Month: July 2019

fitness · Guest Post · soccer

Let’s talk about “mom sports” (Guest post)

Sam B8 Comments

by Sarah Skwire

“Mom sports” were recently excoriated in the pages of the Washington Times in connection with a rantthat tagged soccer as a “liberals’ sport” and “not a real sport” and worst of all “a mom sport.”

No explicit definition of “mom sport” was given in the article, but it is suggested that such sports are the ones that believe in participation trophies, a low barrier to entry, and getting the kids out of the house on a Saturday.

Reading the article, I sighed heavily and clicked rapidly away. It was, after all, just one more idiotic dismissal of things that women do as trivial, silly, and dumb. If you’ve seen one (and who hasn’t?), you’ve seen them all.

But as I drove from my office to my taekwondo dojang to assist in instructing a beginner’s class, I started to think about all the moms whose kids I help train, and all the moms I train alongside.

These moms (and dads, of course, but no sport has ever been denigrated by being called a “Dad sport”) get their kids to the dojang to train at least two times a week, some of them twice that or more. They wash uniforms and make sure everyone has their gear. They soothe nerves before competitions and tests for new belts. They put bandaids on feet that didn’t manage to break the board that time. They practice Korean vocabulary. They learn to tie belts properly, remind their kids to bow, bring food for picnics, race home early from work to get everyone to class, shuttle kids to tournaments, and show up for everything.

And if they are taekwondo students as well as moms of taekwondo students (and a lot of us are), they do all of that while learning their own material, worrying about their own board breaks and tests and competitions, dying inside when their kids are reprimanded in class, and wrangling all the physical and mental challenges of being a middle aged martial artist.

The moms at my dojang who want to become black belts will have to be able to perform 20 set kicking combinations, 30 self defense moves, and 20 Hapkido (grappling) moves. They will need to know and be able to perform 10 poomsae (forms). They will need to be at a level of conditioning that will allow them to engage in several rounds of one on one sparring, and a round or two of two on one sparring. They will need to break 3 boards at once with a single back kick. (That’s about 2.25” of wood.)

But before they even get to that test, they will need to show up, day after day after day, to train. They’ll need to come in when they don’t want to, or when their kids don’t want to, or when they were up until 2 am working on their real job. They’ll need to leave the dojang and go home, and often they will then be the one who makes dinner and supervises homework and bath time and bedtime.

And on the way home, they’ll pass some fool who can’t pass any part of that test and who probably hasn’t done anything more athletic since junior high school than watch other people play sports on television. And that person will tell them that taekwondo isn’t a real sport, or that they had no idea that taekwondo was really just a “mom sport.”

“Mom” is not an insult.

Sports that moms do, and sports that moms support, are not trivial, silly, or unimportant. Neither are the moms who do them.

Sarah Skwire is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund and Senior Editor at AdamSmithWorks.com. Her academic research primarily considers the intersections between literature and economics, but ranges widely from early modern material to popular culture. She and her daughters will test for their second degree black belts in taekwondo in October of 2019.

fitness · racing · running

Showing respect to the back of the pack

Tracy I1 Comment

I read a story that could have been discouraging if left unaddressed, but turned out to have a happy-ish ending. The story was about the back-of-the-pack runners in the London marathon, who were bullied and fat-shamed by the clean-up crew, among others. But the race organizers investigated and made good. They offered free guaranteed spots to anyone who finished in 7 hours or longer.

The headline of the Runner’s World article about it reads, “Bullied London Marathoners Harassed for Being ‘Fat’ and ‘Slow’ Offered Free Race Entry for 2020.” What’s sad and discouraging about this story is that these runners were actually following an official pacer. So the race officially said it was okay to take 7 1/2 hours. So why was the course even being cleaned up before then?

I had this happen to me when I did the Mississauga Marathon. It took me close to six hours, and the last 10K were pretty much the worst 10K of my life. What I said then I still believe now: there is a certain kind of respect owed to people who stick it out for that long. Of course I am in awe of the speedsters who finish marathons in under 2:30, under 3:00, under 4:00. When you get into the 5 or more hour range, it’s a different kind of endurance that’s required. The mental game goes on for longer. The physical challenge drags on for longer.

