Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
Author: Diane Harper
Diane Harper is a retired former public servant who lives and swims (and bikes) in Ottawa. In her hobby life, she is Siglinde Harfnerstochter, a 6th C Merovingian housewife from the city of Metz. Her primary interests are cooking, textile arts and bonecarving. Siglinde lives in the canton of Caldrithig, Barony of Skraeling Althing, Kingdom of Ealdormere.
Race Against Time takes on a whole new meaning as you age. I’m no longer trying to get faster. I’m just trying to stave off what feels like the inevitable crumbling.
The orange silhouette of a woman is superimposed on a white clock face and black background, with the words Race against Time in blue, white and orange letters on the right side of the image. The image was found at: https://ability360.org/uncategorized/august-18-race-against-time/
That ankle injury I wrote about back in December is still bothering me. The muscle tightness is easing, but it looks increasingly like I have a partially torn hamstring.
While I wait for an ultrasound (next week, yay!) I am continuing with my other health care providers, who are giving me more exercises to do. It’s all good advice, but it’s a lot!
My massage therapist has had me doing at least 10 minutes of yin yoga each day. I have chosen to do YouTube videos to relax before bed. Sometimes they are done IN bed, which is rather nice, as well as being easy on my knees.
My physiotherapist has assigned balance exercises. My Pilates class focuses on bone health, fall prevention, and building up our cores so we can get up off the floor easily. This has proven surprisingly difficult, so every day I am trying to add in extra strength exercises and as many of the class exercises as I can remember.
Of course I am continuing with my regular activities. I made the mistake of doing absolutely nothing except a bit of yoga one weekend, and I felt like I could barely walk by Sunday night. Never again will I doubt the importance of active rest. Motion is clearly lotion for my body.
These cartoon bottles of lotion wearing blue caps and doing various exercises on a green background made me happy. The image is from the Queensland Health Facebook page, posted June 23, 2025.
Someone, somewhere, recommended I read the book If You Can’t Take the Heat, by Geraldine DeRuiter. I put it on my TBR list and forgot about it until I was looking for something from the library and picked it up. I’m glad I did.
Geraldine DeRuiter (everywhereist.com) is known as a food writer, but this isn’t exactly a food book. It’s mostly a biography, but filled with both biting feminist commentary and hilarious turns of phrase. I don’t mark up books, or use bookmarks to remember particularly interesting bits in books I’m reading, but this one is full of sticky notes. Here are a few of my favourite lines:
From page 11 of the first chapter, entitled “the First Taste of Defiance”: I wouldn’t touch hot dogs, but consumed pig’s feet and boiled cow’s tongue with all the restraint of an underfed hyena, delighting in my cousins’ and brother’s horror. (This was when I knew I would love the book).
It’s a hard thing to learn: that we can ask things of other people, that we can order food how we want it. That our bodies deserve to be nourishing and loved and fed the way we want them to be.
On being trapped in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner with the other women of her family: Growing up, I had plenty of examples of men cooking…In my ruthless assessment, when someone could not cook, they’d failed at adulthood. But I found myself judging women slightly more harshly than I judged me when I discovered they were inept in the kitchen. I simply expected lore of them, at least culinarily, which was unfair to everyone…I’ve accepted the feminist notion that women can do everything, but the idea that we don’t have to do certain things is taking a bit longer to sink in.
On paying at restaurants: By not endeavouring to imagine that [women] might be the ones picking up the bill, the staff is not regarding them as legitimate patrons of the restaurant. They are there as accessories for the male guests. Given the transactional role that biting a woman dinner has historically carried in Western society, the entire situation becomes even more fraught.
On coping with anxiety by amassing food in case of disaster: My favourite part of any survival story is the acquisition of food and water…I love when the befriend a dog, which people in disaster stories almost always do, because it adds dimension to the story, but also because dogs are edible!
