Month: May 2018

diets · food

Every day is “eat what you want day”…because we are grown-ups and food is beyond good and evil

Tracy I2 Comments

I don’t know if it’s a real day, but apparently May 11th was National Eat What You Want Day. I missed it.

I get my info mostly from Sandra Boynton’s cartoon of a hippo eating, captioned “May 11th is National Eat What You Want Day.”

Okay, I get that this cartoon is supposed to be a joke. And though I am not familiar with Sandra Boynton’s body of work, a reader of the blog got in touch with me to say her work “is consistently affirming, food positive, body positive, women positive and [she] deserves credit for her work in this post.” So yes: credit where credit is due.

And perhaps in the larger context of Boynton’s work, this is whimsical, funny, and affirming. I can see that. But when I first encountered it, it gave me pause because of the way it represented what Eat What You Want Day would look like.  I’m told too that the day apparently originated as a response to our diet-laden cultural mindset.  It’s a way of breaking free.  And that’s a good thing. But only for a day? Seriously? I want to say: that’s not enough.

First, every day is an eat what you want day as far as I’m concerned. It’s not just because I’m an intuitive eater. It’s also because we’re adults and we get to make our own decisions about what we eat. Literally, at every moment, you get to choose what you want to eat. So do I. And so does the person in front of you in the line up at the coffee shop who wants an apple fritter for breakfast instead of the egg white frittata.

Second, why does everyone always assume that if we eat whatever we want we will choose to eat only cookies, cakes, candy, and chocolate?  This narrative is a product of the deprivation mentality that is entirely encouraged in our society. Since veggies and fruits and all that other “healthy” stuff is what we “should” be eating (RULES!), all the fun food is what we actually want to be eating (BREAK THE RULES!).

I venture that if we only have one day where we give ourselves permission to eat what we want and if the rest of the days we are eating plain salads where the only dressing we get is the one tablespoonful that we get to dip our fork into before spearing each cucumber slice (if you’ve ever dieted you’ve done this, right?), then when we take away the rules we’re going to go for the flavour burst foods that we’re not “allowed” to eat.

But if that stuff was always on offer, without the rules, it would lose its lustre after awhile. I know this from experience. When I was a grad student my housemate and I experimented with a candy bowl as part of an assignment given to my by the amazing psychotherapist who was trying to help me recover from disordered eating and chronic dieting.

We were to keep the bowl heaped full. Just buying those mini-chocolate bars to fill it gave us an adrenaline rush. And the first week or say we went to town on those candies. We had to fill up the bowl quite a bit. Less so the second week. By the third and fourth week we weren’t as interested anymore. And today I always have a few chocolate bars on hand that I keep in a bin and that last months. Because sometimes I want salad or hummus or a farro bowl with steamed rapini and stir-fried tofu drizzled with tahini and Frank’s Red Hot, not a piece of dark chocolate-dipped crystallized ginger.

Third, this brings me to the point I really want to make, and that we’ve made many times on the blog before, in various forms: food is beyond good and evil. You’re not morally good if you eat a salad and morally bad if you eat fries. Steamed broccoli isn’t virtuous and banana tempura in syrup isn’t sinful and decadent. It’s food. You can eat it if you like.

I just despise food policing, the food police, and any kind of moralizing about food (other than vegan moralizing, which I’m totally down with even if I tend to stay silent unless asked or unless it’s totally relevant and people are saying ridiculous things to defend their participation in unnecessary animal cruelty…oops). Susan shared a story yesterday with the other blog authors about how she was at a coffee shop (buying a muffin) and a woman came in and literally lectured the owner about how muffins are cake.

You know what? Cake is awesome. So simply telling me that muffins are cake makes me want to say, “And your point is…?” All over the world people eat pastries and stuff for breakfast. If you’re eating muffins because you’re counting calories or fat grams and you think they’re low in those, then you might want to think again. But if you’re eating the because you like them, which is basically the best reason to eat whatever we eat, then someone telling you muffins are cake might go a long way to explaining why they’re so damned delicious.

I’m not the only one on the blog who feels this way about food policing. Here are some of our posts about this topic, gathered in one place, for your reading pleasure. Next time the food police make an appearance, ignore them, refer them to the blog, or tell them to go ahead and arrest you for taking pleasure in your food choices!