I get that this is a choice. That those of us who are slower runners know going in that we will take a long time. But if a race has a window before which they announce in advance the course will be open, then the course should be open for that duration. When I did my marathon (my only marathon, and probably to remain forever my only marathon because it was a miserable experience in myriad ways–if you’re curious, here’s my report), they started packing up the course ahead of me. Since I was among the last few runners, that made it difficult to know sometimes where I was supposed to go. When I got to the finish line, they were out of food. I get that the volunteers had been out for hours. But you know what? So had I.

But at least I wasn’t harangued on top of all that for being slow or fat. That’s absolutely shameful because anyone who makes it to the finish line, or even close, deserves to be congratulated for their efforts. Likely everyone who enters a marathon, regardless of when they expect to finish, has trained for the event, has covered a ton of ground in the months leading up, is nervous, is excited, and is doing something rare and wonderful.

It’s good news that the organizers of the London Marathon recognized that this is not the race experience they promise. That’s why they did a thorough investigation and when the allegations of mistreatment turned out to be true, they sent around an email to those slower runners: “We are sorry that your race day experience was not to the standard we set ourselves. As a result we would be delighted to invite you to be part of the 40th Race Day.”

I hope that at least some of the affected runners take up the offer. For me, an offer of free registration for the next iteration of the event would not have got me to do it again. Regardless, the organizers’ response shows respect for those of us in the bottom few. And it’s a deserved and earned respect.

If you’re a slower endurance runner, has your experience at events like marathons been overall good or overall more challenging as far as race organization goes?

flexibility · martial arts

Christine and the kicking – Day 2

Christine Hennebury

Day 2

I was expecting to be a lot more sore today.

I did some stretching and some lacrosse ball muscle massage last night but I still expected to be very uncomfortable today.

I was happy to discover that, while my hip muscles are tight today, I don’t hurt. I’m calling that a victory!

The Day 2 routine consisted of leg swings and lifts, some split stretches (She does splits but me? Not so much) and some standing leg raises of various sorts.

They were challenging but not quite as difficult as some of yesterday’s movements.

A white woman with light brown hair and a green headband, is visible from the shoulders up. She is wearing a grey shirt and there is a light green wall behind her. She is smirking.
Not quite as sweaty today but still smirky.

The real challenge today was what she calls ground kicks – leaning on the floor on one side, executing a kick and holding it.

Doing them with my right leg made me acutely aware of the tightest muscle in my body – right at the crease of the front of my hip. It hurt to do them but not in the ‘you should stop’ way. It was more of a ‘this is where you have to do the work’ way.

My left leg didn’t give me the same trouble.

Overall, it’s really becoming clear that weakness/tightness in different muscles on each leg is affecting my kicks on both sides…just in different ways.

I’m enjoying this kick-specific focus and the short duration of each workout. This approach lets me work on one challenge at a time which, it turns out, is much better than trying to do all of the things at once.

Who knew? 😉

PS – Yes, I do realize that this is news only to me. 🙂 Ha Ha!

fitness · menopause · menstruation

Will this ever end? #menopause

Sam B

Cate and I joke about being the women menopause forgot.

We’ve both blogged about it. See Cate’s super popular post about still menstruating at 53 and a half and my post from four years ago about being late to the menopause party.

Luckily, healthwise, it’s not a bad thing.

I was happy to read in the New York Times that there’s some health benefits to late menopause as well.

There’s actually some very good news for you if you went through menopause later rather than earlier: You may live longer.

True, late menopause is associated with an increased risk of breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers. But “on balance, most of it is good news: Later age at menopause is associated with better health, longer life and less cardiovascular disease,” said Ellen B. Gold, a professor emeritus in public health at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine and principal investigator of the university’s Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, or SWAN.

Those who go through menopause later are at lower risk for heart disease and stroke, and also tend to have stronger bones, less osteoporosis and fewer fractures than those who go through menopause earlier. The average age of menopause, when a woman has her last menstrual period, is 51, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Even my Garmin knows something’s up! Just today it suggested that I start tracking my periods. That made me laugh. The software knows how old I am.

Good luck with tracking and predicting Garmin. These days it’s more like the menstrual lottery.

fitness

Getting a kick out of summer

Christine Hennebury

I always intend to do a lot of taekwondo practice during the summer.

I am generally quite successful with my patterns but I find it hard to practice drills and other things without someone to help me keep moving.

Thanks to some reading about ADHD and exercise, I have figured out that I need two things to stick with an exercise program – accountability and guidance.

