Month: February 2015

diets · weight loss

Why don’t plus sized athletes lose weight?

Sam B6 Comments

Last week I wrote about plus sized athletes: Plus sized endurance athletes, we exist!

And at the end of my post I said the reader might be wondering why these runners/swimmers/cyclists are so big. Why don’t they lose weight?

This question comes in two different flavours:

First, the curious: How could they be that big after all that swimming/biking/cycling? Shouldn’t all that activity have resulted in weight loss?

Second, the normative: Why haven’t they tried to lose weight? Surely you’d be a faster swimmer/runner/cyclist if you dropped a few kilos?

In response to the first version, it’s amazing how much you can move your body and not lose weight. Tracy blogged too about this too when she wrote about the connection between endurance training and getting lean. (Hint: basketball won’t make you tall either.)

I was alternately amused/outraged when a staff person in the academic department where I work suggest that in order to lose weight I should consider walking to work. You know, start with the little things, like getting off the bus one stop earlier. Apparently, according to her, it makes all the difference.  Except of course it doesn’t, even as far as fitness, not weight loss is concerned. See Taking the stairs will not get you in shape.

At the time I was training for a triathlon, swimming every morning, doing 100 km + bike rides on the weekends, running, and lifting weights. When the staff member found that out she was flabbergasted. I think she wondered, why keep doing it, going to all that effort, if it isn’t working? I was getting faster, fitter, feeling better but in her mind the only real measure of success was weight loss. That still strikes me as sad.

If you’re curious about the relationship between exercise and weight loss see Which is more important for weight loss? Diet or Exercise?

Dr. John Briffa, who runs an excellent health blog, analyzed a study examining weight loss without dietary intervention here. He explains:

In this study, 320 post-menopausal women whose weight ranged from normal to obese were randomised to either an additional exercise or no additional exercise group (the control group). Those in the exercise group were instructed to take 45 minutes worth of moderate-vigorous aerobic exercise, 5 times a week for a year. Both groups (the additional exercise and the control group) were instructed not to change their diets.

At the end of the year, it was found that the exercise group, compared to the control group, lost an average of 2 kg (4.4 lbs) of fat. I’d say that quite a lot of us would be glad to drop a couple of kgs of fat. But now I’d also like to focus on what these women had to do to achieve this loss.

While the exercise group were instructed to exercise 5 times a week for 45 minutes, what they actually did was exercise for an average of 3.6 days each week. Total exercise time averaged 178.5 mins per week. We can multiply this by 52 to get the total number of minutes exercise over the course of the year, and divide this by 60 to convert it into hours. Doing this, we get a total of just under 155 hours. That’s about 77 hours of exercise for each kg of fat lost.

Most people would balk at the idea of exercising for 77 hours to lose 1 kg of fat. (Or equivalently 35 hours to lose 1 pound, for us American folk.)

That’s in response to the first version of the question.

In response to the normative version, have a look at our posts on the near impossibility of long term weight loss. See Sam and Tracy Respond to the Near Impossibility of Weight Loss: Our Posts All In One Place. Given the success rate, it seems a perfectly reasonable response not to have weight loss as a goal. I’d like to be 5’10 too. But no one asks what I’m doing to make it happen.

Some people have complicated weight loss journeys. See here. Some of my weight loss saga is here.

Or the larger athletes might just be happy being larger. Not everyone wants to be thin as hard as it is to believe that.

I really enjoyed reading Ragen Chastain’s blog post on what would happen if she lost weight training for the IronMan competition. She highly doubts she will lose weight but….

So, with all of that said, what happens if I lose weight on the path to the IM? First of all, if I do experience weight loss then it would most likely be a short term loss in response to extraordinary circumstances and, like all weight loss, the chances of me maintaining it are miniscule.

It’s highly unlikely that if I lose weight at all I would lose enough weight to no longer be considered “fat” There are plenty of fat endurance athletes. What I think is more likely is that I will lose a couple of pounds and have to deal with annoying and unwanted “compliments” from people who assume I’ll be grateful that they are keeping tabs on my body size, or who assume that I will be happier with a body that is smaller.