Why Food is Beyond Good and Evil (Tracy I)

Do You Get Sucked into Food Shaming Trends (Tracy I)

Food Demonizing and the Perils of “All or Nothing” Thinking (Tracy I)

Beyond Good and Evil (Food) (Catherine W)

Follow-Up to Last Week’s Beyond Good and Evil (Food) Post (Catherine W)

Just Eat the Damn Cupcake (Sam)

Don’t Get Sucked in by the Rhetoric of Eating Clean (Tracy I)

Diets Disguised as un-Diets: The Food Police Strike Again (Tracy I)

Disclaimer: I’m not discounting that some of us may have added reasons not to eat some foods. If I was diabetic, I would need to be careful about sugar. I do have a garlic intolerance that means I cannot deal with anything other than trace amounts of cooked garlic and almost no amount of raw garlic. That doesn’t make me want garlic. Also, there are ethical reasons for avoiding some foods. I’m an ethical vegan who pretty consistently avoids animal products because of my beliefs about the industry’s impact on the environment and my desire not to contribute to animal suffering and exploitation (two hallmarks of industrial animal agriculture). That’s a reason. And it doesn’t make me want filet mignon and veal parmesan.

Question: How do you deal with the food police?

athletes · eating · Guest Post · racing · running · sports nutrition · training

Aimée crosses a line (Guest post)

Sam B8 Comments

by Aimée Morrison

My half-marathon is in two weeks. I hit peak training mileage and intensity and the onset of summer heat at the same time. Naturally, my hydration and fuel strategy fell apart, and I had to buy a fuel belt, which is something I swore I would never do, but here I am. I’m thinking about why this has me so freaked out. Because I’m pretty freaked out.

The precipitating incident was last Sunday’s long run. My training group ran 20km and it was remarkably hot, all of sudden. Now, I had pretty easily run the same 20km the week before, and all the other runs before that. What happened this past Sunday, though, was: I didn’t have enough water in my tiny handheld bottle to compensate for the all the extra sweating the heat entailed, never mind the extra distance as we kept adding kilometers week after week. I also lost all my hunger cues because that’s what heat does to me and so I forgot to keep nibbling on my carb-and-chocolate baked bites that are my go-to run fuel. I also lost the pockets where I stashed these little snacks because I was now running without a jacket, so I hadn’t brought enough of them in any case. I just completely failed to hydrate and fuel anywhere near enough. I bonked at 18.5 km, and I had to stagger-walk the last 1.5km.

Which is how I found myself at the Running Room the next day, staring at a wall of bottles and bags and belts and bladders and cringing. I bought gels and reconciled myself to paste-food instead of solids. I bought a belt. It’s got a zip pouch for my phone, a quick-grab strap system for gels, and two-quick draw holsters from which I can quickly extract either of two fluorescent yellow 10oz water bottles. It’s got a non-slip strap that doesn’t bounce around on my hips, and a spot I can stash Kleenexes. It’s a fancy and expensive fanny pack, basically. I hated it on sight.

Well. Guess what? I’ve worn it out for my last three runs, and now I love it. It turns out that a steady stream of water and gels does keep me feeling strong through my whole run, and prevents me from feeling like trash in the hours afterwards. But I still feel really cringe-y about other people seeing me in it.

The thing is, I think I look like a jackass, some cross between a soccer mom with a purse full of snacks, a norm-core 90s dad, and some kind of ridiculously self-important non-athlete with more money than muscle endurance. Yeah: full on imposter syndrome, rooted in some pretty judgey thinking about soccer moms and 90s dads, and probably some worries that I now look exactly like all those other middle-aged fanny-packed women runners out there in their tech gear chugging along the Sunday sidewalks in their groups. It’s great that 25 year old me used to roll my eyes at those women in their sun-visors but I should rethink this practice at 45, when I am now clearly also a middle-aged woman with a whole hat rack of sun visors (so practical!) chugging along the Sunday trails with my group. It would be best if I could not reflexively hate myself for occasionally looking like … what I am. Ah, internalized ageism.

At the same time, I am kind of amazed at myself. How did I get here? This person with electrolyte sports drink in the left holster and water in the right? With gels on my hip that I greedily squeeze down my throat when I’m stopped at lights? But then I doubt myself: I’m just keeping a 7min/km pace—with walk breaks!—for a couple of hours in the middle of the city, not racing across the Sahara. Who do I think I am?

