that is positive about the experience of losing weight and staying at the new weight.  One possibility of course is that this phenomenon is so rare. Estimates vary but most agree that only about 1 in 20 people who lose weight keep it off for more than five years. Most feminist literature looks at weight loss as part of the larger effort to control women’s lives by imposing an impossible regimen of dieting, self monitoring, and self regulation.

The philosophical literature which Cahill cites will be familiar to many of us. Most feminist philosophers of my generation will have read, in grad school, the two B’s: Bordo and Bartky. Bartky’s 1990 book Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression and Susan Bordo’s 1993 book Unbearable weight: Feminism, western culture, and the body were the first feminist philosophy works that discussed the political dimensions of women’s efforts regarding our appearance and the high cost we pay for this concern.

Bordo’s book came out the year I graduated but I read some of the articles that went into it along the way. Bordo’s writing about eating disorders was the first time I’d thought about dieting’s effect on women’s lives in the context of feminist philosophy.

Maybe for younger scholars, Cressida Heyes’ work will have played this role. Heyes’ terrific 2006 paper, “Foucault goes to weight watchers” is also published in the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia (21 (2): 126–49).

Cahill is a beautiful writer and I love her language when she talks about reconciling her decision to lose weight with her feminist values:

“I realized that maximizing my ability to move, quickly, effectively, strongly, was entirely conducive to my feminist aspirations and
activities. I wasn’t aspiring to skinniness or frailty, just the opposite: I wanted to bring strength and vigor to whatever struggle I chose. I wanted to get to my fighting weight.”

I don’t know of any philosopher who has set out to write principles that ought to guide our efforts at weight loss. Cahill doesn’t do that exactly either but she does describe the principles she chose and why they mattered to her. I admire the guidelines she adopted, on feminist grounds, to guide her weight loss journey. In short, there were to be no changes that couldn’t be permanent, no classes of foods off limits, no special or different foods, and no displays of food denial. I liked reading about her choices and how she approached them as a feminist and as a philosopher.

Instead, Cahill dropped weight through the methods of food journaling, calorie tracking, and exercise. Both Tracy and I have blogged about our different reactions to food tracking here on our blog. Tracking and the Panopticon was Tracy’s post on this subject which I followed up with Another Perspective on Tracking. It was interesting in the weeks that followed that post to hear which side of fence our friends lived on. “I’m with you, I track everything,” said one friend, while another agreed with Tracy that the process was “nasty and oppressive.” Everyone had done it and we all had a view.

One of the more philosophically interesting parts of Cahill’s project was how others saw her results.

“I might have called it getting stronger, or deepening my bodily flourishing, or becoming more intentional about the intersection of my material existence and my material culture. But in the context of contemporary culture, what I had done was ‘‘lost weight,’’ and people’s reactions to that weight loss were a fascinating part of the experience.”

Cahill strikingly writes about the downsides of losing weight. Like me, she isn’t so happy with the phenomena I call “skinny face.”

One thing that may have made Cahill’s experiences different from those of many of us is that she came to her plan without a history of body loathing and dieting. Prior to this it sounds like she didn’t even weigh herself regularly. And even now she doesn’t dislike her former, larger body. That’s so lovely and rare.

“I don’t look back at photos of myself from a year ago and shudder. That was a different body that I lived, with its own set of possibilities, practices, and abilities. And there are certainly cultural contexts where that body would be more useful and conducive to my survival than the one I’m living now. Come the apocalypse, those extra pounds would come in handy.”

I did wish Cahill spent more time addressing the dreaded D word, “diet” and I wanted to hear more about how she’s been keeping the weight off. I’ve been down her road of significant weight loss (a few times actually) but I’ve never succeeded in staying at the lower weight. At times I also wanted to hear her draw more general conclusions and principles but Cahill sticks wisely with philosophical reflections on personal experience.

If you’re a feminist interested in the phenomenon of weight loss and you have access to the holdings of a university library, I strongly recommend that you go read Cahill’s Musings piece. For the rest of you, well, this is why I care so much about open access publishing. The beautiful and important work of feminist academics ought to be more widely available, not locked away behind the firewalls that guard the ivory tower or the paywalls that guard the publisher’s websites.

