Ever since succeeding in running my first 5k (just me versus a treadmill, not an actual race), I have been spending a lot of time ruminating on my fitness goals and long-term plans. I am stuffed to the gills with short-term goals, and can't seem to stop making them. The Zombie 5k looms - it is a mere five weeks away. A month afterward, I run a far more traditional 5k to benefit Pug Rescue of New England. I don't have any races/runs scheduled for after that, but I hope to get more comfortable with the 5k distance and actually get a decent time. In 2013, I will hope to be somewhat competitive for the next Zombie 5k, plus there's that whole wedding thing that's going to happen, and I hear tell that some brides try to get in better shape beforehand. Additionally, I have a few fitness goals like doing 20 kneeling push-ups in a set or completing an unassisted chin-up. While it may take me a while to get to the point of doing those, the training is pretty straightforward and is not particularly time-consuming.
I guess what I'm really struggling with is the creation of a Fit identity. I think spending a great deal of time on Fitocracy (or rather, with the people on Fitocracy) has made this issue more pressing, whether that's a good or bad thing. I don't know which person I want to be: the distance runner, the sprinter, the always-heavier lifter, the vainglorious-peacock lifter, the always-in-weight-loss-mode cardio bunny, the Fitocracy-dictates-my-fitness-goals gamer, the try-something-new-every-week rudderless boat, or just the person who finds a routine they like and then just does it every single day. Some of these hats I would not particularly care to wear; some others I worry about even being realistic. But so far, nothing has struck me with the feeling of yes, this is my thing now. This is what I do.
To me, the Fit identity is the thing that dictates my goals, plans, and actions. But I don't have one yet. I know that I like a lot of what I've been doing (hence why I keep doing it). I like lifting. A lot. But if I really wanted to get strong and jacked, I would have to be even more psychotic about food (macros, timing of meals and workouts, protein protein protein), if I wanted to see any real gains. I'm looking forward to the time when I hit a healthy weight and I can start eating maintenance calories rather than cutting all the time. Yesterday I ate 1177 calories: Corn Flakes for breakfast, Chef Boyardee Dinosaurs with Meatballs for lunch (Spaghettios are for suckers), and then Corn Flakes again for dinner. I was supposed to have pasta with sauce for dinner, but it was hard enough to motivate myself to get off the couch after the gym, much less cook a meal with no meat in it. If I hit a weight between 135 and 140, which is my rough estimate of what "healthy" will look like for me, I get to eat 2000 a day. I don't even know what I would do with all those calories! Actually, yes I do: drink a fuckton a milk. God, I miss milk. The point is, I want to get less obsessed with my food intake than I am now, not MORE obsessed. So any fitness goals that require food OCD in order to get anywhere...well, they're not for me.
I also like running, although the act itself is nothing something I crave. The accomplishment that comes with longer/faster runs, or even just runs that are less devastating to my body, is pretty addicting though. It is a very reliable and healthy mood regulator, and I would not mind incorporating it as an activity I continue to do throughout my life. That being said, I don't know if I want to care more about distance or speed, and if I want to do races or just care about my own progress relative to my past runs. Since the 5k, I have even been struggling with deciding how long/how far/how fast to run at the gym, despite the fact that none of those metrics matter more than the other right now, with me being such a n00b.
I could see myself aiming for some sort of aesthetics goal, but I also see a big problem with that. Anyone who has ever played Plants vs. Zombies will probably recall a gameplay mode called Endless Survival. The point is to see how many rounds of zombie assault you can endure. The game always ends, however, with your brains getting eaten. There's no such thing as winning. You can break your own record, get a really impressive number, make your friends look like amateurs...but you don't win, you just lose later. I think any body/appearance goals I had would be like that, no matter how small/fit/awesome I got. "Sure, my back boobs are basically gone, but when I wear this bra you can see them kind of pooch out." "Yeah, being a size 8 is great, but you know what would be better? A 6, a 4, a 2, or a zero." "I don't know why the hell my thighs still rub together when I walk even though I'm like 130 lbs. I want to wear a skirt without shorts underneath and this is fucking it all up." Even if I weren't a negative nancy, I would still have to deal with the reality of hitting a natural limit. There are only so many pants sizes I will drop, or how little body fat I can have on me. Setting a goal that is "the lowest number I can reach" is setting me up for Pyrrhic victories: sure, I achieved something, but only because I realized I am unable to do any better.
Another issue I need to address is figuring out my long-term balance between fitness and everything else. There are many people in this world (and yes, even in this fat country) who do not spend much time focusing on diet and exercise, but who are a healthy weight and have good enough habits in general to be physically fit. These people may occasionally act with fitness in mind ("No, no more cake for me thanks. I like my size the way it is."), but in general they're just going about their business, not worrying about their food/exercise more than they worry about defragmenting their hard drives or finding a good parking space at the supermarket. Could I ever be one of those people? Do I even want to be one of those people? I like the way that exercise makes me feel, so I don't see myself reverting to a primarily sedentary lifestyle. I also know that, if given total freedom of choice, I will pick calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods more often than is healthy for me, so I will always at least need to give a shit about what I'm eating, even if someday I am able to forgo calorie counting.
I think the source of this confusion and uncertainty is that my big goal is, and has always ALWAYS been, to get to a healthy weight. Never before has that goal been so tangible, so possible. By next week or so, I will have lost 40 lbs. That's like a whole 5-year-old. Basically, for the last decade, I have been carrying a child around with me, and I finally dropped his ass off at elementary school. I have somewhere between 15 and 20 more pounds to go, depending on what feels like a healthy weight when I get there. I know I have at least like 15 lbs in fat to lose to get to a healthy body fat percentage, so I'm going with those numbers and seeing what happens. I've lost that much since January and it's now the end of March, so I could theoretically hit my weight loss goal in May or June (happily enough, that is when I originally had hoped to hit such a weight, so I'm on track). After that, then what? Even with all the races or the times or the lifts or the reps in the world, I still won't have one big long-term goal. Now I understand why lifters go through these cycles of bulking and cutting. You have a goal, it's a clear number or data point, and then when you hit it, you go to another ready-made goal. Each time you try to make progress towards the ultimate goal (perfect body, I guess? If there is such a thing) without undoing too much of the work you did previously. I don't know if that cycle would be particularly satisfying for me, especially with the aforementioned food obsession that would be required.
Maybe the real problem is that, if we can get morbid and dark for a second, I'm really just trying to fix up a machine that is destined to break down at some point in the future. I have some control over how long it's likely to last and how well it performs while it's running, but the machine will break. So in a sense, trying to achieve anything "permanent" is rather foolish. To avoid getting suicidal, I think I need to focus on quality of life. What is going to make the other parts of my life better? What is going to make me happy, right now and for the foreseeable future? There are many possible answers to those questions. I guess it's great to have so many options for being awesome. Even so, I feel a change in the wind. We'll see what's coming.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 14: Being Aware of Cultural Norms in Advertising (even when you have a TiVo)
Most people who have ever tried to lose weight know that portion control and calorie reduction are totally possible if you're in your own little world, a closed-off bubble. When you don't have control over every single food item in your life, however, it's much harder to stick to a certain calorie count or diet plan. I have already expressed my concerns and difficulties with the social element of eating, and it is indeed still a struggle for me. There are at least two opportunities (social directives) to go out to eat every week, and that's not including when Dan gets cabin fever or if we want to go out to dinner on one of those date things that people seem to enjoy. Although most places have menu selections that aren't completely awful, I'm picky as fuck, so I eat chicken fingers and fries every time. Add a Coke to that and we're talking over 1000 calories at one meal, when I'm supposed to be at like 1200 for the day. Even if I get the kids' meal, as I often do, it's still waaaaay more than necessary, calorie-wise.
But there's an element to this overeating that goes beyond the direct social influence of your friends. American culture, however you want to define it, encourages and expects people to overeat. Restaurant portions are huge, often totaling 3 servings or more for one entree. A small Coke at most places is 12 ounces - the size of a can of soda. That's the smallest you're permitted to get. But the physical presence and sizing of portions is not the worst. Nay; the most insidious cultural brainwashing is in advertising. Most people already know that advertising is, at best, moderately deceptive in order to achieve desired results (i.e. money). Ad execs have to be masters in psychology if they want their products to sell. It's not enough to demonstrate the usefulness of an item or how it is superior to its competitors. An ad must get a person's feelings wrapped up with the product; inextricably bound must be the purchase and the joy/relief of the purchase. Why the fuck do you think it's called a Happy Meal?
And no I don't want apple slices with that, motherfucker. Are you crazy?
Depending on the target consumers and the current trends in health/fashion/pop culture, food advertisements on TV ("commercials" for the plebs) will utilize a variety of tactics and messages to get people to buy their products. The two primary angles tend to be "look how awful life is without this product!" and "look how awesome life is with this product!" Often, both get used in the same commercial with a before-and-after style. This is most obvious in infomercials, where half-retarded men-children struggle with a screwdriver until Adobe AfterEffects gives them a handy four-in-one tool that lets them remove stripped screws while simultaneously checking their prostate. Because who has time to go to the doctor with rusty screws that need removing?!?
One such commercial comes from our friends at Coca-Cola. Coke does an amazing job at maintaining a half dozen ad campaigns going at any one time. A recent commercial combines celebrity endorsements with a cute storyline, though sadly was unable to incorporate the polar bears for the Coca-Cola hat-trick:
The overt message is that Coca-Cola will make you feel better after a shitty day, and it also brings people together. The weirder, less overt message is that you can be as much of a dick as you want, and as long as you drink a Coke, people will still like you. Coke will make you forget about all your problems. Coke is basically a drug, which isn't too hard a connection to make, considering it's called Coke. Look at all those people out at the park having an awesome fucking time. Who wouldn't want to live that worry-free lifestyle with community harmony and kites and shit? Man, I'm thirsty...I wonder if there's something that will quench that thirst but also make me forget about my crushing debt and social failings...
It's hard to be mad at that commercial, though. The Simpsons are a great reference, and the whole thing is pretty cute. Even so, it seems pretty over-the-top. Coke tastes fine to me (I'm actually a Pepsi person, and I'm downing a Pepsi One right now, sooooo). But I have never, ever had a beverage, Coke or otherwise, that made me that happy. Maybe if I were dying of thirst, then I would feel like Mr. Burns seems to feel in that commercial after his first sip of Coke. He's fucking delighted.
Compared to another commercial, Mr. Burns' reaction to Coke is altogether quaint. Did you know that one simple food can save you from hallucinations that seem to indicate severe psychosis?
This commercial for Special K Chocolatey Delights has a few serious problems. On the surface, it seems to merely be saying that, if you crave chocolate and don't want to go off your diet, this cereal is a healthy alternative to, say, eating an entire wall mural made of chocolate. Or whatever this chick was going to do. Maybe eat her dog, I don't know. But I have some grave concerns. Mainly, this commercial removes the possibility that a person (a WOMAN, no less) might have some fucking self-control and just not eat chocolate. "Well, you're not able to keep yourself from eating," the commercial seems to say, "so you might as well shove this product down your gullet instead of eating a candy bar table, like I know you want to."
Furthermore, what makes this cereal such a good chocolate substitute? One serving (.75 cups...yeah okay) is 120 calories. Add just 8 ounces of skim milk and that brings to the total to 206 calories. A regular size Hershey's candy bar is 210 calories. So what the fuck is this saving me from? Those four calories are seriously supposed to get me my "chocolate fix" without "undoing my whole day"? If you were going to eat a gallon of ice cream and you ate a bowl of this cereal instead, then I guess you win. But let's be real; if you were going to eat that much ice cream, then you're going to eat the whole BOX of cereal, and that's not doing you any favors. The narrator of this ad (who seems to find chocolate cravings really sexy, btw) might as well just say, "Do you love chocolate but hate things that are awesome? Do you want to simultaneously eat unnecessary calories AND stay unsatisfied? Then we have the product for you!"
But that's enough Special K. Let's move onto some really manipulative shit.
Remember when you were little and your mom (or dad, or grandmother, or whoever) made some awesome food just for you, and it was fucking great? Yeah, me too. Do you know why that's a thing that happens? Because we show affection with food. And not just chocolate for Valentine's Day either, though that's got its own problems. When you think about it, humans have a lot in common with other animals, and in the case of food, we're a lot like my two retarded pugs. Food = love. My dogs interpret their food-gifts as affection and affirmations of their positive behavior. In turn, they seek me out more, feeding into my delusion that they love me and aren't just using me for Pupperoni. Children do the same shit, though it's not always this simple.
Anybody remember the Book It! program? It's a Pizza Hut promotion to encourage children to read. Every time a kid reads the predetermined number of books, s/he gets a gift certificate to Pizza Hut for a personal pan pizza. Theoretically, with enough free time, that kid could get a free pizza every couple of weeks. "Good job, child. Here's your treat." It's the same shit with little league and other childhood sports organizations. After the Big Game, you go out for pizza/ice cream/whatever. Job well done? Here, eat this.
Those kinds of associations show up in so many different advertisements that I actually had trouble picking ones to put here. One of the best and most direct is a 1987 Pillsbury commercial.
This pompous little shit is about to run away (from the looks of it, in the middle of a snowstorm, so he's a retarded pompous little shit), and his mom does the classic reverse psychology move of letting him think he's free to leave. She bakes some cookies and, lo, he decides to stay. The love of your family? Basic survival? A chance at what is clearly an advantaged future? None of those compare to the reality staring that kid in the face: there are awesome fucking cookies in the kitchen and I'ma eat 'em! He's not punished for his poor attempt at guilting his mother into whatever he was trying to get by threatening to run away. No; instead he is rewarded with cookies. "Hey moms, are your kids assholes and you're afraid they don't love you enough? Bake them cookies and they might see fit to eat them in your presence."
This suggestion is made far more plainly in what appears to be a pretty recent McDonald's commercial. McDonald's has never been accused of being too subtle with its ad campaigns. You have probably heard by now that McDonald's has a website catering specifically to black patrons (I suspect that, while separate, it is totally equal). Their decade-old ad campaign of "I'm Lovin' It" uses the first person to get customers to identify with the unknown speaker and to move away from a much creepier second-person slogan - "YOU MUST LOVE THIS." This final commercial, emphasizing similar themes to the Pillsbury nightmare above, takes the cake, though:
I'm only going to say this once.
How fucking psychotic and needy do you have to be as a parent to chase your fucking husband or wife down the street so that you can win the affections of your seven-year-old kid?
Seriously, these parents need to go to counseling. Together, individually, I don't really give a shit. But if they are so hard up for love that they literally buy their kid's hugs with fast food, they need help. They're acting the same way that pregnant 14-year-olds on Maury do, talking about how they want to have a baby because the baby will love them unconditionally. That's fucked up. Buy yourself a happy meal, you sick fuck, and get some self-esteem.
Even if you find the relationship dynamics in this family to be fucking weird as hell, you probably don't see an issue with the fact that the happy meal itself is the currency with which love is purchased in the family. Because that shit happens all the time. At least with Book It! and shit like that, the food is a reward for something, usually effort, sometimes success. Parents take kids out to eat after the big recital or when the kid wins a prize in the science fair. But what did the little kid in the McDonald's commercial do? Apparently nothing, except cost his parents the price of the food AND the price of a babysitter. What fucked up schedule demands that the parents go pick up McDonald's together, or requires that they commute by foot along the same route? Do they work in the town's only steel mill on the same shift? Seriously, what family has both parents out of the house at McDonald's while the kid is home with some other lady?