The contents of my pantry would not stop my father from getting cancer, would not prevent my mother from forgetting a portion the stove and burning down the house she had lived in for twenty-five years. I was ignoring the first precious word in the phrase “comfort food” – that in order to comfort, the grief and pain have already arrived. The casserole delivered in the wake of a tragedy does not reach back and undo the devastation. But…it reminds us, at a time when we so desperately need it, that we are loved.
According to the psychologist Sandra Thomas, a leading researcher in the field of gender and anger, anger is often perceived as a distinctly masculine trait….In that same vein, women are taught that anger is undermined, and to suppress, it, until one day we drop dead from a lifetime of biting our own tongues.
On body image: I had very distinct dietary goals. I wanted to outlive all of these assholes and be healthy enough to dance on their graves.
It’s not all snappy one-liners and fury. Her struggles as a child in a chaotic and sometimes abusive household, her complicated feelings about her mostly-absent father, the misogyny and hate she has faced for daring to have opinions in the public sphere are all laid bare. But she has great tenderness for her parents, her friends, and most of all, her husband.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up this book. But I’m very glad I did.
My library copy of If you Can’t Take the Heat. It has a pink cover with a woman’s hand crushing a frosted pastry. A whole bunch of blue sticky notes are hanging out the side.
It has been a hard year for me on the cycling front, so it has been exciting to rediscover the joys of winter cycling.
Diane in her blue and white helmet and black ski jacket, with her red bicycle and another winter bike in the background. It’s a sunny day and the bikes are parked in the snow at a bike rack outside a school.
Pros:
It’s often faster than driving or transit, especially for shorter distances.
It doesn’t require a lot of special gear (though I do not regret investing in studded tires).
Even on a grey day, that little bit of fresh air and sunlight will boost my mood.
My neighbours think I’m a bit of a badass, which is hilarious. I’m easing back into riding, so most trips are under 2 km each way.
It’s an excuse to indulge my inner child and buy all the bike lights.
No bugs.
I don’t overheat.
Cons: none that don’t also apply to summer cycling.
Photos from previous winters, showing off the bike lights and beautiful winter weather.
I recently needed to do the recertification exam for my lifeguard qualifications. It’s mandatory every two years and not really a big deal since I practice the skills regularly at work.
As usual, I was much older than almost everyone else there. Again, no big deal. I’m used to being – by far – the oldest lifeguard wherever I work. But apparently that is weird to some of the other lifeguards.
Following the fitness portion of our exam, one of the youngsters asked how old I was. When I told him, his response was “you’re in really good shape!”. I could almost see the thought bubble over his head “compared to my grandma.”
Kiddo, I have to do the exact same tests as you to hold the exact same job. I’m not unusually fit. I’m merely someone who has chosen to be visibly active in a way that you happened to notice.
The incident amused me because there were no real consequences. When I was trying to get hired, it was more of an issue. Same when I’m dealing with medical questions. I’m going to try and ignore them for the moment and enjoy my little giggle about the thought bubble. And remember that women far fitter than me have been called “grandmother” without acknowledging their remarkable achievements. Amy Apelhans Gubser I’m looking at you!
And for good measure, here’s a picture of me (a grandmother) with a group of my grandmother friends.
Five women in colourful bathing caps and suits, taking a selfie in the lake. Three of us are grandmothers.
I have a belly and weak core. I blame my first-year university singing teacher. Why? Because he gave a piece of advice that made probably sense to singers** but left me with 40+ years of bad posture and flabby tummy because I failed to engage my abs.
One student had transferred in from another university and the quirks of scheduling had her in our introductory voice class despite being in the voice performance program. It was good because we got to watch her sing, and that’s where the advice kicked in.
It was the early 1980s and we were all teenagers, so body conscious while wearing form-fitting clothing. I’m pretty sure every one of us spent a lot of energy trying to hold our tummies taut and flat; I know I did.
Singers need to move their diaphragms and so we were advised to relax and let them move – just like that skilled singer whose every breath we could see all the way down into her belly.
