Month: May 2019

eating · fitness · tbt

Vegans and Protein: Yes, We Like It, Too #tbt

Tracy I

Yesterday a friend posted about how her kid’s lunch got knocked off the table at school and so she had to get a school lunch. The child is vegan. And because of that the school could come up with nothing but a few lettuce leaves for her to eat. That made me (and a bunch of other people ( both sad and furious at the same time. But it also sort of amazed us (not in a good way). I mean, how is it that people who specialize in food preparation can’t come up with something a little more subtantial that has no animal products in it?

That made me remember one of my favourite blog rants, which was this rant about chefs who can’t figure out a vegan meal with protein. As if a pile of veggies, no matter how wonderfully prepared, stands in as a satisfying meal. That was 2015. Things have actually improved somewhat in 2019, with more vegan restaurants or “plant-based” sections on a menu in omni restaurants. But still!

Have a good one. TI

fitness

Honestly, my knee brace is the least interesting thing about me

Sam B5 Comments

I met someone new on the weekend who seemed a little obsessively helpful about my knee. “Have you tried copper?” “”Do you know that they make aspirin just for arthritis now?” “When are you getting a new knee?”

This was followed by a stream of questions about what I could and couldn’t do.

It was all because I was wearing my knee brace.

The thing is I have excellent medical care. I believe my doctors when they say if someone is selling stem cell transplants that they say will fix your knees, they’re lying. They know I’m an academic and so they joyfully refer me to the research. And while I don’t exactly like the knee brace–it’s bulky and ugly–I appreciate that it lets me do things like walk 14,000 steps in New York.

My kids try to make me feel better by telling me it looks Ninja steam punk. Whatever.

This person acted like I couldn’t do anything. She was shocked that I could ride a bike.

I guess we all need things to talk to strangers about. I get that. And I get that the knee brace looks big and scary and dramatic. But in the scheme of things it’s not that interesting. It’s functional. It works. I’m very happy to have it.

It made me wonder if I’ve ever been that person. Have I ever obsessed about an assistive device rather than paying attention to the person using it? If so, please accept my apologies.

When I went to a friend’s birthday party Sunday night I didn’t wear the knee brace. I took it off along with my jacket when I got there. I decided I had better things to talk about. Like Russian Doll. It was a Russian Doll themed birthday party. It would be fun to edit a “Philosophy and Russian Doll” collection. What do you think?

aging · cycling · disability · hiking · running

Aging Ungracefully (Guest Post)

Sam B8 Comments

By Mavis Fenn

About a month ago, my son and daughter ran the Round the Bay 30 km road race in Hamilton. A brutal course, complete with Grim Reaper. I never could have completed it. As I stood at the finish line, I marvelled at those crossing: varied in age, gender, race, and from a range of provinces and countries. Some finished strong, some not so strong, and some struggled to make that final footstep. And my heart hurt as the waves of runners crossed the line.

I didn’t understand the heartache. I haven’t run for years due to a meniscus tear and arthritis in my knees. I have large velcro braces for both knees when I need to walk for some distance, and will be trying gel injections by the end of summer. My knees are always stiff, and frequently painful. I lift weights, do yoga, and Zumba Gold (now Aqua). I intend to ride my bike this summer. My life is still an active one; why the heartache?

After some reflection, I realized that I had not yet given up the idea of running. In the recesses of my mind was the idea that I might run again if: I lost some weight, got some heavy duty running braces, and so on. That won’t work for me due to other issues. I am not a runner now and I will not be a runner in the future. That’s it.

The wave of runners crossing the finishing line destroyed my “magical thinking.” I was experiencing grief. The death of an ability; the death of something that gave me great pleasure; the death of part of my identity; indeed, the recognition that I was dying. I have experience with grief. I let it into my heart and embraced it. Grief brought with it remembrance of my father who lived until 94. He did what he could as long as he could. When a door closed behind him, he opened another one until there were no doors left. I have closed the door marked “running” behind me. I have not paid enough attention to the doors in front of me, biking and walking.

Time to move on. I will always enjoy watching that wave of people crossing the finish line at the Round the Bay but I am content not to be one of them. I am working on my fear of bike riding, and slowly increasing my walking. Endurance is the key.