Sigh. Anyway. I don't think it's fair to place all the blame, or even the majority of it, on commercials alone for creating a fucked up culture around food. Families, friends, and our own weird tendencies do just fine at cultivating unhealthy relationships with food. Being vaguely aware of this fact is one thing, but actually trying to unpack it and de-program ourselves is another. Humans love habits because they are inherently comforting, which is why most people dislike change, even if it's for the better in the long run. But hear me out, and this is important: if you are trying to make a change in your life, you MUST deal with the circumstances that created the original situation in the first place. For people trying to lose weight, like myself, that means figuring out how you got fat. A passion for Doritos is only part of the equation. Being willing and able to address the psychological and emotional factors that are related to weight gain is probably one of the most important things that an overweight person can do for him/herself. If you don't deal with the causes, you can't fix it permanently. It's like smacking yourself in the head, but then taking a pain killer. You may have the medicine to temporarily address the problem, but things would go a lot better if you stop fucking hitting yourself.
I'm not tryna preach from some pulpit and/or unnecessarily-high pharmacy counter. But I know that my most difficult battles with my weight have been mental, not physical. I can tell my body to go for a walk once in a goddamned while, but I still struggle to tell my brain not to want chocolate just because it's raining out, or whatever stupid bullshit logic I'm using to fuck myself over. The last thing I need is for some random commercial to sell me on the idea that:
But there's an element to this overeating that goes beyond the direct social influence of your friends. American culture, however you want to define it, encourages and expects people to overeat. Restaurant portions are huge, often totaling 3 servings or more for one entree. A small Coke at most places is 12 ounces - the size of a can of soda. That's the smallest you're permitted to get. But the physical presence and sizing of portions is not the worst. Nay; the most insidious cultural brainwashing is in advertising. Most people already know that advertising is, at best, moderately deceptive in order to achieve desired results (i.e. money). Ad execs have to be masters in psychology if they want their products to sell. It's not enough to demonstrate the usefulness of an item or how it is superior to its competitors. An ad must get a person's feelings wrapped up with the product; inextricably bound must be the purchase and the joy/relief of the purchase. Why the fuck do you think it's called a Happy Meal?
And no I don't want apple slices with that, motherfucker. Are you crazy?
Depending on the target consumers and the current trends in health/fashion/pop culture, food advertisements on TV ("commercials" for the plebs) will utilize a variety of tactics and messages to get people to buy their products. The two primary angles tend to be "look how awful life is without this product!" and "look how awesome life is with this product!" Often, both get used in the same commercial with a before-and-after style. This is most obvious in infomercials, where half-retarded men-children struggle with a screwdriver until Adobe AfterEffects gives them a handy four-in-one tool that lets them remove stripped screws while simultaneously checking their prostate. Because who has time to go to the doctor with rusty screws that need removing?!?
One such commercial comes from our friends at Coca-Cola. Coke does an amazing job at maintaining a half dozen ad campaigns going at any one time. A recent commercial combines celebrity endorsements with a cute storyline, though sadly was unable to incorporate the polar bears for the Coca-Cola hat-trick:
The overt message is that Coca-Cola will make you feel better after a shitty day, and it also brings people together. The weirder, less overt message is that you can be as much of a dick as you want, and as long as you drink a Coke, people will still like you. Coke will make you forget about all your problems. Coke is basically a drug, which isn't too hard a connection to make, considering it's called Coke. Look at all those people out at the park having an awesome fucking time. Who wouldn't want to live that worry-free lifestyle with community harmony and kites and shit? Man, I'm thirsty...I wonder if there's something that will quench that thirst but also make me forget about my crushing debt and social failings...
It's hard to be mad at that commercial, though. The Simpsons are a great reference, and the whole thing is pretty cute. Even so, it seems pretty over-the-top. Coke tastes fine to me (I'm actually a Pepsi person, and I'm downing a Pepsi One right now, sooooo). But I have never, ever had a beverage, Coke or otherwise, that made me that happy. Maybe if I were dying of thirst, then I would feel like Mr. Burns seems to feel in that commercial after his first sip of Coke. He's fucking delighted.
Compared to another commercial, Mr. Burns' reaction to Coke is altogether quaint. Did you know that one simple food can save you from hallucinations that seem to indicate severe psychosis?
Furthermore, what makes this cereal such a good chocolate substitute? One serving (.75 cups...yeah okay) is 120 calories. Add just 8 ounces of skim milk and that brings to the total to 206 calories. A regular size Hershey's candy bar is 210 calories. So what the fuck is this saving me from? Those four calories are seriously supposed to get me my "chocolate fix" without "undoing my whole day"? If you were going to eat a gallon of ice cream and you ate a bowl of this cereal instead, then I guess you win. But let's be real; if you were going to eat that much ice cream, then you're going to eat the whole BOX of cereal, and that's not doing you any favors. The narrator of this ad (who seems to find chocolate cravings really sexy, btw) might as well just say, "Do you love chocolate but hate things that are awesome? Do you want to simultaneously eat unnecessary calories AND stay unsatisfied? Then we have the product for you!"
But that's enough Special K. Let's move onto some really manipulative shit.
Remember when you were little and your mom (or dad, or grandmother, or whoever) made some awesome food just for you, and it was fucking great? Yeah, me too. Do you know why that's a thing that happens? Because we show affection with food. And not just chocolate for Valentine's Day either, though that's got its own problems. When you think about it, humans have a lot in common with other animals, and in the case of food, we're a lot like my two retarded pugs. Food = love. My dogs interpret their food-gifts as affection and affirmations of their positive behavior. In turn, they seek me out more, feeding into my delusion that they love me and aren't just using me for Pupperoni. Children do the same shit, though it's not always this simple.
Anybody remember the Book It! program? It's a Pizza Hut promotion to encourage children to read. Every time a kid reads the predetermined number of books, s/he gets a gift certificate to Pizza Hut for a personal pan pizza. Theoretically, with enough free time, that kid could get a free pizza every couple of weeks. "Good job, child. Here's your treat." It's the same shit with little league and other childhood sports organizations. After the Big Game, you go out for pizza/ice cream/whatever. Job well done? Here, eat this.
Those kinds of associations show up in so many different advertisements that I actually had trouble picking ones to put here. One of the best and most direct is a 1987 Pillsbury commercial.
This suggestion is made far more plainly in what appears to be a pretty recent McDonald's commercial. McDonald's has never been accused of being too subtle with its ad campaigns. You have probably heard by now that McDonald's has a website catering specifically to black patrons (I suspect that, while separate, it is totally equal). Their decade-old ad campaign of "I'm Lovin' It" uses the first person to get customers to identify with the unknown speaker and to move away from a much creepier second-person slogan - "YOU MUST LOVE THIS." This final commercial, emphasizing similar themes to the Pillsbury nightmare above, takes the cake, though:
How fucking psychotic and needy do you have to be as a parent to chase your fucking husband or wife down the street so that you can win the affections of your seven-year-old kid?
Seriously, these parents need to go to counseling. Together, individually, I don't really give a shit. But if they are so hard up for love that they literally buy their kid's hugs with fast food, they need help. They're acting the same way that pregnant 14-year-olds on Maury do, talking about how they want to have a baby because the baby will love them unconditionally. That's fucked up. Buy yourself a happy meal, you sick fuck, and get some self-esteem.
Even if you find the relationship dynamics in this family to be fucking weird as hell, you probably don't see an issue with the fact that the happy meal itself is the currency with which love is purchased in the family. Because that shit happens all the time. At least with Book It! and shit like that, the food is a reward for something, usually effort, sometimes success. Parents take kids out to eat after the big recital or when the kid wins a prize in the science fair. But what did the little kid in the McDonald's commercial do? Apparently nothing, except cost his parents the price of the food AND the price of a babysitter. What fucked up schedule demands that the parents go pick up McDonald's together, or requires that they commute by foot along the same route? Do they work in the town's only steel mill on the same shift? Seriously, what family has both parents out of the house at McDonald's while the kid is home with some other lady?
Sigh. Anyway. I don't think it's fair to place all the blame, or even the majority of it, on commercials alone for creating a fucked up culture around food. Families, friends, and our own weird tendencies do just fine at cultivating unhealthy relationships with food. Being vaguely aware of this fact is one thing, but actually trying to unpack it and de-program ourselves is another. Humans love habits because they are inherently comforting, which is why most people dislike change, even if it's for the better in the long run. But hear me out, and this is important: if you are trying to make a change in your life, you MUST deal with the circumstances that created the original situation in the first place. For people trying to lose weight, like myself, that means figuring out how you got fat. A passion for Doritos is only part of the equation. Being willing and able to address the psychological and emotional factors that are related to weight gain is probably one of the most important things that an overweight person can do for him/herself. If you don't deal with the causes, you can't fix it permanently. It's like smacking yourself in the head, but then taking a pain killer. You may have the medicine to temporarily address the problem, but things would go a lot better if you stop fucking hitting yourself.
- Food and emotions are connected, always
- Food solves problems (besides hunger)
- Eating is fun
- Food is equivalent to affection
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 13: Who do you think you are?!? I AM!!
I wish I had written this on Thursday evening, or even Friday, when my endorphins were still crazy high and I was riding a wave of success. But honestly, the wave has already crested and it's only Tuesday, so I feel like I need to remind myself how awesome I am (see blog title) and keep the positive vibes going. So here we go.
I started Couch-to-5k on January 19th. For those not in the know, it's a 9-week beginner's running program that uses intervals of walking and running to help people break into running and increase their stamina. By the end of the program, runners are able to go for at least 30 minutes, which is about how long it takes to run a 5k if you're capable but not too speedy. Week 1 starts out with 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking alternating. Given that I couldn't really run for 60 seconds, it was a leap for me to start the program, but I had a couple things going for me. First, I had just lost several pounds in a short amount of time and was feeling GREAT. Second, I had purchased running shoes which I had used a little outside and I knew I at least would not perish after three strides. And third, I had just joined a gym with a slew (yes, a slew) of treadmills. The treadmills were probably the most important because they helped me ease into running and gave me supreme control over the timing and parameters of each run.
With the exception of a few delays from minor strains (not running-related, but when you can't breathe deeply, it's not a good idea to exert yourself), I kept with the 3-day-a-week program and never had to repeat a day. I was surprised because I expected to have to repeat some of the early runs before being able to do the longer intervals. Week 3 jumps from 90 second runs to 3 full minutes; I laughed when I saw it the first time and thought, Well that shit ain't gonna happen for a while. But I did it, and it was fine. Then in week 4, the 3-minute runs are the short intervals, and there are two 5-minute runs each day. I didn't believe I could transition into that without having to modify it or repeat days. But I did fine. Week 5 ends with a 20-minute run, no walking intervals necessary. I honestly thought I would have to take breaks, if only to puke, and that 20 minutes was way beyond my ability. It was difficult, but also fine. Week 6 had a similar story, progressing through the week to a 25-minute run.
After Day 2 of Week 6, I had a crazy thought. You know, I mused to myself, as I am wont to do, if I'm supposed to be able to run 25 minutes next time, what if I just ran a fuckin' 5k? (I often curse in my inner monologues.) I've been getting through about 2 miles in the recent runs, so why not just try for 3.1 miles? What's the worst that could happen? I'm only supposed to run for 25 minutes anyway, so if I hit that number then the rest is gravy.
Thursday, the day after my previous run (and, admittedly, a day I was supposed to do lifting or crosstraining), I went for it. I had eaten an entire candy bar earlier, I was feeling saucy, and I was ready for anything. Having learned from my previous C25K days that starting fast is a great recipe for burning out right away, I did a full warm-up beforehand and started out at 4mph, which is literally the slowest speed I am able to run. Some people use this as their walking speed, and those people can go straight to hell. By the mid-way point, I had jacked it up to about 4.3mph, and ended up hitting maybe 4.5mph somewhere in there.
When I got on the treadmill, I loaded up my most recent running playlist and started running. And I didn't stop until I hit 3.1 miles. I had some feelings of doubt around the midway point, when I was getting tired and knew that I had expended more than half of my immediately-available energy, and therefore would not necessarily be able to finish. But by the time I hit about 2 miles, I had become reinvigorated and knew that this shit was happening. Stopping was no longer an option. Within a half mile of finishing, I didn't even think about stopping anymore, I just thought about how awesome I was.
That feeling stuck with me for a WHILE. I felt like Dory from Finding Nemo remembering the address of P. Sherman (42 Wallaby Way, Sidney). Every five seconds, I thought, Holy shit, I ran 5k today. Like, at once. I'm fucking awesome. I contemplated telling the guy at my gym's front desk, but I felt like that was unnecessary. Besides, his feelings would never be as amped as mine, and it would undoubtedly be a let-down to see his positive but subdued reaction. So I texted Dan (see prev. sentence) and posted on Fitocracy and Facebook (yes, in that order), and walked home. That's right - I walked the fuck home after running a 5k. Like a boss.
Feeding off of this vibe, I took some time on Friday to look at Fitocracy quests to see what I could theoretically do in a gym session. I wasn't at all sore from the 5k (though I suspect that my sore calves over the weekend might have been related) and wanted to recapture that jazzed up feeling from the day before. I ended up running a 12-minute mile on Friday (something that had been a 3-months-out goal only like 2 weeks before) and finish 4 total quests on Fitocracy. None of them were particularly monstrous challenges (well, doing 100 jumping jacks isn't monsterous, but it is a pain in the ass), but I still felt pretty great completing them. It certainly didn't trump my 5k accomplishment by any means, but it was a nice way to close out the week.
Things I learned from these two days:
The problem now is that the high of victory from Thursday is something I wish to recapture at all costs. But it was such a monumental, concrete, specific yet not nitpicky goal, that I'm not even sure what the next thing is. I don't know if I want to hit a faster time, run a longer distance, or just focus on actual races (the first of which is May 5th, 7 weeks away). I could also have strength training goals, either with reps or weight. One of my other monumental goals when I joined the gym was to do a pull-up (well really, starting with a chin-up is slightly easier, but that's splitting hairs). Maybe I should focus on some sweet lats and try to do a pull-up before a certain date. I dunno. I didn't even realize that running a 5k was such a big thing for me, nor did I anticipate this sort of happy but lost feeling once I did it. This "now what?" scenario is new to me - I've always had something to do. Rather, I've always had something I should be doing.
Yesterday, because it was nice out (but mostly for shits and/or giggles), I ran home from work. I had to do intervals because it was my first time running not on a treadmill since starting C25K in January (and because Kenmore Square to Brighton is uphill most of the way, and because I was going into the wind, yadda yadda). I knew that intervals would happen, and I ran the vast majority of the distance, but I still didn't quite get the glorious feeling of completion and success that I got last week. I knew I had done well, and I had that mild feeling of satisfaction that comes from exercise in general, but the mental/emotional boost wasn't there. But instead of being all pissy or sad about it, I'm just going to figure out what the next thing is that's going to make me feel like I won a bowling championship.
I'm still figuring it out. I want it to be major but not so far off that it's unrealistic or insufficiently motivating. I want it to be more exhilarating than shaving a few seconds off my time or adding incremental distance. I want it to be epic. And as I learned from last Thursday, apparently I require that others find it epic too. So I better find something that other people think is bad-ass. Fuck if I know what that is. My next vague plan is to focus on strength training because now that I know I can physically finish the distance of the Zombie 5k, I need to be able to complete the obstacles too. Information about their exact nature is hard to come by, but I know that there's climbing, crawling, and other such activities involved. Basically, I should just train for Ninja Warrior, and be happy when it ends up being just a 4-foot wall.
The trouble, I think, right now with my motivation is that my weight loss has slowed to the point of being almost non-existent (net loss over the last month has been just over 2 lbs). I'm not really one to obsess over the scale, but I got very, very used to big losses every week, like clockwork, and I'm now missing that continual motivation/reinforcement. My scale used to tell me, "Yes, mademoiselle, you are doing ze right tsings. Also, zose jeans look very fetching on you." (My scale is French. Obvs.) Now it just kind of shrugs and takes a nap. It is le tired. If I stayed this weight forever, but kept losing inches and gaining strength/stamina/ability, I think I would probably become comfortable with that. But shit, I'm trying to win a free year at my gym in a weight loss contest, and if my body doesn't get its shit together by Easter, it can kiss that $228 goodbye!
