Are you getting excited for ski season? Making sure you have your skates sharpened? Sad that you put your road bike away for the season? Ran a great sprint on the treadmill this morning? I can say no to all of the above. While I enjoy swimming, running, walking everywhere, I have fears that prevent me from doing some of these commonplace activities. I read about A Single Pill That May Be The Key To Overcoming Many Paralyzing Fears and thought hmm, and then, no, just the thought of trying it still makes me feel anxious. Not very badass of me!

The old adage “it’s as easy as riding a bike” doesn’t help me. I learned how to ride a bike when I was a kid, but my mother was fearful of us riding adult bikes on the road, so once we outgrew our kid-sized bikes, I never rode a bike again – until I was about 25 and tried with an old roommate. I had been gifted a new bike for my 25th birthday because of all the great bike paths in my new area. Colleen patiently tried to help me get comfortable on the bike, but I couldn’t get myself to feel comfortable riding it a couple feet, never mind turning with it. Plus, I felt really silly at that age, wobbly in the parking lot. So, if I cycle, it involves a spinning studio and a stationary bike.

New activities usually went something like this when I was young. I’d put on skates and wobble to the boards. Cry and exclaim that I didn’t like it and my parents would sigh and just say “oh well, she doesn’t do stuff like this” and I’d go get some hot chocolate.

I entertained the idea of learning to skate as an adult. I figured I’d have more tenacity and confidence to put the effort in, since I was now a runner… My friend Karen had signed up for “learn to skate for adults” through the City of Toronto and I showed up for the first lesson. Unfortunately, we somehow got the start time wrong and we showed up about 15 minutes late, thinking we were early. That didn’t help my anxiety. I still had to get the borrowed skates I had on me sharpened, attempt to stand in them, and make my way to a scary location covered with ice. I started walking across pavement to the other side of the rink. There was a “railing-less bridge” I found myself on midway. Cue my brain instructing my legs to freeze. Karen tried to encourage me but when my brain is in that state, I can’t really focus on anything but the fright. I told Karen to go on ahead and I stood there trying to will myself to move forward. Eventually I gave up, sat down, took the skates off and went back to the changeroom. I went to watch the lessons and admired some of the adults who seemed equally nervous, who were actually standing on the ice. At the end of the lesson, the teacher encouraged me to come back next week, but I knew I wasn’t going to.

When I first started running, I mostly ran outside, however, I would occasionally run on a treadmill at the gym. I was never one of those people who could hop on and off while it was moving quickly, but I was fine. Until at some point, something was triggered in my head and I started involuntarily jumping on to the non-moving sides of the treadmill as soon as it gained any amount of speed. Even more embarrassingly, I was supposed to go for a stress test a couple years ago. It wasn’t a real health scare, more being extra careful about some pains I was having, given my family history. I warned the receptionist when booking that I had a problem with treadmills. She said to come anyway. I watched as seniors routinely went about the business of getting hooked up to the treadmill. I spoke to the nurse when it was my time and she assured me it would be OK and we should try it out. It was an old clunky treadmill with no sides…and I couldn’t do it. All hooked up and nowhere to go, embarrassment and all, I couldn’t make my legs stay on the treadmill.

Some fears have had a greater impact on me. I got my driver’s license when I was 17 and drove perfectly fine for many years. I was never a “weaver” and pretty much stuck close to the speed limits. But at some point in my early 30s, I was driving on a highway. It was free-flowing, light traffic, and something in my brain triggered a panic attack. I had this feeling of doom about this open space, moving at a great speed, and no where to easily get off. I started avoiding highways. Not the best decision. Because that meant just the thought of going on the “on ramp” gave me a sense of panic. I tried unsuccessfully to get on a highway several years later. In the meantime, I still drove in the city, without issue. Made for interesting weekend commutes, when I met my now husband, who lived in Guelph when we met. At first, I tried the “long way” on the backroads, but quickly realized my anxiety levels were better served by me taking the train to Guelph (or using “Uber Gavin”).

In the gym, my fear of heights has prevented me from properly learning how to do a “pull up”. I just don’t want to hang from the height required. I’ve tried alternatives, and it frustrates me because I have decent upper body strength, but I have just shelved the idea for now.

