Soldiering On…

My Honey and I had a fabulous homecoming from his disappointing and scary motorcycle race, and my mum’s husband is out of the hospital and doing well.

I started an intense and highly selective leadership program, and we just returned from a very fun camping trip with friends… our first camping experience as a married couple and in the rain.  Nothin’ like snugglin’ up with your man while the thunder booms overhead and lightning flashes through the mesh windows.

I enjoyed the healthy stuff I brought for the trip, but I also indulged in some goodies brought by others: Oreos, Doritos and homemade s’mores, which we managed to cook over a damp fire in between rain showers.  I talked to my girlfriend a little about my weight gain and how I’ve been struggling for several months being 7 or so pounds up.  She said she couldn’t tell, which was nice… made even nicer by the fact that she’s extremely direct and would tell me straight up if she felt otherwise.  It was nice, along with being away from the computer and cell phone access, not to have a scale around and not to keep track of every morsel.  I felt free to just be me and do what I wanted to do with some moderating.

Returning to the real world this afternoon, I picked up the mail and found the latest issue of “More” magazine.  Candace Bushnell’s column really resonated.  Titled “Why I’m a beauty scrooge”, it details why she is against cosmetic surgery.  She relates a story in which, earlier in life, she’s offered a half-price boob job. Even with a huge discount, she couldn’t afford it, and she realized she was “…just going to have to soldier on” with her “…grossly imperfect body”.

That is EXACTLY how I feel on most days: that I am soldiering on with a grossly imperfect body.  It was wonderful to read that Candace Bushnell, an extremely successful writer and a “cougar” with a much younger boyfriend, has felt this way for years.  As she says, the message is “change your looks, and you can change your life”. 

Here’s the funny thing, though.  I have done that!  I have drastically changed my looks, and I have drastically changed my life.  It’s actually pretty darned amazing.  The life I’m living now is one I never even dreamed of.  It’s miraculous to me.  I am doing things personally and professionally that are exciting and challenging and notable.  I am making a difference in my community, and going on adventures, big and small, with my new husband.  My life has a surreal quality. 

Yet, I am still “soldiering on” when it comes to my looks.  There are days – after I see myself on TV or after I see a Facebook picture of a friend in a bikini who never let herself get fat and then had to fix it – that I am utterly devastated by what I see in the mirror… so much so that the urge to hide in the closet is nearly irresistible.  But, I soldier on, knowing that I cannot discount the love of my man by dissing what he sees as beautiful… knowing that my contribution to work is based on my skills and attitude, not my face or body shape… knowing that my support and appreciation of my friends and family has nothing to do with the size of my jeans. 

I hope to get past the soldiering.  It’s admirable but tiresome, and in my case, it’s wasteful of valuable energy.  It helps me live life fully, bringing me a kind of stubborn resolve to try that new thing “in spite of”, but it takes a toll at the same time, leeching joy and peace.

Instead, I hope to be able to truly embrace my transformation and appreciate its significance now… and what it will lead to in the future that I can’t yet see.  I guess I’ll keep soldiering on toward that goal.

More Pole Pics

The first picture is of a pose that I think is called The Lady.  It doesn’t look like much, but holding on by your thighs and one hand is challenging.  Normally, you lean your head back and arch your hips up more than I am in this pic.  We wanted to show my face.  My hips need to be arched more, but I’m close on this one.  As with the strength holds I describe below, it has taken me several months to develop the muscular ability to do this pose.  It’s deceptive, as is much of pole work.

Another part of what we do in pole class are strength holds: poses that build our strength so we can do more maneuvers on the pole.  They are much harder to do than they look.  It took me several months to be able to do these two poses.  I could never hold them for any length of time.  So, I’m really thrilled at the progress I’ve made. 

 

Sweetheart of a Party

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I am sharing a couple of pictures from a party I hosted a few months ago.  My mum made me this delightful Candy Heart scarf, and naturally, I had to use it as a table runner.  It was too pretty to be wrapped around my neck while I ran in and out of work in the chill.  It needed to be revealed to the world - or at least to visitors to our place - in all its goofy glamour.  The thing I like best about the scarf is the words she chose for the hearts.  The word “piglet” is split into two hearts; it was the nickname she gave me when I was little.  She still sometimes calls me Piglet today!

The scarf worked perfectly with the colorful Chinese takeout boxes of cookies and polka-dotted bowls of dip I served at the party.  I love color; it makes me smile to see vibrant groupings like this.  Fabulously festive fun!

The upside of stress

We’re always hearing about how bad stress is for us. And, considering what extreme stress does to the body – “…headaches, stomach pain, high blood pressure, insomnia, and mind freeze…” – it’s understandable that we’re not encouraged to embrace it.

But can stress actually help us, rather than just hurting?  Turns out, it can.

In reasonable amounts, stress can make you more alert. The “fight or flight” hormones and other stress-induced hormones heighten your senses, speeding up your heartbeat, improving your brain’s blood flow and improving vision and hearing. These hormones can even strengthen your immune system and prevent age-related memory loss by increasing brain cell activity. All this can serve to help you get more stuff done when you need to.