But really, what I need to do is listen to my own advice and remember how I got started with this. I spend a lot of time online telling distraught and discouraged people that hard work pays off and that the body is not just a machine that you operate to achieve exact results. I also tell a lot of people to ignore the scale if they know they're doing things correctly. So I should just try a little of my own medicine. When I first started exercising, even losing a single pound was pretty exciting because the number had been going the other way for so long that just reversing course was great. I felt like a champion just a little bit every time I got home from work and changed into my workout clothes even though I wanted to change into pajamas. But with my successes and new habits, I have now developed new (harsher) expectations of myself, and the expectations have become associated with things that I can't really control. I can decide what to eat (and how much), when to work out, how hard to try...but I can't decide what the results of those efforts will be. My self-assessment needs to move away from How did I change myself today? and move towards What bad-assery did I accomplish today? If I can be in that mindset, AND find something goal-related to get jazzed about, then I'll be all set.
Today? Headed to the gym to lift weights. Upping my deadlift weight from where I started a few weeks ago. Maybe adding some pull-up negatives for functional training. Enough talk. Ima go
see about gettin' swole.
I started Couch-to-5k on January 19th. For those not in the know, it's a 9-week beginner's running program that uses intervals of walking and running to help people break into running and increase their stamina. By the end of the program, runners are able to go for at least 30 minutes, which is about how long it takes to run a 5k if you're capable but not too speedy. Week 1 starts out with 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking alternating. Given that I couldn't really run for 60 seconds, it was a leap for me to start the program, but I had a couple things going for me. First, I had just lost several pounds in a short amount of time and was feeling GREAT. Second, I had purchased running shoes which I had used a little outside and I knew I at least would not perish after three strides. And third, I had just joined a gym with a slew (yes, a slew) of treadmills. The treadmills were probably the most important because they helped me ease into running and gave me supreme control over the timing and parameters of each run.
With the exception of a few delays from minor strains (not running-related, but when you can't breathe deeply, it's not a good idea to exert yourself), I kept with the 3-day-a-week program and never had to repeat a day. I was surprised because I expected to have to repeat some of the early runs before being able to do the longer intervals. Week 3 jumps from 90 second runs to 3 full minutes; I laughed when I saw it the first time and thought, Well that shit ain't gonna happen for a while. But I did it, and it was fine. Then in week 4, the 3-minute runs are the short intervals, and there are two 5-minute runs each day. I didn't believe I could transition into that without having to modify it or repeat days. But I did fine. Week 5 ends with a 20-minute run, no walking intervals necessary. I honestly thought I would have to take breaks, if only to puke, and that 20 minutes was way beyond my ability. It was difficult, but also fine. Week 6 had a similar story, progressing through the week to a 25-minute run.
After Day 2 of Week 6, I had a crazy thought. You know, I mused to myself, as I am wont to do, if I'm supposed to be able to run 25 minutes next time, what if I just ran a fuckin' 5k? (I often curse in my inner monologues.) I've been getting through about 2 miles in the recent runs, so why not just try for 3.1 miles? What's the worst that could happen? I'm only supposed to run for 25 minutes anyway, so if I hit that number then the rest is gravy.
Thursday, the day after my previous run (and, admittedly, a day I was supposed to do lifting or crosstraining), I went for it. I had eaten an entire candy bar earlier, I was feeling saucy, and I was ready for anything. Having learned from my previous C25K days that starting fast is a great recipe for burning out right away, I did a full warm-up beforehand and started out at 4mph, which is literally the slowest speed I am able to run. Some people use this as their walking speed, and those people can go straight to hell. By the mid-way point, I had jacked it up to about 4.3mph, and ended up hitting maybe 4.5mph somewhere in there.
When I got on the treadmill, I loaded up my most recent running playlist and started running. And I didn't stop until I hit 3.1 miles. I had some feelings of doubt around the midway point, when I was getting tired and knew that I had expended more than half of my immediately-available energy, and therefore would not necessarily be able to finish. But by the time I hit about 2 miles, I had become reinvigorated and knew that this shit was happening. Stopping was no longer an option. Within a half mile of finishing, I didn't even think about stopping anymore, I just thought about how awesome I was.
That feeling stuck with me for a WHILE. I felt like Dory from Finding Nemo remembering the address of P. Sherman (42 Wallaby Way, Sidney). Every five seconds, I thought, Holy shit, I ran 5k today. Like, at once. I'm fucking awesome. I contemplated telling the guy at my gym's front desk, but I felt like that was unnecessary. Besides, his feelings would never be as amped as mine, and it would undoubtedly be a let-down to see his positive but subdued reaction. So I texted Dan (see prev. sentence) and posted on Fitocracy and Facebook (yes, in that order), and walked home. That's right - I walked the fuck home after running a 5k. Like a boss.
Feeding off of this vibe, I took some time on Friday to look at Fitocracy quests to see what I could theoretically do in a gym session. I wasn't at all sore from the 5k (though I suspect that my sore calves over the weekend might have been related) and wanted to recapture that jazzed up feeling from the day before. I ended up running a 12-minute mile on Friday (something that had been a 3-months-out goal only like 2 weeks before) and finish 4 total quests on Fitocracy. None of them were particularly monstrous challenges (well, doing 100 jumping jacks isn't monsterous, but it is a pain in the ass), but I still felt pretty great completing them. It certainly didn't trump my 5k accomplishment by any means, but it was a nice way to close out the week.
Things I learned from these two days:
- I am capable of doing a LOT more than I assumed my limits were.
- Mental energy and physical energy are not the same thing, and I don't require big reserves of both in order to accomplish great things.
The problem now is that the high of victory from Thursday is something I wish to recapture at all costs. But it was such a monumental, concrete, specific yet not nitpicky goal, that I'm not even sure what the next thing is. I don't know if I want to hit a faster time, run a longer distance, or just focus on actual races (the first of which is May 5th, 7 weeks away). I could also have strength training goals, either with reps or weight. One of my other monumental goals when I joined the gym was to do a pull-up (well really, starting with a chin-up is slightly easier, but that's splitting hairs). Maybe I should focus on some sweet lats and try to do a pull-up before a certain date. I dunno. I didn't even realize that running a 5k was such a big thing for me, nor did I anticipate this sort of happy but lost feeling once I did it. This "now what?" scenario is new to me - I've always had something to do. Rather, I've always had something I should be doing.
Yesterday, because it was nice out (but mostly for shits and/or giggles), I ran home from work. I had to do intervals because it was my first time running not on a treadmill since starting C25K in January (and because Kenmore Square to Brighton is uphill most of the way, and because I was going into the wind, yadda yadda). I knew that intervals would happen, and I ran the vast majority of the distance, but I still didn't quite get the glorious feeling of completion and success that I got last week. I knew I had done well, and I had that mild feeling of satisfaction that comes from exercise in general, but the mental/emotional boost wasn't there. But instead of being all pissy or sad about it, I'm just going to figure out what the next thing is that's going to make me feel like I won a bowling championship.
I'm still figuring it out. I want it to be major but not so far off that it's unrealistic or insufficiently motivating. I want it to be more exhilarating than shaving a few seconds off my time or adding incremental distance. I want it to be epic. And as I learned from last Thursday, apparently I require that others find it epic too. So I better find something that other people think is bad-ass. Fuck if I know what that is. My next vague plan is to focus on strength training because now that I know I can physically finish the distance of the Zombie 5k, I need to be able to complete the obstacles too. Information about their exact nature is hard to come by, but I know that there's climbing, crawling, and other such activities involved. Basically, I should just train for Ninja Warrior, and be happy when it ends up being just a 4-foot wall.
The trouble, I think, right now with my motivation is that my weight loss has slowed to the point of being almost non-existent (net loss over the last month has been just over 2 lbs). I'm not really one to obsess over the scale, but I got very, very used to big losses every week, like clockwork, and I'm now missing that continual motivation/reinforcement. My scale used to tell me, "Yes, mademoiselle, you are doing ze right tsings. Also, zose jeans look very fetching on you." (My scale is French. Obvs.) Now it just kind of shrugs and takes a nap. It is le tired. If I stayed this weight forever, but kept losing inches and gaining strength/stamina/ability, I think I would probably become comfortable with that. But shit, I'm trying to win a free year at my gym in a weight loss contest, and if my body doesn't get its shit together by Easter, it can kiss that $228 goodbye!
But really, what I need to do is listen to my own advice and remember how I got started with this. I spend a lot of time online telling distraught and discouraged people that hard work pays off and that the body is not just a machine that you operate to achieve exact results. I also tell a lot of people to ignore the scale if they know they're doing things correctly. So I should just try a little of my own medicine. When I first started exercising, even losing a single pound was pretty exciting because the number had been going the other way for so long that just reversing course was great. I felt like a champion just a little bit every time I got home from work and changed into my workout clothes even though I wanted to change into pajamas. But with my successes and new habits, I have now developed new (harsher) expectations of myself, and the expectations have become associated with things that I can't really control. I can decide what to eat (and how much), when to work out, how hard to try...but I can't decide what the results of those efforts will be. My self-assessment needs to move away from How did I change myself today? and move towards What bad-assery did I accomplish today? If I can be in that mindset, AND find something goal-related to get jazzed about, then I'll be all set.
Today? Headed to the gym to lift weights. Upping my deadlift weight from where I started a few weeks ago. Maybe adding some pull-up negatives for functional training. Enough talk. Ima go
see about gettin' swole.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 12: My Love/Hate Relationship with Social Fitness
When I was 15 or so, I discovered a newsgroup that would become pretty central to my development into an adult. Alt.Music.Tool (AMT, for those in the know) was a place where most of the people were funny, intellectual, interesting, and willing to have lengthy discussions on just about any topic. With the installation of a sweet (read: terrible) PC in my bedroom and my family's new cable internet, I was free to debate, joke, and socialize to my heart's content. It was a nice change for me, getting involved in a sizable community of like-minded peers who consistently challenged my views and respected my opinions.
At least, that's how I like to remember it. The reality, as the Google Groups archives will tell you, was not always so rosy. AMT did indeed foster my communication and debate skills, encourage me to continue writing (since all discussion in the newsgroup was, necessarily, in text form), and connect me with some extremely awesome people. But considering the emotional and psychological place I was in at the time, it also helped me develop some rather unfortunate habits. Being one of the few females in that sausage-fest meant that I got a great deal of attention simply for having a pair of X chromosomes. I often encouraged this attention by alternating between rather crass and bawdy humor and overtly sexual discussion. By demonstrating that "I wasn't like other girls" - in that I listened to Tool, laughed at (and made) dick & fart jokes, and could hang with the fellas - I felt that I was standing out and showing how special I was. I took any and all attention from that newsgroup to be a confirmation of that very fact. I even entered into a long-term relationship with someone from AMT, which somehow lasted two years. Remember that post I made about communicating in a relationship, where I talked about that boyfriend I had the epic fights with? Yup.
The high of being loved and respected (okay, maybe liked and acknowledged) was addictive, and I was deeply wounded if I felt it start to wane. If someone who wasn't one of my "fanboys" made a really good counter-argument to a post I had made, and clearly did not give a shit about hurting my feelings, I was not happy about it. It was as close as I ever got to being one of those "mean girls" who needs others to suffer in order for her to feel any self worth. I took great pleasure in either berating non-allies until they gave up (or made a fallacious argument) or seeing those who were five or ten years older than me swoop in and come to my rescue. It was pretty fucked up. I was pretty fucked up. But I loved that newsgroup all the same, and still do, even though I haven't participated in almost a decade. For all of its and my faults, I would not have developed into the woman I am today without it, and I think I'm doing alright.
One lasting effect of my years on AMT is that I am sensitive to the vibes of any online community. If there are forums, boards, or threads, I only need to read a few posts before getting a sense of which kind of bullshit is going on. Because let's be honest...there is not a single online community free of bullshit. Sometimes it's the elitist circle-jerk (love you, AMT). Sometimes it's a sea of n00bs with insufficient guidance to help them along, leading to answer-less threads and a handful of frustrated experts. Sometimes, and this is perhaps the most delicious, it's a war between two factions who can hardly remember what the disagreement was but will fiercely defend the "right" side. Even if a board or forum does somehow get to the positive feedback loop utopia of helpful, kind, and happy people, the moderators and OGs have to police that shit like crazy just to keep it the way it is. Which, in itself, is its own kind of bullshit.
When I joined MyFitnessPal.com in July of 2011, I did not see it as a community. It was a place to track calories in and out, use a few calculators or tools, and call it a day. I had two friends on there, both of whom I knew in real life, and neither of whom were particularly active on the site. We left each other alone and I was happy with that. But eventually, I couldn't help myself. The front page of the site has recent forum topics listed, and there is ALWAYS some insane/desperate subject line like "Is 700 calories a day enough?" or "WHY CAN'T I LOSE WEIGHT?!?" At first, I would tell myself that I was just curious and wanted to "make sure" that someone had responded to the question sanely. Eventually I realized that I felt truly compelled to give advice, particularly in cases when the OP seemed to be incredibly ignorant but genuinely seeking help. After Christmas, a new wave of users joined the site for their New Years resolutions. I immediately detested all of these people, even though I knew that it was for no good reason. My old elitism had kicked in and I was unhappy to be lumped in with all of these fools who thought that starting on a certain day held some magical significance that would make it stick this time. I felt the same way when I joined a gym in January. I joined because their deal was excellent, but I also knew that I looked like that guy, and I hate being that guy.
Unfortunately, my involvement in the social component of MFP combined with the influx of n00bs meant that I was suddenly exposed to hundreds of "bad juju" posts a day ranging from whining to panic to guilt to misplaced anger and self-satisfaction. Dozens of people would post their plans and goals, some realistic and direct ("I'm going to eat sensible portions and go to the gym once a week"), some depressing and vague ("I'm going to show everyone that I can do this and I'm going to be perfect all the time from here on out!"). Worse yet, the responses to these goals, all meant to be encouraging and helpful, were helping even the least realistic people feel as though they had already accomplished something. I have even seen people reply "Congratulations" when someone identifies their goals. Congratulations for what?
Yes, I know, just taking the first step towards a healthier lifestyle, deciding to actually do it, is a big deal. But there are no participation trophies in this game. When someone has a question, or is struggling through a personal issue that is making them evaluate their stress eating, or has been at a plateau for 2 months, I take no issue with the kindest and gentlest support. That's what people need that website for. But if you want people to give you digital hugs because you binged on Valentine's candy (after having binged on Halloween candy, post-Halloween sale candy, Christmas candy, post-Christmas sale candy, etc...) and you're looking to get talked out of your self-loathing...well, maybe that's what you need this website for, but I want no part of it.
When I joined Fitocracy in December of 2011, I was dismayed by the seemingly-uniform policy of "There's no crying in baseball!" - or rather, that consideration of emotions, effort, and psychology played absolutely NO role in any of the goings-on there. I had swung from one side of the pendulum, where everyone was crying and hugging each other while sneaking chocolates, to the other side, where everyone seemed to get bonus points for being critical of each other. Of course, both characterizations are grand exaggerations. There are plenty of stable, normal people on both websites. But stable, normal people don't stand out. In fact, I have even found that I am completely surrounded on Fitocracy because even if I manage to get away from various dudebros, cultists, and aggressive advisors, the other side is still there: the Weight Loss group. I had joined this group very early in my time on Fitocracy because the website is not at all designed for that specific goal. If anything, it is designed for hardcore strength guys and bodybuilders. And while I'm sure that I would look awesome with huuuuuge traps, that's not exactly me. So I figured that supplementing the Fitocracy gameplay with some like-minded folk in the Weight Loss group would be perfect. After all, the people on such a nerdy and weird website like Fitocracy couldn't be as unbearable as some of those MyFitnessPals, could they?
...could they?