Mavis Fenn is an independent scholar (retired). She loves lifting weights, Yin yoga, and Zumba Gold. She is mediocre at all of them.

fitness

Happy first birthday to the book!

Tracy I1 Comment

Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey is a year old. Sam and I have both been getting some sweet memories on our timelines lately: memories of the book excitement from last spring. We had all sorts of wonderful happy experiences around the launch and promotion of the book.

In the “hometown” launch in London, Ontario, we got to celebrate with friends and family, and had this great photo op with our mothers (guess who’s whose mother lol):

Image description: Tracy and Sam in middle, flanked by mothers, all smiling, all short-haired, all well-dressed, standing against a plain wall, podium in the right foreground.

A few weeks later, because Sam had recently taken up a new position in Guelph, Ontario, we had another book launch there. Here we are at the Guelph book launch talking about how the Fit at Midlife came to be:

Image description: Sam and Tracy standing on a stage, each at a standing mic, Sam on left smiling and wearing a dress, Tracy on right apparently in mid-sentence and smiling and wearing a skirt and top, book in the middle on a podium facing the audience, windows to outside in background, the backs of two women’s heads in the left and right foreground.

We also did a lot of radio and even some TV. Here we are at the little cafe downstairs in the Global TV studio in Toronto just before we went up to the green room (is that what they called it?) where we had our make-up done and waited for them to call us onto the morning show for our interview:

Image description: Sam and Tracy, head shot, leaning in towards each other and smiling, cafe in the background.

It’s fitting that on the one year anniversary of the book, the audio book just came out. If you’d like to get the audio book or the print book or the kindle version, you can find them all at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca. Or even at a brick and mortar bookstore near you, or your local library.

Meanwhile, we’d like to wish the book a very happy first birthday. We had a ton of fun bringing it into the world!

cycling · fitness

Sam and Sarah’s One Boro Bike Tour, #TDFBBT

Sam B5 Comments

The TD Five Boro Bike Tour is 5 boros, 32,000 riders, 40 miles. It’s the first Sunday in May. Sarah and I have done it before and loved it. See here. I loved seeing the city without cars. I loved the bridges. Loved all the neighborhood music and food that was part of this celebration of cycling in New York City.

We’ve been talking about doing it again and this year we roped Jeff in. He was on his northbound, east coast boat trip and the timing was good. (Read about his boating adventures here.)

Here the three of us are walking on the Highline on Saturday in the sunshine. Thanks to my knee brace I walked 10 km. Much better than my sad trip in March. I never know what will make a difference but it was better. There’s still pain. It hurts. But I managed.

This year though the day of the Five Boro Bike Tour was forecast to be cold, rainy (the tv forecast called it “soaking rain”) and windy. We kept stopping and checking the hourly forecast hoping for a sudden change. I got all excited at one point–only 60% chance of rain–but then realized I was looking at York, England. Sigh.

I was amused by all the hemming and hawing going on the day before the big ride on social media. This meme appeared on Twitter and made me laugh.

There was also lots of this:

https://twitter.com/chiangui24/status/1124831061807116288

Here’s the actual start:

In the end Sarah and I bailed after one boro and opted for brunch instead. Jeff bailed the day before based on the forecast opting for an early return to Chicago. Sensible Jeff. Here’s our actual route that day.

See Thousands brave the rain for the Five Boro Bike Tour.

That route map above stops at brunch. I didn’t have the heart to pause and restart the Garmin for the final 3 km home! Here’s our sad wet bikes on the brunch patio. We were so cold and shivery that the restaurant staff apologized that it was too early to sell us alcohol. (I don’t drink but I could see how they might think I looked like I needed one!)

We were saying tonight that in a way we were glad that it was so miserable that it was an easy call to end it early. It didn’t feel like there was much of a choice and while I’m sorry we didn’t get to ride, I’m not sorry we chose not to ride in those conditions.

Two wet bikes on a restaurant patio

Two wet cyclists on the same patio

fitness

Harassment is not a compliment (Guest post)

Marjorie8 Comments

A few weeks ago, inspired by my blog post here about the challenges of using my male-dominated gym, I was explaining to the male math teacher in the classroom next to mine what it’s like for me there. His response was something along the lines of, “but doesn’t that just mean you have a kickin’ body?” I was floored, and as usual with me, my best response wasn’t formulated until hours after the conversation. Here is what I wished I’d said:

I want to make it clear, when I am explaining to you about the persistent harassment I receive, I am not tacitly bragging about my sexual appeal. I am not proud of the amount of attention my body gets, and I am usually not flattered when that attention is given. It isn’t fun, cute, or flirtatious to be stared-at, cat-called, leered-at, or followed.