 

 

 

chi running · injury · running · Uncategorized

Reconnecting with Chi Running: Chi Marathon Training

Tracy I12 Comments

Book cover for chi marathon. A group of eight or nine people running on a wide path with green grass on either side.Way back at the beginning of our blog, I wrote about Chi Running. Chi Running is a style of running that touts itself as “injury free.” For many, the idea of running without any injuries at all is a wishful thinking.

I was doing pretty well for awhile. I’d incorporated some of the techniques of chi running, like the midfoot strike, slight forward lean, and keeping a well-aligned “column.” All of this changed my running and over time it’s come to be something I really love.

But…

I’ve been training for the Around the Bay 30K on March 29th. It’s a race with a venerable history — first run three years before the first Boston Marathon! It’s a challenging course and many say that if you can do ATB the you can do a marathon (I guess it depends on the marathon). There’s usually a killer hill at the end, even more severe than Boston’s Heartbreak Hill. This year, road construction means we’re detouring past the brutal hill.

Back in November I joined a clinic to train for the race.  We do hills on Wednesdays, tempo runs on Thursdays, and LSDs (Long Slow Distance runs) on Sundays.

The distance runs have slowly, and then more quickly, built distance. Back in November 13K seemed long. But a few weeks ago, we did 23K, up from 19K the week before that.

And my knee. My poor knee.  About 18K into the 23, I felt a twinge on the outside of my knee. For the last little bit of the run, it just got worse and worse. And I couldn’t warm up my hands no matter what I did. And my feet got wet. But I made it. Not just that, I added an extra block to the route because with the store in sight we were still short of our 23 by 0.5K.

The next Sunday, we went back down to 19K and again, the knee acted up. And finally, I actually scaled back the week after that, running what should have been an easy 14K with Anita (my Scotiabank half marathon partner).  I limped along in thick slippery snow with a funky right knee for much of that route. That’s when a week of rest started to sound like a plan.

I’ve been seeing a great physiotherapist who encourages me to run through the pain if I can. But when I went in last week and said, “I’m thinking of taking a week off of running,” he thought it wasn’t a bad idea. His words: “If you’re thinking of taking a week off, then you should take it.”

I’ve been diligently doing my physio exercises to strengthen my hips and glutes so that my IT band has more support.  And my plantar fasciitis, which is the main reason I started going to my physiotherapist, is pretty much gone!

But I’m also supplementing all of that with a renewed interest in chi running. I picked up a book at the library called Chi Marathon. It’s also by Danny and Katherine Dreyer, authors of the original Chi Running book.  It’s reminded me of a lot of what’s recommended in the original book, and when I get back to running later this week I plan to practice some of what I’m re-learning.

Sam and I are making provisional plans (just ironing out some details) to attend a chi running workshop in Dayton, Ohio in May, with the man himself, Danny Dreyer.  I’m serious enough about running that I’m willing to drive a few hours for this sort of thing. I’ve read that the workshops make a huge difference and, frankly, I could use some feedback concerning my running technique.

All that is going to come a bit too late for the Around the Bay in March, and, gulp, the Mississauga Marathon that I’ve signed up for on May 3rd. They say that sailors get a thing called “foot-itis,” where you want a bigger and bigger boat.  I think a lot of runners get this too — distance-itis!  I’m guessing that in the end I’ll settle in at the half marathon distance. But I’m not going to do that until I run at least one marathon.  So, Mississauga here I come.

I’ve got my fingers crossed that this is all going to fall into place. When I first wrote about chi running, I’d been experiencing shin pain:

Where I used to have some shin pain and lower back pain before I tried Chi Running, the posture and foot placement alone have dealt with both. If I feel any discomfort when I am running, I just re-focus on my posture (they call it ‘leveling the pelvis’) and check in with my foot placement.  Giving this kind of attention to the form of running helps me address the source of discomfort as soon as I start to feel it, and to correct it right away.

I had high hopes that chi running would transform my running:

 

Learning to run without serious risk of injury means a lot to me. So far, I feel optimistic that Chi Running, once mastered, will help me achieve that goal.  I recommend the book to anyone interested in a gentler approach to running. Reading the book will give you enough of an idea of what Chi Running is about to decide whether you want to follow up with a workshop. I plan to do just that in the spring and look forward to reporting back once I do.