My accountability will come in different forms including posting here and using my Fitbit.

My guidance is going to come from YouTube videos. I have always liked doing exercise videos but I have gotten out of the habit and I have been struggling to work from paper lists recently – with varying success.

This week I’m doing a seven day routine about learning to kick higher.

And I’m going to be reporting in briefly every day on how I’m doing.

Right now, after a warm up, I can comfortably side kick to about waist height. My front kicks can go considerably higher but right now I’m working on my side kicks.

The program I’m following was suggested to me by my friend and training partner, Kevin.

The instructor (4th degree black belt Samery Moras) teaches in a different type of TKD than I train in but the types of kicks are the same so it holds up.

You can see the video series here.

In fact, we do a lot of these drills in class already but doing them with a video when I am at home lets me take the decisions out of the process and focus on the exercises themselves. (That increases my fun level by about 80%)

Anyway, here’s my report from Day 1:

I’m beat out but in a good way. See?

A white woman with light brown hair, and wearing a purple shirt sits on a couch, there is a dark green wall behind her. She is smirking, and looks like she has been exerting herself.
My shirt’s slogan ‘I don’t glisten, I sweat’ held true today.

The first video is only 11 minutes long but you have to pause it to do repeats on some drills.

It’s hard, really hard, but it feels purposeful. I can see how this effort can pay off. This is huge for me since one of my ADHD challenges is that I have trouble seeing how small efforts will add up to bigger successes.

The routine itself involves 4 stretches and 4 drills, most of which I had done before. They were all really challenging but I pushed myself and it was worth it.

Most of my progress this week will be measured qualitatively – in how things feel to me – but two of the exercises will give me more quantitative measurements.

I’m not getting into specific measurements but there should be a visible difference over the 7 days in these two exercises:

Wall Splits

My wall splits were not very split-like, it was more of a wall V. Progress in this exercise will be clear because my legs will get closer to the floor. (I hope!)

Figure 8 Kicks

These were very challenging – after a low kick, I had to draw a figure 8 in the air with my toes. My 8s were not very large – I expect those loops to increase in size as the week goes on.

See you tomorrow for Day 2!

KIYA!

The words "high maintenance" on a green background High maintenance life followup: Catherine’s profile
fitness · health

High maintenance life followup: Catherine’s profile

catherine w3 Comments

Hey readers– did you catch Natalie’s post on Saturday? Nat realizes she is high maintenance!

If you haven’t gotten to it yet, do check it out. But if you’re too busy, here’s the tl:dr version:

  1. Natalie does a lot-a-lot of varied physical activity in her daily life.
  2. She combines movement with social connection, getting a twofer benefit.
  3. She does physical activities she enjoys, often directed at a goal (e.g. charity ride, pretty garden).
  4. She doesn’t expect or get disappointed that her physical activities don’t produce a thin body.
  5. She knows and accepts that with regular varied physical activity comes some pain; she’s decided that this pain is better for her than the pain she gets from inactivity.
  6. To support and maintain her life of physical activity, she makes sure she has the right meds, medical devices, and professional support (e.g. chiropractor).
  7. It may be connected, or it may be an independent fact about Nat, but she takes the best selfies of anyone I know.

This is all awesome. Yay Nat!

Making up the list above made me think about my own activity and social habits. How am I doing on 1–7, and what do I want? Here’s my rundown:

1.I do some varied physical activity– I cycle, I walk, and I do yoga regularly. I like to swim, hike, and lift weights, too. I’d like to do the latter more often and more consistently.

2. Cycling, walking and going to yoga with friends helps keep me on track. I schedule road rides with friends once or twice a week. On vacation, I just did a couple of hikes and also swam with friends. My friend Pata and I are combining forces to schedule visits to the YMCA for weight and strength work. Swimming will remain an occasional group activity treat for the summer.

3. Yes, doing activities for enjoyment is what it’s all about. I don’t have any event goals right now, but I’m tracking my workout days on Facebook, on the 219 in 2019 group. I’m up to 100 workout days now– I’m tracking days I work out rather than individual workouts. So far I seem to be active on average 3 days a week. I’d like to get that number up to 5, as I think I’ll feel better physically.

4. Disconnecting physical activity from body shape and size has gotten a bit easier as I’ve gotten older. My 57-year-old body is larger and a different shape than it used to be. I have some negative feelings about this. At the same time, I’m grateful that my body can do the above-mentioned activities, and I want to help maintain and even improve my functional fitness.