It can be hard to find the balance between good-for-you levels of stress and a harmful state of agitation, but you can learn where the tipping point is and utilize a variety of techniques to keep yourself on the right side of the line.

Having some degree of control – or thinking you do – generates more beneficial stress hormones. Even if you don’t have control, you can fool your brain into thinking you do. Choose not to respond to a certain stressor. Don’t check e-mail, for example, except at designated times. Or, work on other areas of your life over which you do have control, particularly if you’re good at whatever it is. Do something meaningful, like volunteering or donating or helping a friend in a difficult situation.

Taking time to pause also helps keep stress at positive levels. That’s often easier said than done, but when you force yourself to stop and breathe deeply, you often recognize which situations are beyond your control and which ones you can do something about. Pausing keeps you from letting your anxiety spiral into an unchecked panic attack. Ask yourself, too, if your immediate response to the situation is going to make things better or worse. Are you generalizing about your role in whatever is causing you stress?

Limiting perfectionist tendencies is important, too. Perfectionism is unrealistic and sets up unreasonable expectations that lead to unnecessary stress.

Believe it or not, a little bit of stress acts almost like a stress vaccine. If you’ve never experienced a stressful situation, you may fall completely apart when it happens, not being able to handle the surge of hormones flooding it. Having survived some stressful times means that your body is prepared to deal with its biological response when something negative occurs.

And, as we all know, exercising is a terrific way to manage stress. Exercise releases endorphins, the “feel good” mood boosters.  Benefits typically kick in about an hour after you’ve worked out.

So, when you’re feeling stressed, don’t automatically assume it’s a bad thing. Remember that stress can be beneficial when it’s kept at manageable levels and use all the techniques at your disposal to make the most of it.

You never know what people are thinking

Isn’t it funny how you can go along, having a not-so-good day, feeling goofy about yourself, being just surer than anything that everyone else around you thinks you’re goofy, too?  Or unattractive?  That happens to me fairly frequently.  Because I struggle with my body image so much internally, I tend to think that others are seeing the “bad” stuff I see in my head.

Every now and then, though, I get a much needed reality check.  My BF and I were at our favorite bar last night, celebrating the birthday of the bar’s owner.  We ran into several regulars including one who had been at the bar for their Halloween party.  I was there, too, in my “Mod Bunny” costume, and had chatted with him briefly that night.

Well, last night, he took me aside to tell me that he had never realized until Halloween night, when he saw me in my short mod dress, that I had the most “amazing legs” he’d “ever seen”.  Wow!  How cool is that?!  He went on for a few minutes, telling me that he’s seen a lot of legs in his day, and mine were truly amazing.  He said he even remembered exactly when, that night, he’d noticed… and he described the moment to me.

It was awesome, and it’s another one of those snippets that will go into my “good things” memory vault, to be brought out when I am feeling unaccountably low. 

Not only was a great morale booster for me, but it also reminded me how important it is that we compliment each other when we appreciate something about another person.  You never know when or how those genuinely kind words will benefit someone.  And, you never know for sure what people are thinking.

You can say that again

Words of wisdom from Michael Rosenbaum, M.D., associate program director of the General Clinical Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City:

“Anyone who sustains weight loss, which is extremely difficult, has essentially reinvented herself and is worthy of the utmost admiration and respect.”

Perspective

“No question about it, tomorrow is back on track.  But it does bother me that I’ve had this attitude lately. UGH! Do we EVER conquer this problem?!“

I have felt like that SO many times!  It was unbelievably refreshing to read this on Tatum’s Mom’s blog.  i am grateful to bloggers who share their ups and downs.  It means a lot to know I’m not struggling in isolation.  But the question remains: do we ever get over it, past it, through with it?  Or, do we continue to battle against being a fat person for all eternity?

I’m still in that phase where I’m 3 pounds above my goal, and it’s frustrating.  What’s weird is that, inevitably when this happens, someone runs into me and asks if I’ve lost weight, complimenting me on how I look.  It happened just this morning.  As I exited the stairwell, I ran into someone from another office that hadn’t seen me in several weeks.  He said, “Have you lost weight.  You look great!”  Naturally, it was a morale booster.  It also reminded me that exercise can make you look smaller while adding a bit of weight to your body.

I’ve recently increased the weights I use during my strength routine.  Plus, I’ve tried some new workouts: Muay Thai and Cardio X.  I’ve even installed a pull-up bar, doing daily pull-ups, albeit only one at a time.  It could be that these changes are keeping the scale up while whittling my middle.

Thank goodness for blogs and people who share compliments when they have ‘em.  It provides much needed perspective.

Nobody’s Perfect

Fashion critics calling Karolina Kurkova fat have created quite an uproar.  People are outraged, as well they should be.  If the pictures shown as evidence of her “weight gain” are any indication, it’s a patently ridicious assertion.