Well, I would hardly say I’ve mastered this approach.  And I’m happy to have an incentive (knee and hip pain and tight IT band) that has taken me back to the basics, renewing my commitment to chi running. I want to run for a long time.  And, as a friend pointed out to me the other day, we’re not in our twenties anymore!

 

motivation · weight loss

If activity matters more than weight, why the focus on the scale?

Sam B10 Comments

The big health and fitness news headline last month was this one: Study: Physical Inactivity Responsible for Twice as Many Deaths as Obesity.

Here’s an excerpt:

A study of 334,000 European men and women over 12 years concludes that physical inactivity is responsible for more than twice as many deaths as obesity, and that even small changes in activity levels can make a significant difference in life expectancy regardless of BMI.

In an article e-published ahead of print in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (.pdf), researchers compared individual BMI, waist circumference (WC), and self-reported physical activity (PA) levels with all-cause mortality data for 116,980 men and 217,181 women in Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Individuals with baseline heart disease, cancer, or stroke history were excluded from the analysis, as were individuals who were in the top or bottom .5th percentile of the energy intake-to-estimated basal metabolic ratio rate. Researchers then created a 4-level activity designation based on daily kilojoule-per-kilogram rates: inactive (36 kJ/kg), moderately inactive (41 kJ/kg), moderately active (46 kJ/kg), and active (51 kJ/kg).

After adjusting for sex, educational level, and lifestyle (alcohol intake and smoking), researchers found that within all BMI groupings, mortality rates for moderately inactive individuals were 20%-30% lower than rates of inactive individuals. The reductions in mortality increased as activity levels increased, but only among normal and overweight individuals—rates for individuals with a BMI of 30 or higher did not drop when activity was recorded as more than “moderately inactive.”

In many ways, it’s not news. Activity matters more than weight, when it comes to health. Haven’t we known that for awhile?

Suppose you care about health, then
you might think we ought to focus on weight and activity. After all, they both matter. It’s just that activity matters more. (And actually you don’t have to care about health if you don’t want to. See Healthism, fitness and the politics of respectability.)

Regardless, I think it’s a mistake to link fitness and thinness together. For a lot of reasons.

Here’s four:

1. You can’t lose weight anyway. Or at least, the odds of successfully doing it are very small. See past posts on the nearimpossibility of long term weight loss.

2. It sets people up for failure. Fat people start exercising. Measure progress on the scale. The scale doesn’t move and so they quit. That’s not good. Better to keep moving but why if weight is the measure of progress? Actually, here’s 13 non weight related reasons to eat well and move more.

3. Thin people feel falsely reassured. See this post for how linking thinness and fitness hurts thin people too.

4. Exercise doesn’t have that much to do with losing weight anyway. See this LifeHacker article.

Here’s more from the study:

 

Authors of the study believe that achieving a level of moderate inactivity among those who are currently inactive may be more easily reached than one might imagine. “This amount of energy expenditure can be achieved by a [physical activity energy expenditure] equivalent to 20 minutes of brisk walking per day, which is lower than the current PA recommendations for public health,” they write.

“Our results suggest that the influence of physical inactivity on mortality appears to be greater than that of high BMI and similar to that of high [waist circumference] in European men and women,” authors write. “From a public health perspective, it is therefore encouraging that our results suggest that small increases in PA in those who are currently categorized as inactive appear to be associated with significant reductions in all-case mortality at all levels of BMI and WC.”

 

advertising · cycling

Lovely vintage bicycle ads! And look, women on bikes!

Sam B

See A Bygone Era in Bicycle Advertising

And Old Bicycle Ads Bring Back A Bygone Era

Jim Langley writes,

“They cost next to nothing. They’re easily found. They’re not held in high esteem by other two-wheel junkies. Yet, to this collector, they’re among the most interesting of bicycle artifacts. What attracts me to early (from the 1880s to the 1940s) print bicycle advertising is the way the artists and copywriters romanticized bicycling. It was a tall order, especially after 1890, when cycling boomed big time. According to G. Donald Adams’ Collecting and Restoring Antique Bicycles, between the years of 1890 to 1918 there were 2,100 brands of bicycles sold in America alone.”