5. Pain: for me, it’s not about the pain after exercise (there is that, but I don’t mind it much). It’s the discomfort I feel during exercise that I have trouble with. That is, in this body at this point in time, I have to exert myself a lot more to do the things I used to do with less exertion. This sucks in a big way. Of course, I can go slower, go for shorter times and distances, take breaks, and also try to give myself a big break– I’m out there doing it, so stop being so self-judgy, Catherine! This part is hard. Like Nat, less activity makes my body less happy and less comfortable, so this is the road I’m taking. But it’s not easy.

6. Support is so important to maintaining physical activity for me, too. I go to acupuncture and therapy, which help a lot. I take meds for anxiety, and getting enough sleep is my highest priority. I’m lucky and privileged that I have access to good medical care and a work schedule and home environment that allow me to get enough sleep. I mentioned the support of friends and community in 2, but it bears repeating: my friends are on similar paths, and we find that traveling together makes the journey easier. Writing for and reading this blog is an enormous help as well; the solidarity with other bloggers, commenters and readers helps sustain me.

7. Now, to the best part: the selfies. Here are but a few of her masterpieces.

  • WWinter still life-- it's not easy being green.
    Winter still life– it’s not easy being green.
  • Two selfies, four teeth.
    Two selfies, four teeth.
  • Selfie smile, courtesy of Lay's.
    Selfie smile, courtesy of Lay’s.

Inspired, here are a few of mine:

  • Me, unsuccessfully attempting to get comfortable on a plane, with some sleep-wraparound contraption.
    Trying to get comfortable on a plane. Not happening.
  • Selfie with friends, human and canine. Miss you, Zurie!
    Selfie with humans and canine.
  • Me and my pool aura.
    Me and my pool aura.

So readers: what sorts of maintenance do you find you do? What’s hard? What’s easy? What’s on your wish list? We’d love to hear from you.

Sweat First, Glow Later
beauty · femalestrength · feminism · soccer · stereotypes

Sweat First, Glow Later

Mina9 Comments

I was talking to a woman the other day about that wonderful feeling of working up a good sweat on a run, when she interrupted me to say, “You mean glow, not sweat.” Aack. I remember the expression from growing up. Horses sweat.Men perspire. But women merely glow. And no, I absolutely did not mean glow when I said sweat. I didn’t even mean perspire. 

Woman’s face illuminated in glowing sparkles.
H Heyerlein on Unsplash

In fact, I really, really meant sweat. The idea that women should only glow obstructs our progress, keeps us docile, fragile and dependent, and interferes with our strength. Can you tell I hate that expression? Even if it’s used as a euphemism, I don’t like what it implies. 

Back in the days when I practiced law, I would often go to the gym at lunch (in the same building as my office, because they liked to keep us close). I didn’t have a lot of time, so I’d make the most of the Stairmaster (my fave workout then) and arrive back at the office still red in the face. My office mate was perplexed. Why did I want to get so overheated? Answer—I loved the feeling. Secondary answer—I was working in a shark tank and needed an outlet for the pressure. Fast forward more than twenty-five years, I still love to sweat, even though I’ve bailed out of the shark tank. I love giving everything I’ve got, leaving it all on the road. To reach for an ambitious goal, to try as hard as we can, to go for it; that kind of effort requires sweat, metaphorical for sure and very possibly actual salty drops on our skin. The notion that women should only glow (which we know was meant not just actually, but also metaphorically) is offensive. The fact that science says women sweat less than men is a biological fact, not a matter of Victorian etiquette.

What happens if we try so hard that we break a sweat? What are the purveyors of that expression scared of? Our potential? Our strength? That expression (I will not repeat it) contains an implicit criticism of female effort as unladylike (you can imagine how much I love that word, too). The expression says to women, “You should not have ambition, or if you do, you must go about achieving your dream in a seemingly effortless fashion.” Ambition is not effortless. Why would we even want it to be? Then we wouldn’t have the satisfaction of achievement; the desire to spread our arms in a glorious moment of woohoo. 