While 70% or more of the posts in the group are asking for advice, telling funny anecdotes, or sharing successes, the other posts follow a pretty predictable pattern: "My scale says I am at (x) weight, which is unacceptable. I did 15 hours of cardio yesterday so I should be at (x-5). I'm having a crisis of faith. Also, I ate a whole cheesecake while I was typing this." Thankfully, most of the replies to this will be something like, "Stop weighing yourself everyday, lift some weights every once in a while, and put the goddamned cheesecake down." Well, they're usually phrased more sweetly, but you get the idea.
Instead of continuing to perseverate on all my harsh judgments of these people, I'm now turning the lens inward, as they say. I think my feelings on this issue are so strong because of a combination of things. First, ignorance drives me crazy. Especially willful ignorance. People being stupid about something is familiar - I deal with it every day with my students. But so MANY people being the same kind of stupid can be very tiring, and it's far worse when they don't seem to want to listen to any advice. So that's one thing. On the other hand, though, I do think that I see parts of my subconscious reflected in the weaknesses I'm identifying in others, which bothers me. When I see someone complain about how hard it is to stay within your calorie budget for the day when you're having a company lunch at work and then dinner out with the family, I respond in my head with something like, "oh, bitch bitch bitch, just do what you know you're supposed to do and ignore anyone who gives you shit about it." And then I think about all the times I have rued the social plans that involve cooperative meals, felt serious anxiety about sticking to long-term plans given that my friends seem unable to imagine a hang-out not centered on food, or been annoyed when my co-workers bring in cookies for our staff meetings. The criticisms I (silently) make of others are often things I have unconsciously said to myself - essentialy, STFU and get down to business. I have indeed told myself about how much crying there is in baseball, and let me tell you, it is a very small amount.
Maybe my eye-rolling and "Oh, FFS"-ing has a lot more to do with my concerns about how I'm perceived than I had initially thought. God knows I'm paranoid about being a whiner or a blubbering heap of awful. And trust me, I do whine, and I'm aware of it. But I don't want to come off as worse than I am. I don't really know why I care. I don't know why it should matter to me if internet strangers roll their eyes and cuss about my weaknesses. If I know that I'm there to do real work and that I've already lost a bunch of weight, why should it matter if it "looks like" I'm a New Years resolution person at the gym? Why should I give a shit about what anyone thinks about my weight, looks, or efforts, ever?
The short answer is, I shouldn't. It doesn't mean I don't - I certainly spend enough time picking out my hilarious, obscure-reference gym t-shirts. But maybe if I spent a little less time judging other people, I wouldn't be so worried about getting judged myself. This whole process becomes a lot simpler when you divide all concerns into two categories: things that will help me reach my goals and things that won't. Worrying about other people's thoughts? Won't. Thinking badly of others? Won't. Being aware of my psychological processes and trying to maintain only the healthy ones? Will. Getting off my ass and finally cleaning the house because I kept saying "I'll do that on vacation" but it's already Thursday? Definitely will. Maybe instead of just getting up and doing the work, I should go to the forums and say how bad I feel about not doing the work...
[Okay, I still have some work to do on this whole judgmental thing.]
At least, that's how I like to remember it. The reality, as the Google Groups archives will tell you, was not always so rosy. AMT did indeed foster my communication and debate skills, encourage me to continue writing (since all discussion in the newsgroup was, necessarily, in text form), and connect me with some extremely awesome people. But considering the emotional and psychological place I was in at the time, it also helped me develop some rather unfortunate habits. Being one of the few females in that sausage-fest meant that I got a great deal of attention simply for having a pair of X chromosomes. I often encouraged this attention by alternating between rather crass and bawdy humor and overtly sexual discussion. By demonstrating that "I wasn't like other girls" - in that I listened to Tool, laughed at (and made) dick & fart jokes, and could hang with the fellas - I felt that I was standing out and showing how special I was. I took any and all attention from that newsgroup to be a confirmation of that very fact. I even entered into a long-term relationship with someone from AMT, which somehow lasted two years. Remember that post I made about communicating in a relationship, where I talked about that boyfriend I had the epic fights with? Yup.
 |
| The word "pedant" would have been good to know in 2001. |
One lasting effect of my years on AMT is that I am sensitive to the vibes of any online community. If there are forums, boards, or threads, I only need to read a few posts before getting a sense of which kind of bullshit is going on. Because let's be honest...there is not a single online community free of bullshit. Sometimes it's the elitist circle-jerk (love you, AMT). Sometimes it's a sea of n00bs with insufficient guidance to help them along, leading to answer-less threads and a handful of frustrated experts. Sometimes, and this is perhaps the most delicious, it's a war between two factions who can hardly remember what the disagreement was but will fiercely defend the "right" side. Even if a board or forum does somehow get to the positive feedback loop utopia of helpful, kind, and happy people, the moderators and OGs have to police that shit like crazy just to keep it the way it is. Which, in itself, is its own kind of bullshit.
When I joined MyFitnessPal.com in July of 2011, I did not see it as a community. It was a place to track calories in and out, use a few calculators or tools, and call it a day. I had two friends on there, both of whom I knew in real life, and neither of whom were particularly active on the site. We left each other alone and I was happy with that. But eventually, I couldn't help myself. The front page of the site has recent forum topics listed, and there is ALWAYS some insane/desperate subject line like "Is 700 calories a day enough?" or "WHY CAN'T I LOSE WEIGHT?!?" At first, I would tell myself that I was just curious and wanted to "make sure" that someone had responded to the question sanely. Eventually I realized that I felt truly compelled to give advice, particularly in cases when the OP seemed to be incredibly ignorant but genuinely seeking help. After Christmas, a new wave of users joined the site for their New Years resolutions. I immediately detested all of these people, even though I knew that it was for no good reason. My old elitism had kicked in and I was unhappy to be lumped in with all of these fools who thought that starting on a certain day held some magical significance that would make it stick this time. I felt the same way when I joined a gym in January. I joined because their deal was excellent, but I also knew that I looked like that guy, and I hate being that guy.
Unfortunately, my involvement in the social component of MFP combined with the influx of n00bs meant that I was suddenly exposed to hundreds of "bad juju" posts a day ranging from whining to panic to guilt to misplaced anger and self-satisfaction. Dozens of people would post their plans and goals, some realistic and direct ("I'm going to eat sensible portions and go to the gym once a week"), some depressing and vague ("I'm going to show everyone that I can do this and I'm going to be perfect all the time from here on out!"). Worse yet, the responses to these goals, all meant to be encouraging and helpful, were helping even the least realistic people feel as though they had already accomplished something. I have even seen people reply "Congratulations" when someone identifies their goals. Congratulations for what?
 |
| Judgmental owl wonders the same thing. |
When I joined Fitocracy in December of 2011, I was dismayed by the seemingly-uniform policy of "There's no crying in baseball!" - or rather, that consideration of emotions, effort, and psychology played absolutely NO role in any of the goings-on there. I had swung from one side of the pendulum, where everyone was crying and hugging each other while sneaking chocolates, to the other side, where everyone seemed to get bonus points for being critical of each other. Of course, both characterizations are grand exaggerations. There are plenty of stable, normal people on both websites. But stable, normal people don't stand out. In fact, I have even found that I am completely surrounded on Fitocracy because even if I manage to get away from various dudebros, cultists, and aggressive advisors, the other side is still there: the Weight Loss group. I had joined this group very early in my time on Fitocracy because the website is not at all designed for that specific goal. If anything, it is designed for hardcore strength guys and bodybuilders. And while I'm sure that I would look awesome with huuuuuge traps, that's not exactly me. So I figured that supplementing the Fitocracy gameplay with some like-minded folk in the Weight Loss group would be perfect. After all, the people on such a nerdy and weird website like Fitocracy couldn't be as unbearable as some of those MyFitnessPals, could they?
...could they?
 |
| They could. |
Instead of continuing to perseverate on all my harsh judgments of these people, I'm now turning the lens inward, as they say. I think my feelings on this issue are so strong because of a combination of things. First, ignorance drives me crazy. Especially willful ignorance. People being stupid about something is familiar - I deal with it every day with my students. But so MANY people being the same kind of stupid can be very tiring, and it's far worse when they don't seem to want to listen to any advice. So that's one thing. On the other hand, though, I do think that I see parts of my subconscious reflected in the weaknesses I'm identifying in others, which bothers me. When I see someone complain about how hard it is to stay within your calorie budget for the day when you're having a company lunch at work and then dinner out with the family, I respond in my head with something like, "oh, bitch bitch bitch, just do what you know you're supposed to do and ignore anyone who gives you shit about it." And then I think about all the times I have rued the social plans that involve cooperative meals, felt serious anxiety about sticking to long-term plans given that my friends seem unable to imagine a hang-out not centered on food, or been annoyed when my co-workers bring in cookies for our staff meetings. The criticisms I (silently) make of others are often things I have unconsciously said to myself - essentialy, STFU and get down to business. I have indeed told myself about how much crying there is in baseball, and let me tell you, it is a very small amount.
 |
| Sigh...seriously though, this is our problem? |
Maybe my eye-rolling and "Oh, FFS"-ing has a lot more to do with my concerns about how I'm perceived than I had initially thought. God knows I'm paranoid about being a whiner or a blubbering heap of awful. And trust me, I do whine, and I'm aware of it. But I don't want to come off as worse than I am. I don't really know why I care. I don't know why it should matter to me if internet strangers roll their eyes and cuss about my weaknesses. If I know that I'm there to do real work and that I've already lost a bunch of weight, why should it matter if it "looks like" I'm a New Years resolution person at the gym? Why should I give a shit about what anyone thinks about my weight, looks, or efforts, ever?
The short answer is, I shouldn't. It doesn't mean I don't - I certainly spend enough time picking out my hilarious, obscure-reference gym t-shirts. But maybe if I spent a little less time judging other people, I wouldn't be so worried about getting judged myself. This whole process becomes a lot simpler when you divide all concerns into two categories: things that will help me reach my goals and things that won't. Worrying about other people's thoughts? Won't. Thinking badly of others? Won't. Being aware of my psychological processes and trying to maintain only the healthy ones? Will. Getting off my ass and finally cleaning the house because I kept saying "I'll do that on vacation" but it's already Thursday? Definitely will. Maybe instead of just getting up and doing the work, I should go to the forums and say how bad I feel about not doing the work...
[Okay, I still have some work to do on this whole judgmental thing.]
Monday, February 06, 2012
Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 11: "Ambuh, you lookin' skinnier erry time I see you!"
Here it is: the retrospective/progress post.
I wish I could say that I'm doing this post now because it represents some sort of amazing milestone (sorta, not really) or it's a nice round number from when I started losing weight, like 6 months or a year. Really, there was no big a-ha! moment for me when I decided to get my ass in gear. I think it might be more accurate to say that there were several small moments, a couple of tough mental decisions, and lots and lots of modified habits. It was not all at once, not by a long shot. I didn't step on the scale, become horrified, and then instantly change my life. Oh, there was horror, believe me...there was horror. But I was pretty used to the simultaneous depression, anger, impotence, and doubt that come with seeing a new all-time high number on the scale.
A year ago, on Superbowl Sunday in 2011, my brother and I weighed in for a weight loss contest. The rules were simple: whoever lost the greatest percentage of body fat between then and the first day of our August cruise would win $100 from the loser. No psychotic methods (eating disorders, drugs, surgery, etc.) were to be employed. Exercise and diet, full stop. Both of us were significantly overweight, with our BMIs in the obese range (I'll rant about how stupid the BMI scale is later). I weighed in that day at the same number I had been for about two months: 197 pounds. For many people who struggle with their weight, 197 is actually a goal weight, not a nightmare. But for me, in my 5'4" frame, I was distraught. Reaching 200 pounds had always been a fear of mine; maybe, I thought, if I reach 200 pounds then that will be it for me...I won't ever be able to get to a healthy weight. For years before this, I had been maintaining in the 160s, then maintaining in the 170s, and for a long time I was in the 180s. Approaching the double deuce was scary for me.
That being said, it wasn't quite scary enough to really get my ass in gear. In fact, I put in a rather pathetic amount of effort for another 6 weeks after that weigh-in, then pretty much stopped doing anything. I was incredibly stressed by the double whammy of graduate school and the absolute worst year of teaching I had ever endured (you know the kid in your class - or person at your job - who is just an absolute garbage dump of a human being...on the express train to Hell and determined to take everyone with him/her? 90% of my students were that kid.). The changes I would have to make in order to make a real go of this weight-loss thing seemed so far out of my reach that even trying was too much to handle. I stopped tracking my calories in March, and didn't do much about my health until school was over at the very end of June.
When July hit, I realized that I had made negligible progress towards wringing $100 out of my brother's wallet. I went from 197 to 193 over those few months, and I'm pretty sure that most of those 4 pounds were because the second weigh-in was first thing in the morning. I had always held on to this ideal of The Summer, as in "I will finally have time to exercise over The Summer" or "I will finally have time to read these 800 novels over The Summer." In reality, I often spent most of my vacation screwing around on the internet, watching movies on Netflix, occasionally reading outside, playing with my dogs, and sometimes working. Although exercise had always been a staple of my summer routine, its frequency and place in my life ranged from "meh" to "pfffft".
But around mid-July, I started writing. I wrote my first Diary of a Fat Girl entry about 3 weeks into summer vacation. This was around the time when it occurred to me that I really ought to take care of my body and at least try to make the changes I had always wanted to see in myself. My short-term (and, perhaps, short-sighted) goals were all cruise-related. Dan and I were shipping out a month from then and I wanted to look better in a bathing suit. I signed up for a new calorie-tracking website, MyFitnessPal, and stopped using the more annoying and less helpful CalorieCounter. I bought several used workout DVDs, some odds and ends (a jump rope, thingies that keep your glasses strapped to your head, and so on), and a book on emotional overeating. I also bought size 10 shorts. The shorts were probably the best source of humor for me, home alone on a summer day. I tried them on for shit and giggles when I got them (I was comfortably a size 16) and could actually get them on and buttoned, but my god. "Sausage casing" does not even begin to explain the fantastic reality of 190 pounds of Amber shoved into way-way-way-way-too-small jean shorts.
The cruise vacation came and went, I won the bet (by losing 5 pounds...yay?), and I was happy to discover that I really hadn't gained weight on the cruise. I think walking for 10 hours a day has a way of off-setting eating chicken fingers and french fries twice a day every day. [Side note: it also has a way of ruining your bad knee for the next 3 weeks.] When we arrived home, there was only a short amount of vacation left before the school year started. The next month was a blur until a friend of ours e-mailed with the link to Run For Your Lives, a zombie-themed obstacle 5k. Immediately upon reading the info on the website, I became hopelessly giddy. Not just excited. Not just gleefully happy. No. I'm talking grinning-like-a-fucking-idiot-can't-sit-still-might-jump-out-of-my-skin giddy. I was at work when I got the e-mail and I practically frolicked home to get to work. I exercised that night. And the next night. And the next night. Okay, after that I didn't work out every day, but it did get me started.
Around this same time, two important purchases were made: Dan bought a food scale and I bought a heart rate monitor. Although I had been counting calories in and out before this, I was using estimates to do so. I found that I was severely underestimating how much I was eating (portion-wise) and I was underestimating how many calories I was burning. All the website averages were too low because, well, I'm fat, so I burn more calories than a skinny person. Once I got my numbers sorted out, I was able to see the differences between some of my standard meals, in terms of nutritional value and calories overall. It turns out that, given my standard activity level, every ten chicken finger plates was adding about a pound of fat to my frame. Considering I was eating at least that many every month, it was a bad scene. It was also around this time that I finally completed the switch from full-calorie soda to diet soda. At first I was making a concoction of 80% Pepsi Max and 20% Pepsi, but after a while I discovered that Pepsi One was sweetened with Splenda, and just started drinking that. In fact, I'm drinking one right now. It tastes kind of like Pepsi. Close enough, and certainly worth it for the whole "one calorie" thing.