I’m struck by how happy everyone looks and how romantic cycling seems. And all the women. Wow.

herculesadlg

1937 Elswick Ad

Lancashire & Yorkshire Railways 1901

 

You can see more here.

 

Guest Post · training · weight lifting

Off Season Training (Guest Post)

Sam B3 Comments

by Sandi Conrad

The throwing season ends in the September/October time frame, and starts again in the spring.  The heavy events are so much about technique, but it’s tough practicing in the off-season.  The weights tend to dig up the ground, and we need a lot of space for throwing, so indoor practicing is not much of an option.  With the cold weather we’ve been having, only the diehards will go out in the minus degrees and practice.  This means we need a different focus for the off-season.

Lifting is the answer to the off-season training. Although the only real variable for weight is the caber, and the heaviest we throw is 28lbs, getting stronger will help to throw further and help with sustaining energy through a full day of competition.  We never know the size of the caber going in and I’ve picked up a few very heavy sticks.  The extra strength isn’t going to hurt at all.

We cover the basics like bench presses and squats, but also do a lot of weight training to mimic some of the movements in the sport to help build muscle memory.  I bought the book “The new rules of lifting for women”  to get started with the weights, but once I got up to speed switched over to the same rotation of the guys at the gym.  I’ve been meeting and setting new goals regularly and have some new goals set up to hit before the season hits again.  My muscle mass is slowly increasing and I’ve got more muscle than ever.  I’m pretty amazed at my strength, despite the late start of waiting until my 40s.  Even up to a few years ago, I wouldn’t have thought I could bench press 135, now that is an old goal and I’ve set my sights higher.

Why do I love lifting weights?

I’m getting older and need to pay more attention to my health.  It’s getting harder to lose weight and as I start my menopausal journey I realize that my chances of losing bone density and getting osteoporosis is higher.  Lifting weights will improve bone density and is making it easier for me to fight off weight gain.  The last time I had my cholesterol checked it was super low and even in times of great stress, my blood pressure is low.

I’ve eliminated many of my “quirky health issues”.  When I eat healthy and work out, I have more energy so I can work out more.  In my 20s and 30s I was frail, dealing with dangerous dips in blood sugar, general weakness and dizziness, especially during hormonal changes, digestive and elimination issues.  Now that I’ve made a few changes to my diet (including minimal wheat) and am lifting weights, these issues are gone.  It’s been over 3 years since I’ve nearly passed out due to low blood sugar. My energy levels and ability to adjust to hormonal changes has improved significantly.

I’m stronger than ever.  Despite the fact that I’m not a kid anymore, I can open most jars, carry all my luggage when I travel, grab a massive bunch of groceries to make only one trip from the car, help others who need it.  I love the independence I get from controlling my own personal strength as well as the ability to help out others when they need it.

I’m genetically programmed to be accident prone.  OK, I might be exaggerating that a bit, but the women in my family would side with that statement. I feel like my improved balance, strength and newfound body awareness are all contributing to fewer accidents and less injuries.

I’m more confident.  My posture is better, my capabilities are increased, my focus is no longer on my waistline, but is on building strength.  I could lose more weight, and have started to focus even more on food to reduce it.  I don’t have the toning that would make my arms look like Michelle Obama’s, but I don’t care as much anymore, because I know the muscles are there and that my strength is continually increasing.

 

Sandi-125lbs

Sandi is a feminist in the throes of what some would call her mid-life crisis, having gone from exercising only her mind to lifting weights and throwing heavy objects.  Her natural curiosity and need to know everything serves her well in a career in research as well as all things health, science and well…life really.

Guest Post

Guest Post: Fitness Policing and Pregnancy – Please Don’t Tell Me What is “Too Hardcore”

3 Comments

“Training to do Pull ups?! You shouldn’t do that – you’re pregnant!”

“That sounds tough! Maybe you should tone it down a bit?”

Well-meaning comments, yet so irritating. The worst part is they almost never come from “fitness folk” – i.e. fellow exercisers, athletes, or sports/medical professionals. It’s mostly from people who have seen one too many dramas where pregnant women are on the couch eating nothing but Doritos and doing virtually nothing. Sigh.

