Month: August 2018

fitness · season transitions

Summer’s ending. Does it mean my fitness is over too? I hope not.

catherine w4 Comments

This summer has been the most relaxing and fun and satisfying one I’ve had in years.

Hand-drawn picture of a sun and a kid saying "Yay summer!"
Hand-drawn picture of a sun and a kid saying “Yay summer!”

Although there have been some fun trips (to the beach in SC with my sister, her kids, and their friends; and Tucson, AZ for work and a lot of play with my friend Kay),  mostly I’ve been home. This has given me time and opportunity to cycle more and do yoga a lot-a-lot more. Throw in some walking and swimming and this and that, and I’m feeling really good and comfortable in my body. Yay again!

A cute cartoon person in purple shirt, olive shorts, red shoes, jumping. I feel like this too.
A cute cartoon person in purple shirt, olive shorts, red shoes, jumping. I feel like this too.

I’ve generally been moving around on my own power a lot more and driving my car a lot less. All this is wonderful.  And I’m aware of the great privilege of having such vast amounts of flexible and unscheduled time.  Professors do work in the summers (and I also teach one session of summer school online), but we typically don’t have to be in offices 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week (deans have different deals, as Tracy and Samantha can attest).

But all that is changing, and soon– the first week of September, to be exact. What this means is that I will be driving 3+ days a week to and from school, which takes around 2.5 hours.  Each day.  Yep, I live far from my work (another privilege, I know). There is public transportation to school, but it would mean either:

  • bus plus subway plus commuter rail plus 12 minutes’ walk; or
  • cycle downtown during rush hour plus change clothes in train station bathroom plus commuter rail plus ride or walk to office;

Each of which takes 1:45–2 hours each way.  That’s 3.5–4 hours each day. I’ve tried it many times, but just can’t maintain it.

But enough of this.  Here’s my big worry.

Last year I had way too many work commitments and a schedule that didn’t work well for me. I felt exhausted and harried and didn’t have the wherewithal to do the physical activity that would help me feel better in my body and about myself. I felt like a total wreck by spring.

It took time and commitment and support from everyone I knew (thanks so much, everyone!), but I am now feeling great– I’m moving a lot, feeling connected to friends and family, working on my various projects, and enjoying life. I want to continue this movement, these connections, these good feelings into the fall. But how?

I posted about this on Facebook, attaching an article from an overworked academic who collapsed on the job. This phenomenon isn’t limited to education, of course. Many or most of us have pressing obligations at work, plus responsibilities to others in our lives. This leaves little time for self care in general and physical activity in particular.

Yoda, saying "many directions pulled in I am; overwhelmed easy to be".
Yoda, saying “many directions pulled in I am; overwhelmed easy to be”.

Anyway, lots of Facebook friends posted ideas that worked for them, like a standing or treadmill desk, timers to remind us to move every so often, even dancing in one’s office (love this idea, Claire!). Some folks shared their frustrations, which helped enormously. Here are a few of them:

I just can’t function without my walk. Because of that I just have to do it no matter what meetings deadlines or students. I accept a crappier performance – in that sense – as the trade off (long term it means a less crappy performance, so there. Am I in hospital with burnout? No. Lots of times, that’s the win.) 

yeah. already with the first week of pre-academic term meetings, i am suddenly and erratically having to be places too early and get home too strung out to do anything — and i’m staring at the most beautiful new running shoes waiting to use them until later this week. I find I have to acknowledge how dysfunctional my workplace is and just be ok with that before i can do any self-care — that is, i have to believe it’s real and i deserve a walk or a nap or something delicious. i appreciate knowing it’s not just me.

That is what I really needed to hear.  We’re not alone. I’m not alone.

A smiley face smiling, and thinking "phew."
A smiley face smiling, and thinking “phew.”

Yes, in order to maintain my fitness and comfort in my body and life, I have to get strategic.  There are loads of strategies out there, open to me, and I will be blogging about them later on. For now, though, I just wanted to know two things:

  1. yes, it’s hard to transition from summer to fall (with all that means for anyone’s life) and hang onto self-care patterns.
  2. we’re not alone in this– we are all bummed about it, and maybe we can come up with some ideas and plans for fall fitness after the splendor of summer.

How are you feeling about the seasonal transitions, readers? Has yours already started? How are you doing? What do you need or want in the way of help? I’d love to hear what’s you’re thinking.

What are you thinking about? With a cartoon duck (for fun).
What are you thinking about? With a cartoon duck (for fun).
fitness

More Rest for the Leery

Christine Hennebury3 Comments

Kim’s post about her restorative vacation put me in mind of my efforts to rest more regularly.

 

I realize how weird that sentence is. It’s bizarre to think that I have to work at resting, but it does require a concentrated effort.

