Previous installments of “Feel the Burn” can be found here.
I have another workout for you, but I thought it might be good to have a little more meta talk about our bodies, and get to that another day.
We have made the deliberate decision not to really talk about things like body image and weight on the site, because there’s already so much of it out there, and even when it’s well done, it just generally becomes either an echo chamber or bums people out, and we’re happy with that choice, but it’s also something I don’t want to completely ignore in our fitness coverage, because the universe is as it is.
It’s hard to separate the idea of gaining physical fitness from the idea of changing your body, and changing your body, or wanting to, is something that’s fucked a lot of us up. And as someone who is REALLY INTO physical fitness, I try to pay attention to that in myself. It’s very important for me to know what’s a good choice for me and what isn’t. Because we’re shooting video in the fall, I thought about leaning out a little more. You know, I’ve got these sick abs, I’ve worked hard for these sick abs, but like many people, and especially women, my sick abs are not always visible to the naked eye. And, because I know how my body works, I know that if I was really really really diligent and did some stuff and didn’t do other stuff, you could see my sick abs for a while, and I’d feel less dorky about doing planks on-camera. But I don’t think that would be a good idea for me, as a person, to do. I think I look good the way I am, and part of what I’m trying to achieve in this feature is the idea that having sick abs is a great goal, and you can rock out with that goal without necessarily having the accompanying goal of looking a certain way.
So, okay, great, yay for me, feminism, etc., but what is the precise thing that makes changing your body through the adding of muscle cool and awesome and right-on, while trying to change your body by removing fat is kind of a miserable hellscape? This is where “strong is the new skinny” starts to become grating. Is it all the same thing? Well, no. I don’t really think it is. Ideally, being strong is about functionally improving your body’s ability to do things, as opposed to being about BITCHING TRICEPS. And you’re trying to add something to your body, instead of trying to remove something. You can make a decent case for it, and that’s the way I try to think about it. But I don’t know, I’m not a wizard, this is not a clean line for me. It’s very easy for me to decide that the thing I think about a lot is really healthy and good and fine, as opposed to the things I try not to think about anymore, and hard to know if you don’t wind up just swapping obsessions.
For example: I’m working on a visual body goal right now. I want to get a bigger shoulder cap/deltoid thing. I have been staring at women who have this thing for MONTHS now, enviously, because I have to eat my fucking face off in protein to build larger muscles, and I think it looks gorgeous and sexy. I think it’s the sexiest thing in the world. And, whatever, to each their own, but I’m working on it and thinking about it and googling bodybuilder tips because those bitches know how to build delts, and getting a little fitspo about it, and it’s not doing any HARM, and blah blah blah, but I honestly cannot verbalize why this is so profoundly different from wanting to be skinnier. There are a billion awesome things I could do with better delts, like lifting Debra Winger up and carrying her away to a better life, and that’ll be fun for me, but I honestly just want them at this exact moment because I think they look good.
Here’s a good thing, though, and something that will ideally help you to have a better experience if you are on this strength-training journey with me: you cannot really build muscle in a caloric deficit. You can get strength gains, sure, but building muscle is something your body only wants to do if it’s getting enough food. I think a lot of women get frustrated when they start lifting weights because it feels shitty and they’re really hungry and it’s not getting easier, and OFTEN this is because we’ve really linked “diet and exercise” like they’re Fry and Laurie or some shit.
Let’s be clear: strength-training and eating well are best friends. Strength-training and deliberately eating fewer calories than your body needs are frenemies. This is why, if you know anyone whose actual job relies on having muscles (athletes, pro-bodybuilders, fighters, firepeople, whatever) you will notice that they may periodically attempt to shed body fat, but they NEVER do that when they’re actually putting on muscle (if they do, they call it “recomp,” and its existence is more controversial than that of the Loch Ness Monster.) Me? I think when you’re putting on muscle, you gotta feed yourself.
“Hey, body, here’s some extra chicken. Can you put that in my quads?”
“Sure, honey. Thanks. We needed that!”
It’s 5000% times easier to put on muscle while feeding yourself properly. You don’t have to eat Gummi bears, just lots of wonderful food. And that can be a hard thing to do. If you’re used to having some kind of internal calculator for the food you put in your mouth, whether it’s points or calories or carbs or what, deliberately eating a little more than you “need” can be hugely emotionally difficult.
So, you know, it’s your body, do what you want. But if you’re finding that you’ve got crummy nails or hair or you feel wilted by the end of your first month of strength training, you may have fallen victim to the idea that working out and eating LESS is the way to go. Let’s build those muscles. Let’s treat them right, with chicken and stuff. LENTILS, whatever. And it’s not like I’m telling you to eat more than you “need” 24/7, I’m telling you that when you are actively trying to build muscle, do not sabotage yourself by trying to operate in a caloric deficit.
I’m no better at being a functional and consistent person than anyone else is. I can help you become stronger, and I’d like to help you embrace that, if it’s your goal, but I can’t know if it’s a good goal for you or one that will put you in a shitty headspace and back into bad habits. Let’s just all try to be as self-aware as we can be during this process, feed our wonderful bodies, and maybe get sick abs, even if you can’t see them.