Increasingly, I answer myself firmly: I am a runner, putting in 35-45 km per week, across five days a week, doing hills, doing sprints, running big distances over long hours, in groups, with my husband, by myself. On my bonk run, my FitBit indicated I had burned something like 1350 calories over those 20km. I am very much entitled to my Endurance Tap energy gels and my electrolyte drinks. I am a pale and scrawny middle-aged woman with strong looking legs and a weak looking chin. I wear a fuel belt. I am an athlete.

You need a gel? I’ve got some extra, here in my fanny pack.

Aimée Morrison is on sabbatical from professoring in new media studies in 2018 and trying to achieve some healthy ratio of words-written to miles-run. She’ll run her first half marathon in Ottawa on May 27. With the help of 4 Endurance Tap packs, one bottle of electrolyte replacement, and one bottle of water, she finished this week’s 20km run in record time and without bonking, not even a little.

6 things Sam hates about seeing doctors, as a larger person
health · stereotypes · weight loss · weight stigma

6 things Sam hates about seeing doctors, as a larger person

Sam B

None of this is true about my current set of health practitioners. But they took awhile to find. Right now I’m halfway between jobs and cities and I’m looking for a new family doctor to start. It’s tough. And here’s why!

1. They believe ridiculous things about me. See this article about doctors and bias against larger patient. “Much research has shown that clinicians have biases related to overweight and obesity, conditions that affect more than two-thirds of U.S. adults, Dr. Gudzune said. “[With] the magnitude of the effect of obesity in our country, a substantial number of people are experiencing health care disparities as a result,” she said. Studies have consistently shown that physicians associate obesity with such negative attributes as poor hygiene, nonadherence, hostility, and dishonesty, Dr. Gudzune said. “These types of attitudes are pervasive. It’s not just in the U.S. … [but] physicians across the world as well: Australian, Israeli, European physicians. … These attitudes have been documented as far back as 1969, and they continue to persist up until today,” she said. In surveys of primary care physicians, more than 50% view patients with obesity as awkward, unattractive, and ugly, Dr. Gudzune said. “They have less respect for patients with obesity. They also believe that heavier patients are less likely to follow medical advice, benefit from counseling, or adhere to medications, which are some of the things that are really critical in thinking about managing obesity,” she said. She added that these attitudes may extend to other health professionals, such as medical students, nurses, and nutritionists.” Not fun.

2. They prescribe weight loss for everything. The evidence bar is very low. If there’s even a small chance that weight makes a difference, they mention it.

3. They don’t believe my attempts at trying to lose weight. I just haven’t tried hard enough apparently. It’s as if once a have a serious medical reason, like putting off knee replacement surgery, I’ll snap to it, get down to business, and the pounds will just melt away.

4. They don’t have anything useful to say about how to lose weight. See this post on unwanted weight loss advice. “Why do doctors weigh patients and offer weight loss advice? Other than “eat less and move more” which is kind of like the weight loss equivalent of “buy low and sell high,” what recommendations do they make and why?”

5. But they recommend diets anyway even though the most likely outcome is that the patient weighs more at the end. In this post I wonder if doctors would do that with any other “likely to fail spectacularly” treatment. See Well intentioned lies, doctors, and the diet industry: If weight loss is impossible, ctors-and-the-diet-industry-if-weight-loss-impossible-then-what/

6. They never believe my blood pressure readings or my cholesterol levels. I’ve had a complete work up with a endocrinologist who gave me a clean bill of fat health but still, it’s an uphill battle being seen. See this post and this one.

I know Catherine and Nat have blogged here about issues with doctors. I often think, hey we’re all strong feminists with serious amounts of post secondary education and some good attitudes, we’re white, English speaking, able bodied, if we have problems with doctors what’s it like for other women who don’t share our bundle of privileges? If you’re a larger person, what’s the medical world like for you. We want to know.

coffee cup, quilt, open book and words "sometimes you need to mother yourself" Self-mothering as activity
feminism · fitness

Self-mothering as activity

catherine w5 Comments

Last weekend I went for a yoga retreat to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Wellness in western Massachusetts. My friend Laura and I did a Five Element Yoga workshop with Jennifer Reis, who also does Yoga Nidra (or yoga sleep) workshops. This involved a bunch of yogic practices:

  • poses or asanas;
  • different breathing techniques;
  • mudras, or hand gestures done with breathing, meditation, or poses;
  • self-massage (literally from toes to head);
  • yoga nidra, where you lie down on your mat while you are led through a body scan and/or guided meditation.