 

The author, a white woman with light brown hair and glasses, is lying in an orange and grey hammock. There is a small patch of green plants in the upper right of the photo. She has a tired smirk and she is wearing a red tshirt that reads 'patriarchy got me drove.'
This was a particularly challenging day (I barely had energy to smirk) but luckily, I did remember to rest. I felt MUCH better afterwards. (My tshirt reads ‘patriarchy got me drove’)

If left to my own devices, I will keep doing the thing I’m doing until it’s done and then I will rest. That works just fine on small projects – a blog post, running an errand, doing the dishes – but it becomes a problem when the project is any bigger than that. If I am not careful, I’ll find myself working away on a large project until I run out of time or until something more pressing comes along.  

 

I’m not a ‘workaholic’, I don’t feel compelled to work all the time, that’s not my motivation at all. I just have this mistaken idea that in order to really relax, I need to have all my work finished. I don’t want to have a time limit on my rest, nor do I want thoughts of my remaining tasks to intrude on my rest time. So it’s not that I want to do MORE work, it’s that I want it all out of the way so I can just sink into my rest.

 

Of course, things don’t work like that. I’m a writer and a life coach and I have two teenage sons, there isn’t really a point at which I am done. Instead, I can reach ‘done for now’ and ‘done for today’ or ‘that’s enough on that project.’ – see Jennifer Louden’s ‘Conditions of Enoughness’ for a good discussion of that last point. 

 

 I’m a bit nervous about resting because I am afraid that I will derail myself and not get back to my tasks.  I’m sure my natural tendencies on this point are complicated by my ADHD. I want to get things done before I get distracted, I see the work as a whole unit instead of seeing it as being able to be broken down into parts, and I want the work ‘out of the way’ so I can focus on the next thing – rest- without thoughts of work intruding.

A square white card with black text. The text is embellished with flourishes and spirals. The text reads 'If you just work hard and play hard all the time you are missing something. You need to rest hard , too! Try it! I dare you!" The card is resting on a dark surface.
This is one of my reminder cards – I have these things everywhere!

I always coach my clients to rest more often and I have to coach myself to do the same thing. I have little notes posted all over the place reminding me to take breaks. I try to pay attention to how I am holding my shoulders and if my breathing is deep enough – two sure signs of needing to rest. 

 

That works pretty well (unless I get deeply into whatever I am working on – my brain HATES switching tasks at that point) and I’ll end up lying in my hammock for a few minutes, or taking my tea out on front steps, or sitting down with my book for a while. However, I need more rest during my workday – especially since the nature of my work means that it doesn’t always confine itself to regular work hours.

 

When my kids were small and home with me all day, I used to joke that if stay-at-home moms had two guaranteed fifteen minute breaks and a half an hour for lunch every day the job would be a lot easier.

 

It wasn’t possible for me to do then but I am thinking about instituting that for myself these days (I work from home so I have a fair bit of control over my schedule). Maybe setting an alarm for a morning break and an afternoon break would make it easier for me to rest a couple of times a day.

 

I usually have success when I take something like that out of the realm of an in-the-moment choice and make it an automatic part of my schedule.

 

Just like Kim concluded yesterday, rest is restorative. I know that, even if I sometimes forget in the moment.

 

I don’t want to rest more so I can be more effective in my work (that’s a side benefit), I want to rest more because I feel better when I do.

 

How do you ensure that you get enough rest? What do you do when you are resting?

fitness · holidays · traveling

Give me a break already

Kim Solga9 Comments

fullsizeoutput_12d5

(A sandwich board reads: “high tides and salty vibes.” This post is about how I spent my summer vacation.)

Last month, I posted from the UK, where I was traveling for work. In that post I talked about how a spontaneous two-day cycling break in Sussex raised my spirit and helped me get through an emotionally tough patch.

That was a terrific little holiday, to be sure, but it wasn’t enough: it was only two days, out of a three-week trip that was full of work-work, alongside the emotional labour associated with seeing friends and family and visiting a life I used to live. Cycling through the Sussex countryside was fab, but when I returned to Canada I still felt drained, exhausted, and unsure where I was going to find the energy to finish the rest of my summer work roster before heading back into the classroom this fall.

While I was away, I was also planning another holiday: a trip to Newfoundland with my boyfriend, D. Neither of us had been, and we both wanted to go. But D’s a fairly new immigrant to Canada and wasn’t sure where to look for the best accommodation, or what the most effective way for us to get there would be (we had the dog along for part of our trip). So the bulk of the planning fell to me. More work, more drainage.

Between my return to Canada from the UK and the trip to Newfoundland I was at sixes and sevens getting all kinds of deadline-heavy work done, and because I returned from abroad tired I never really got my bearings back. Near to our departure for Newfoundland I broke down while in the car with D; he’s a loving and patient man and wanted me to try to explain what was going on. I told him I was overwhelmed and exhausted and had no idea how all the things were going to get finished. My therapist always says, there is no such thing as an academic emergency, Kim!, but at that moment all the undone work seemed like an emergency to me.

D listened with genuine kindness, and then asked me: do you want to cancel the holiday?