Over the next three or so months, there wasn't much to write home about. I exercised about 3 days a week, counted every single calorie every single day, and continuously fiddled with my fitness routines to try to find something I really liked (in addition to Turbo Jam, which I already liked). I took advantage of a BU Fitness & Recreation Center alumni open house and tried a few new gym machines. I ignored Halloween candy, then the immediately-following Christmas candy. All told for both holidays, I think I ate probably 1000 calories of candy total - that may sound like a lot, but in a typical post-Halloween candy binge, I could easily put that away in a sitting without even thinking about it. What worked for me with chocolate, and continues to work, is allowing myself to have it if I really want it. In the past, I tried to deny myself "bad" food in perpetuity; this always triggered my fear/guilt/negativity responses, and I ended up eating more junk than I wanted in the first place. These days, I eat what I can afford with my calories that day, log everything, and hold myself accountable. It's working out okay. Sometimes people even notice that I'm thinner. The title of this very blog post is a direct quote from one of my students. And she's not one to mince words or blow smoke up one's butt. So I take it seriously.
In early January, Gymit ran a low-fee joining special that piqued my interest. I had seen this place many times before, given that it was on my way home from work and was directly across from BU's FitRec. I had started using Fitocracy to log workouts in early December, and found myself limited by what I had access to at home; if I wanted the barbell quests and big point gains, I would need access to a weight room. Despite my reluctance to be one of those January joiners, the deal was too good to pass up. I had already decided that I was done letting stupid negative feelings get in the way of my health, and not wanting to be that guy wasn't good enough to dissuade me from joining. Although it's a small, bare-bones gym, I've been going for a month now with no regrets.
Most recently, I have started doing the Couch-to-5k beginners' running program. I'm doing the treadmill version because, well, it's Boston in the dead of winter. Just because it's been light on snow doesn't mean I want to trek my ass outside after dark 3x a week. I also have a really tough time running on asphalt for any real amount of time, so the treadmill is my best way into running. I'm only on week 3, but so far I really like it. I have also signed up for a 5k race in June, a month after the zombie one, so I don't just give up the day afterward. I have learned, through doing C25K, something surprising about myself. No, it's not that I'm capable of far more than I ever thought and that I can do anything I put my mind to. I learned that, while angry music gets me motivated on the elliptical, I perform my best running to dance pop hits. Yes, I admit it: I fucking love Lady Gaga.
There are plenty of things I have learned/changed/decided/done in the last year, with most of the changes taking place in the last six months. In the interest of breaking up this rather lengthy entry, we'll do this as a numbered list:
I wish I could say that I'm doing this post now because it represents some sort of amazing milestone (sorta, not really) or it's a nice round number from when I started losing weight, like 6 months or a year. Really, there was no big a-ha! moment for me when I decided to get my ass in gear. I think it might be more accurate to say that there were several small moments, a couple of tough mental decisions, and lots and lots of modified habits. It was not all at once, not by a long shot. I didn't step on the scale, become horrified, and then instantly change my life. Oh, there was horror, believe me...there was horror. But I was pretty used to the simultaneous depression, anger, impotence, and doubt that come with seeing a new all-time high number on the scale.
A year ago, on Superbowl Sunday in 2011, my brother and I weighed in for a weight loss contest. The rules were simple: whoever lost the greatest percentage of body fat between then and the first day of our August cruise would win $100 from the loser. No psychotic methods (eating disorders, drugs, surgery, etc.) were to be employed. Exercise and diet, full stop. Both of us were significantly overweight, with our BMIs in the obese range (I'll rant about how stupid the BMI scale is later). I weighed in that day at the same number I had been for about two months: 197 pounds. For many people who struggle with their weight, 197 is actually a goal weight, not a nightmare. But for me, in my 5'4" frame, I was distraught. Reaching 200 pounds had always been a fear of mine; maybe, I thought, if I reach 200 pounds then that will be it for me...I won't ever be able to get to a healthy weight. For years before this, I had been maintaining in the 160s, then maintaining in the 170s, and for a long time I was in the 180s. Approaching the double deuce was scary for me.
That being said, it wasn't quite scary enough to really get my ass in gear. In fact, I put in a rather pathetic amount of effort for another 6 weeks after that weigh-in, then pretty much stopped doing anything. I was incredibly stressed by the double whammy of graduate school and the absolute worst year of teaching I had ever endured (you know the kid in your class - or person at your job - who is just an absolute garbage dump of a human being...on the express train to Hell and determined to take everyone with him/her? 90% of my students were that kid.). The changes I would have to make in order to make a real go of this weight-loss thing seemed so far out of my reach that even trying was too much to handle. I stopped tracking my calories in March, and didn't do much about my health until school was over at the very end of June.
When July hit, I realized that I had made negligible progress towards wringing $100 out of my brother's wallet. I went from 197 to 193 over those few months, and I'm pretty sure that most of those 4 pounds were because the second weigh-in was first thing in the morning. I had always held on to this ideal of The Summer, as in "I will finally have time to exercise over The Summer" or "I will finally have time to read these 800 novels over The Summer." In reality, I often spent most of my vacation screwing around on the internet, watching movies on Netflix, occasionally reading outside, playing with my dogs, and sometimes working. Although exercise had always been a staple of my summer routine, its frequency and place in my life ranged from "meh" to "pfffft".
But around mid-July, I started writing. I wrote my first Diary of a Fat Girl entry about 3 weeks into summer vacation. This was around the time when it occurred to me that I really ought to take care of my body and at least try to make the changes I had always wanted to see in myself. My short-term (and, perhaps, short-sighted) goals were all cruise-related. Dan and I were shipping out a month from then and I wanted to look better in a bathing suit. I signed up for a new calorie-tracking website, MyFitnessPal, and stopped using the more annoying and less helpful CalorieCounter. I bought several used workout DVDs, some odds and ends (a jump rope, thingies that keep your glasses strapped to your head, and so on), and a book on emotional overeating. I also bought size 10 shorts. The shorts were probably the best source of humor for me, home alone on a summer day. I tried them on for shit and giggles when I got them (I was comfortably a size 16) and could actually get them on and buttoned, but my god. "Sausage casing" does not even begin to explain the fantastic reality of 190 pounds of Amber shoved into way-way-way-way-too-small jean shorts.
The cruise vacation came and went, I won the bet (by losing 5 pounds...yay?), and I was happy to discover that I really hadn't gained weight on the cruise. I think walking for 10 hours a day has a way of off-setting eating chicken fingers and french fries twice a day every day. [Side note: it also has a way of ruining your bad knee for the next 3 weeks.] When we arrived home, there was only a short amount of vacation left before the school year started. The next month was a blur until a friend of ours e-mailed with the link to Run For Your Lives, a zombie-themed obstacle 5k. Immediately upon reading the info on the website, I became hopelessly giddy. Not just excited. Not just gleefully happy. No. I'm talking grinning-like-a-fucking-idiot-can't-sit-still-might-jump-out-of-my-skin giddy. I was at work when I got the e-mail and I practically frolicked home to get to work. I exercised that night. And the next night. And the next night. Okay, after that I didn't work out every day, but it did get me started.
Around this same time, two important purchases were made: Dan bought a food scale and I bought a heart rate monitor. Although I had been counting calories in and out before this, I was using estimates to do so. I found that I was severely underestimating how much I was eating (portion-wise) and I was underestimating how many calories I was burning. All the website averages were too low because, well, I'm fat, so I burn more calories than a skinny person. Once I got my numbers sorted out, I was able to see the differences between some of my standard meals, in terms of nutritional value and calories overall. It turns out that, given my standard activity level, every ten chicken finger plates was adding about a pound of fat to my frame. Considering I was eating at least that many every month, it was a bad scene. It was also around this time that I finally completed the switch from full-calorie soda to diet soda. At first I was making a concoction of 80% Pepsi Max and 20% Pepsi, but after a while I discovered that Pepsi One was sweetened with Splenda, and just started drinking that. In fact, I'm drinking one right now. It tastes kind of like Pepsi. Close enough, and certainly worth it for the whole "one calorie" thing.
Over the next three or so months, there wasn't much to write home about. I exercised about 3 days a week, counted every single calorie every single day, and continuously fiddled with my fitness routines to try to find something I really liked (in addition to Turbo Jam, which I already liked). I took advantage of a BU Fitness & Recreation Center alumni open house and tried a few new gym machines. I ignored Halloween candy, then the immediately-following Christmas candy. All told for both holidays, I think I ate probably 1000 calories of candy total - that may sound like a lot, but in a typical post-Halloween candy binge, I could easily put that away in a sitting without even thinking about it. What worked for me with chocolate, and continues to work, is allowing myself to have it if I really want it. In the past, I tried to deny myself "bad" food in perpetuity; this always triggered my fear/guilt/negativity responses, and I ended up eating more junk than I wanted in the first place. These days, I eat what I can afford with my calories that day, log everything, and hold myself accountable. It's working out okay. Sometimes people even notice that I'm thinner. The title of this very blog post is a direct quote from one of my students. And she's not one to mince words or blow smoke up one's butt. So I take it seriously.
In early January, Gymit ran a low-fee joining special that piqued my interest. I had seen this place many times before, given that it was on my way home from work and was directly across from BU's FitRec. I had started using Fitocracy to log workouts in early December, and found myself limited by what I had access to at home; if I wanted the barbell quests and big point gains, I would need access to a weight room. Despite my reluctance to be one of those January joiners, the deal was too good to pass up. I had already decided that I was done letting stupid negative feelings get in the way of my health, and not wanting to be that guy wasn't good enough to dissuade me from joining. Although it's a small, bare-bones gym, I've been going for a month now with no regrets.
Most recently, I have started doing the Couch-to-5k beginners' running program. I'm doing the treadmill version because, well, it's Boston in the dead of winter. Just because it's been light on snow doesn't mean I want to trek my ass outside after dark 3x a week. I also have a really tough time running on asphalt for any real amount of time, so the treadmill is my best way into running. I'm only on week 3, but so far I really like it. I have also signed up for a 5k race in June, a month after the zombie one, so I don't just give up the day afterward. I have learned, through doing C25K, something surprising about myself. No, it's not that I'm capable of far more than I ever thought and that I can do anything I put my mind to. I learned that, while angry music gets me motivated on the elliptical, I perform my best running to dance pop hits. Yes, I admit it: I fucking love Lady Gaga.
There are plenty of things I have learned/changed/decided/done in the last year, with most of the changes taking place in the last six months. In the interest of breaking up this rather lengthy entry, we'll do this as a numbered list:
- I no longer get mad at myself or feel guilty about the foods I eat.
- I no longer rely on food to manage my emotions.
- I do not blame myself for all the mistakes I've made in the past with my body, but I hold myself responsible for the choices I make now.
- I view my issues with food and fitness as an addiction. One day at a time.
- I do not think of my fitness routine and diet as temporary; they are the norm.
- I welcome external motivations (websites, 5k races) but I feed off of internal motivation.
- I engage only in behavior that serves a positive purpose, whether it is for fitness, weight loss, stress relief, or plain ol' happiness.
- I fucking love Lady Gaga. Just in case you missed this from up there.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 10: I Lied About What This Would Be Called
Hey all. Last time I said that Episode 10 would be a progress post called "Ambuh, you lookin' skinnier erry time I see you!" (which is something a student of mine said to me recently, beeteedubs). So that, it turns out, was a lie. I didn't expect that I would have the time, energy, and desire to post again for another week, which is when it will make sense to make a progress post (a year out from an important weigh-in). So...sorry, I guess? I didn't think I would be so prolific. I'll knock it off.
This morning I was late for work. I was also late for work the day before. And I will tell you why. My pants don't fit. I have at least three dozen pairs of pants ranging from slacks to jeans and they don't fit. The pairs that used to fit right in the hips and thighs are now so loose in the waist that I can't even belt them properly. The ones that were already a little loose are total lost causes. The ones that were good in the waist and too tight in the thighs are either almost good, or too loose in the waist and still not great in the thighs. I haven't tried on every single pair yet, but I have found exactly two pairs that fit something like normally. They are both, however, short in the inseam and should only be worn with flats...so rainy/snowy weather isn't ideal for them. So perhaps those will be spring pants. Or I'll just not be able to wear those ones, ever. I'll lose weight right past them.
This pant crisis is kind of a surprise for me. Of course, I know I'm losing weight, because I weigh myself obsessively and count calories every single day and work out 3-5 days a week. So, herp-a-durr, I'm going to lose weight and thusly go down in size. The surprising part was that the pants thing kind of happened all at once. I was fitting into pants last week that are now humorously large. Even now, I'm wearing a pair of 16 jeans from The Gap (a store I almost never visit, but they had a great online sale and I was already buying Old Navy stuff anyway...you get the idea). These jeans fit me almost perfectly back when I got them last August; maybe I would wear a belt, but my waist is always too small for the pants that fit my hips/thighs, so that's standard. I loved these pants and even wore them when it was still too hot to wear pants. They were my go-to pants, especially because they looked more like blue trousers than jeans, so I didn't feel too scrubby wearing them to work.
Now I'm wearing them and they are belted so severely that the top is crinkled like bacon. The back looks the most impressive. The belt is trying to follow the curve of my waist while the pants are trying to go as low as possible. The belt is above the pants on either side of the center back beltloop, only being tamed by that single loop. It looks like my pants and belt are fighting. No, that's not strong enough. It looks like there is a decades-old gang war between the Parkway Pantz and the Belt Boyz. It's actually pretty uncomfortable, and I'll be happy to get into my comfy-but-rather-revealing compression pants at the gym.
This is pretty lame, even by First World Problem standards. Not fitting into my dozens of pairs of pants because I am intentionally denying myself food in order to change my body size...well, there's not much to wail about there. In fact, as I was frantically trying to find a pair I could wear today, I couldn't help but laugh (like, actually aloud) at my predicament. What an awesome problem to have.
Tomorrow? CLEAN ALL THE THINGS! I mean...TRY ON ALL THE PANTS! If none of them really fit, I can just wear skirts, dresses, and leggings until my two new Old Navy jeans arrive next week. I'm going to enjoy being a 14. That is, until I'm a 12. Suck it, plus sizes.
This morning I was late for work. I was also late for work the day before. And I will tell you why. My pants don't fit. I have at least three dozen pairs of pants ranging from slacks to jeans and they don't fit. The pairs that used to fit right in the hips and thighs are now so loose in the waist that I can't even belt them properly. The ones that were already a little loose are total lost causes. The ones that were good in the waist and too tight in the thighs are either almost good, or too loose in the waist and still not great in the thighs. I haven't tried on every single pair yet, but I have found exactly two pairs that fit something like normally. They are both, however, short in the inseam and should only be worn with flats...so rainy/snowy weather isn't ideal for them. So perhaps those will be spring pants. Or I'll just not be able to wear those ones, ever. I'll lose weight right past them.
This pant crisis is kind of a surprise for me. Of course, I know I'm losing weight, because I weigh myself obsessively and count calories every single day and work out 3-5 days a week. So, herp-a-durr, I'm going to lose weight and thusly go down in size. The surprising part was that the pants thing kind of happened all at once. I was fitting into pants last week that are now humorously large. Even now, I'm wearing a pair of 16 jeans from The Gap (a store I almost never visit, but they had a great online sale and I was already buying Old Navy stuff anyway...you get the idea). These jeans fit me almost perfectly back when I got them last August; maybe I would wear a belt, but my waist is always too small for the pants that fit my hips/thighs, so that's standard. I loved these pants and even wore them when it was still too hot to wear pants. They were my go-to pants, especially because they looked more like blue trousers than jeans, so I didn't feel too scrubby wearing them to work.