Megan Rapinoe with arms outspread in the World Cup stadium

Speaking of which, I’ve noticed multiple pictures of US soccer star Megan Rapinoewith arms outspread in a defiantly powerful pose. I realized that I was judging her as a little arrogant with that pose and even though you didn’t know that until I told you just now, I’m going to take back that thought. Women don’t get as physically expressive about their personal victories as their male counterparts. Look at how Brandi Chastain was pilloried in 1999 for taking her shirt off in a moment of exultation when she scored the penalty kick to win the World Cup. She’s framed that sports bra and hung it on her wall. As I write this, the US team has won their semi-final game and is slated to play in the final the day after this piece publishes. Rapinoe didn’t play the game, because of a hamstring injury. I hope she plays on Sunday and that she has cause to spread her arms wide with triumph.

Let’s all spread our arms just a little more often, even and especially if we’re wearing a sweaty sports bra. Chances are we will be glowing for the rest of the day!

aging · Sat with Nat

Nat realizes she is high maintenance!

natalieh (she/her)9 Comments

Honestly, I forget I have a high maintenance body. It’s only when I meet new people and see their genuine shock at what I do to keep my body feeling good that I realize I’m high maintenance.

I strive to walk every day. My walking commute helps me manage my stress and incorporate movement in my life in a manageable way. My partner is also a fan of a post-evening meal stroll. I also walk on my Wednesday lunches with two dear friends who happen to be colleagues. We laugh, catch up and enjoy the beautiful park near our work.

I play rec league soccer once a week with other colleagues. I play defense and am the second oldest player on the team. (Right Sue?)

Lately I’ve been back on my bike on the weekends in preparation for our local MS Bike Tour. I love cycling. It’s the one activity I do that gives me a big endorphin boost. These days 40 km is enough to get that lovely feeling.

Twice a week I’m doing weights at lunch with another colleague at the little gym onsite. We joke about how pumped we are getting. I’m trying to manage some tennis elbow & shoulder pain that has been nagging me.

Sometimes, not as much lately, I go to yoga on Sundays. In the nice weather I’m much more likely to be out in my garden digging, dividing and weeding. Turns out it’s a lot of squats and wheelbarrow dead lifts!

With all this movement surely I look like a shredded, buff, lean woman? Oh heck no. All this movement is just enough to support my mobility and mental health. I’m so high maintenance!

I’m very thankful I can do all these things that involve movement and often great company. I feel confident in what my body can do and don’t really feel any compulsion to abide by anyone else’s ideas of what I should or should not be doing.

I joke with friends that in my mid-forties I get to choose: pain from lack of movement or pain from working out. The working out pain has a different texture and flavour. I feel kind of badass as I limp around the day after soccer.

I’m fairly sure I can only achieve this level of activity thanks to regular massage, chiropractic, a night guard, good footwear, blood pressure medication and a CPAP machine.

Have you ever been surprised by others reactions to your activity level? I’d love to hear about it. Natalie smiles into the camera without makeup or jewelry

What high maintenance looks like!
fitness

Walk your way to long life

marthafitat554 Comments

There is yet another reason to add walking to your fitness toolbox.

Large pink birds walk together in various landscapes

A recently released UK study concluded brisk female walkers can as add as many as 15 to 20 years to their lives compared to slow walkers.

More importantly, the researchers found the benefits of fast walking extended across all BMI levels. The lead researcher told media that their research suggests physical activity is a better marker of life expectancy than BMI.

That’s good news for anyone whose been told to lose weight because of their BMI. In fact, in the early teens of this century, my media feed was filled with articles like this one on how BMI was used to track schoolchildren’s health.

Most of us know already how limited this marker is for measuring health, so it’s good news to have it confirmed with research. Now that we know walking, and briskly at that, is definitely good for you, how to make it happen?

I’ve been assessing my activity levels as this winter I noticed my step count had dropped significantly with the poor weather. I am fortunate that I am able to walk when my hip cooperates. I made a list of the ways I could add steps to my day:

  • When I take my car, I make sure I park at the furthest end of the lot so I can take more steps.
  • I try to take the stairs when I visit clients, assuming there aren’t security provisions preventing me from using them. Most places only have one flight, but every step helps!
  • For buildings with higher levels, I’m working on adding flights. I can now do four flights (a set of stairs between landings) at a steady pace before having to stop.
  • As I slowly return to swimming, I add loops in the therapy pool going against the current.
  • I’m researching shops close to my house so I can walk for necessities instead of taking the car.

What are the ways you add extra steps to your day?