We also went through these poses, breathing technique and mudras in the contexts of earth, water, air, fire, and ether (something like space). All of the movements, however big or small, restful or vigorous, were hitched to some internal state, or intention, or emotional expression. The metaphysical taxonomy of all of this is pretty baroque, but as in many things, you can take what you like and leave the rest.

The big message I got from all the movement and internal focus was this: I want and need more mothering in my life. This semester in my academic job has been emotionally intense– one of my students died from suicide, and several others have been suffering from and getting treatment for depression, anxiety, and trauma. And for whatever reason, this semester I was the professor that these students talked to about their troubles. Of course they have many others in their lives, including therapists, family, friends, community, etc., but on the academic front it felt like I was the go-to person on the Bridgewater State University campus for student support.

I consider it an honor when a student trusts me with sensitive and difficult information about their lives. It is also a burden, as it makes me want to bifurcate myself into two persons: Catherine the kindly professor, and Catherine the mama bear, ready to do battle with whatever and whoever is causing them pain. I admit that I was more bearish than I usually am, in response to students’ pain.

I also didn’t take great care of myself this term; I haven’t been eating in ways that feel healthy to me, and I haven’t done as much activity as I need to feel good and vigorous and strong. Clearly I need some mothering myself.

So I did what I could, which is to go to Kripalu for the weekend as soon as the term was over. I am lucky and aware of the privilege that allows me to devote time and money and resources to this kind of self-care. I ate great tasting and healthy-to-me food that I neither cooked nor cleaned up after. I moved around and was still and was curious and listened.

What I heard were these desires:

  • I want to move with energy and strength and grace.
  • I want to be less fearful about the body I have now.
  • I want to be by myself and also with others in movement and stillness.

I’m not a mother, but I know lots of them. They seem to combine lavish loving with relentless cajoling, threatening, sweet-talking and redirecting their children to help them move toward their goals in life.

I have goals– in particular, physical activity goals this summer. They are:

  • Bikes not Bombs charity ride (30 miles)
  • PWA Friends for Life charity ride (68 miles)
  • MA-VT round-trip Labor Day weekend ride (100ish miles)
  • NYC Century ride in Sept (75 miles, which is actually 82)

I’m doing some riding and some yoga, but I need some serious self-mothering to get enough done to make these goals. So I’m going to see what I can do to act as my own mama bear to myself. I’ll be reporting back on what happens.

Thank you to all the mothers out there, and also to those of you in the process of self-mothering. I find strength and solidarity and motivation and community from reading your stories and comments.

Happy Mothers Day to all of us!

competition · fitness · race report · running

Bettina’s sunny 10k race report

bettinathenomad9 Comments

Last weekend, I ran a 10k race. It was only my third ever ‘proper’ race, so these things are still sort of new and exciting to me. A key difference was also that I ran this race with a group of colleagues. To be fair, I started my first 10k running with a friend, but I knew he was going to be way faster than me so I wasn’t surprised when he took off after the first kilometre and the rest was very much a ‘me-vs-the-road’ thing. Last week’s race definitely felt like we were doing it as a group.

I had specifically picked this race because it was a flat course. I do very, very poorly on hills and it’s something I want to work on. So if anyone has any tips on how to improve running uphill, send them my way. I really need them. I also had a goal: I wanted to do it in under 60 minutes.

StLeonRot10k
Bettina post-race, complete with post-race hair.

The day of the race was a beautiful sunny Sunday and threatened to actually get quite hot. That thing about the hottest spring in the history of weather recording? Definitely true for this part of the world. It felt more like July than early May. Luckily the race was in the morning and substantial parts of it were in the shade. Still, when the 5k water station came around I was very grateful.

I started off sticking to a colleague with whom I’d run in the past and whom I knew to be more or less at the same pace as myself. Well… it turned out that apparently she’d been getting in a bit more training than me  and  set off faster than anticipated. Nevertheless, I tried to hang on to her as long as I could, because if anything, I’m competitive. But about three kilometres into the race I knew I had to let it, and my colleague, go.

But given that I was doing well for speed, I decided to try and stay at roughly a 5:30km/h pace, which is still faster than I normally run. At this point, I wanted to see if I could do it. And I almost could! In the end, I averaged 5:34, which is really good for me and I was very pleased with my final time of 56:46. I would have been even more pleased had I been able to do it in 55. So that’s my goal for next time.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable race in a small town with a very community feel, organised by the local sports club. The atmosphere was really relaxed, and while some of our team mentioned that it would have been nice to have more people cheering us on along the course, I actually didn’t mind the calmness of our run through fields and forest.