Now I'm wearing them and they are belted so severely that the top is crinkled like bacon. The back looks the most impressive. The belt is trying to follow the curve of my waist while the pants are trying to go as low as possible. The belt is above the pants on either side of the center back beltloop, only being tamed by that single loop. It looks like my pants and belt are fighting. No, that's not strong enough. It looks like there is a decades-old gang war between the Parkway Pantz and the Belt Boyz. It's actually pretty uncomfortable, and I'll be happy to get into my comfy-but-rather-revealing compression pants at the gym.
This is pretty lame, even by First World Problem standards. Not fitting into my dozens of pairs of pants because I am intentionally denying myself food in order to change my body size...well, there's not much to wail about there. In fact, as I was frantically trying to find a pair I could wear today, I couldn't help but laugh (like, actually aloud) at my predicament. What an awesome problem to have.
Tomorrow? CLEAN ALL THE THINGS! I mean...TRY ON ALL THE PANTS! If none of them really fit, I can just wear skirts, dresses, and leggings until my two new Old Navy jeans arrive next week. I'm going to enjoy being a 14. That is, until I'm a 12. Suck it, plus sizes.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 9: Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
One of the benefits of a generally negative and pessimistic perspective is that you're right most of the time. Hopes and dreams are wonderful things, but being cynical usually just means that you're practical. Sometimes the world proves you wrong, and amazing things happen, but the day-to-day reality tends to confirm negative assumptions. It also helps if you ignore all the positive, beautiful things around you, and focus on the things that support the way you already think.
Since this has always been a cornerstone to my modus operandi, I am rather familiar with this world view. I am not always negative or pessimistic; although I can be jaded at times, I would find it hard to care about teaching or getting married if I felt that neither pursuit was worthy of my time. Overall I think I'm a fairly positive person, but I planted cynicism in my heart during adolescence and it has blossomed like a wonderful, sad little flower. A lot of that cynicism and negativity is tied to my self-esteem.
I hate that phrase - self-esteem - given that I grew up in the beginning of Everyone Gets a Trophy fever. In my fifth grade class, we had something called Project C.H.A.R.L.I.E. (I have no idea what that acronym stands for, but I know it stands for something). Outside speakers would come in and talk to us in giant group therapy session. We learned about warm fuzzies (things that make you feel good) and cold pricklies (things that make you feel bad). In retrospect, it seems to be some strange combination of self-esteem awareness, bullying prevention, and getting abused kids to talk to adults about their fucked up home lives. Since at least middle school, I have felt the same way about the phrase "self-esteem" as I do about "personhole cover" and other ridiculous PC things. "Self-image" I'm okay with. "Self-respect" is fine. But "self-esteem" was hammered so hard into my skull that I will never respect it as a phrase. I think that should be even worse coming from an English teacher.
Sematics diatribe aside, I know that I have always had a kind of mixed bag of feelings about myself. In some ways, I'm very egotistical or overly proud. My presence on Yahoo! Answers, various message boards on weight loss/fitness sites, even this blog...these demonstrate how important and awesome I think my voice is. I have a lot of shit to say and it is all valuable goddammit. That being said, I also have plenty of not-so-amazing characteristics, real/imagined/exaggerated. In the interest of getting out of here before 2013 and not crushing my soul today, I will not attempt to list all the things I dislike about myself; I'm pretty sure that would not be a useful exercise.
I can tell you, however, that one of the biggest things on that list would be the combination of my body image and my ability to control my body (fitness-wise). I have disliked my weight since about the same time I started getting all pissy about the phrase "self-esteem"...so it's been a long time. I didn't really try to do anything about it until college, when I was making my own food choices 100% of the time and had a shitload of free time. It wasn't until later, of course, that I realized I had this much free time because I wasn't doing any of the assigned reading. But that's another story.
When I tried and failed to lose weight the first couple of times, I inadvertently began a cycle that went something like this:
Somewhere around starting grad school, I had slowly and without much ado come to the conclusion that I would never be happy and thin, so I might as well be happy and fat. Stop counting calories or feeling guilty or whatever...just do what I want and just be. This is known as Sweatpants All The Time Disorder (SATTD). I had convinced myself so thoroughly that the effort and dedication required to get truly healthy was beyond my ability...or, at the very least, beyond what I was ever going to be willing and able to maintain in the long-term. I finally stopped kidding myself, bought the size 16 jeans, and went on with my life.
...And continued to be unhappy, feel unhealthy, and miss plenty of trains and buses because I refused to run to catch them. I still had issues with my body and my self-image. I looked in the mirror and I knew that I was doing this to myself - in the most literal sense, I was in control of my body - but it didn't make me feel any better about where I was at. Over the course of a couple of years, I went from maintaining in the 170s to maintaining in the 180s and finally maintaining in the 190s. When I hit 197, I muttered, out loud to no one in particular, "Oh, fuck this." I didn't have an incredible breakthrough where I just started dieting and exercising like a crazy person, but I did recognize that my "healthy decision" to accept my weight and lifestyle was, as they say, some buuulllllshit.
It has taken me a year to lose half of the weight I plan to lose (look for Episode 10: "Ambuh, you lookin' skinnier erry time I see you!" for charts, graphs, and maybe a progress picture if I'm feeling self-important enough). It has not been the fastest weight loss, nor has it been a uniformly successful road filled with high-fives and grins. Basically, some cool stuff happened and some bad stuff happened. It has been both an excellent adventure and a bogus journey. Not much distinguishes the past 12 months from all the years prior.
Except that I'm actually, like, proud of myself. And happy about my progress. And I like looking in the mirror. And I'm having to give away all those size 16s that I bought and dig out the "skinny" 14s. I don't really give a shit that it has taken me this long. I know that this is how things will have to be from now on, and I'm really at peace with that. I have dealt with some heavy emotional shit over the course of the year and I am working through a lot of the reasons why I am compelled to do shit like eat when I'm not hungry or glare at twiggy girls on the T whose little chicken legs don't fill out even the skinniest of skinny jeans. I'm not yet on the other side of it - I still glare, believe me - but I'm also constructing and practicing healthy habits that will only make me happier.
And this is where the cynicism and pessimism come in. Now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Despite all the positive feelings and great progress I have made (physically and emotionally), I can't shake this feeling like there's something bad waiting for me along this journey. Pretty soon I'm going to hit a plateau. I'm going to seriously hurt my knee or my back and the down time will be fatal to my healthy routines. I'll never actually hit the maintenance period and I'll always be trying to lose that last 5 pounds. When summer comes and I'm not in the teaching routine, I'm not going to be able to maintain the habits that have gotten me this much success. In the end, I will lose enough weight in such a way that I will have weird lose skin that only plastic surgery can fix. I will get to my goal weight and realize that I still don't like the way I look. My round face will look weird when I lose more weight. Instead of big, saggy tits I'm going to have little saggy tits, which is WAY worse. Dan is going to get sick of me working out all the time, or get mad that we don't go out to eat as much anymore, or [the list goes on].
If this sounds familiar, it's because it's the same kind of shit that went through my head as I was starting this blog series. I had a hundred doubts and fears that all seemed like great reasons not to bother, at least at the time. It's taken a lot of work to get to the point where I can recognize patterns like that instead of just feeling shitty and letting it ruin my day. If I'm going to toot my own horn, and I am, it might as well be about that. I can see how my own mind tricks me into believing that there are lots of good reasons to quit, none of which are my fault, but all of which make me feel guilty and shitty. Thanks a lot, me.
For the time being, I'm going to keep on truckin'. I'm happy with how things are going. Such a simple statement, but it's not something I say often, especially not about my body and health. In September, I had my annual physical and my doctor (as usual) advised me to lose weight. I told her that I had recently starting doing xyz things to make it happen and that I was down several pounds from my heaviest (of course, I was still up a few pounds from my last check-up, so she DGAF). She was skeptical, but told me that I should aim to get down to 170 or so by next September. I laughed and assured her that I would be significantly less than that, and sooner than September. She raised an eyebrow, cautioned me against making huge goals that were not reasonable for me to achieve, but told me that she would be happy if I proved her wrong. Today I'm at 167. Suck it, doc.
Since this has always been a cornerstone to my modus operandi, I am rather familiar with this world view. I am not always negative or pessimistic; although I can be jaded at times, I would find it hard to care about teaching or getting married if I felt that neither pursuit was worthy of my time. Overall I think I'm a fairly positive person, but I planted cynicism in my heart during adolescence and it has blossomed like a wonderful, sad little flower. A lot of that cynicism and negativity is tied to my self-esteem.
I hate that phrase - self-esteem - given that I grew up in the beginning of Everyone Gets a Trophy fever. In my fifth grade class, we had something called Project C.H.A.R.L.I.E. (I have no idea what that acronym stands for, but I know it stands for something). Outside speakers would come in and talk to us in giant group therapy session. We learned about warm fuzzies (things that make you feel good) and cold pricklies (things that make you feel bad). In retrospect, it seems to be some strange combination of self-esteem awareness, bullying prevention, and getting abused kids to talk to adults about their fucked up home lives. Since at least middle school, I have felt the same way about the phrase "self-esteem" as I do about "personhole cover" and other ridiculous PC things. "Self-image" I'm okay with. "Self-respect" is fine. But "self-esteem" was hammered so hard into my skull that I will never respect it as a phrase. I think that should be even worse coming from an English teacher.
Sematics diatribe aside, I know that I have always had a kind of mixed bag of feelings about myself. In some ways, I'm very egotistical or overly proud. My presence on Yahoo! Answers, various message boards on weight loss/fitness sites, even this blog...these demonstrate how important and awesome I think my voice is. I have a lot of shit to say and it is all valuable goddammit. That being said, I also have plenty of not-so-amazing characteristics, real/imagined/exaggerated. In the interest of getting out of here before 2013 and not crushing my soul today, I will not attempt to list all the things I dislike about myself; I'm pretty sure that would not be a useful exercise.
I can tell you, however, that one of the biggest things on that list would be the combination of my body image and my ability to control my body (fitness-wise). I have disliked my weight since about the same time I started getting all pissy about the phrase "self-esteem"...so it's been a long time. I didn't really try to do anything about it until college, when I was making my own food choices 100% of the time and had a shitload of free time. It wasn't until later, of course, that I realized I had this much free time because I wasn't doing any of the assigned reading. But that's another story.
When I tried and failed to lose weight the first couple of times, I inadvertently began a cycle that went something like this:
- "I'm going to try to lose weight, though I probably can't do it."
- Eats a little less and goes to the gym a couple of times, but doesn't really try
- Doesn't lose much, if any, weight
- "See?!?!? I told you I couldn't do it. Well, I'm going to go eat some terrible-tasting pasta at the dining hall and drink 15 glasses of chocolate milk, 'cause they got that shit on tap."
Somewhere around starting grad school, I had slowly and without much ado come to the conclusion that I would never be happy and thin, so I might as well be happy and fat. Stop counting calories or feeling guilty or whatever...just do what I want and just be. This is known as Sweatpants All The Time Disorder (SATTD). I had convinced myself so thoroughly that the effort and dedication required to get truly healthy was beyond my ability...or, at the very least, beyond what I was ever going to be willing and able to maintain in the long-term. I finally stopped kidding myself, bought the size 16 jeans, and went on with my life.
...And continued to be unhappy, feel unhealthy, and miss plenty of trains and buses because I refused to run to catch them. I still had issues with my body and my self-image. I looked in the mirror and I knew that I was doing this to myself - in the most literal sense, I was in control of my body - but it didn't make me feel any better about where I was at. Over the course of a couple of years, I went from maintaining in the 170s to maintaining in the 180s and finally maintaining in the 190s. When I hit 197, I muttered, out loud to no one in particular, "Oh, fuck this." I didn't have an incredible breakthrough where I just started dieting and exercising like a crazy person, but I did recognize that my "healthy decision" to accept my weight and lifestyle was, as they say, some buuulllllshit.
It has taken me a year to lose half of the weight I plan to lose (look for Episode 10: "Ambuh, you lookin' skinnier erry time I see you!" for charts, graphs, and maybe a progress picture if I'm feeling self-important enough). It has not been the fastest weight loss, nor has it been a uniformly successful road filled with high-fives and grins. Basically, some cool stuff happened and some bad stuff happened. It has been both an excellent adventure and a bogus journey. Not much distinguishes the past 12 months from all the years prior.
Except that I'm actually, like, proud of myself. And happy about my progress. And I like looking in the mirror. And I'm having to give away all those size 16s that I bought and dig out the "skinny" 14s. I don't really give a shit that it has taken me this long. I know that this is how things will have to be from now on, and I'm really at peace with that. I have dealt with some heavy emotional shit over the course of the year and I am working through a lot of the reasons why I am compelled to do shit like eat when I'm not hungry or glare at twiggy girls on the T whose little chicken legs don't fill out even the skinniest of skinny jeans. I'm not yet on the other side of it - I still glare, believe me - but I'm also constructing and practicing healthy habits that will only make me happier.
And this is where the cynicism and pessimism come in. Now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Despite all the positive feelings and great progress I have made (physically and emotionally), I can't shake this feeling like there's something bad waiting for me along this journey. Pretty soon I'm going to hit a plateau. I'm going to seriously hurt my knee or my back and the down time will be fatal to my healthy routines. I'll never actually hit the maintenance period and I'll always be trying to lose that last 5 pounds. When summer comes and I'm not in the teaching routine, I'm not going to be able to maintain the habits that have gotten me this much success. In the end, I will lose enough weight in such a way that I will have weird lose skin that only plastic surgery can fix. I will get to my goal weight and realize that I still don't like the way I look. My round face will look weird when I lose more weight. Instead of big, saggy tits I'm going to have little saggy tits, which is WAY worse. Dan is going to get sick of me working out all the time, or get mad that we don't go out to eat as much anymore, or [the list goes on].
If this sounds familiar, it's because it's the same kind of shit that went through my head as I was starting this blog series. I had a hundred doubts and fears that all seemed like great reasons not to bother, at least at the time. It's taken a lot of work to get to the point where I can recognize patterns like that instead of just feeling shitty and letting it ruin my day. If I'm going to toot my own horn, and I am, it might as well be about that. I can see how my own mind tricks me into believing that there are lots of good reasons to quit, none of which are my fault, but all of which make me feel guilty and shitty. Thanks a lot, me.
For the time being, I'm going to keep on truckin'. I'm happy with how things are going. Such a simple statement, but it's not something I say often, especially not about my body and health. In September, I had my annual physical and my doctor (as usual) advised me to lose weight. I told her that I had recently starting doing xyz things to make it happen and that I was down several pounds from my heaviest (of course, I was still up a few pounds from my last check-up, so she DGAF). She was skeptical, but told me that I should aim to get down to 170 or so by next September. I laughed and assured her that I would be significantly less than that, and sooner than September. She raised an eyebrow, cautioned me against making huge goals that were not reasonable for me to achieve, but told me that she would be happy if I proved her wrong. Today I'm at 167. Suck it, doc.
Monday, January 09, 2012
How can we be lovers if we can't be friends?
When I was in high school and my then-boyfriend and I communicated
primarily through AOL Instant Messenger, we spent a great deal of time
and energy having epic, amazing fights. Looking back, I don't know that
I was truly satisfied at any given point in that relationship unless we
were having a huge argument, what Cesar Millan would call a "red zone"
fight. Fortunately for me, I guess, that was like 40% of our
communication.
Let me give you an example. We'd be chatting on AIM and I'd have one or two other chat windows open (in my IMing heyday, it would have been 4-8 windows, something I haven't the interest nor energy to revive in my online repertoire). He'd say something that required a response and I would delay in getting to it for, say, 20 seconds. Cue explosion sound FX. He'd get impatient and make some comment about me being too busy to talk to my boyfriend. I'd apologize, taking the bait because I was 16 and didn't have the awareness to think to myself, wow, isn't it kind of psychotic to get mad about a very brief response delay? Maybe I should break up with this person before he murder-suicides me. I'd try to explain that I was just typing in another window and that I was not, in fact, too busy. He'd accuse me of putting him on the "back burner" (this was a go-to for him, and a rather solid one, I must say). I'd come back with some snarky comment about something that I was still mad about from a week ago, and we'd be off for an hour. Eventually one of us would sign off in anger, only to return moments later with a really good fuck-you one-liner and then sign off before the other could respond. We had these fights choreographed like Swan fucking Lake.