I realized in that moment that I absolutely did not want to cancel. I realized I needed that holiday! Even though my brain had no idea how I was going to get through the handful of work days left before we departed, my body was adamant.

And I have learned it’s always a good idea to listen to my body.

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(A blue-washed photo of an Atlantic headland with rocky cliffs, water and sky, wildflowers in the foreground. Taken on the Bonavista peninula, at Trinity Bay. This is one of the many gorgeous places my brain did not yet know it needed, but was going to get. Oh ya baby.)

I needed the trip, but I also needed to cope with the state of catastrophe I had let myself fold into, so that I could enjoy the trip and also get the most out of it. So here’s what I did.

First, I worked out what needed doing before we left and what could wait. I made a priority plan for the stuff that would be waiting so I knew what I’d work on after we got back, in what order, and for what amount of time. I was pretty sure everything would get done by 4 September and I’d be ok, ultimately, if I more or less stuck to that plan. Then I put the plan away.

Second, I decided I would leave my computer behind.

Right now, I realize that some of you are probably going, DUH! Why would you take your computer on holiday?? I know. But academics tend to live their work; our passions intertwine with our labours. For a while I thought, I’ll bring it and write for an hour each morning, write for pleasure, free-write, see what emerges. D said, bring it for watching movies; I’ll make sure you don’t check your email. But then I realized the free-write promise was not worth the risk I’d check the email – it’s only a tantalizing click away and I am so freaking type-A I knew I would succumb to the click. Decision made.

Third, I decided that it would be ok for me to eat and drink whatever I wanted while on holiday. Usually I’m careful about not eating much junk food and I have been working on drinking modestly, especially because I have a tendency to use alcohol as a quick route to relaxation after a long work day. My holiday plan, instead, was this: enjoy any and all food that looks enticing. Enjoy days filled with a good amount of relaxing so that a drink at the end of those days is for the pleasure of the lovely drink, not for relaxing itself.

To my surprise, this worked. I enjoyed loads of terrific fresh fish and yummy chips (French fries served with fried fish), among lots of other things, stopped eating when full, and experienced no hangovers or headaches of any kind during our two weeks away. I felt great each morning and went to bed feeling happy and sated each evening.

(These photos were taken at the Port Rexton Brewing Company taproom in Trinity, Newfoundland. A photo of a sandwich board that says “No wifi; drink beer and talk to each other” alongside a close-up of two sample-size glasses of beer. There were gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and more delicious chips to go with the beer; this was a mid-hike break, and SO SO worth it!)

Part of that feeling great also came from choice number four: to move in enjoyable ways each day, not worrying too much about being away from my regular fitness routine and my bike, and not connecting energy expended to calories ingested, even in my imagination.

Believe it or not this is a big problem for me: I’m super type A and a bit of an endorphin junky, so usually when I take a trip I look for ways to exercise, and I mean REALLY exercise, every other day at least. If I can’t do that I begin to get anxious about the foods I’m eating. Part of this is a learned fear of gaining weight, I think, but it’s also connected to the fact that exercise makes me pleasurably hungry, while I also feel I’ve “earned” the treat. I know this is not the healthiest attitude in the world, but it’s also my lived reality; the point I’m making here is that I worked actively against this attitude while on holiday and discovered real value in abandoning it, at least for a while.

Newfoundland is a terrific place for hiking, and D and I enjoyed parts of the East Coast Trail, the famous Skerwink Trail on the Bonavista peninsula, as well as a fairly steep but oh-so-beautiful climb up Signal Hill in the middle of St John’s. I also got the chance to bounce around in the ocean a couple of times, and to have a proper, delicious swim in a fantastic and almost-empty swimming pool one Saturday morning. Otherwise, exercise was limited to walking out to headlands to look at puffins, and holding on for dear life in a Zodiac while getting farted on by whales. Which is not something I get on a regular road ride, and was pretty special TBH.

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(A photo of me, wearing sunglasses and a blue shirt with white pineapples on it, arms out as though flying. I’m standing in front of the puffin colony at Elliston, Newfoundland, a rocky headland jutting into the sea, making like a funny little orange-beaked bird. And feeling great.)

Reading this post over, I realize it sounds like I Took A Holiday And It Was Good. News at 11! But what is striking for me is that I don’t do this often, or really ever; it actually IS newsworthy for me. And I bet I’m not alone.

How many of us don’t really take a break when we take a break? How many of us work over our holidays as a matter of course, even if it’s “just” checking the email? We’re living the 24/7 life, the one that says if you’re not working you’re slacking, and I am as guilty a party to this pervasive neoliberal reality as the next middle class professional.

But when I got home from Newfoundland I realized something urgent: I felt 100% better. Like, SO MUCH BETTER it was literally unreal to me. NONE of the work waiting for me seemed like the emergency it had appeared in my pre-holiday imagination. On my first morning back I settled into the job of catching up and calmly got shit done. I ate some salads and some delicious soups from my freezer, drank some home-made iced tea, and it all tasted the sweeter and more delicious for having been preceded by fourteen days of utterly guilt-free indulgence, pure relaxing pleasure.