I’m not going to lie, parts of it were a struggle. It was quite hot out in the fields, so that was a factor. Also, when I had to acknowledge that my colleague was actually too fast for me, while a few months ago she was definitely slower, I couldn’t help but feel a bit frustrated with myself. But I’m trying to push past that and focus on the fact that I ran an awesome time by my own standard. All in all, I had a great time. We went for a nice lunch with some of the team members afterwards and it was a lot of fun. I hope we run again soon!

fitness

Keep the channel open

fieldpoppy7 Comments

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate YOU.
Keep the channel open.”

– Martha Graham

***

(Thursday). It’s the final day of the year-long academic leadership program I’m associate director of today.   We asked the students to do “creative presentations” to tell the stories of what they’d learned.  One of my students uses this Martha Graham quote to talk about her evolving sense of herself.  Then she puts on music, kicks off her boots and invites us all to join her in ecstatic dance.  I join the small group who surround her.

**

Another learner is a young female surgeon in a niche specialty.  She has a vivid, uber-femmy style, and wears a sparkly tshirt with a big gucci belt buckle today.  She can talk as easily about her need to train her eyebrows to grow up, not down, as she can about removing a tumour from a parotid gland. She shows a photo of herself in her faculty group, the only woman in a dozen grey-suited men, a splotch of colour and femininity.

After she talks about her work, she asks us if we think she needs to change her style to be taken seriously.  My co-director is a big proponent of “don’t let your clothes be a distraction.”  Some in the class agree. Others encourage the sparkly doctor to keep pushing at the edges of “what a surgeon looks like,” but to acknowledge the realities of unconscious bias and be deliberate and strategic about her choices.  I notice that the men in the class listen and watch without weighing in.

**

A guy in the class — another high profile surgeon, traditional and usually in suits, poised to create a really innovative department in his specialty — shares that his big realization from this program is that he can’t surround himself with people who look and think like him and expect to make any difference in the world.

When he’s speaking, I’m reminded of another former student — a superstar, male, middle-aged clinician scientist changing global guidelines — who told me after a year of working together that I’d helped him “get over his god complex.”

I love my students, and I’m weepy through their presentations.  They are so vulnerable, so open, so raw and hopeful with their desire to truly have an impact on health, health equity, knowledge, medical education, access, the system.  I’m overwhelmed with the privilege of facilitating people who yearn for more than their own personal success, who truly burn to make a better world. Who work so hard to challenge their own assumptions.

***

In another stream of my work, I’m working with another brilliant young woman, a scientist, to put together a proposal for a giant grant for a new research network that could utterly transform medicine.  I tell Lynn, a senior leader at the university, that I’m working on the project, and she says “it’s so great to help the young people, isn’t it?”

I laugh, and realize I really don’t think of myself as this mid-life person who is Helping the Young People.  My students certainly aren’t technically “young” — they’re practicing health professionals — mostly physicians — and scientists at a stage in their careers when they’re taking on big leadership roles.  But mostly, they are at least a decade younger than I am.  I realize that when I’m the one teaching associate deans or chiefs and chairs of hospital and university departments, I’m officially middle-aged.

I’ve written a ton for this blog about what it means to be in an aging body, what it means to be fully inhabiting the age of 53, incorporating menopause and fatigue and arthritis in my toes and fingers into my identity as an unfettered adventurer riding my bike alone across foreign lands. But I haven’t really explored what it means to be middle-aged in the non-physical part of my self.

When Lynn observed that I was Helping the Young People, something clicked.  Part of it was about something I’ve been paying attention to for a while, which is Erikson’s model of adult psychosocial development, where stage 7 — middle age, roughly 40 – 65 — is “generativity vs. stagnation.”  Generativity in this context roughly corresponds to doing things that will outlast you, creating some legacy that relates to community, relationships and work.  He posited that if you don’t live into this kind of generativity in mid-life, you risk stagnation and emotional despair. Researchers have linked vitality during this time to decreased geriatric depression.

I work hard, and I work a lot — but I thrive on what I get to do at this point in my life.  I’m tired, but this is the time in my life when things are clicking, when I know that I have something to bring to my world that matters, and when the opportunities present themselves.

That’s fitness.  Living into my values in a truly authentic way.