My tactics were childish. My responses were over-dramatic. My reactions were intense. But goddammit, I was fucking AWESOME at fighting, if the goal is self-expression. I had no hesitation when it came to expressing my displeasure or bringing up an issue. I didn't always start the fights, but I had no qualms about doing so, and I made sure that my cards were all out on the table regardless of what the actual argument was about. I was the most malevolently amazing wordsmith of anger, and despite knowing that I was causing pain by saying what I was saying, I reveled in the construction, phrasing, and timing of those jabs and stings. The longer it took me to finish typing my comeback, the better it would be. That shit was crafted.
Cut to 2011 (well, 2012 now). Having matured more than a decade since those brutally delicious arguments, I find myself in a stable, loving relationship that has even reached cohabitation. Despite all uncertainly, we have yet to kill each other, and it's been well over a year. We are getting more and more used to each other, in the best possible sense, and rarely butt heads. But that doesn't mean there's zero conflict. Any two people living together, I don't care how in love and/or in sync, will have some sort of disagreement every once in a while. Someone neglects a chore for a little too long, or has some idiosyncratic habit regarding toiletries that bothers another person, or whatever. It happens.
But I find myself getting more and more frustrated at, like, everything. Dan waits until there is more than 1 dishwasher of dishes to do, and shockingly enough, the tupperware that only I use is the stuff that "doesn't fit"...for the third load of dishes in a row. RAGE. Dan suggests we watch some of our backlogged episodes of Wilfred, and I say I'm not in the mood*, so he gives me a look like I just pooped in his mouth. RAGE. After cooking our joint meals for three days in a row, I say I don't feel like cooking tonight, so Dan prepares dinner. For one. RAGE. I could go on.
[*Wilfred is an amazing show. But in my defense, it's dark as hell and is not exactly a mood booster. Same thing with Louie, which I love.]
It's getting harder for me to discern which frustrations are valid and which are silly. Or, perhaps more accurately, how frustrated I should be about which things. For as long as I can remember, I have always been a little too analytical about my own emotions. I have always, always been terrified of being the crazy girl. You know which one I mean...she loves you so much that she keys your car. Or she breaks all your shit because you looked at her funny. Or throws your sneakers in the bathtub and lights them on fire, accidentally setting your entire mansion ablaze (thanks for the idea, Left Eye. RIP.). I hate those girls, not even because of who they are and what they do, but because they make men assume that women are all naturally like that, at some level. A lot of dudes assume that, if you push a chick far enough, she'll snap and start beating your windshield with a baseball bat. Or hit you in the face, knowing that you will either a) hit her back, setting yourself up to go to jail or b) refuse to press charges because you'll look like a pussy. Whether it's direct experience, stories from friends, or just shit they've seen in the movies, men think women (especially young women) are inherently emotionally unstable.
So to counter this assumption, I have always considered it my personal quest to be/appear as emotionally stable as possible. There are aspects of this that are very easy for me; I am not at all prone to jealousy and have no issues with a boyfriend checking out girls, going to a strip club, or whatever. As long as I "win", in that I retain his love and emotional loyalty, I don't really give a shit what he does with his eyes, money, or genitals. I don't know why I don't care, but I find it rather convenient that I don't.
In other aspects, though, I do struggle against the crazy girl shit. I can be pretty sensitive to both words and tone of voice in a conversation. I don't mean that I can't take a joke - in fact, I consider my sense of humor with even the meanest and dirtiest jokes to be another bonus - but rather, I mean that things said in earnest can often throw me for a loop if they are hurtful, dismissive, or cold. Often things said without any ill will intended will bother me deeply because of the words chosen or the tone used. Is that something I'm allowed to be mad about? Or hurt by? If I believe that Dan meant, "I know you're not feeling well, but if you cleaned up the clothes in the living room before people came over, it would make me very happy," but he actually said, "no, I'd rather you didn't come to Best Buy because I want you to clean up your clutter in the living room," do I listen to his words or do I insert the tact for him? Both interpretations are flawed: I'm either intentionally ignoring implied meaning by making it an issue of surface semantics or putting words in Dan's mouth and making excuses for his rude and/or callous affect.
So what I do instead, as best I can tell, is I get mad about the words and tone, but knowing what he probably meant to say, I tell myself that I shouldn't be mad, so I shove my emotional reaction to the back, assuring myself that this irrationality will pass. Somewhere in there, too, is the fear of how Dan would react if I respond negatively to anything he says. The few times I've done so, he either has walked away/stopped talking to me or gotten mad because I'm mad. We've never had an exchange where I express a negative emotion about something he has done/said and his immediate response has been supportive, apologetic, or even just neutral curiosity/questioning. His responses fall into a few categories: I have my facts wrong, I am crazy/overreacting, or I fail to see the larger picture in which I am the real asshole. It's hard to truly blame him for getting defensive when my own impulses are so jumbled and dramatic, but I can also see a direct correlation between my previous experiences in trying to address issues with Dan and my current reluctance to do so again.
But it's far more than just a sense of "he might say mean things" that keeps me from communicating my negative emotions to Dan. There's something solely within me that seems to be malfunctioning, at least that's how it feels. My immediate responses to upsetting things are NEVER reflective of my truest feelings. It's not that I intend to deceive, or even that I'm aware of any agency/purpose in my reacting. But whatever I blurt out is a surface reaction, one that is often neutral or flippant, not representative of what I feel is the real issue. When Dan told me to clean up my shit in the living room, I wryly responded, "you mean, like, four sweaters on a chair?" But the issue I had was not that he was nitpicking about the clutter in the living room; he hates clutter, and I am less sensitive to it, but I don't mind his sensitivity and the subsequent requests for cleaning that accompany it. My real problem was that it was not, in fact, a request at all. It was a directive. Not only that, it was a directive that made no reference to the fact that I had come home early from work two days in a row because I wasn't feeling well. I can get over Dan not offering to walk the dogs in the freezing rain when I'm sick. It kind of makes him an asshole, especially since I would offer the same to him without hesitation, but it's beside the point. If I'm still expecting open-handed generosity with physical exertion from Dan, I'm a fool, plain and simple.
But the exchange about the living room clutter felt different than my short-lived grumpy acknowledgement of Dan's unwillingness to do my chores while I'm under the weather. I was offended, and kind of hurt. The moment was so minor, though, so fleeting that it seems silly to spend any time/energy being upset about it. And this is where I get back into don't-be-crazy mode. Once I acknowledge that it's possible that someone might view this issue as unimportant, I assume that assigning value to it makes me crazy. Even typing that sentence makes me want to sign up for as much therapy as my health insurance will cover.
The problem that I face at this exact juncture is the time/scope issue. Because these feelings have been left to simmer for so long (for this specific issue, the clutter conversation took place in late October and I'm continuing this entry in January), the statute of limitations has surely expired. Even if it hasn't, the scope of the issue has now grown so large in the back-end analysis that it would be incredibly overwhelming for Dan if I brought all of this up. What started as a potentially-painful but ultimately small conversation has now become a massive, relationship-defining issue. My friend Ben calls these types of things State of the Union addresses. Dan has gotten them from me before, and it is clear that he has NO idea how to handle them; it would not be fair to expect him to.
I don't know how else to do it, though. I suppose that's my real issue. I know how to fight like a psychotic 16-year-old (rusty as those skills may be) and I know how to suppress my emotions until they come spilling out all at once in the most disjointed, convoluted way possible. I don't know how to have short, limited, specific conversations about single issues that can be resolved completely. Maybe this is how my mind works - everything is so interconnected for me that there are no isolated incidents/issues. Maybe it's just how I have taught myself to process my emotions: situation B makes me feel like situation A did, so I need to talk to Dan about both of those and the larger ramifications of those situations. I don't know.
Between the time I started this post and am now finishing it, Dan and I have gotten engaged. Considering I wouldn't have agreed to his proposal without knowing that I'd be happy with him, I can say confidently that the shit I get worked up about on here is not the whole story. There's a good amount of sampling bias here, considering how boring (and unproductive) this would be if I wrote about how nice it was to cuddle before we fell asleep, or what a great time we had at the movies the other day, and so on. We really are happy in general. I worry, though, that when we do bump into disagreements or struggles, we don't have a great grasp of how to communicate effectively and avoid major blow-ups (or bruised feelings, etc.).
Some of the wedding sites I've been reading suggest that most/all couples go to couples counseling in advance of a wedding. I think it would actually be an awesome idea, but I don't know that Dan would go for it. He's not much of a talker, and certainly not to a stranger. I worry that he has some biases/preconceived notions about counseling that would make him think I was having doubts or wasn't happy with him or something. I guess it's all in how you present it. Maybe that'll be my goal for the next month - float the idea to Dan in such a way as to make him think it's just another part of planning the wedding, and doesn't need to be a weighty, traumatic experience. Hell, he had never heard of engagement photos, so it wouldn't be a stretch to just throw this in there to see what happens. Heh. Anyway, I don't know how well we can do for another five (or ten, or thirty) years without figuring out how to talk to each other properly, so it should be a priority before we become even more legally entangled!
Let me give you an example. We'd be chatting on AIM and I'd have one or two other chat windows open (in my IMing heyday, it would have been 4-8 windows, something I haven't the interest nor energy to revive in my online repertoire). He'd say something that required a response and I would delay in getting to it for, say, 20 seconds. Cue explosion sound FX. He'd get impatient and make some comment about me being too busy to talk to my boyfriend. I'd apologize, taking the bait because I was 16 and didn't have the awareness to think to myself, wow, isn't it kind of psychotic to get mad about a very brief response delay? Maybe I should break up with this person before he murder-suicides me. I'd try to explain that I was just typing in another window and that I was not, in fact, too busy. He'd accuse me of putting him on the "back burner" (this was a go-to for him, and a rather solid one, I must say). I'd come back with some snarky comment about something that I was still mad about from a week ago, and we'd be off for an hour. Eventually one of us would sign off in anger, only to return moments later with a really good fuck-you one-liner and then sign off before the other could respond. We had these fights choreographed like Swan fucking Lake.
My tactics were childish. My responses were over-dramatic. My reactions were intense. But goddammit, I was fucking AWESOME at fighting, if the goal is self-expression. I had no hesitation when it came to expressing my displeasure or bringing up an issue. I didn't always start the fights, but I had no qualms about doing so, and I made sure that my cards were all out on the table regardless of what the actual argument was about. I was the most malevolently amazing wordsmith of anger, and despite knowing that I was causing pain by saying what I was saying, I reveled in the construction, phrasing, and timing of those jabs and stings. The longer it took me to finish typing my comeback, the better it would be. That shit was crafted.
Cut to 2011 (well, 2012 now). Having matured more than a decade since those brutally delicious arguments, I find myself in a stable, loving relationship that has even reached cohabitation. Despite all uncertainly, we have yet to kill each other, and it's been well over a year. We are getting more and more used to each other, in the best possible sense, and rarely butt heads. But that doesn't mean there's zero conflict. Any two people living together, I don't care how in love and/or in sync, will have some sort of disagreement every once in a while. Someone neglects a chore for a little too long, or has some idiosyncratic habit regarding toiletries that bothers another person, or whatever. It happens.
But I find myself getting more and more frustrated at, like, everything. Dan waits until there is more than 1 dishwasher of dishes to do, and shockingly enough, the tupperware that only I use is the stuff that "doesn't fit"...for the third load of dishes in a row. RAGE. Dan suggests we watch some of our backlogged episodes of Wilfred, and I say I'm not in the mood*, so he gives me a look like I just pooped in his mouth. RAGE. After cooking our joint meals for three days in a row, I say I don't feel like cooking tonight, so Dan prepares dinner. For one. RAGE. I could go on.
[*Wilfred is an amazing show. But in my defense, it's dark as hell and is not exactly a mood booster. Same thing with Louie, which I love.]
It's getting harder for me to discern which frustrations are valid and which are silly. Or, perhaps more accurately, how frustrated I should be about which things. For as long as I can remember, I have always been a little too analytical about my own emotions. I have always, always been terrified of being the crazy girl. You know which one I mean...she loves you so much that she keys your car. Or she breaks all your shit because you looked at her funny. Or throws your sneakers in the bathtub and lights them on fire, accidentally setting your entire mansion ablaze (thanks for the idea, Left Eye. RIP.). I hate those girls, not even because of who they are and what they do, but because they make men assume that women are all naturally like that, at some level. A lot of dudes assume that, if you push a chick far enough, she'll snap and start beating your windshield with a baseball bat. Or hit you in the face, knowing that you will either a) hit her back, setting yourself up to go to jail or b) refuse to press charges because you'll look like a pussy. Whether it's direct experience, stories from friends, or just shit they've seen in the movies, men think women (especially young women) are inherently emotionally unstable.
So to counter this assumption, I have always considered it my personal quest to be/appear as emotionally stable as possible. There are aspects of this that are very easy for me; I am not at all prone to jealousy and have no issues with a boyfriend checking out girls, going to a strip club, or whatever. As long as I "win", in that I retain his love and emotional loyalty, I don't really give a shit what he does with his eyes, money, or genitals. I don't know why I don't care, but I find it rather convenient that I don't.
In other aspects, though, I do struggle against the crazy girl shit. I can be pretty sensitive to both words and tone of voice in a conversation. I don't mean that I can't take a joke - in fact, I consider my sense of humor with even the meanest and dirtiest jokes to be another bonus - but rather, I mean that things said in earnest can often throw me for a loop if they are hurtful, dismissive, or cold. Often things said without any ill will intended will bother me deeply because of the words chosen or the tone used. Is that something I'm allowed to be mad about? Or hurt by? If I believe that Dan meant, "I know you're not feeling well, but if you cleaned up the clothes in the living room before people came over, it would make me very happy," but he actually said, "no, I'd rather you didn't come to Best Buy because I want you to clean up your clutter in the living room," do I listen to his words or do I insert the tact for him? Both interpretations are flawed: I'm either intentionally ignoring implied meaning by making it an issue of surface semantics or putting words in Dan's mouth and making excuses for his rude and/or callous affect.
So what I do instead, as best I can tell, is I get mad about the words and tone, but knowing what he probably meant to say, I tell myself that I shouldn't be mad, so I shove my emotional reaction to the back, assuring myself that this irrationality will pass. Somewhere in there, too, is the fear of how Dan would react if I respond negatively to anything he says. The few times I've done so, he either has walked away/stopped talking to me or gotten mad because I'm mad. We've never had an exchange where I express a negative emotion about something he has done/said and his immediate response has been supportive, apologetic, or even just neutral curiosity/questioning. His responses fall into a few categories: I have my facts wrong, I am crazy/overreacting, or I fail to see the larger picture in which I am the real asshole. It's hard to truly blame him for getting defensive when my own impulses are so jumbled and dramatic, but I can also see a direct correlation between my previous experiences in trying to address issues with Dan and my current reluctance to do so again.
But it's far more than just a sense of "he might say mean things" that keeps me from communicating my negative emotions to Dan. There's something solely within me that seems to be malfunctioning, at least that's how it feels. My immediate responses to upsetting things are NEVER reflective of my truest feelings. It's not that I intend to deceive, or even that I'm aware of any agency/purpose in my reacting. But whatever I blurt out is a surface reaction, one that is often neutral or flippant, not representative of what I feel is the real issue. When Dan told me to clean up my shit in the living room, I wryly responded, "you mean, like, four sweaters on a chair?" But the issue I had was not that he was nitpicking about the clutter in the living room; he hates clutter, and I am less sensitive to it, but I don't mind his sensitivity and the subsequent requests for cleaning that accompany it. My real problem was that it was not, in fact, a request at all. It was a directive. Not only that, it was a directive that made no reference to the fact that I had come home early from work two days in a row because I wasn't feeling well. I can get over Dan not offering to walk the dogs in the freezing rain when I'm sick. It kind of makes him an asshole, especially since I would offer the same to him without hesitation, but it's beside the point. If I'm still expecting open-handed generosity with physical exertion from Dan, I'm a fool, plain and simple.