MarthaFitat55 lives in St. John’s where the hills are many and the inclines steep.

fitness

Why I Rarely Discuss My “Weight Loss” (Guest Post)

Marjorie1 Comment

“Marjorie, I wanted to check in with you. Several of us have noticed that you’ve rather dramatically changed shape lately.”

I was perhaps 20 years old and in college when this was said to me, and up to that point in my life, I’d been generally a larger-than-average person but had recently dropped several dress sizes. The kind, albeit awkward, comment was made by the postmodernist, feminist drama professor I worked for at the time. I remember bristling–changed shape?! What she meant was that I had gotten dramatically smaller rather quickly, and she was worried I had an eating disorder or was doing some other acts of self-harm. I suspected, however, that she would not show the same level of interest in students who had dramatically gotten larger in a short time period, and this struck me as hypocritical and like mincing words. Why not just ask me if I had intentionally lost weight?

Today, you will rarely hear me use that language, although I do technically weigh less than I have much of my life. If we must discuss it, I would prefer to discuss that I’ve changed size, although even that is not a very useful metric.

And a big part of the reason why goes back to that conversation, and what was going on in my life at that time. The thing is, I was losing weight, getting smaller, because I was sick with an illness that nearly claimed my life. I didn’t know it yet, but that “changing shape,” was one of the first symptoms of a major autoimmune disease. What I knew at the time was that I was exhausted, sleeping 12 or 14 hours a day and needing more. I felt sick and nauseous and had no interest in food. I had to force myself to eat, making myself add butter and peanut butter to the half bagel I’d force down, because I knew I needed the calories, but derived no pleasure from it. For more than half a year, I experienced this general malaise and got no answers from the doctors I visited. Did I think maybe I was depressed? No, I didn’t feel sad, just tired. Any chance I could be pregnant? Not unless it was an immaculate conception!

So I got smaller. I wasn’t on a diet, and my changing size was not intentional. It was NOT evidence of living a healthier life. I wasn’t taking better care of myself, and I certainly didn’t feel better in my skin. And the hypocrisy of our usual language around weight loss really began to dawn on me. When people say “weight loss,” it is usually used synonymously with dieting–with intentionally limiting one’s food intake to become a smaller size, usually under the guise of being “healthier.”

And of course, the drama professor wasn’t actually observing my weight in any case–she was observing my size (or my shape, as she put it). I took up less space than I had before. But even if she had seen me jump on a scale, that information would not have been any more useful than my apparent reduction of space. Weight does not equate health. It wouldn’t have told her if I was being safe to get to that size, any more than it told the doctors if I was shrinking due to burgeoning chronic illness, a mental health crisis, or divine intervention!

Today, with my now multiple autoimmune conditions more-or-less under control, my weight is still a pretty useless measure of my health and well-being. Over the past 20 years, I’ve gone up and down in size a few times, most often due to health crises, hospitalizations, medication changes and the like. However, about 8 years ago my health stabilized, and I began a slow, intentional transformation of how I live my life. As a result, over several years, I have changed shape–I have become quite a bit smaller. And, when I felt ready, I started going to the gym and became a dedicated weightlifter. I now lift with the explicit intent of increasing my size, and presumably, my weight will continue to change along the way. But it is not a very useful measure of my progress. I do not lift weights to “burn calories” or become smaller. I am far more interested in how many sets and reps I’ve done for a particular lift. And if I “gain weight” because I’ve become more muscular, I would consider that a win!

I’m not embarrassed or uncomfortable talking about how my body has changed over the years, I just don’t think it’s very useful. The larger-bodied people who are looking to me for advice probably don’t want to be told about how fast I got smaller while potentially dying in the hospital. One month of hospital food interspersed with several major surgeries will do wonders for your waistline! (Truly, I looked awful–all the “weight” I’d lost during that time period was muscle. My body had eaten itself up to rebuild and heal after surgery. I was just as fat, but I’d lost about 20 pounds.)

My weight is simply not meaningful data. My size (and shape) continues to change, but without context, no one can correctly identify if those are healthy or unhealthy changes for me. And so I tend to avoid the whole subject–yes, I’ve changed size and “lost a lot of weight,” but without knowing more about the journey, it really doesn’t tell you anything at all about me.

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

Image description: A woman’s silhouette, rear view. She’s sitting looking over a city at sunset. Photo from Unsplash.