In reading about it, I stumbled across a comforting little tidbit.

For the record, I’ve been to several of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows (of which Karolina is a star), and ya know what? Almost every girl has a bit of cellulite–some more than others. Why? Because most women, even (gasp!) models, have cellulite, that’s why.

How nice to know!  Most of us aware of the airbrushing that modifies nearly every image we see, but it’s still easy to forget and accept what’s presented to us as reality.  I am *very* relieved to find out that even the most beautiful among us have less than perfect skin.  Maybe I’m not as far off the beauty mark as I sometimes think.

Marvelous Muay Thai

 It has been an exciting week of firsts!  Earlier in the week, I had my first gourmet raw meal at a raw only restaurant.  The other night, I attended my first Muay Thai class.  Bonus: the class was FREE!  Hooray!!

“Muay Thai—or Thai Boxing—was born on the battlefields of the 15th century, during the legendary clashes between Thai (or Siamese) armies and their bitter rivals, the Burmese. Trained in the weapons-based fighting method known as Krabi Krabong, these early Thai soldiers also became famous for their toughness in close-quarters weaponless combat, where legs, knees, elbows and hands took the place of swords and sticks. This type of weaponless fighting became Muay Thai, known as the ‘Science of Eight Limbs.’ ”

I was introduced to Muay Thai in an article in a fitness magazine over a year ago and was delighted to discover that my city had a studio that offered a free introductory class.  It took me way too long to get around to taking the class, but I finally did.  It TOTALLY rocked!  It was a fantastic workout, tough but oddly energizing at the same time.  What made it even more fun was that my BF’s brother’s new GF took the class with me, and my BF’s brother stopped by, managing to take the ”action shot” accompanying this post.  There’s proof!

After we removed our shoes and socks, we started the kickboxing workout by lining up in the gym, facing our instructor, who bowed to us.  We bowed back, and then we warmed up by skipping rope.  Yikes!  It was *intense* from the get-go.  Next, we partnered up, two on a punching bag, and alternated punching and kicking combinations.  One of the routines was a front kick/3 punch combo… then a repeating roundhouse kick with one leg… then alternating punches where the left punch would increase from one punch to 5 punches and count down again. It was different every time, which I imagine would keep the training from getting stale.  Plus, because we switched off with our partners, it was intervals at their finest!  We ended the class with 50 squats, 45 seconds of mountain climbers, 45 seconds of up-and-downs, 45 seconds of modified V crunches, and finally two sets of 10 leg lifts.  Cool-down consisted of a few standard stretches.

The up-and-downs were the hardest for me.  That’s where you repeatedly go from a push-up position to a plank position on your elbows and back again.  The instructor said I could do it with my knees bent, but I refused.  I do 20 straight-leg push-ups consecutively; no way I’m doing the “girl” version now!  It was challenging, though, partly because of balancing as a I moved between positions.  Eventually my ab muscles started to complain, but I kept at it for the entire 45 seconds!

This class was a huge morale booster, not only due to the endorphin rush.  Even having done my daily workout of 15 sets of stairs, 1st thru 4th, I still had plenty of energy and stamina to get through a high intensity class.  I am in good shape!  I focus on my flaws so much that I often don’t realize how far I’ve come.  Testing myself physically in a whole new way not only reinvigorates me; it gives me a tangible demonstration of my conditioning… and it’s not half bad.  Woohoo!!  I am so happy that my hard work is paying off!  J

Mind over magazine?

Turns out, reading a fitness magazine while exercising can demotivate, rather than inspire, according to a new study authored by Ann Wertz Garvin, a health and physical education professor at the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater. 

“The results suggest that negative effects of reading ultra-fit magazines may cancel out the mood-boosting effects of exercise, says Garvin. Exactly why is unclear, though she speculates that women may become depressed because they feel they’ll never look as good as the magazine models or that the women already look fit but have low self-esteem and seeing the images doesn’t help.”

I can relate to these results although I don’t read while I’m exercising.  (The workouts I do now don’t allow for reading, but even when I went to the gym, I listened to music or watched TV instead of reading.)  I suscribe to several fitness magazines, including Oxygen, which was used in the study, and I can confirm that thumbing through them is sometimes depressing.

The mags periodically bum me out because they set standards that seem impossible to achieve, at least for me.  I occasionally come away from reading them with the feeling that I’m not working hard enough.  Unfortunately, that feeling doesn’t inspire me to work harder; it just makes it harder for me to keep working out.

Thankfully, this isn’t a huge issue for me.  I’ve been extremely consistent with my exercise since I started my lifestyle change nearly six years ago, and I suspect I always will be.  The mags are more disheartening from a body image standpoint than anything else.  Of course, that’s an issue I have struggled with for a long time, so I certainly don’t fault the publications for it.  I have learned, though, to stop reading them during times when I’m feeling particularly negative about my appearance.  No need to add fuel to the fire during a difficult spell.  The mags will always be there when I am feeling more optimistic and can really benefit from the great ideas and advice they offer.