But the exchange about the living room clutter felt different than my short-lived grumpy acknowledgement of Dan's unwillingness to do my chores while I'm under the weather. I was offended, and kind of hurt. The moment was so minor, though, so fleeting that it seems silly to spend any time/energy being upset about it. And this is where I get back into don't-be-crazy mode. Once I acknowledge that it's possible that someone might view this issue as unimportant, I assume that assigning value to it makes me crazy. Even typing that sentence makes me want to sign up for as much therapy as my health insurance will cover.
The problem that I face at this exact juncture is the time/scope issue. Because these feelings have been left to simmer for so long (for this specific issue, the clutter conversation took place in late October and I'm continuing this entry in January), the statute of limitations has surely expired. Even if it hasn't, the scope of the issue has now grown so large in the back-end analysis that it would be incredibly overwhelming for Dan if I brought all of this up. What started as a potentially-painful but ultimately small conversation has now become a massive, relationship-defining issue. My friend Ben calls these types of things State of the Union addresses. Dan has gotten them from me before, and it is clear that he has NO idea how to handle them; it would not be fair to expect him to.
I don't know how else to do it, though. I suppose that's my real issue. I know how to fight like a psychotic 16-year-old (rusty as those skills may be) and I know how to suppress my emotions until they come spilling out all at once in the most disjointed, convoluted way possible. I don't know how to have short, limited, specific conversations about single issues that can be resolved completely. Maybe this is how my mind works - everything is so interconnected for me that there are no isolated incidents/issues. Maybe it's just how I have taught myself to process my emotions: situation B makes me feel like situation A did, so I need to talk to Dan about both of those and the larger ramifications of those situations. I don't know.
Between the time I started this post and am now finishing it, Dan and I have gotten engaged. Considering I wouldn't have agreed to his proposal without knowing that I'd be happy with him, I can say confidently that the shit I get worked up about on here is not the whole story. There's a good amount of sampling bias here, considering how boring (and unproductive) this would be if I wrote about how nice it was to cuddle before we fell asleep, or what a great time we had at the movies the other day, and so on. We really are happy in general. I worry, though, that when we do bump into disagreements or struggles, we don't have a great grasp of how to communicate effectively and avoid major blow-ups (or bruised feelings, etc.).
Some of the wedding sites I've been reading suggest that most/all couples go to couples counseling in advance of a wedding. I think it would actually be an awesome idea, but I don't know that Dan would go for it. He's not much of a talker, and certainly not to a stranger. I worry that he has some biases/preconceived notions about counseling that would make him think I was having doubts or wasn't happy with him or something. I guess it's all in how you present it. Maybe that'll be my goal for the next month - float the idea to Dan in such a way as to make him think it's just another part of planning the wedding, and doesn't need to be a weighty, traumatic experience. Hell, he had never heard of engagement photos, so it wouldn't be a stretch to just throw this in there to see what happens. Heh. Anyway, I don't know how well we can do for another five (or ten, or thirty) years without figuring out how to talk to each other properly, so it should be a priority before we become even more legally entangled!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 8: "I Did It, And So Can You!"
We've all seen the TV ads where celebrities and regular joes alike show their bitchin' before and after photos, demonstrating impressive weight loss and/or muscle gain over what seems like a short period of time. Ripped abs, tiny waists, toned arms, all flexed in that weird one-leg-slightly-in-front-of-the-other-like-you're-hiding-a-boner pose. I got back into shape after my 12 pregnancies, and you can too! Spend just 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week and you'll look like this! Or, even more deceptively, just one pill a day is all it takes to achieve these amazing results!
The downright untruthful ads are part of our cultural zeitgeist, things many of us dismiss outright because we know that a pill can't do all the things that are promised. That's not something that concerns me, at least not more than any regular ol' lie does. The thing that worries me, and something I have noticed in forums on both myfitnesspal.com and fitocracy.com (especially the latter), is the attitude of "I did it - so can you!" It's not that inspiration, motivation, or community encouragement is problematic; as a matter of fact, all of those can make a tremendous difference for people hoping to lose weight.
The problem I have is the implied message, real or assumed, that goes along with that. "I did it - so can you! So if you're still fat, it's your own fucking fault, asshole! Something must be wrong with you." The implication that someone isn't trying hard enough or doesn't really want to lose weight is a huge source of guilt and shame for many of us long-time fatties. Imagine how hard it is to exercise several times a week, care about every single food you eat and beverage you drink, and stay continuously focused on your health and diet. [If you read that and thought, "That doesn't sound hard at all," stop reading now. We have nothing to talk about.] Then imagine how hard that would be if you also secretly wondered if you were capable of losing and keeping off any of this weight, remembered all the times before when you tried and failed, and felt like maybe your failures meant that you didn't deserve to be healthy and happy. [See: Diary of a Fat Girl: Episodes 1-7]
For many people, the psychological/emotional component of fitness has a huge effect on the physical results. In my own experience of the last four or so months, I have come to treat my own habits and tendencies much like a drug addiction. I take things one day at a time, I don't dwell on past failures, and I identify and deal with my various triggers (like walking by a delicious-smelling fast food joint on the way home while I'm rather hungry, for example). While I can use moderation rather than abstaining 100%, in most other ways I have to use the attitude that recovering drug addicts use. I am going through "treatment" as a whole person and doing more than just changing my body. My attitudes, habits, and feelings are all changing too. If I had approached this most recent attempt at weight loss without addressing any of the underlying emotional issues, it would likely be over by now, and I'd be comforting myself with an open bag of chips and a liter of Mountain Dew. To put it plainly: for a lot of people, weight loss and health are emotional issues just as much as they are physical ones.
That's why I get my panties in a bunch when I hear people, whatever their intentions, criticize the efforts of other people. It's one thing when a person posts a message saying, "I'm doing what I know is healthy but I'm not losing weight - please help me!" But when someone posts saying, "I just starting doing this great cardio routine - here's hoping I lose ten pounds this month!" and someone else responds with, "Cardio isn't going to doing anything. You should be strength training."...well, I get annoyed. It's true that strength training not only increases muscle mass but also increases your metabolism (your body's fat burning potential). So suggesting strength training is helpful. But shitting on someone's positive, hopeful post by dismissing their choices as pointless...UGH. Are you trying to derail people's efforts? Are you trying to make people feel bad about themselves?
I suspect, and this is only based on my encounters and experiences, that most of these negative nancies have two things in common. First, most of them probably include fitness and exercise into their daily lives as the norm, and range from fitness enthusiasts to full-on gym rats. Second, most of them probably are not the people I talked about before, those for whom emotions tie in to physical fitness. That second part is actually an extension of the "it worked for me" attitude. People who like to be told, flat-out, what's what will tend to use that communication method with others. If you want your friend to be brutally honest about whether this shirt looks good on you, then you will probably be brutally honest in a similar situation where you're the judging friend.
So the nay-sayers seem to have empathy problems. They don't see the need to sugar-coat or carefully phrase their advice, because that's not what they would want. They also don't see why people would find it difficult to fit exercise into their daily lives. If they spend two hours a day exercising, why can't anyone manage a half hour or 45 minutes? There are a lot of reasons that people find it challenging to fit in exercise. Whether they work long hours, have a lot of household responsibilities, take care of kids, or just come home exhausted every day, many people have perfectly normal reasons that they find it hard. Of course, the other side of this is that there are people who really do have the time but are creative geniuses when it comes to making excuses. I can't find my other shoe. All my gym socks are dirty. It's raining. I don't have a good playlist. I have time to exercise but not to shower after, so I'm not going to exercise. And so on.
The problem is that the nay-sayers don't distinguish between the reasons and the excuses. They have, at one point or another, moved things around in their schedules to fit in a workout. They have had bad days that still managed to include exercise. They have decided to get up an hour early to go for a run. So, if they did it, it's possible, and if you don't do it, you're a fuck-up. Your best reasons are not good enough for them; they're horseshit excuses that are nothing but poison. And they feel that by calling you on this bullshit, by pointing out what you're doing wrong and how you're fooling yourself, they are absolutely helping you. And for some people, that's true. Some people are whiny bitches who lie to themselves and need a Jillian Michaels right upside the head.
But not everyone responds well to that sort of treatment. I know it's so cliche, but it's true: everyone is different. Words of encouragement for one person might crush someone else's spirit. Pushing someone to try harder could easily be interpreted as "you're not trying hard enough" or "your meager efforts are invalid"...not exactly motivating words for a lot of us. I'm not suggesting that everyone just start sucking each other's internet penises and be Richard Simmons all the time. Some people hate being coddled and don't respond well to positive, sugary-sweet sentiments. But however you naturally respond to people and interact about fitness/weight loss, take a moment to consider who you're talking to. What is the tone of this person's message? Is s/he asking a question, or just posting a statement? Is s/he looking for advice? Will my comments and the way they are phrased be welcomed, and interpreted as intended?
Not all of those questions are possible to answer in every online interaction. Everyone has been misunderstood at one point or another, and sometimes the best intentions end up with the worst results. It happens. But by trying to meet a person where s/he is at, and offering comments and suggestions in a tone that seems appropriate for the original post, you can minimize the possibility of those bad outcomes. Maybe you don't give a shit about how your comments are received or whether people want positive encouragement. Maybe you think that people who need careful phrasing are weak and should be forced to adapt to rougher interactions. Sometimes the drill sergeant does produce stronger, better, faster recruits. And sometimes Gomer Pyle fucking shoots the drill sergeant and himself. Just don't be an asshole about it and we'll all be okay.
The downright untruthful ads are part of our cultural zeitgeist, things many of us dismiss outright because we know that a pill can't do all the things that are promised. That's not something that concerns me, at least not more than any regular ol' lie does. The thing that worries me, and something I have noticed in forums on both myfitnesspal.com and fitocracy.com (especially the latter), is the attitude of "I did it - so can you!" It's not that inspiration, motivation, or community encouragement is problematic; as a matter of fact, all of those can make a tremendous difference for people hoping to lose weight.
The problem I have is the implied message, real or assumed, that goes along with that. "I did it - so can you! So if you're still fat, it's your own fucking fault, asshole! Something must be wrong with you." The implication that someone isn't trying hard enough or doesn't really want to lose weight is a huge source of guilt and shame for many of us long-time fatties. Imagine how hard it is to exercise several times a week, care about every single food you eat and beverage you drink, and stay continuously focused on your health and diet. [If you read that and thought, "That doesn't sound hard at all," stop reading now. We have nothing to talk about.] Then imagine how hard that would be if you also secretly wondered if you were capable of losing and keeping off any of this weight, remembered all the times before when you tried and failed, and felt like maybe your failures meant that you didn't deserve to be healthy and happy. [See: Diary of a Fat Girl: Episodes 1-7]
For many people, the psychological/emotional component of fitness has a huge effect on the physical results. In my own experience of the last four or so months, I have come to treat my own habits and tendencies much like a drug addiction. I take things one day at a time, I don't dwell on past failures, and I identify and deal with my various triggers (like walking by a delicious-smelling fast food joint on the way home while I'm rather hungry, for example). While I can use moderation rather than abstaining 100%, in most other ways I have to use the attitude that recovering drug addicts use. I am going through "treatment" as a whole person and doing more than just changing my body. My attitudes, habits, and feelings are all changing too. If I had approached this most recent attempt at weight loss without addressing any of the underlying emotional issues, it would likely be over by now, and I'd be comforting myself with an open bag of chips and a liter of Mountain Dew. To put it plainly: for a lot of people, weight loss and health are emotional issues just as much as they are physical ones.
That's why I get my panties in a bunch when I hear people, whatever their intentions, criticize the efforts of other people. It's one thing when a person posts a message saying, "I'm doing what I know is healthy but I'm not losing weight - please help me!" But when someone posts saying, "I just starting doing this great cardio routine - here's hoping I lose ten pounds this month!" and someone else responds with, "Cardio isn't going to doing anything. You should be strength training."...well, I get annoyed. It's true that strength training not only increases muscle mass but also increases your metabolism (your body's fat burning potential). So suggesting strength training is helpful. But shitting on someone's positive, hopeful post by dismissing their choices as pointless...UGH. Are you trying to derail people's efforts? Are you trying to make people feel bad about themselves?
I suspect, and this is only based on my encounters and experiences, that most of these negative nancies have two things in common. First, most of them probably include fitness and exercise into their daily lives as the norm, and range from fitness enthusiasts to full-on gym rats. Second, most of them probably are not the people I talked about before, those for whom emotions tie in to physical fitness. That second part is actually an extension of the "it worked for me" attitude. People who like to be told, flat-out, what's what will tend to use that communication method with others. If you want your friend to be brutally honest about whether this shirt looks good on you, then you will probably be brutally honest in a similar situation where you're the judging friend.
So the nay-sayers seem to have empathy problems. They don't see the need to sugar-coat or carefully phrase their advice, because that's not what they would want. They also don't see why people would find it difficult to fit exercise into their daily lives. If they spend two hours a day exercising, why can't anyone manage a half hour or 45 minutes? There are a lot of reasons that people find it challenging to fit in exercise. Whether they work long hours, have a lot of household responsibilities, take care of kids, or just come home exhausted every day, many people have perfectly normal reasons that they find it hard. Of course, the other side of this is that there are people who really do have the time but are creative geniuses when it comes to making excuses. I can't find my other shoe. All my gym socks are dirty. It's raining. I don't have a good playlist. I have time to exercise but not to shower after, so I'm not going to exercise. And so on.
The problem is that the nay-sayers don't distinguish between the reasons and the excuses. They have, at one point or another, moved things around in their schedules to fit in a workout. They have had bad days that still managed to include exercise. They have decided to get up an hour early to go for a run. So, if they did it, it's possible, and if you don't do it, you're a fuck-up. Your best reasons are not good enough for them; they're horseshit excuses that are nothing but poison. And they feel that by calling you on this bullshit, by pointing out what you're doing wrong and how you're fooling yourself, they are absolutely helping you. And for some people, that's true. Some people are whiny bitches who lie to themselves and need a Jillian Michaels right upside the head.
But not everyone responds well to that sort of treatment. I know it's so cliche, but it's true: everyone is different. Words of encouragement for one person might crush someone else's spirit. Pushing someone to try harder could easily be interpreted as "you're not trying hard enough" or "your meager efforts are invalid"...not exactly motivating words for a lot of us. I'm not suggesting that everyone just start sucking each other's internet penises and be Richard Simmons all the time. Some people hate being coddled and don't respond well to positive, sugary-sweet sentiments. But however you naturally respond to people and interact about fitness/weight loss, take a moment to consider who you're talking to. What is the tone of this person's message? Is s/he asking a question, or just posting a statement? Is s/he looking for advice? Will my comments and the way they are phrased be welcomed, and interpreted as intended?
Not all of those questions are possible to answer in every online interaction. Everyone has been misunderstood at one point or another, and sometimes the best intentions end up with the worst results. It happens. But by trying to meet a person where s/he is at, and offering comments and suggestions in a tone that seems appropriate for the original post, you can minimize the possibility of those bad outcomes. Maybe you don't give a shit about how your comments are received or whether people want positive encouragement. Maybe you think that people who need careful phrasing are weak and should be forced to adapt to rougher interactions. Sometimes the drill sergeant does produce stronger, better, faster recruits. And sometimes Gomer Pyle fucking shoots the drill sergeant and himself. Just don't be an asshole about it and we'll all be okay.
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