There’s something beyond generativity that started to crystalize today when the students were speaking, when a senior researcher who struggled before this program wept at feeling heard.  It’s in the Martha Graham quote, and it’s in the essence of this blog.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.”

Why should feminists be fit?  So they can translate themselves into action. So we can translate ourselves into action. We need to be healthy and strong and clear-minded and energized to do anything that matters.  What fitness is to you is unique to you — but fit and strong and powerful?  That’s at the essence of doing anything that lasts.

I feel quite despairing at this moment in time about influencing political institutions. This isn’t a moment where I trust in the grace of politicians.  But what I CAN do is work that has the impact of creating deep, long-term change about equity and inclusion in education, and among the people in charge of delivering healthcare.  I can help shift the understanding of middle-aged health leaders about why equity matters.  I can teach people to listen.

And to do all of those things, I need to be calm in my own soul, strong in my body, fully grounded.  That’s why fit is a feminist issue for me.

IMG_3689.jpgFieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who lives and works in Toronto when she’s not wandering the world.  She blogs here on the first Friday and second Saturday of every month, and at other times when she feels provocative.

 

 

 

 

fitness

Raspberry Ketone, Pure Green Coffee Extract, Garcinia Cambogia, Weight Loss, and the Fallacy of Appealing to Authority #tbt

Tracy I

In this era of “fake news” I thought for sure I was reading a joke when I saw the headline “Trump appointing Dr Oz to his sports, nutrition and fitness council” But apparently not. Despite that he has been denounced by the medical community for “an egregious lack of integrity,” Dr. Oz is indeed being appointed. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me but it did. Dr Oz spends a lot of time on his show championing miracle weight loss products that have no scientific backing to support the claims made about their efficacy.

It seems apt, therefore, to reblog something I wrote back in 2013 about his endorsement of these things and why we should take pause. Enjoy (or read it and weep).

weight lifting

Bigger, better, stronger? On women and weightlifting

Sam B2 Comments

There are various myths around size and fitness that just have to die. Take the myth that thin equals fit. Go die a fire-y death! How about the myth that large women can’t run or bike? Go jump off a cliff!

But the one that I find just puzzling is the idea that large women aren’t strong.  From the BBC: “Rebecca Roberts is “morbidly obese”, according to Body Mass Index (BMI). She’s also one of the UK’s Strongest Women. Newsbeat has been speaking to people who say that “bigger is better” – and that their size is an advantage in their jobs. Rebecca has overcome bullying during her childhood and says she’s learned to embrace her bigger size and weight.” See Bigger is better’: The weightlifter

But why is the strength of bigger women a surprise to us?  It really shouldn’t be.

We’ve written about it here. See Big women and strength.

Among other things it’s why there are weight classes in competition. The strongest women overall are also the largest. It’s why it’s sometimes to useful to think of strength relative to your body weight. You can disagree about the numbers but it’s why strength benchmarks use bodyweight as a guide.  According to 9 Essential Strength Benchmarks for Women you should be able to deadlift 150% of your bodyweight and bench 75% of your body weight.

That’s more meaningful than thinking of it in terms of bears. (I can deadlift something between a black bear and a panda, FWIW.)

But even large women known for their tremendous physical strength aren’t immune from the pressure to look smaller, to be lean and trim.

I was shocked when  U.S. Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangold decided to take part in the Biggest Loser. Read about it in this post From the Olympics to the Biggest Loser? Say it ain’t so Holley.

In the end she didn’t do that well on the show,Ousted ‘Biggest Loser,’ Olympian Holley Mangold.

And she didn’t make the next Olympic team, U.S. Olympic women’s weightlifting team complete; no Holley Mangold

There I wrote. “We say “strong is the new skinny.” But really, few people mean that. The strongest women, like the strongest men, are big. That’s why lifting has weight divisions. And we tend not to see pictures of strong women like Holley on the “strong is the new skinny” fitspo posters.”

I think we ought to start admiring really strong women and having a mental image of them when we say, “Strong is the new skinny.”

Here’s one more, closer to home. See B.C. nurse still the strongest woman over 40 in the world

At 42 years old, Ferguson has only been taking part in strength competitions for two years — earning  gold in the Master’s division of the North American Strongman Championships in 2015, then going on to claim either the top or runner-up positions in numerous other competitions in B.C., Canada and North America.

To win in Raleigh, Ferguson had to lift metal logs, run with a 500 lb. yoke on her back and deadlift a car as many times as possible in 60 seconds.