***

Hi all. I’m Jenna. I’m 27, and 23 weeks pregnant with my first child. I have a master’s in history and was in the USMC Reserve for 6 years. You could say I’ve got a pinch of experience with nutrition, exercise, and knowing how to look stuff up. Along with years of the emotional baggage typical for someone who grew up overweight, I have learned what not to do and I know what works for me.

You’d think that people who know my back story will trust that I can make informed decisions regarding fitness during my pregnancy. Further, you’d certainly HOPE that a random stranger would keep their opinions to themselves, but nope! Pregnant women are a sounding board for unsolicited advice – especially regarding how we take care of ourselves.

When it comes to the idiotic comments pregnant women get, I have encountered absurd amounts of concern-trolling; it varies, but it’s primarily about me potentially “overdoing it” since I do something more than walking around the block for 20 minutes a day. Not everybody has this experience, thankfully, but it’s happened to me enough times to write about it!

Strength Training Is Not Too Hardcore For Me

I go about pregnancy fitness slightly different; specifically, I focus on strength training. I don’t do Crossfit, and due to fabulous injuries resulting in permanent joint problems from the Marines, I don’t run or do any kinds of high-impact cardio.

I work out twice a week, and I do a form of the “SuperSlow” method. My exercises consist of chin-up negatives, bodyweight squats, push-ups, bodyweight rows, side leg-raises and the like. On my workout and off days, I walk or go hiking for at least 45 minutes in order to incorporate some low-intensity cardiovascular exercise to aid muscle recovery. My personal trainer, Steve Maxwell, is an established professional in the field. We communicate only through email (never met him in person yet!) and I send him training logs where I track my weight, resting heart rate, energy levels, sleep, stress levels, and more.

Believe it or not, this *is* my relaxed face
Believe it or not, this *is* my relaxed face

Agency

Steve has trained many pregnant women in his extensive career (almost forty years – he’s 61!), so he knows what’s safe and what isn’t, and he understands that “each person is unique with unique issues.” Above all, he encourages and trusts me to pay attention to what my body is telling me. For instance, *I* decided when to stop doing sit-ups, and I simply told him. He adjusted my workout accordingly – no lectures, no fuss. He knows that I know what to look out for. The simple act of being treated like an adult and allowed agency over my physical fitness, instead of barraged with messages of “you don’t know what’s good for you” (which is something pregnant women hear regularly) is empowering. Because my thoughts/concerns are acknowledged, I trust Steve’s advice about my physical fitness.

Do Your Research

A pregnant woman can and definitely should research and consult with care providers and fitness professionals to decide what is right for her and her baby without some buttinsky trying to police her decisions. I’ll post some links that I’ve found useful below, but I’ve actually avoided a lot of baby books. Information changes and so it’s important to pay attention to publishing dates, and check the source’s sources. Where are they getting their information from? Some red flags of 10 years ago have been tested and OK’d by now.

Listen to Your Body

When it comes to strength training, it is perfectly reasonable to continue with it throughout pregnancy and beyond. With that said, at certain points I have had to make concessions; I stopped laying on my stomach at 8 weeks and stopped on-my-back exercises at 20 weeks, because I followed my body’s cues. If something doesn’t feel right, I stop. I stopped cycling because I’m afraid of getting hit by a car. This isn’t what everybody does, but it’s what works for me – I’m all about telling people “you do you!”

Why Do People Hassle?

There is a prevalence of individuals thinking they “know better” and using myths (UGGH GREY’S ANATOMY) to argue with pregnant women if they’re doing something this one person considers outside the norm for their idea of pregnancy. It’s akin to the sexist dual narrative that women face; nothing we do is correct. We’re either doing too much or not enough, we’re gaining too much weight or not enough, and so on. Why isn’t my belly huge yet? Am I eating enough fish? But wait, you gotta lay off swordfish and anything with too much mercury! The list goes on. I’m hesitant to dwell on pregnancy in conversation because the topic always inevitably turns into a lecture about “WELL MY SISTER DID THIS AND IT WORKED GREAT SO YOU SHOULD DO IT TOO.”