At best, it’s annoying. At worst, it’s threatening and scary. When I am given this unwanted attention, I am immediately put on guard. The person doing it invariably has more power than me, is usually bigger than me, and often has a friend with them. If they are willing to cross one boundary of socially acceptable behavior, what other boundaries are they willing to cross?

So, when I’m explaining to you about how I have stopped running in my neighborhood after a couple of guys followed me for nearly a block in their pick-up truck, don’t think I’m really trying to bring attention to my ass. When I say I have changed my lifting routine so I don’t have to use the cable machine in the center of the room where I get stared at, don’t think I’m pointing out the curve of my cleavage.

It isn’t an accident that women who have faced sexual trauma are much more likely to have significantly higher body fat. (The last data I saw was something like 60-80% of those with “morbid obesity” were predicted to be sexual assault survivors.) It is a real and challenging downside to being a smaller size that I was not prepared for–it is hard to explain how often I feel less safe as a result of the increased attention. It is a near-daily pressure that I must navigate. I am not convinced it is always worth it.

It isn’t fun to be afraid. It isn’t flattering to be harassed. I have a right to move through the world and be safe, feel safe, and to go about my business without being treated like I’m an object on display.

Marjorie Hundtoft is a middle school science and health teacher. She can be found picking up heavy things and putting them back down again in Portland, OR. You can now read her at Progressive-Strength.com .

fitness

The Joys of Around-Town Biking: It’s Cool to Go Slow (Guest Post)

catherine w

This week marks the end of my semester of teaching and the beginning of. well, summer-ishness. In New England, real summer isn’t coming for awhile, but my feelings of elation that “school’s out!” certainly are.

I haven’t cycled much this winter and spring, so am getting a late start on the season. This means I will be slow moving on two wheels– slower than I would like. Just writing these words, I’m puzzled at myself. Why worry about this? Why mind the speed? If I need to be somewhere quickly, either I take the car, or — if it is around town– the bike is almost always faster (traffic plus parking equals ride the bike, Catherine!).

I’ll be writing about slowness this week, in particular about slow runners in marathons and recent news articles about the scorn they have been subjected to. Competing while slow takes determination (I know a bit about this), so instead of scorn, slower competitors deserve our praise. More on this later.

For now, here’s a reblog of a post I did about the joys of around-town biking and the pleasures of slowness on two wheels. I hope you enjoy it, and look for my new post this week.

-catherine

fitness · Martha's Musings · racism · sexism

Link Roundup: Caster Semenya and the IAAF decision

marthafitat553 Comments

There’s been a lot of discussion at Fit is A Feminist Issue on the recent CAS decision concerning Caster Semenya. Following our blog post yesterday, we’ve heard from a number of commenters who have helpfully shared links to stories. I thought it would be useful to look at what else has been written about Caster Semenya. If you have any other articles, commentaries etc you think will add to our understanding of the issues this decision presents regarding women in sport and the construction of “female” in modern society, please share in the comments to this post.

First, let’s look at what testosterone is and isn’t. Much has been made of the fact that Semenya has higher levels of the so called “male hormone” than usual for women. The IAAF sees this as a disadvantage to other women and this was the foundation of their argument for establishing a discriminatory policy. The New York Times has an interesting opinion piece from two researchers on what they call the myth of testosterone. I thought this quote was illuminating:

“The problem with trying to flatten athleticism into a single dimension is illustrated especially well by a 2004 study published in The Journal of Sports Sciences. The study analyzed testosterone and different types of strength among men who were elite amateur weight lifters and cyclists or physically fit non-athletes. Weight lifters had higher testosterone than cyclists and showed more explosive strength. But the cyclists, who had lower testosterone than both other groups, scored much higher than the others on “maximal workload,” an endurance type of strength. Across the three groups, there was no relationship between testosterone and explosive strength, and a negative relationship between testosterone and maximal workload. Though small, that study isn’t an outlier: Similar complex patterns of mixed, positive and negative relationships with testosterone are found throughout the literature, involving a wide range of sports.” Bottom line: there are inconsistencies in how testosterone enhances or detracts from performance in different sports.