Best of all, I had way fewer emails waiting for me than I expected. And the cherry tomatoes had all ripened on the vine.

Bring on the fall!

Kim

fitness

You ask, Fit Feminists Answer: does “getting fit” actually make you emotionally healthier or raise actual self-esteem? #askafitfeminist

Tracy I

We have a thing here that we do from time to time, and that’s “you ask, fit feminists answer.” It goes like this — you ask, we answer (as best we can).

This question came from a reader a couple of days ago:

Hello! I’m wondering if you know of any review articles that try to get at the question: does “getting fit” actually make you emotional healthier or raise actual self-esteem?

This a great question. I take it the reader is trying to find some research that draws an actual link between fitness and emotional health and self-esteem. I’m about to pull a move that philosophers like to pull (being a philosopher, I do these things), and that’s to answer a slightly but ever-so-slightly different question. Researchers have definitely established a link between confidence and various forms of exercise.

For example, Professor Rebecca Sanguin, from Cornell, has published an article about the connection between strength training and improved body image. See “Strength Training Improves Body Image and Physical Activity Behaviors Among Midlife and Older Rural Women.”

Sam and I also talked a bit about this issue in our book, Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey. In the chapter on fitness and aging, we cited a study that showed that the best way to age well is to care less about your looks. The article cited is Amy Noser and Virgel Zeigler-Hill, “Investing in the Ideal: Does Objectified Body Consciousness Mediate the Association between Appearance Contingent Self-Worth and Appearance Self-Esteem in Women.” They focused on the way media contributes to women’s declining sense of self-worth as we age. So that’s not exactly the same issue. But as we have oft said on the blog, caring less about aesthetic goals and more about athletic goals in our fitness routines can mitigate our investment in a youthful normative appearance ideal we will fall short of, necessarily, as we age. So there’s that.

More directly on point is the claim, reported in Runner’s World and elsewhere, that “Few Middle-Aged Women are Happy with Their Body Size: The Ones Most Likely to Be are Highly Active.” The reports cited a study from the Journal of Women & Aging that found only 12% of women happy with their bodies. The difference: exercise.

We also have good evidence of a confidence gap between men and women. See Katty Kay and Claire Shipman’s article, “The Confidence Gap,” in The Atlantic. On its own it doesn’t answer the question asked by our reader. But Kay and Shipman connect loss of confidence in girls with a time of life where the girls are most likely to stop participating in sports: adolescence. And yet, they report, research shows that “girls who play team sports are more likely to graduate from college, find a job, and be employed in male-dominated industries. There’s even a direct link between playing sports in high school and earning a bigger salary as an adult.” They put it like this: “What a vicious circle: girls lose confidence, so they quite competing, thereby depriving themselves of one of the best ways to regain it.”

Participating in activities for fitness and sport tracks confidence, which is itself a major marker of self-esteem. The more we do to promote body positivity, the better we feel about our bodies and ourselves. As noted in the articles cited above, physical activity can create confidence and a strong sense of body satisfaction.

So it looks as if, yes, engaging in fitness activities raises self-esteem and these articles help to show that. I hope this is a good start at answering this inquiry. Thanks for a great question.

If anyone else has suggestions for articles that link self-esteem with fitness activity/exercise/sport, please share them in the comments.

Tracy

 

eating · nutrition · sports nutrition

Sam is thinking (again) about protein and aging muscles

Sam B3 Comments
Bitmoji Sam in a purple tank top and shorts frolicking under the sunshine in a field full of flowers with bonus butterflies and mountains in the distance.

I’ve been seeking out nutrition advice again, trying to manage what I can in a messy, unhappy situation with my left knee.

One of the interesting bits of research to come out in recent years is that as we age our need for protein goes up even as our need for calories goes down, if we intend to maintain muscle mass.

It’s as if, as with diabetics and insulin resistance, with age we’re protein resistant. We need to eat a lot more to get the same effect. When you add to that the need to eat fewer calories, that makes for a protein heavy diet.

Here’s an excerpt from a summary of the research published by MacMaster University:

“People who would like to become physically stronger should start with weight training and add protein to their diets, according to a comprehensive scientific review of research at McMaster University. The review finds that eating more protein, well past the amounts currently recommended, can significantly augment the effects of lifting weights, especially for people past the age of 40,”

A summary of the research from MacMaster University is here. The study itself is here.

I’ve blogged about this research before here, It’s striking both for the results and how they were obtained. The research doesn’t just look at young people, in particular it doesn’t just look at young men. It’s interesting that the research actually included middle aged men and women.

What the study shows is that there’s a sweet spot for protein consumption and it’s higher than many of us thought, 1.6 g of protein per day per kg of body weight. For me that’s a lot more protein than I currently eat. Eating more as a vegetarian is challenging. I’m working on it.

You can read the New York Times account of this study here.