***

What’s reflective of the systemic policing of pregnant women is that these people don’t even realize they overstepped a boundary. Perhaps this is due to a societal green-light to ask personal questions of pregnant women. These conversations, to me, present views about pregnant women on a grander scale. A friend of mine made an observation on twitter that is so true: “Pregnant bodies are public bodies.” We’re painted as hormonal, waddling whiners who are constantly crying or raging after an ice cream cone. Yes, hormones are a-raging during pregnancy, but I have not lost my senses.

To get to the heart of it, I ask them what they know about pregnancy fitness and what they’ve read up on. I try to use it as a means to create a positive discussion with the individual about what messages are being sent in society about pregnancy and pregnant women.

I’ve also found that equipping myself with sarcastic retorts helps too: “Oh my gosh, thank you, I had no idea I was pregnant!” is a staple, and usually only reserved for someone who’s gone too far. I usually say something like “Thank you for your concern, but I know what I’m doing.” You’d be surprised how many times people just pause and either get defensive, or embarrassed and apologize.

Infuriating, yet so terribly common. What say you, readers? Have you experienced this? What is it about pregnant women that destroys normal boundaries with friends and strangers alike?

Pregnancy Websites I Consult and Interesting Reads:

http://www.babycenter.com/

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/pregnancy-and-baby-care.aspx#close

http://www.thebump.com/

http://vitals.lifehacker.com/the-truth-about-exercising-while-pregnant-its-okay-to-1682602976

http://maxwellsc.com/articles.cfm

 

Jenna Lång is a historian and serial expat who blogs about her research and adventures abroad at The Expat Historian. This blog post is not meant to replace the advice of any healthcare or fitness professional and only reflects the views and experiences of the author.

Uncategorized

Saying goodbye to my sentimental socks

Sam B4 Comments

Tracy and I are playing the minimalism game.

Find a friend or family member. Someone who’s willing to get rid of some of their excess stuff. This month, each of you must get rid of one thing on the first day of the month. On the second, two things. Three items on the third. So forth, and so on. Anything can go! Clothes, furniture, electronics, tools, decorations, etc. Donate, sell, or trash. Whatever you do, each material possession must be out of your house—and out of your life—by midnight each day.

So far, just 4 days in, I’m concentrating on the contents of my cycling bureau. (Yes, I have an entire bureau devoted to cycling clothing and paraphernalia.) Yes, I have my good cycling gloves. But I probably don’t need 3 old pairs. One back up old pair is probably enough. So they went off to the home of a beginning cyclist. Hi Anita! I threw out some old cycling socks too.

I’m stuck though on stuff to which I’m sentimentally attached, like my first ever pair of cycling socks. They even say 2002 right on them! They’re too thin to actually ever use and they’re not particularly fancy looking. But for now, I’m hanging on to them.

image

Uncategorized

Excessive sitting, more studies, more really bad news, but what to do?

Sam B15 Comments

The bad news: Excessive sitting linked to disease, premature death and Sitting for long periods increases risk of disease and early death, regardless of exercise.

The amount of time a person sits during the day is associated with a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and death, regardless of regular exercise, according to a review study published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

 “More than one half of an average person’s day is spent being sedentary — sitting, watching television, or working at a computer,” said Dr. David Alter, Senior Scientist, Toronto Rehab, University Health Network (UHN), and Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. “Our study finds that despite the health-enhancing benefits of physical activity, this alone may not be enough to reduce the risk for disease.”

The meta-analysis study reviewed studies focused on sedentary behaviour. The lead author is Avi Biswas, PhD candidate, Toronto Rehab, UHN and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, and the senior author is Dr. Alter, who is also Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto.

image

 

What to do?

Walking during the day: Quit Sitting And Walk: Hourly 5-Minute Walks Found To Undo Side Effects Of Prolonged Sitting

Standing desk: Celebrating my standing desks and 5 tips for transitioning to a standing desk

Treadmill desk: Emma Donoghue guest posts about ‘the miracle’ that’s her treadmill desk

Set a timer: Tracy and I both write using the Pomodoro technique, short focused bursts with breaks. We use timers and that makes taking a break from sitting easy.