And if you’re like Cahill, someone who has lost weight and kept it off, do her experiences accord with your own? I’m both personally and professionally curious.

body image · diets · eating · weight loss

No more weigh-ins: on putting away the scale

Tracy I21 Comments

Last week I texted my personal trainer to confirm our Wednesday morning appointment. I added: “no weigh-in.”  My trainer has never fully grasped my aversion to being weighed.  Even if I am not interested in jumping on the scale, he’ll often suggest that I get on it and not look. Only he will look.

When I showed up last Wednesday he asked again if I wanted to weigh-in, as a way of “seeing how I did” over the holidays.  To be quite honest, I know full well how I did over the holidays. I ate a little more chocolate and dessert than I usually do, I sat around a little more than I usually do, and I worked out a bit less. So yes, the jeans felt a bit tighter.

More than wanting to know my weight, I felt keen to get back to weight training at my usual intensity.  It was interrupted at the end of November because of a lower back strain that compromised my mobility.

I explained to my personal trainer that I didn’t find weight to be a helpful measure of anything.  He suggested that the body fat percentage reading also came from the scale. This is true. But I honestly don’t expect to see dramatic changes in body fat percentage from week to week.

In the end, I didn’t step on the scale that day.  But I also failed to convince my trainer to stop hounding me to do it again in the future.

I have, however, resolved to put the scales away. I want to say “for the rest of the year,” but I have to admit that the thought terrifies me.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m re-acquainting myself with some literature that became popular in the early nineties. It’s about making peace with food and developing a positive and accepting body image. I’ve started with Overcoming Overeating: How to Break the Diet/Binge Cycle and Live a Healthier, More Satisfying Life by Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter.

The book outlines a plan that is supposed to get rid of the diet mentality of good foods, bad foods, and restricted eating, and replace it with “demand feeding.” They suggest that this is the only way out of the “change your shape, change your life” game that so many of us have played for many years.

It’s not for the faint of heart. If you have become accustomed to restricted eating and the idea that certain foods are off limits (or just for special occasions), chances are you will either feel terrified or giddy at their suggestions.

The instructions include: purchasing a full length mirror if you do not already have one (you will stand in front if it naked on a daily basis and look at your body in purely descriptive terms); dropping any distinction you might have about the difference between carrot sticks and carrot cake, i.e. all foods are equal and all foods are “legal”; making a list of all of your favourite foods and filling your kitchen with them in ample amounts (like, more than you could possibly eat; if you love carrot cake, buy three cakes, not one slice); feeding yourself “on demand” by responding to hunger (this means waiting until you’re hungry and stopping when you’re satisfied); dispensing with all sense of “meals” and replacing it with “food experiences”; and…..

…TOSSING YOUR SCALE.

Any one of these suggestions is blogpost-worthy. And I have not done them justice by just listing them without an explanation.  To many, they will sound crazy or even irresponsible without more context. I’ve actually, over the years, incorporated many of them into my life already and found relative peace with food.

Today, I want to focus only on the one about the scale since this is the one that remains the most challenging for me.

The authors say: Every day, millions of people allow their bathroom scales to determine their general outlook. Most of us who live in a fatphobic culture are addicted to the scale. When our weight is high, we feel low; when it’s low, we feel high. We allow the scale to tell us how we’re doing with regard to much more than weight.

What they say resonates strongly with me. As much as I believe in my head that the scale is just a number and that weight is not important, I still feel good about who I am when I’ve lost, bad about who I am when I’ve gained.  This is despite a set of explicit and conscious beliefs that oppose that way of thinking. And despite too that my weight fluctuates within the same 4 pound range and has done so consistently for more than a year.

Hirschmann and Munter go on to say: If you are earnest about accepting yourself, the scale must go. Simply put, the scale is the most powerful symbol of nonacceptance in our life. It measures, and it judges.  It sits quietly in the corner of your bathroom and beckons. “Come on. What harm can I do? Take a chance. Maybe you’ll get good news.”

As an educated woman and feminist who knows better, it embarrasses me to admit just how much I can STILL identify with what they say here. Even now, I find myself hedging my bets.  “I will put the scale away for the month of January” is about all I can comfortably commit to at the moment.

Why? Like my personal trainer, there is a part of me that believes that I won’t be able to tell “how I’m doing” unless I can weigh myself. But if I am truly committed to the claim that weight is not an important measure of anything, then I need to take this further step.  Hirschmann and Munter assert with confidence that “once you become not-a-weight-watcher…the scale’s importance will diminish.”

So, I’m going to give it a go. The home scale is about to get packed away.