Is this something you worry about? Think about? Track? How much protein do you aim to eat each day?

fitness · swimming

Working to like a thing, or Sam signs up for fall swimming lessons

Sam B5 Comments

I’ve always wanted to like swimming.

I love the water. I’m not scared. But fitness swimming has never felt natural and I’ve never been speedy.

I read about other people’s love of swimming, Tracy’s and our friend Savita’s, our regular blogger Bettina’s, and I think, “I want that.” That’s how I want to feel about swimming.

So I’m working on changing my attitude. You can do that, you know.

Part of my problem is that I love swimming outside, not in indoor pools

Here’s me in Bora Bora!

A few years ago, I tried it again. See Starting to swim again and the first trauma is bathing suit shopping.

Maybe I should so swimming with Sally. See her post Learning to Swim and Loving My Body in the Process

Instead, I’ve signed up for semi private swimming lessons at the university pool. It’s a six week session, two evenings a week, half hour lessons. It’s not a huge commitment and I’ll report back on how it goes.

Anyway, wish me luck!

Have you ever worked hard to like a thing? What strategies have you used? Did it work?

Photo by Alex Block on Unsplash
diets · fitness

Slimming World’s new diet plan: avoid fatter friends, maintain weight loss!

catherine w4 Comments

Yes, you heard it here, folks (although you may have read about this in your info stream already): Slimming World, a UK-based dieting business, considers no lifestyle change too extreme if the goal is to maintain weight loss. These changes now include “spend less time with your overweight friends.”

As is common these days, the news was broken by an Instagrammer whose friend, upon reaching her target weight on her Slimming World plan, was given a booklet of tips for maintaining weight.  Most of them were the usual suspects, like eat a good breakfast (which, in some studies, have failed to find systematic associations between eating breakfast and weight loss or maintenance; see here for a recent study that shows an  association only for men, NOT for women… I’ll be blogging more about this later).

However, at the bottom of (but still on) the list is this:

A screenshot of a list of dos and don'ts for weight loss. The last one says 4% of weight loss maintainers spend less time with overweight friends. really.
A screenshot of a list of dos and don’ts for weight loss. The last one says 4% of weight loss maintainers spend less time with overweight friends. really.

There are so many things wrong with this advice. Let me state a few, and then say where in the world this may have come from, and then explain why it’s still wrong wrong wrong.

First, the math person in me has to point this out: telling me to do something based on the fact that 4% of my group does this is not compelling advice. I’m willing to bet that at least 4% of some group of weight loss maintainers: 1) play badminton twice a week; or 2) do hydroponic gardening; or 3) vote solely based on what their podiatrist advises. This is not, by itself, a good reason for me to do this thing.

By the way, Slimming World claimed that they got this list (including the 4% claim) from the National Weight Control Registry, which collects and does research on data from more than 10,000 people who have lost a lot of weight and maintained that weight loss. I know their work well, and spent a good bit of time looking for the study that supports this 4% claim.  I couldn’t find it.

Their list contains a bunch of relatively common bits of advice, which, according to said list, at least 25% of the group members do.  Then there’s a big gap– from 25% down to 4%.  Where are the other things that groups between 4 and 25% of the people do? This is suspicious to me.  Either they left out a lot of more useful tips, or they had incomplete information, or…

Or, they deliberately chose to highlight and misinterpret a complex result (why complex?  because science is complicated!) from 2007 by researchers Christakis and Fowler. You can see it here. In their social network analysis of 32 years’ worth of data from participants in the Framingham Heart Study, they found associations between social connections and chances of gaining (or losing) weight.  For mutually-identified same-sex friends, if one person gets fatter, that increases the chances that the other person also gets fatter.  It also works in the other direction, but there weren’t many data points for that association.

The press, as you can imagine, had a field day with this study.  Even the New York Times indulged itself in the headline “Are your friends making you fat?” Shame on you, New York Times.  Of course, the real story is (wait for it)… complicated. Christakis and Fowler say in their article that their results don’t support any theories about how these influences work.  They also don’t know what amplifies or mitigates them.

I published an article co-authored with my friend Norah ten years ago about their work, and we are continuing to study the ways that community affiliation (like being a part of the Fit is a Feminist Issue community!) influences views about health promotion, health and identity.  These are fascinating and complex questions, and their exploration involves examining deep issues about how we see ourselves, and how connections with others affect how we see ourselves. And, finally, how all this translates into how we form our own health goals.

Nowhere in this literature is anyone who knows anything about this advising anyone to shun their friends.

Take that, Slimming World!

It’s a fact that we weigh what we weigh, and we have the strengths and weaknesses we have with respect to all kinds of activities (confession:  I am the most terrible volleyball player ever.  Please don’t make me play it ever again.) We navigate all of this information with our friends and community in complex ways.

So, dear readers, what are your thoughts?  How do you manage social or community or family connections with physical activity? I tend to do a variety of activities with different folks, and also I like mixed age/experience groups for social activity– like a nature walk or beach bike ride. What do you do?  I’d love to hear from you.