The CBC posted a great overview focusing on the challenges researchers face in trying to establish what the effect and advantage extra testosterone offers to athletes, especially women. There is a lot of disagreement about what the advantage means, and a key part of the legal argument put forward by Semenya’s legal team was the lack of rigour used by the IAAF in setting its standards. The CBC referenced a recent editorial in the British Medical Journal that cited several problems with the IAAF’s own methodology, and most damningly they said the IAAF’s results could not be reproduced:

“… the authors noted the criticisms of an analysis commissioned by the IAAF which found that women whose serum testosterone levels were in the top third performed significantly better than women with levels in the lowest third. Those results, Tannenbaum and Bekker claim, could not be independently reproduced, and the data does not reliably mirror the source track times of athletes from the 2011 and 2013 world championships.”

Other articles in the days following the CAS decision have focused on highlighting the human rights issues arising from the decision to require Semenya to reduce her natural testosterone levels with medication. Jacqueline Doorey writes: “But as self-identity and gender politics continue to evolve, finding the science to back that up is getting harder. And the repercussions of using testosterone levels to classify athletes can test arguments around inclusion and fair competition — as well as possibly infringe on basic human rights.”

We also need to consider the history of policing women in sport. Slate has an excellent overview of Semenya’s battle with the IAAF and offers additional analysis of the background to sex testing and performance for elite women athletes. One of things I liked about the Slate post was how it captured all that Semenya has endured: “Although Semenya is not the first athlete to have her identity as a woman challenged, she has endured this obsession over her eligibility in the women’s category longer than any athlete in history. All along, she has continued to compete and excel, earning five global 800-meter championships even as she was likely reducing her testosterone levels under the former hyperandrogenism rules.” Slate sums up what commenters generally have been saying: Semenya is a target because she is female, black and successful.

Trans athlete Rachel McKinnon explains the future implications for the decision in a concise and clear interview with Newsweek. McKinnon begins with the model of femininity as thin and white and the idea that women who do not meet that ideal are not feminine enough or are not women at all. She highlights the exceptional success of Usain Bolt and how he is celebrated for his exceptionality, yet women like Semenya who have equally exceptional success are suspect and deemed not women. She also takes on the idea stated by some athletes that these policies will protect women in sport, noting that Semenya is in no way protected by this even though she is a woman.

The Economist has weighed in as well, chronicling the start of the IAAF’s campaign against women like Semenya. The Economist looks beyond the immediate concerns of Semenya to consider how the IOC will use this ruling to include not only intersex athletes but trans ones as well:

“Only a few runners will have to make immediate career choices after the court’s decision. But the precedent set by the IAAF’s ruling could affect female athletes in every sport. It is by far the most prominent and detailed ruling that the court has delivered regarding biological sex, and it is a potentially far-reaching one. From now on, the CAS will almost certainly use testosterone levels to determine who should be allowed to compete in women’s events. These tests will apply not only to intersex athletes, but also to trans women, who were born male but identify as women. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had already introduced a testosterone limit of 10 nmol/L for trans women in all sports in 2016, replacing its previous requirement for athletes to have undergone genital-reconstruction surgery. It is now considering reducing the limit to 5 nmol/L. This rule change has not been tested at the court, but after Wednesday’s precedent it looks likely to stand.”

The Economist also highlighted an aspect not covered in some of the other posts I read: that the decision now sets a sliding scale on determining femaleness, adding an extra layer of murkiness to the whole issue. As a side note, it is worth registering to read this article as it also covers significant cases and the challenges in research related to impacts of elevated levels of hormone levels on performance including intersex and trans athletes.

It was also heartening to see that negative or limiting opinions and beliefs could be changed. The Guardian published Madeline Pape’s commentary on how she used to think high testosterone was the issue but how now, with information and consideration, she came to a different point of view. Pape was herself an internationally ranked track athlete until injury sidelined her sports career. She says:

“As a sociologist, I have now spent several years immersed in this issue, interviewing elite track-and-field stakeholders from around the world including athletes, coaches, officials, managers, team staff and media personnel. In their accounts I have seen so many echoes of my own experience in Berlin: an astounding lack of information, an absence of alternative viewpoints, a fear of the unknown, weak leadership from national and international governing bodies, and a stubborn refusal to dig a little deeper and reflect critically on where their views come from and what biases might be underlying them. The path of least resistance is to turn away from information and perspectives that might undermine one’s investment in the simplistic notion that sex is binary and testosterone is unfair (at least in women).”