In the evening?: I’m good during the day–I work at a standing desk for at least half the time–but nights can be a challenge when I’m not out doing Aikido or riding my bike.  Sometimes at night I just want to watch Netflix or sit in a comfy chair with a book.  I foam roll in the evening, and there’s lots of household chores to keep me hopping. Weekends, I worry about movies. It doesn’t sound like much but 2 hours or more sitting really isn’t my thing. See Life as a shark!

What do you do to sit less?

cycling

Spin class, cyclocross racing, and the smiling imperative

Sam B2 Comments

I’ve been taking spin classes this winter, along with trainer classes. Mostly they all remind me how much I like riding my bike outside and how much I hate, as Tracy put it, the winter basement cycling tour. But the company is good and I like the music. It’s also tough and I kind of like tough.

(Wondering about your winter cycling options? See Spin, roll, or ride the trainer: What’s the best choice? and Seven winter cycling options.)

But my favourite thing about the spin classes has been watching women’s bike racing on the big screen while we ride. Cyclocross races are great for this purpose. They’re short and action packed and you can watch the race while you ride.

Most recently I watched the women’s UCI Cyclocross Women’s World Championships. See http://www.uci.ch/cyclo-cross/ucievents/2015-cyclo-cross-uci-cyclo-cross-world-championships/172478015/

Great race, lots of fun to watch. But I was surprised after about how much attention was paid to the women’s appearance on the podium. (Why? I’m naive, I guess.)

And I confess that even we’d noted that the winner was wearing earrings and looked like she had applied eyeliner and mascara.

But that’s not what drew the attention of the commentators, on twitter and elsewhere. Instead, they commented on Sanne Cant’s grouchy expression on the podium and her “emo” hairstyle. I’ve got to say I was sort of amused by her non-smile. I would have sulked too. Hey, she’d just lost a race. And I warm to women with short, sporty hair. (See Athletic hair, helmet head, and summer time curls.)

I was still thinking about it all and wondering what to say when this WONDERFUL commentary was emailed to me by a cycling friend and colleague. Thanks Andrew!

Can’t she live? Why Sanne Cant’s bitchface helps women’s cycling

Elite Women’s CX World Championship race itself was unpredictable and exciting, but on a symbolic level, it ended up as a predictable female rivalry narrative: a bubbly blonde versus a brooding brunette. As Sanne Cant sulked her way through the podium ceremony and post-race interviews, her expression was a bitchface that launched a hundred tweets. Many called her “emo,” referring to her blunt, asymmetrical haircut. One compared her to Adam Sandler in Little Nicky. Cycling insiders publicly called out Cant for her attitude as well as her comments. But is public sulking and hot-off-the-course critical comments to the press really that bad? Under the veneer of professionalism, we’re all human beings, soft and vulnerable after a crushing defeat. All the social media tut-tutting crowned Sanne Cant the sore loser of CX Worlds, but the contrarian in me says moping and complaining, however negative, are ingredients women’s pro cycling needs desperately to keep its story interesting.

To demonstrate how Sanne Cant’s bitchface helps women’s cycling, allow me to pull waaay back to a macro view of a woman’s life. One of the impossible, contrary demands placed on the modern woman is to be nice, sensitive, and congenial while chopping a clear path out the jungle of institutional patriarchy. In dating, we’re supposed to let a guy down easy or we get called uppity, high-maintenance, etc. In our careers, assertive attitudes are put down as bossy and bitchy. Women are expected to be independent, strong, successful—like Beyonce standing proud in front of a giant FEMINIST sign—but not too independent, strong, nor successful to be threatening. (Not even Beyonce can stop you from switching channels away from her!)

You should go read the whole thing, really.

 

 

image

See lots more photos here.

competition · eating · food · Uncategorized

Competitive Eating: Is Excelling at This Good for Women? Good for Anyone?

Tracy I6 Comments

Molly Schuyler with a 72 ounce steak dinner.Last week I saw a report of a competitive “achievement,” in which a small woman did what no one expected her to do.  Now, I’m usually pleased by this sort of thing. I like it when women, large or small, do things that defy “type.”

But this time I wasn’t so sure about the achievement. Molly Schuyler from Nebraska is a competitive eater. She weighs just 120 pounds.  What did she do?

She ate TWO 72 ounce steak dinners in less than 20 minutes at Amarillo’s Big Texan Steak Ranch. This happened in May, but it got another round of attention when it got recycled by Fox news in January.