Did my teenaged brain understand that you needed muscles to push that diaphragm back up? No it did not. And did it ever think to get clarification or a second opinion from another teacher, or even that brilliant student? Also no.
A cartoon image of a woman with dark hair and an orange shirt signs with one hand on her belly and the other on her chest. The image was found on a Facebook post in a group called “Voice Training and Music Lessons”.
With considerable age came wisdom (and sports coaches who encouraged me to seek out different instructors because everyone teaches the same things using different words).
Sometimes the words bounce off you. Sometimes they make sense and you are able to improve your form. Sometimes, those words provide a flash of insight that changes your workouts in fundamental ways. I have written before about one insight that worked really well for me here.
All that to say – my unsolicited advice for today is to explore and experiment. Seek out new teachers (even if it’s just someone offering yoga classes on YouTube). Listen to your body and your teachers. Question everything you don’t understand or that doesn’t feel right.
That all sounds obvious, but trust me, it is not. At least for me and my still semi-adolescent brain.
*The advice wasn’t really bad. It wasn’t even intended as a fitness thing. That’s on me.
**I am not a singer. It was a required class so that every music student would get at least an introduction to two other instruments and I happened to end up with voice and violin.
Last week, I wrote about fitness guidelines encouraging 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activities a week. But also noted that that we need to count all incidental movement, not just structured activity.
Counting more activities is a good thing! I say this as someone who does at least three hours a week of structured physical activity that never triggers my fitness watch to count it because it is not of sufficient intensity. Or maybe it’s because I have a dumb smart watch. I have to put all my swims, dance classes, Pilates and yoga manually because my watch doesn’t track any of those things.
Plus I often get near the 7,500 daily step goal Participaction recommends, simply by walking around the pool rather than sitting during long lifeguarding shifts, or when I walk to do errands, but none gets counted unless it is sufficiently intense AND I have turned on the “walk” tracing function.
That said, I used my bike several times for short trips lately, and suddenly my watch is showing that I met or exceeded that 150 minute exercise goal. And if I remember to turn on “walk” to measure my walks to the grocery store or whatever, that gets counted too.
A friend said she got her watch to count the movement involved in snow shovelling by setting it to “cardio”. I just tested that with a short walk at the pool and it looks like I can update to “swim” and still retain the heart rate info. I’ll test that at my next swim practice.
Sadly, using “walk” while lifeguarding doesn’t get me any intensity minutes because I don’t get much heart rate high enough – a good thing in this context. I didn’t even get a fun squiggly GPS map because I was walking indoors.
I wonder what other ways I can trick my dumb smartwatch into counting movement. Maybe jazz class?
Lily Tomlinson shows off her jazz hands
Do you have any tricks for tracking your more intense workouts? Do you even worry about having some sort of evidence or external motivation to hit those Participaction goals?
I happened to catch a segment on my local radio show about the latest report card and the thing that stuck out for me was the gender component of who isn’t getting enough activity, at least according to traditional measures. You can read the report itself here.
Overall, the report said there has been very little shift in who is getting enough exercise, but also that the study was moving away from traditional measures of physical activity as being primarily moderate-to-vigorous exercise (i.e., physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive and done with the goal of improving fitness) to considering exercise that is less structured and in shorter bouts – things like active transportation or unstructured light activity such as play or social dancing.
Counting more activities is a good thing! I recently got back on my bike for short trips. Most of those rides were only for 5-10 minutes, but my smart watch said I met or exceeded the 150 minutes of moderate-vigorous exercise, even without counting all the steps I took while walking instead of sitting at work, or walking to do errands.
Those kinds of incidental exercise are what women seem to get while men are more likely to go to the gym or other structured activity.
The big challenge is how to track it. Not everyone wants to use a smart watch, or even thinks about it when going from a distant parking spot to the store, or walking to and from the bus stop, or playing with our kids in the park or walking the dog. But all those things absolutely count and we should be giving ourselves credit for that effort.