The Nation contributed a stinging rebuttal of the CAS’s decision. It’s a fabulous piece of writing, and includes this gem from Katrina Karkazis, senior visiting fellow at the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale University and one of the co-authors of the NYT piece referenced earlier: ” [This decision] endorses discrimination against women in sport and allows sports governing bodies to require medically unnecessary interventions for continued eligibility, violating women’s bodily autonomy and integrity. This neither protects nor benefits women’s sport. (…) my fear is that [the CAS decision] will foster the already circulating erroneous representations about the science of sex biology, intersex, and the relationship between testosterone and athleticism.”

These are the key articles I had time to follow up on, read and analyze this weekend. If you have others you think can add to the discussion and amplify the issues I’ve highlighted, it would be great if you would highlight them in the comments! Also helpful might be any themes you think I’ve overlooked and might be worth exploring in future posts.

Nine Nifty Things I Noticed in 150 Straight Days (and counting!) of Meditation
Fear · habits · meditation · mindfulness

Nine Nifty Things I Noticed in 150 Straight Days (and counting!) of Meditation

Mina1 Comment

As I write this, I just hit 150 days of meditation in a row. That is a big accomplishment for me. My longest meditation streak ever. 

The day I started this streak, I participated in a meditation workshop and the teacher suggested that all we needed to do was noticeduring our sits, be mindful of our noticings. So that’s what I’m doing. 

The biggest thing I’m noticing is that I’m in a constant state of re-learning what I already knew, but somehow forgot or thought I had changed. Or I’m discovering that circumstances have changed and what I learned no longer applies. Or I am the circumstance that’s changed and therefore needs to learn anew.  I don’t got this, but I am getting it. Very few changes stick forever, no matter what, no backsliding. Good to know, so we don’t judge ourselves as falling short! This whole streak has been about impermanence and the wow-reallys?of staying curious. 

Small brass yogi sculpture in cross-legged seated position, reading a book, wearing a red string scarf (made of a string I was gifted by a fellow attendee at my first silent meditation retreat)

Here are 9 more noticingsthat jazz my curiosity and keep me coming back for more: 