My reservations don’t stem from my vegan convictions.  It’s nothing like that at all.

It’s just that in the realm of things that it’s a good thing for women to be good at, competitive eating doesn’t make my top ten.  For one thing, it’s kind of dangerous.

People get injured or even die when they undertake to eat competitively.  In this Slate article, “Dog Bites Man,” author Jason Fagone reports that Japanese competitive eater, Takeru Kobayashi, is suffering from an arthritic jaw. But that’s mild compared to the full range of possibilities:

The annals of gurgitation are dotted with strokes and blocked windpipes, of guts literally busted. Go as far back as you like. The novel The Golden Ass, written around A.D. 200, tells of an ancient food fighter almost choking to death on a piece of cheese. The native Tlingit peoples of Alaska used to hold raucous eating contests at their potlatch feasts; one such bacchanal came to a tragic end when a warrior ate a box full of dried hemlock bark and washed it down with water. According to a turn-of-the-century ethnography of the Tlingit, “This caused the hemlock bark to swell and his stomach to burst.”

As for more recent harms, you can’t top Mort Hurst’s Guinness World Record attempt in 1991. Hurst, a MoonPie-eating champ from North Carolina, suffered a stroke after eating 38 soft-boiled eggs in 29 seconds. He recovered and went on to compete again. Others weren’t so lucky. In 2002, a 14-year-old schoolkid in Japan raced his friends at bread-eating, choked, and died. In 2004, a Japanese housewife choked to death on a wheat-rice cake at a contest in Hyogo prefecture. And just this January, a 28-year-old woman in California died of water intoxication after drinking almost two gallons of water in a contest sponsored by a morning radio show. She was trying to win a Nintendo Wii.

Another article about competitive eating, “Eating to Win: 5 Things You Didn’t Know about Competitive Eating,” talks about the intense training regimes serious competitive eaters undertake to get “in shape” for their events:

The masticator muscles of the jaw are among the strongest muscles in the body. Bob Shoudt, who holds the world record for eating more food by weight or volume than any other competitor, says he chews gum constantly – up to 25 pieces at a time — to strengthen his masticators so he can grind up food more quickly. Shea said the jaws of top competitors can exert 280 pounds of force, about the same as a German shepherd.

Shoudt and other competitors push the limit of stomach distension by drinking copious amount of fluids. Even those who don’t train this way appear to have a super human ability to expand their stomachs. A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology found that competitive eaters’ stomachs can grow four times greater than the average person’s to hold four liters’ worth of food and fluid.

Competitive eaters also learn techniques to speed up the eating process. For example, Shoudt says he hops up and down to accelerate the swallowing process with gravity, and he sometimes presses against his stomach to push food lower into the abdomen. Some eaters use a move called the Valsalva Maneuver, which involves pinching the nose and holding the breath. This closes off the airway and supposedly increases the squeezing movement of the esophagus known as peristalsis.

None of these are particularly healthy.  As regular readers of the blog know, I’m a big advocate of eating slowly and mindfully. That’s about the opposite of what happens at a competitive eating event.

That’s not to say they eat like that all the time. But one time is all you need to choke on a hot dog or suffer a stroke or a burst gut.

So in the scheme of things in which women of all sizes surprise us by doing things we don’t expect them to do, I’d rather see more small, strong power lifters and plus-sized endurance athletes than 120 pound competitive eaters. Yes, it pushes the body’s physical limits, as do most sports, and yes it requires focus and conditioning.

And probably for everything physically demanding that anyone might do, from running marathons to climbing mountains, there are those detractors who just can’t wrap their heads around why someone would do it.

But is it a worthwhile pursuit? Put it this way – I doubt we’ll be seeing it in the Olympics any time soon. And if the reward is simply that you get the meal for free, as was the case for Molly Schuyler (you have to pay up front to take the challenge), why not just forgo the 72 ounce steak dinners and keep your money in your pocket in the first place?

Here is Molly Schuyler breaking the record by eating two 72 ounce steak dinners in under 20 minutes:

And that’s not her only achievement. To see a list of Molly’s challenge history (and it’s not even an up-to-date list), check here.