Diane in a colourful winter coat and blue bicycle helmet beside her red and white winter bicycle.
Maybe if we do, our results on the next survey will look better.
Lots of people start the new year with some sort of physical activity, signalling their intention to be active. This year, I decided to signal my intention to make time for rest.
I spent two glorious days lounging in bed: napping, cuddling cats, and watching old movies.
Cat tax: this is Milo, my grey and white shorthaired fellow, who flopped into my arms and demanded cuddles on New Year’s Day.
I think it did me some good. I went to swim practice on January 3 and did more distance than usual I even did some full stroke instead of babying my sore ankle by doing arms only with a pull buoy.
Wish me luck remembering to rest for at least some of the next 355 days!
The practice of identifying and trying to follow through on X things in 202X has become my favourite New Year’s resolution thingy. I first tried it in 2024. And again last year.
I came nowhere near completing all the things either time, but that’s just fine. The lists helped me build some habits and identify where I wanted to make changes. Here is what I’m thinking for 2026.
1. Camp more at the cottage. Last year I figured out contracting, plumber and electricity, but I won’t have running water or heat until the electrical actually gets connected to the grid, hopefully by the end of 2026.
2. Get the canoe into the water and explore the lake. This will require at least temporary stairs to the water, and I hope to hire someone to build permanent stairs during the summer.
3. Hike some of the trails around the cottage area. This is a repeat because I never got up to the property often enough to explore. Maybe I can count tromping around on snowshoes this year? I have been keen to do that.
4. Bike at least 1,000 km, including a ride to Gatineau Park for a swim. This number decreases every year, thanks to an overuse injury and fears around longer rides thanks to the heart murmur discovered early in 2025. My e-bike being out of commission for much of the year didn’t help; nor did the switch to a lot more trip chaining so I could combine local errands with elder care across the city. I’m going to remind myself that nearby Lac Leamy is actually part of Gatineau Park (just not the hilly, ambitious part).
5. Read one book a month. I exceeded this goal in 2025, partly because I renewed my library card and started reading fiction again. So the stash of “owned” books hasn’t decreased much and this one needs to stay. Besides, it forces me to rest and that’s a good thing.
6. Read one magazine a week. That’s 52 magazines. I read 41 in 2024, am at 41 so far in 2025, and I have enough for at least another year. I’m going to try and read one more today.
7. Cook one new recipe a week. This is an old habit, and cooking just for myself and sometimes for Mom worked after Dad died in May. This has been a way to explore vintage recipes I think she would enjoy but this year’s challenge will be to add more vegetarian dishes she would also enjoy since my sister is vegetarian.
8. I want to do more recipe redactions from medieval cookbooks. Let’s say one a month? That part of last year’s cooking challenge collapsed completely due to all the other things going on in 2025. But using my collection of medieval cookbooks and blogging about recipes I have tried gives me joy I have missed.
9. Weed and care for my gardens and hopefully harvest more food. This is a repeat and I hope the weather cooperates better than it did in 2025. I’m looking forward to riding my e-bike to the furthest garden again.
10. Swim. I completed exactly half my goal of 200 km a year. I probably won’t reach 200 km, but it’s going to remain as a stretch goal, especially if I can get some serious cottage time.
11. More crafting. I blew past the deadline for last year’s February project. But it still needs doing, along with a whole bag of other unfinished projects. I learned the basics of sprang this year and want to keep exploring that new skill.
12. Sew at least five outfits that have been lurking in my fabric stash and “to do” list for 5 years or more. This is one I could probably keep going for at least a decade. So much fabric stash….
13. Declutter the things in my Mom’s house without adding to my own clutter. I have discovered several great new places working with refugees and other marginalized communities; the real challenge is moving stuff along in a timely manner.
14. Couch surfing vacation to southern Ontario. No change from last year or 2024. I have three planned babysitting weekends with my grandson, and hopefully another invitation to Sam’s for the bloggers’ barbecue, so I’m looking forward to building on those as a way to visit friends.