As much as there’s a part of me that would like to conquer some of these things and be a more fierce version of myself, I am mostly OK with focusing on the things I CAN do, and not the things I can’t.

Do you have fears? Related to activity? Have you figured out ways to conquer them? Happy not to? Let me know!

My apologies perhaps should have their own category here on the blog. I’ve apologized for saying “if you don’t love it, don’t do it.” I’ve also apologized for saying it’s never too late. That’s not always true. I’ll never run again and it’s too late for me to make marathon plans (or even 5 km plans.)

I haven’t searched for old status updates on Facebook but I’m sure I’ve said impatient things about people who walk slowly.

I don’t even want to look. Past me was a speedy walker, albeit one with short legs, and I got frustrated with slower walkers. I especially got frustrated with slower walkers using their phones.

Now the shoe is on the other foot and I’m embarrassed. I’m the person that other people come up behind on the sidewalk. I can hear them approaching. Sometimes I hear them sighing. I often have to listen to their conversations. I wonder about stepping out of their way but there is often only one path clear through the snow and I can’t risk falling.

The thing is sometimes I’m even checking my phone. I’m walking pretty slowly these days and I get bored and it’s a pace that for me allows for checking messages. Sometimes I even stop and take photos. It’s my halfway to work break!

On the bright side, the happy side, I’m walking again. I walked more than 3 km everyday this past week. Wow. It hurts still yes but there’s not the kind of take your breath away excruciating pain I did have.

I walked in New York, 5 km one day and 3 km the next. This past week I walked to work at least one way every day. It feels exciting to be moving again even if I’m slow about it.

Here’s photos from my walk to work:

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Remember last month, when the bots started flooding me with ads for leak-proof underwear and dire warnings about the need to improve my pelvic floor strength?  And then I wandered into the territory of vaginal atrophy?  (Very much a “dear god, this parachute is a knapsack!” moment, leading to all sorts of people giving me Advice about my Vagina).

Well, that first step in that little obsession with something that — frankly — I had literally never thought about before, was an ad for a little device called a “perifit,” a game-ified way to work out your pelvic floor muscles with a cute little blue-toothed app for your phone.  From what I could tell, it looks like a sex toy, but promises something far greater than mere momentary pleasure — it strengthens your pelvic floor, prevents incontinence and prolapse, and boosts your intimate wellbeing.  It promises a lifetime of pleasure!

Well, sign me up!

I wrote to the maker of perifit, explained the blog and linked the post I’d written.  Cyril and Berenice loved it.  I asked if they’d send me one to test out.  For the good of the community.

(Note:  I’m not actually sure what I meant by “good of the community.”  We talked about this at my Friendsgiving dinner, and got all excited about having Races, but I wasn’t sure if we were all going to share one and pass it around, like hippie feminists of ye olde days, or sit around in the same room, each of us kegeling on our own and staring at our own phones in glum silence, or maybe just some sort of fitbit-like community where we were collectively counting squeezes.  There was a lot of wine and pie and general merriment).

Anyway, Berenice sent me one.  She’s really nice.

It was beautifully packaged — like unboxing a new iphone — and just as intuitive.  (I mean, intuitive if you assume that your first impulse upon receiving a small pink phallic device is to put it in your vagina.  Although you shouldn’t do that until you follow the directions.  You’ll note none of the directions say “put it in your vagina.”  That’s not on the box.  But I’m ahead of myself).

Of course I had to test it out right away, and I rushed off to chase butterflies with my vagina.

Getting it started was easy — the app is functional and really easy to follow, and it blue-tooths itself when you’re in the app. (The white thing that looks like a string is an antenna).

The app is also full of seductive promises about how awesome and fun your life is going to be with this little lass.

(I think that’s the same model from the Rebel Asana app.  All I can tell you is those abs didn’t come from squeezing her vagina.  But she did make me feel all warm and motivated.)

Right away, there’s a little test so you can decide what workout mode you need.  I threw in a few more problems than I’m really having (Which:  again:  NOT ACTUALLY HAVING ANY PROBLEMS, bots and people giving me vagina advice!).  I ended up with Mixed Incontinence, which made me weirdly panicky for a moment.  (EVEN THOUGH I HAD MADE STUFF UP).