 

I’d like to be able to deadlift a car. It’s Bike to Work Month again and lots of people in my newsfeed are sharing this older clip of a very strong man moving a car out of the bike lane. A girl can dream! #goals

fitness · racing · running

Who would do a 0.5 k race? (hint: not Cate or Tracy)

fieldpoppy11 Comments

(This post is a conversation between Cate and Tracy).

Cate:  So we’ve been talking about this story that’s circulating about a town in Texas that’s hosting a 0.5K race, complete with a beer at the start line and donuts halfway through.  Now, here’s the thing.  This is supposed to be playful — their site presents the “race” this way:

  • The um, “Run” will start at River Road Park, just across from the Dodging Duck.  Conveniently, the Duck has offered all participants a free pint of beer before the start of the race, so get there early.  Yay beer!
  • The um, “Race”, will then head down the River Road Park walkway, underneath the Main Street Bridge where you will finish in a blaze of glory.
  • We will then head to the Cibolo Creek Brewery to relive the experience, brag to our friends, take selfies to post on social media “I DID IT!!!  I’M A FINISHER!!  LOOK AT ME!!!”  Conveniently, CCB has offered all participants a free pint of beer at the end of the race.  Yay beer!

Now, sure this sounds fun and everything, and I get why it sold out. It’s just a fun send up of “real” races  But for some reason, hearing a story on CBC about this irritated me.  I’ve been thinking about why — and I know this makes me sound totally churlish —  and I think it’s because it buys into the trope that everyone “secretly hates” exercise.

One headline about it was “this town is hosting a 0.5k race because running sucks.”  I think I’m kind of sensitive about the shade I sometimes get about working out a lot from people who don’t — the implication that I’m some kind of masochist or showing off my virtue or a “fitness-aholic.”

Did it bug you?

Tracy: Yes, it bugged me too! My first encounter with this story was in a link to an article entitled “This town is hosting a 0.5K race for people who hate running,” but when you click through appears to be the same article as the one Cate just linked to (with one with “…because running sucks”).  My reaction right away was, “FFS why don’t they just find a different activity?”

I said that before I read the article. A closer read: it’s about fun. It’s for charity. It’ll “afford you the opportunity to experience a winner’s finish without even breaking a sweat.”  Because we want that finish line experience even though, according to the article, we all know that “running blows.”

So why did it annoy me? Like Cate, I just don’t buy into that narrative. If you think running blows, then don’t run.

But then what’s wrong with all the other stuff? I often find myself on the wrong side of fun-promotion (I get irritated when people talk about goat yoga, for example). Why begrudge people that “finish line feeling”? And the charity aspect, raising money for Blessings in a Backpack, a charity that feeds children in need on weekends. Or the “VIP” option where you can skip the 0.5K altogether and get an even bigger medal. I have no objection to play, but I think the whole thing pushed my philosophical buttons.

Cate, I want to hear more about your negative reaction. It’s comforting that I’m not alone.

Cate:  I think I feel like you do. On one hand, I get that it’s a playful thing, and if they were trying to get attention, it worked — it’s a tiny event in a small town in Texas and they got media coverage in Newsweek, the Washington Post, a national CBC show — and they sold out. So from a marketing point of view — and from a fundraising perspective — it was a huge success.  And it’s the inversion of the normal race that got them that attention.  And I’m sure it was a fun event — who doesn’t love a good doughnut?

But I agree with you that there’s something at the centre of it that niggles me — something about the notion that you can skip right over the actual experience of training and running to enjoy “being a finisher.”

Partly this bugs me because of the implication that the only enjoyable part of running is crossing the finish line — like it’s all hell but at least you get to brag about it.  It’s part of this whole narrative that if physical things are hard, they are inherently miserable.  That’s not my experience. I thrive on hard, long, windy bike rides or tough runs, and find something deeply satisfying — and yes, enjoyable — to truly work my body to its fullest.  It’s me at my most human, and I’d never want to skip over that.

And when I dig underneath, my reaction is about this bigger notion that life is about collecting experiences and knocking them off the list, not about being truly present in the moment of things.  It’s the same reason the concept of bucket lists bothers me.  I travel a lot, and I keep a running tally of how many countries have been to, but it’s not about collecting them — it’s about savouring the mystery and the privilege of being able to see such a profoundly amazing and diverse world.