 

fitness

Overwhelming Response to Fit Feminist Group Experiment Moving Testament to the Need for Feminist Approaches to Fitness

Tracy I6 Comments

 

Image description: Abstract photo of water droplets in various shapes and sizes on glass surface with the words "Fit Feminist Challenge Group" written on it.
Image description: Abstract photo of water droplets in various shapes and sizes on glass surface with the words “Fit Feminist Challenge Group” written on it.

Last week I put a call out for volunteers to join the first iteration of the Fit Feminist Challenge Facebook Group. I made it really clear that we haven’t ironed out the wrinkles. The first rounders will be involved in an experimental work in progress. It’s an idea that Cate, Christine and I got excited about and talked about and dragged our heels about. And finally I said, let’s just do it and figure it out as we go. And then I sat down to write the invitation on the blog for interested folks to drop me a line.

I asked people to let me know that they were interested by sending me a note to that effect and, if they wished to indulge me further, to say a bit about why they were interested and what they hoped to gain from the group.

We said we would cap it at 20, wanting to start small and scale up later. I wondered whether we would even hit 20 (I don’t why I wondered that — I mean, we’ve got a great community here and who doesn’t relish an opportunity to expand their feminist circle? But still I wasn’t sure).

The post went up at 6 a.m.  When I checked the blog gmail address at 6:30 there were already five people.  By noon we were already at our limit. What’s the difference between 20 and 30? And with that we inched the limit upward and set a deadline. If you were interested, you needed to let me know by 9 a.m. the next morning.

And the notes kept coming. From people I know in person, people I know through the blog and their comments on it, people I don’t know (yet). Everyone single one who responded indulged me with their “why.” Lots of interest from women at opposite ends of the child-rearing cycle — “I just had a baby and I’m off routine! Help!” or “My kids are off to university and I finally have some time to commit!” Lots of interest from women with big careers who are trying to get back to self-care through fitness. Lots of interest from women with chronic health issues of various kinds, seeking a supportive community that will enable them to set reasonable goals for their bodies.

And then there are the people with specific goals in mind already — a 5K, a 10K, a half marathon, and at least one ultra runner with a 50K coming up. The runners especially. But there aren’t only runners. I heard from triathletes, circus performers, cyclists, yogis, swimmers, hikers, roller derby players, personal trainers, gym goers…

Many expressed a desire to diversify and (quite rightly) think that a challenge group might help them discover new things through other people.

And some are just starting out, and (again quite rightly) think a supportive feminist community might help it all seem less daunting, more fun, more achievable.

I got messages from Alaska, Australia, California, Texas, our local region of Southwestern Ontario (and I’m sure many other places but not everyone said where they were from).

Very many explicitly noted their feminist credentials and affirmed the value of a fitness challenge without a weight loss and dieting focus. How rare, more than one woman noted, to find a fitness challenge group that doesn’t revolve around weekly weigh-ins and/or body fat percentage tests and restrictive dieting. There will be none of that here. What a relief!

By the time we shut the door shortly after 9 a.m. on Friday, we had decided that we would do our “scaling up” this round. After reading all the messages, I couldn’t imagine turning anyone away.

We could have done “first come, first served,” but to me that seemed unfair to people who might have different schedules or be in different time zones. It also seemed unfair to women who were perhaps toying with the idea but needed a bit more time to think about whether they were ready to take up a fitness challenge, maybe for the first time in their lives.

So here’s what we’re doing: we are embarking on the inaugural group with all 60 or so of you who expressed your interest by the Friday morning deadline (and a handful who came in just a few minutes late, because as someone extremely familiar with “the last minute” myself, I can empathize!).

It’s been a humbling and intensely moving experience reading all of the expressions of interest in the Fit Feminist Challenge group. Every single story made me want to sit down for a coffee (or go for a walk or a run) with the woman who wrote it.

Cate, Christine and I are thrilled at the interest and excited to take up this experiment with such a diverse group of feminists committed to another way.  It’ll be a bit all over the place (as promised!) as we try out a bunch of different things. But based on the messages I’ve received so far, the participants will be offering great feedback along the way and it will evolve as a community effort.

Thank you to everyone who responded. You’ll hear from me within the next week or so with information about how to join the (closed) Facebook group and a link to a short form we are asking everyone to fill out.

Until then, I’m going sailing! Catch up with you later.

 

Guest Post · hiking · nature

Joh et Sabrina en randonnée à la Péninsule Bruce/Joh and Sabrina hiking on the Bruce Peninsula (Guest Post)

Sam B10 Comments

Joh. et Sabrina en randonnée à la Péninsule Bruce (see English below)

En juillet 2018, j’ai eu le plaisir d’aller en randonnée pédestre pendant 3 jours à la péninsule Bruce avec mon amie Sabrina Olender . Quel bonheur que de voyager avec une personne aussi organisée que Sabrina! On a préparé la liste des repas et du matériel commun ensemble, mais quelques jours avant le départ, Sabrina avait contacté le parc national pour s’assurer que nous avions tous les permis en main avant de partir, nous épargnant ainsi une heure de transport supplémentaire vers le poste d’accueil, en sus de la route de Toronto.