As for the weigh-ins at the personal training studio, I’ve decided for a number of reasons to stop working with a trainer. I enjoyed it and learned a lot, but my partner and I are bringing our workouts home for 2013. That’s for another blog post.

body image · weight loss

Lower death risk for the overweight, go us!

Sam B3 Comments

From the New York Times: “The report on nearly three million people found that those whose B.M.I. ranked them as overweight had less risk of dying than people of normal weight. And while obese people had a greater mortality risk over all, those at the lowest obesity level (B.M.I. of 30 to 34.9) were not more likely to die than normal-weight people. The report, although not the first to suggest this relationship between B.M.I. and mortality, is by far the largest and most carefully done, analyzing nearly 100 studies, experts said.”

This is in keeping with a declaration made by The New York Times in 1912 when they declared Elsie Scheel, “the perfect woman” at 171 lbs.

Read more here: The ‘Perfect Woman’ In 1912, Elsie Scheel, Was 171 Pounds And Loved Beefsteaks

Blogger Kate Harding described Scheel in these terms: “Miss Elsie Scheel’s BMI would have been 26.8, placing her squarely in today’s dreaded “overweight” category. At Banana Republic, to pick a random contemporary store, she would wear a size 8 top, a 12/14 bottom, and probably a 12 dress with the bust taken in.” (Kate Harding is the author of the BMI Project.)

I’ve written a bit about the so-called obesity paradox, Obesity, health, and fitness: some odd connections.

That’s okay. I’m not worried. I’ve been in the overweight category all of my adult life, even at my thinnest. Given my 122 lb base of muscle and bone, I’ll always be overweight. Which is, I’ve argued here, part of the problem with weight and BMI as measures of anything meaningful.

I often wonder about the effect of news like this on the naturally lean. One of thing that interests me is that it seems it just doesn’t matter how big the health benefits of being overweight are, no one would suggest that underweight people try to gain weight. It’s just too tough. Why doesn’t this work the other way?

athletes · fitness

Fitness, yes but fit for what?

Sam B6 Comments

Happy New Year!

For many of us, one of our goals for 2013 is to get more fit. But what do we mean by ‘fit’ exactly?

I’m just home from the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association held in Atlanta where I took part in a panel sponsored by the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport.

Defining fitness was one of the topics we discussed. Michael Brady, a philosopher at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale,  gave a great talk called “Crossfit: A Pragmatic Philosophy of Sport” which examined Crossfit’s pluralist account of fitness, of which I’m quite fond.

Writing about Crossfit, here’s what Tony Leyland has to say: “Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.” (Crossfit Journal)

Crossfit has a nice list of the elements which make up fitness:

1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance

2. Stamina

3. Strength

4. Flexibility

5. Power

6. Speed

7. Coordination

8. Agility

9. Balance

10. Accuracy

I’m asked a lot, in the context of this “fittest by fifty” campaign, what it means to be fit. I agree that ‘fit’ and ‘fitness’ have a few different meanings and maybe it’s not the most helpful concept. Some people think there’s only ‘fit’ in the sense of ‘fit for a specific task or event.’ But I like the Crossfit list approach.

The people who think there is only ‘fit for a particular activity’ within sports point to the wide range of abilities that athletes have.

In cycling, hill climbers aren’t sprinters and a really fit hill climber will look different and perform differently than a sprinter. The sprinters in the Tour de France struggle to make it up the mountains. They’re built for explosive speed, not climbing.

When you move between sports, it gets harder still. You can’t train for a marathon and build very much muscle. Body builders limit their cardio. You can’t weight train and build muscle and then compete in events that penalize weight.

What I’d like is to achieve is a kind of base level across activities that allows me to try new things without worrying about a fitness barrier. Marathon runners who can’t lift and weight lifters who can’t run have limited functional fitness.

One of the things that’s appealed to me about Crossfit is the ‘cross’ part, I like the mix of strength and speed workouts.I like the talk of General Physical Preparedness.

That’s part of the appeal of triathlon too. The extremes don’t interest me. No marathons in my future though I’d like to get good at what my friend Laura terms the middle distances, 5 and 10 km.

You can read more about Crossfit and fitness:

http://www.crossfitkmsf.com/my_weblog/2009/08/10-elements-of-fitness.html and also “What is Fitness? in the Crossfit Journal http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ-trial.pdf)

So yes, individualized fitness for specific sports but I still think there is a cross-sport account of fitness we can give. And in the new year that’s what I’m aiming for.

How about you?