 

Tracy: There is a thought experiment in philosophy called “The Experience Machine.” It lets you program in any experience and if you’re hooked up to the machine you experience 100% indecipherable from reality. The question is: would you choose to spend the rest of your life hooked up to the machine (you can’t go in and out — one decision, yes or no?)? The “right answer” for most people is “no, I wouldn’t.”

Why not? Because, so the argument goes, we value more than experience. We value actual achievement. It’s not enough to be convinced I won a Pulitzer. The experience only has value if I did earn a Pulitzer. This event purports to “afford you the opportunity to experience a winner’s finish without even breaking a sweat.” I understand that it’s just a small variation on the argument against finishers’ medals (that they’re not really “earned” and medals should be reserved for the top 3). But somehow having the experience of finishing a race without actually finishing takes it one step too far. When I get a finishers medal I am under no illusions: I have not placed 1-3. But I DID finish. And I earned that much, at least. But this… nope. There is no accomplishment.

Now maybe this view just means I’m so steeped in a cultural narrative about merit and desert that I need to take a step back and lighten up. But there is a further thing that I think is potentially lost when we make light of running (or any activity) by offering a no-benefit option. It’s not just about accomplishment. It’s also about making light of the real issue of inactivity and sedentary lifestyles that carry with them actual health consequences.

This race, apparently, even has a smoking zone. And beer. Everything in me just wants to scream “no, no, no, no, no.” I’ll take the Colour Run over this any day (and I’m not keen on the Colour Run either — for myself. Its very existence doesn’t bother me but it’s not my kind of event).

There are lots of other great ways, fun ways, to earn money for charity. Right, Cate? We brainstormed a bunch at the Guelph book launch the other day, remember?

Cate:  Yup!  Go bowling, have a silent auction, make art, have a disco-themed gala, invite an inspiring speaker, organize a cabaret, have a rock paper scissors contest, a thumb wrestling championship, euchre tournament, three-legged race — the world is stuffed with experiences you can fully inhabit.  You don’t have to mock one of the things that’s an actual goal for a lot of people trying to become healthier.

Curmudgeonly Cate signing off ;-).

 

 

 

fitness

Running, walking, or just plain playing

Sam B2 Comments

On our Facebook page, sharing doesn’t equal endorsement. In fact, some of the liveliest discussions have been about areas of disagreement. I say, when asked, that I post items of interest to people who approach fitness from a feminist perspective. But it’s “big tent” feminism. We don’t agree about everything.

I usually browse through a number of news sites in the morning looking for things of interest to those who follow our page. The blog is Tracy and me but the Facebook page is pretty much (with occasional posts from Catherine, Cate, Nat, and Tracy) just me. Tracy is Twitter and I’m Facebook.

Mostly I love our Facebook page but sometimes I can’t take the criticism over the selection of items I post. It’s as in people thought it were a fulltime job curating our Facebook page rather than something I cram in between showering and breakfast!

It was in the spirit of “interesting idea but I’m not sure what I think of it?” that I shared this story about a Scottish school that gets kids out to run a mile each day.

Many of our page followers objected to framing this in terms of the “war on childhood obesity.” Agreed. I hate that kind of talk too.

Others hated that it was about running. Aren’t there other kinds of exercise? Agreed. Of course.

Finally, some people thought it shouldn’t even be about exercise at all. What happened to childhood play? Can’t kids have both?

I’ve written about this before on other blogs. See Let’s stop talking about childhood exercise over the Impact Ethics blog.

I know at my kids’ school pretty much all games that involved running around were ruled out for fears of contact and violence. No tag, no football or rugby, and in some schools no gymnastic moves. See No cartwheels for you! Just soccer remained. People who research children’s physical inactivity sometimes call this the “protection paradox.” We want to keep children safe so we make them sit down and stay still but that behavior has its own serious long term health risks. We’re not really protecting them at all.

When young my kids often exercised indoors at their desks. My son’s teacher had them dancing at least to fun songs like “New York, New York” as their QDPA (he told me). What’s QDPA, you ask. Quality Daily Physical Activity. Now, I’m not knocking dancing or show tunes. He wasn’t either. But it seemed odd to that we even needed the category of QPDA.

The next year my son’s new teacher introduced daily running for QDPA and he sent home notes saying he was shocked to discover that only a few of the kids could run 2 km. Most of them walked. But I am not sure what we expect if we keep children inside and then force them to run as a deliberate exercise rather than as part of play or a game.

Apologies to Facebook page readers who thought I was endorsing joyless daily running as part of the war on childhood obesity. That’s not my style.