Après quelque quatre heures de route, nous voici donc arrivées au stationnement du lac Crane, notre point de départ vers le camping High Dump (après avoir pris une mauvaise route privée et rencontré une résidente assez abrupte de notre erreur). Nous mettons la dernière touche à nos sacs à dos, enfilons nos bottes et étudions la carte. Je marche 10 pas et réalise, catastrophe, que la semelle de ma botte droite s’est complètement détachée, affichant un large sourire. Comment vais-je marcher 8 km avec un sac à dos de 18 kg sur le dos sans bottes de randonnée?

Heureusement, Sabrina la prévoyante avait du ruban adhésif (le bon vieux duct tape) avec lequel j’ai réussi à attacher ma botte tant bien que mal. À ce moment est sorti du sentier un couple de randonneurs (de 75 et 78 ans!) qui m’a aussi donné du ruban pour tenter de réparer ce dégât; un autre randonneur rencontré en route m’a également donné du ruban. Beaux exemples de solidarité en camping!

Après une randonnée sans autre anicroche, nous avons entamé la descente abrupte vers le site de camping, à l’aide d’une corde pour faciliter le tout. Notre campement était le plus éloigné de tous, situé près de l’eau et très bien aménagé avec une plateforme de bois entourée d’arbres pour bien attacher notre bâche. Aussitôt arrivé, il a commencé à pleuvoir, interrompant notre observation de la magnifique baie Georgienne pour terminer notre installation. Grâce à la plateforme, la tâche nous a été simplifiée, et la cuisine aussi, que nous pouvions faire debout

Le lendemain, nous sommes parties pour une randonnée d’un jour avec un plus petit sac, mes bottes toujours maintenues par le ruban et munies de notre enthousiasme à explorer le secteur et les différents points de vue sur la baie Georgienne. Le sentier était vraiment plus difficile, parsemé de grosses roches et très accidenté. Nous nous sommes rendues au point de vue situé à 2 km, avons dévoré notre lunch et sommes revenues profiter de notre campement et de la plage.

Pour conserver notre nourriture au frais au campement pendant notre randonnée d’un jour, nous avons eu l’idée géniale de la mettre dans un sac étanche dans l’eau glaciale de la baie, bien sécurisé sous des roches et arrimé à la terre ferme (photo 5)… sauf que, deuxième difficulté technique, nous avons dû constater au retour que le sac étanche ne l’était plus et qu’il était plein d’eau; celle-ci avait pénétré par une ouverture béante à son côté! Heureusement que tout était emballé à l’intérieur du sac, sauvegardant la nourriture qui s’y trouvait.

En ce qui concerne les animaux, nous avons vu de multiples grenouilles et crapauds dans le sentier qui sautaient littéralement juste devant nos pieds, un serpent d’eau près du campement, des tamias rayés assez agressifs (un d’eux a même suivi Sabrina dans les bois) et des oiseaux. Pas de trace d’ours, malgré les avertissements. Et vraiment trop de traces de l’animal le plus terrifiant des bois à cette période de l’année : le moustique! Omniprésents et fatigants, ils ne nous ont pas laissées tranquilles, comme en fait foi l’épaule de la pauvre Sabrina!

Le dernier matin, avant de tout remballer et de reprendre le sentier, il y a des crêpes au menu… mais plus de beurre ni d’huile pour les faire cuire, et la poêle n’est vraiment pas antiadhésive. Ce sera notre dernière mésaventure technique… et une chance que nous avions beaucoup d’autre nourriture pour bien commencer la journée!
Puis, ce fut le démontage du campement et le départ! Il s’agissait d’un trop court séjour pour cet endroit magique et magnifique, que je revisiterai assurément.

Et vous, quelle est votre destination préférée de randonnée pédestre avec camping?

Joh. est traductrice, originaire de Montréal et vit maintenant à Toronto. Elle aime être en plein air autant que possible et fait du vélo, du ski, du canot, du kayak, de la randonnée pédestre et, plus généralement, aime trouver du temps pour être active, malgré une vie divisée entre un travail à temps plein, des contrats et un enfant.

 

 

Joh. and Sabrina on the Bruce Peninsula

In July 2018, I had the pleasure of hiking on the Bruce Peninsula with my friend Sabrina Olender.

Sbarina (left) and Joh (right), all smiles and backpacks

What a joy to travel with someone as organized as Sabrina! We have prepared the list of meals and common equipment together, Sabrina had contacted the national park to make sure we had the right to leave the room. pick up our permit before getting to the trailhead.