So I followed all of the directions, and lubed it up (water based lube only) and stuck it inside me and started the program.  First it made me practice three big squeezes to test my force (I got a number that didn’t mean anything to me but I felt cocky anyway), and then started a program.  The one that appeared had me chasing lotuses with a butterfly for two minutes.  The lotuses would be on the ground, boop boop boop, and then suddenly they’d be in the air and there would be a moment of intense ferocious squeezing then boop boop boop SQUEEZE.  (I don’t know why I’m making up boop noises — the thing is a bit eerily quiet).

Here’s the thing (whispering):  it’s actually a little boring to lie there squeezing your vagina for two minutes.  I wasn’t rolling around or running on the beach with the nice lady, chasing lotuses together — I was lying on my bed, ignoring the cats who were staring at me, just squeezing lotuses.  Silently.

Turns out, lifting weights with your vagina isn’t inherently more interesting than lifting dumbbells with your arms.  You’re working out a muscle.  There’s a point to it.  I could feel it work, get tired.

The app does give you all sorts of data I haven’t really figured out yet.  I really like this one little graphic, but I think it doesn’t have enough information about me yet to really put me on it.  (I don’t see my red vagina dot?)

I am a little dismayed at the score with my deep vaginal strength — because — [whispering] that’s the one that matters for intimate pleasure.

I’ve only had the device working for two sessions, so this is really a sneak peek.  I will say, it does tap into my competitive need to Count Things.  And honestly — reading about the relationship between weight lifting and incontinence — and the number of people who’ve come out of the woodwork to talk about their prolapses or peeing issues since I made that post — made me realize just how common an issue it is.

So I’m going to keep fiddling around with it.  (It needs a name.  It kind of looks like Reese Witherspoon’s character in Legally Blonde, but Elle sounds like the name of the kind of birth control they advertise to young women on the backs of bathroom doors in bars and colleges.  Maybe Reese is better.  Reese it is).

I’m doing this for my own pelvic floor, but really, I’m doing it for public discourse.  What do you want to know about kegels?  incontinence?  vaginal prolapse?  this really quite nifty device?

Off to try the Intimate Wellbeing setting.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who lives and squeezes in Toronto.

Occasionally I realize how long I’ve been thinking about size and body image. Here’s something a friend just found for me in a digital archive. It’s a piece I wrote in the mid-80s about dieting and eating disorders. Hard to read but the first line is about spring when young men’s hearts turn to love and young women’s hearts turn to dieting. Sadly what’s changed is that men diet now too. That’s not the kind of equality I was hoping for. Also, I wasn’t thinking then about body acceptance for all sizes. Thin women can be happy too–obviously. There’s no need to say Goodbye Twiggie. She’s welcome to the body positive blog celebration too.

I don’t recall the exact reason but I remember as a graduate student starting my writing CV afresh. I didn’t include any of the paid writing I’d done as an undergraduate on my official record. It was all publicly accessible and written for a general audience and I think I worried it was too journalistic and not professional/philosophical enough. That might be true but I like that my topics of interest and core values haven’t really changed. And now I’m doing more public writing again, I’d like some of that older stuff on my CV again.

I’m still looking for a magazine piece I wrote for a Canadian feminist magazine on the feminist potential of Harlequin Romances. It was an interview with a professor about her research. But no clue which magazine or how to find it. I also wrote a book review about the book Emily Murphy: Rebel. Again, it was for a book review magazine that gave you the book and paid you to write a review. Money for writing was how I started out.

I’m still trying to track this stuff down but I thought blog readers would appreciate how long I’ve been writing and fatness and feminism.

When did exercise become a habit for me? Not when I was a teenager, when I was sure I was not athletic, and had an unhealthy addiction to nicotine that made my lungs feel heavy when I ran across the street. I dabbled in exercise when I was in my 20s but I don’t recall it being a regular habit until I started running when I was 31. I had quit smoking many times before but running was added incentive to quit smoking for good. Plus, I quickly noted how the endorphin rush calmed my nerves, quieted my brain, gave me an outlet for anger and sadness, or a way to celebrate joys. It has remained a habit because I schedule my workouts in my week, every week. I remind myself to go workout, even when I don’t feel like it (more often than makes sense) because I know it will make me feel better. Because, if I don’t move my body intentionally for more than a couple of days, the edginess builds up, the cloudiness fills my brain, the self-doubt increases. The benefits of my persistence are many. But rather than focus on my reasons, I thought I would interview women who exercise regularly and let them describe their reasons. I hope they inspire you to continue moving, or to start moving, and to welcome the benefits of exercise into your life.