  1. Practicing daily makes it easier to drop into a meditation. Every day is different, but most days there’s a moment (often in the last moments of the sit) when I feel like my mind drops away and my body simultaneously gains 100 pounds and sinks into the earth and slips the bonds of gravity. I find that this moment may happen right away now. Not that it lasts the whole meditation, but the opening fidgets hardly have time to squirm before I’m noticing my mind and body in that more concerted meditation-y way.
  2. A short meditation is better than no meditation.When I started this streak, I sat for 10 minutes a day. I knew that if I demanded more from myself that I would fail. Why set myself up for failure in advance? There have been days when I’ve only managed 8 minutes of riding on the personal rollercoaster of my mind. Great. I accomplished what I set out to do. Often, I am more open to a longer meditation when I’ve given myself the grace of a short one the day before. 
  3. Noticing feeds itself, so I notice more details when I’m not meditating. Over the last months, I’ve become more aware of the complexities and hidden corners of how I am in the world. What feels most sharpened is my sense of responsibility for who and how I am. I notice that blame is futile. Better to open my heart, to consider how I might change the circumstance, even if that’s just changing my own attitude. Pissed off by someone else’s thoughtlessness, how can I be more thoughtful somewhere else? Noticing slows the world down enough to create a pause for reflection.    
  4. There’s a lot of dogma around meditation, which we should not be dogmatic about. A lot of people prepared to say that there’s one right way to meditate and at the end of their suggested path lies … fill in the blank—peace, bliss, no pain, wealth, happiness, fulfillment, career success, spectacular sex, love, the source of infinite wisdom and so on. The dogmas conflict, no surprise. We have to self-test and find the combination that works for each of us. To do that requires tuning into where our mind and body is at, making an honest assessment of our condition and situation and choosing for ourselves what feels right, which, by the way, may change. I’ve been self-testing a lot of different modes on my meditation app (Insight Timer)—various guided, recorded music or chanting, timer with background of rolling OM chants; plus some other guided meditations I’ve downloaded, and meditating on specific subjects or objects (my spirit guides, space-time, elevated emotions like joy and gratitude, or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, fear). 
  5. Meditating on fear is squirrely and uncomfortable. I recently read Kristen Ulmer’s book, The Art of Fear. These past days, I’ve tried on a bit of her dogma, meditating on fear. The idea is that getting intimate with my fear will transform the feeling into a healthy catalyst, instead of a dreaded obstacle. My list of fears stretches the length of the alphabet and more, ranging from losing my ability to move easily, to not connecting with people, to my washing machine going on the fritz and flooding the downstairs neighbour’s apartment. Plus, the existential, running subtext fear that my life doesn’t have meaning. Simply allowing fear the space to express itself, instead of telling myself to get over it, is new. I feel a small catalytic effect. As in: okay you’re scared, that’s okay, let it be, and hey, maybe you can still do the scary thing.
  6. Owning my woo-woo is scary. Meditating on, for example, one’s spirit guides feels out there. I fear that I’ll lose credibility (whatever that means) if I admit to any kind of woo-woo experiences or encounters. I am allowing myself to be more woo-woo curious and owning up to it (like in this piece about a puppy in India, that I wrote around day 100). 
  7. Sneezing during meditation is like an orgasm. As a kid, I read Where Did I Come From?, which compares an orgasm to a sneeze. Over the years I wondered if I have orgasms wrong, because they never felt like sneezing. Then I sneezed while I was meditating the other day. Because I was alone in my office and in the midst of a meditation and quite sure I wasn’t about to sneeze out great gobs, I just let myself sneeze without holding my arm in front of my face or ducking my head or any of all the twisting we do to be polite and not sneeze on others. Holy crap. That sneeze went right through me like a wave of sparkles over my nerve endings. Our well-justified, necessary public fears around sneezing mask the thrill of the simple sneeze.  Like orgasms, something to look forward to in private.
  8. I think a lot of non-contemplative thoughts when I’m meditating. In addition to thinking about sex when I’m meditating, back on day 45, I narrated a succession of interior design thoughts I had while meditating. I still have such thoughts. Everyone does, even monks on high mountains. Oh, and I did get the new duvet from Boll and Branch I was thinking about, which makes bedtime even more delicious. (I’m with Tracy, who writes often about the radical pleasures of sleep.)  
  9. Meditating regularly enables me to be kinder with myself. Noticing generates the gentle pause, in which we see our suffering from the outside and thus cultivate compassion. A truism worth repeating—if we are more compassionate toward ourselves, we will be so with others.

All of these noticings are small. Yet abundant enough to keep me going on my streak. Have you noticed anything in your meditation? Or in another streak you’re having? 

Sat with Nat · weight lifting

The humbling moment when you go back to lifting weights

natalieh (she/her)4 Comments

I used to love lifting free weights in college and over the many years since dabbled from time to time with various strength training regimes.

The past two weeks my colleague Michelle and I have been warming up with cardio then doing a circuit of the weight machines at our workplace gym.

It’s humbling to not recognize the exercise the machine is intended to be used for and Michelle has been graciously guiding me through the equipment.

We laugh and fastidiously clean each bench before moving on. I remember using most of the stack of weights many years ago so sliding the pin into that second plate feels, well, humbling. I know I need to get used to aligning my body for each set, that I need to find the seat height and configurations that get the most out of each set.

I’m a plodding person who moves slowly and under control as I try to maximize the range of motion for each move. It’s not interesting or cinematic.

Michelle and I chat briefly between sets without wasting time.

It’s nice to connect outside of our work and support our wellbeing.

My upper body has been giving me grief now that I’m treating my sleep apnea. My chiropractor wisely noted I’m likely not moving as much in my sleep.

My lower body gets lots of exercise with my walking commute, the upcoming soccer season and riding my bike. Yoga has been great for stretching and keeping me flexible but I’ve realized I need some engagement of my upper body to feel well.

So here is to humble beginnings and not letting my ego get in the way of a good workout.

Selfie of Nat smiling at the camera wearing a purple shirt with white stripes