After a couple of hours on the road, we arrived at the Crane Lake parking lot (after taking a wrong turn on a private road and meeting a resident who was quite angry at our mistake). This was our starting point towards the High Dump campground. We put the finishing touches on our backpacks, put on our boots, and checked the map. After 10 steps in, I realized that the sole on my right had been completely detached, showing a wide smile. How am I going to walk 8 km with 18 kg backpack on my back?

Hiking boot with duct tape

Fortunately, Sabrina the farsighted had the good old duct tape with which I managed to wrap up my boot as best I could. We also have a couple of hikers (75 and 78 years old!) Who were getting off the trail. And as luck would have it, we put another one in the way who also gave me some more. Beautiful examples of solidarity in camping!

Boot with tape

After all, we started our strenuous descent into the camping site, using a rope to facilitate everything. Our site was the most remote of all, with a wooden platform. As soon as we arrived, it started to rain, interrupting our break to observe the beautiful Georgian Bay. Thanks to the platform, we were able to set up camp and it was nice to cook on a level surface, which we could do up.

Wooden tenting platform

The next day, we still have a little bag, my boots are still wrapped up in its tape, and we’re all looking at Georgian Bay. The path was more difficult, strewn with big rocks and very unven. We went to the viewpoint 2 km away, ate our lunch and cam back to enjoy our camp and the beach.

To keep our food cool during the day, we had the brilliant idea of ​​putting it in a dry bag in the cold water of the bay , right?)  This is when we encountered our second technical difficulty – we realized that it was a long time ago because of a gaping opening at its side! Fortunately, everything was well inside the bag, saving the food.

As for the animals, we have a lot of frogs and toads on the trail, we are going crazy, and we’re going crazy. No trace of bears, despite all the warnings. And too many traces of the most terrifying animal in the woods at this time of the year: the mosquito! Omnipresent and tiring, they did not leave us alone, as shown on this picture of Sabrina’s shoulder!

Sabrina’s tattooed shoulder with lots of bug bites

The last morning, before packing everything and heading out, we had pancakes on the menu … no more butter or oil to cook them, and the pan was not really non-stick. It was our last technical mishap … and good thing we had plenty of food to start the day!

Then, it was time to dismantle the camp and off we go! It was too short a stay for this magical and beautiful place, which I will certainly revisit.

And you, what is your favorite destination for hiking and camping?

Joh. is a translator from Montreal who now lives in Toronto. She likes to be as active as possible, and is into biking, skiing, canoeing, kayaking, hiking, and enjoying an active life, between a full time job, some contracts and having a kid.

monthly check in

Sam’s monthly check-in: What’s up, what’s down, the August version (CW: some discussion of weight loss)

Sam B4 Comments
Sam’s bitmoji (a white woman with blond short hair and glasses and lipstick) wearing a purple sleeveless tank top, with arms spread wide saying, “I got this.”

What’s up: I feel like I’m making progress with my knee. In a way I’m not sure why. Sometimes I think I might just be getting used to the new limits on my life but I don’t think that’s it. I think it actually hurts less. And that’s good news. I’m still working on it lots (physio!) but I’m also getting outside, riding my bike, going on long hikes and feeling okay about things.

I’m following the very strong recommendation of several knee surgeons that I lose weight and I’m actually seeing a doctor for an evidence based approach to weight loss. He’s a young guy, from a fitness background first before medical school, and he follows the approach of Yoni Freedhoff whose book I reviewed here. There’s no magic to it. I’m using My Fitness Pal and tracking all the things. I’ve lost some weight. Lots more to go. I know the real trick will be keeping it off if I want to be a weight loss unicorn. I’m going to see if I rebrand, in my own mind at least, constant vigilance as paying attention. And it’s good that I don’t mind tracking things.

Since I posted in July, I’ve completed the 1 day version of the Friends for Life Bike Rally. See Sam and Sarah’s first metric century of the summer. That was a huge mood boost. I was so happy to be on my bike again. And Sarah and I visited Jeff on the boat for our 2nd biking and boating adventure. It was fun on the boat, but the biking not so much. See Biking and boating round two: Sam has a great day on the boat.

Other than that I’m lifting weights at the gym, sometimes alone, sometimes with a personal trainer who is helping with knee rehab (hi Meg!) and sometimes with my son Miles who is going to university here this year. I’m also going on longer, hillier dog hikes being careful to remember my knee brace.

Also, on the upside of life, Sarah and I have been Snipe racing. We didn’t capsize, drown, or crash into any other boats. Yes, we were last but we kept the other boats in sight and stayed a safe distance behind as we learn to sail. Learning through racing. It’s a thing. See Sam and Sarah’s first night of snipe racing!

What’s down: I want to ride my bike! But when? Where? With whom? ARGH! I hate riding on my own but I have a horrible schedule. And now with losing the evening light opportunities are pretty much limited to weekends. I think I’ll plan a birthday bike ride for Saturday, September 1st. (My birthday is actually the day before but that’ll be a night for a family BBQ in the backyard and cake.) 54 km for 54 years?