In the interest of space, I have taken snippets from each of their responses.

Brittany

What do you include as part of your regular exercise routine?

In a city as energetic as Toronto, I love walking places as a mode of transportation when I can (whether an hour to work, or 10 minutes to grab a coffee). I also strength train 4 times a week, and practice yoga once a week, along with the odd spin class.

What benefits do you get from exercise?

When I first started strength training two years ago, I realized how empowered and inspired it could make me feel. Deadlifting more than my body weight, for example, has never been about losing weight, or getting toned. It’s about proving to myself that I’m stronger than I think I am, and that I’m capable of doing things I once never considered. It’s a shift in perspective that can translate to so many different aspects of life. I also find time for yoga and meditation, which remind me to step back and stay present. Some weeks require that more than others!

How do you handle days when you are dragging your feet?

I assess why I’m feeling that way: Did I get enough sleep? Is work stressing me out? Am I battling a cold? Is winter weather winning today? I listen to my body and work out when I know it’ll benefit me (aka it’s time to leave the office!) and give myself rest days when I know that’s what I need that week (if I’m sleep deprived or sick or am simply due for a night in to relax!).

What are your favourite exercises?

I love lower-body workouts like deadlifts and squats. However, I’m trying to learn to love upper body moves too, to continue to challenge myself. I’m also into cardio, and love running outside when weather permits, because treadmills = death.

Bonnie

What do you include as part of your regular exercise routine?

– 5km walk per day to/from work – squash 2x/week – used to go to the gym 3-5x/week for HIIT classes, weights, and cardio but recently moved and trying to figure out new workout schedule – used to do yoga too but that has been non-existent in the past years! – road biking during summer

What benefits do you get from exercise?

– Stress release and helps with emotional/mental balance – Social community engagements and friendships – Helps me sleep. I had trouble sleeping for a period and went to play squash by myself at night to try to tire myself out to be able to sleep! – Improved body and mental awareness/control

Do you have any tips for people new to exercise or trying to make it routine?

– No excuses…if you want to get into a good routine, you have to go to the gym/workout and not make excuses not to – Try to find friends or a community that will provide support and keep you motivated – Be aware of your form!!! This is super important in so many aspects! – It gets easier…first step is to take the initiative to get off your butt and do something…nothing comes easier, but as you continue, you will get better and feel better about your abilities and achievements!!! – Don’t analyze and keep thinking it’s so hard…just acknowledge it and do it. Working out is not just physical…it’s mental as well…don’t beat yourself mentally before you even start.

Lesli

What do you include as part of your regular exercise routine?

I love to walk and try to reach 10,000 steps every day. Gym sessions are 4 to 5 days per week (scheduled a month at a time to avoid temptation to not go/cancel).

Have you always exercised regularly?

Exercise was a big part of my life growing up, teens, and well into my twenties, but then for years I was a couch potato. It wasn’t until I was approaching my forties that I made room for activity again.

If no, what motivated you to start?

Not sure it was “motivation” or a big old kick in the ass from a dear friend. I was suffering from panic attacks and anxiety and withdrawing from friends and she knew I would benefit from exercise.

Do you have an exercise motto?

Consistency carves canyons!!!

Is there anything else you would like to say about why exercise is important to you?

I may look like a hot mess while exercising but I mentally and physically feel like a million bucks. That feeling is priceless.

Cate

What do you include as part of your regular exercise routine?

All the things — spinning, riding my bike, going to the Y, small group cross-fit style classes, yoga in studio and at home, running, hiking, brisk walking that isn’t part of my regular day

What benefits do you get from exercise?

community, mental health, better sleep, a sense of virtuousness

Do you have an exercise motto?

You almost never feel worse after a workout; if you do, you have a fever and need to go to bed.

Do you have any tips for people new to exercise or trying to make it routine?

Try to learn the difference in your body between discomfort/effort and pain/strain — when you can make friends with discomfort, many things open up and you become stronger. But don’t work through pain or something that might hurt you.

What about you readers? Do you have favourite exercises? Ways to motivate yourself when you are not feeling motivated?