15. Volunteer less. This is a complete reversal from last year. I realized I don’t love leading harvests (but I do enjoy helping with them), and I’m almost done my terms on various boards. It’s time to let go and focus on me for a while.
16. Eat more fruit. I have a deeply ingrained habit of eating vegetables but not fruit, so my aim is two servings a day. I won’t be able to manage 6 prunes a day on top of that, but they can certainly be an option as my main fruit.
17. Spend more time with Mom. Elder care is going to continue being a big part of my life.
18. Stretch and modest strength training. Physio, yoga, some of the videos from Movement Union, and on-line Pilates, which I started in December and really love.
19. Shop from my pantry. I’m really good at preserving food, not so good at using it up. This is an ongoing challenge but I did make a little headway last year.
20. Meet up with friends. I hang out with way too many introverts. We love getting together, but it rarely happens. I’ll aim to meet up with one of them each month for coffee or a meal or something. This is a repeat because it didn’t happen nearly often enough but needs to happen. Those visits with friends were precious time to me.
21. Do something artistic. Will I finish that oil painting that has been sitting around for years? Work on my calligraphy and illumination? Take a watercolour class? Or just take my sketchbooks to the cottage and put them to use? My art supplies were trapped with the sewing machine for most of the year so this is a repeat.
22. Keep on top of my health issues. Notice and take action when things feel off, rather than trying to power through or refuse to acknowledge in the first place that what I’m feeling is not normal.
23. Relax. Deliberately spend time staring at trees, or lounging in the sun, meditating, or whatever. More specifically, hammock time. Use the one in my back yard and set up one between a couple of trees at the cottage. Another repeat, but so necessary!
24. Set up my bike for indoor rides and watch some movies while I cycle. I have never tried using my Garmin to track indoor cycling, so that could be a test this year. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just guesstimate distances by my average speed 14 km/hour) times the length of the show I watch.
25. Requalify as a lifeguard and swim instructor. This is something I have to do every two years and shouldn’t be a big deal, but it always makes me anxious.
26. I have no idea! This is a placeholder for whatever adventures might come my way, or new things I want to explore. This may have been my favourite last year. Maybe it will morph into this great resolution from a friend:
Sam says lots of people are visiting the this site right now. I’m guessing it’s a year-end, preparing for the new year thing. Maybe folks are looking for inspiration? I hope you stick around because this can be a fun place, full of deep thoughts and some silly fun.
The best part is that we love moving our bodies and know it’s never too late to start. I’m a prime example of that. My friends and I use the expression “do the thing” whenever we want to push ourselves outside our comfort zone.
Although I took swimming and skating lessons, and ran cross-country for a couple of years, I was far from athletic as a kid. I didn’t really start getting active until I took up ballet in my 40s in an attempt to be a good role model for my kids. That was so much fun that the next year I added in regular swimming. Things kept getting added in: belly dance, cycling, skiing (cross-country and even a bit of downhill), skating…. They didn’t all stick, but the joy of trying new things certainly did.
Now I’m retired from my career, and am a part-time lifeguard and swim instructor. I qualified for the job just before my 64th birthday. I take weekly ballet and jazz classes, and cycle year-round. I’ll never manage a really long ride, but I can easily put in upwards of 30 km a day just doing errands around the city.
I still love trying fun things. Most recently, it was a massive aquafit class and fundraiser for the local food bank. We had 370 participants and collected over 2,000 pounds of food.
Me in my Santa hat and green swim cap, taking a selfie in front of Santa, a couple of participants and some of the decorations at the world’s largest aquafit class (pending official ratification).
All that to say, welcome to Fit Is A Feminist Issue. No matter your age or level of fitness, we’re glad you stopped by and hope you’ll return often. Or even better, subscribe to the blog so you never miss an update.
And whatever it is you love or are curious about – do the thing!