Okay, go do some pushups. I’ll post your new workout early next week, because we got all emo today.
Tags: bags of meat, changing your body, feel the burn, fitness
Kind and thoughtful as always! (I have no intention of excercising, but I read this anyway because body stuff, yeahhhhh.
Thank you so much for this! I am a type one diabetic, obese, and started lifting heavy stuff recently in an effort to make myself super strong. the emotional part of putting LOTS of really healthy and strong food in my body vs. what i have always been told to eat to make myself look good are so different.
i am so glad someone said something like that on the Internet.
One reason, I think that working out, exercising is so different than dieting is that dieting has to be done 24/7. You always have to be thinking about it – “no, you cannot go to the store and get a bag of M&Ms” – “No, you can NOT have another muffin with peanut butter on it”
Whereas a workout can be exhausting, but also makes you feel great, and you don’t spend the next thirty-six hours thinking “No, you cannot do more pushups!” or “No more crunches, mister (I’m a guy) you’ve had ENOUGH!” There’s no monitor, exercise makes the voices go silent.
I think… this really helped clairfy some things for me. Strength training makes me feel good and has a positive effect in my life by doing [x-things] at [these regular intervals]. If I quit for a while because I am injured or busy or whatever (and I spent most of the summer not-lifting because I was injured, darn it), I can go back to it later and know I can re-strength-train and be successful.
Also, working out makes me feel really good RIGHT NOW. Even if I can’t bench x-many-lbs, I am doing something and it feels good. The goal is important, but so is the eminently enjoyable process.
Trying to take away fat is a chronic, low-grade mental space of can’t can’t can’t can’t can’t don’t don’t don’t don’t. It’s not fun during the process and it will never be done and stopping is failure as opposed to taking a break and… just no.
Add to that the fact that sexism gender public property body judge thing, the usual.
I feel like there’s two issues here.
Strength vs. skinniness. Yes, strength is empowering. Embracing visible muscle on women can be empowering and I think overall it’s probably healthier to want to change your body in a way that makes you more capable instead of weaker and less so. (or maybe I just like this because I am someone who will never be model thin but is good at building muscle mass.)
At the same time, though, the “strong is skinny” message is generally showing women who are strong AND skinny, who have a lot of muscle but also very, very low body fat. That takes a level of body manipulation that can be for a lot of people all-consuming and, like the societal thin ideal, is something a lot of people’s bodies cannot ultimately achieve (or cannot naturally/healthily achieve). I think it’s a lot healthier to think of activity and eating as things that can influence your body, given its natural tendencies and genetics, but never control it. It’s striving for control over the physical self that always sends me down the bad path, whether it’s trying to look like those crossfit pin-ups or fit into a size of pants that my bones just won’t go in.
Maybe it’s just me, but the idea of influence vs. control is really the dominant factor in whether an attitude is healthy or is just another kind of body shame.
I can’t remember where I saw it, but I recently saw a blog post about “strong is the new skinny” inspiration photos and how they always seem to show a thin (white) woman with sculpted muscles not actually doing anything strong. She’s never deadlifting a massive weight or anything, she’s straddling the barbell or flexing on a bench or something else that somehow takes “strong” and makes it passive.
Great point about the strong is skinny message. There are some women with the right combination of genetics to look super lean and cut without doing anything except working out. But they are few and far between. So as you rightly say, it’s creating yet another ideal that is pretty far from most people’s reality.
The really strong women often will not look “thin” in the traditional fashion magazine sense. They’re strong! You have to put that muscle somewhere.
For me, the difference between dieting and building muscle is mainly in how it makes me feel. I get serious diet-brain when I diet: my mind becomes this scattered, brittle thing endlessly looping around with the ideas of food and “rah-rah! I can do it! (oh god please let me do it this time)”. I feel a little impatient when I’m trying to strength train and I wish it was going faster, but in between workouts I can focus and my emotions are on an even keel and I don’t think about working out most of the time. Interestingly, running disagrees with me and makes me feel more like I’m dieting than strength training, so I don’t run. It’s definitely hard to explain that to friends who want me to go for runs with them, though.
I really like the idea here about how being strong is about being able to do things. That, in working out and lifting and doing fitnessy things, it’s not only about making the body look a certain way – though sometimes that’s definitely part of it! – but you’re increasing your ability to do things.
I can definitely relate to your feelings about making videos and thinking about whether you want your body to look a certain way for that. I frequently end up in photos on the bike, and I find myself scrutinizing them so closely. I know I could go out and ride a bunch of miles just to make myself fit the lean, endurance girl ideal more closely. But I’m resisting so far 😉
Also: Deltoids? Swimming, girl, swimming. You’ll have them like instantly.
Also #2: Can there be a core workout feature soon? Because omigod I need one so bad. Please and thank you.
I still have trouble keeping myself from cringing whenever I look at my photos from weightlifting meets. Other people (whose compliments I reflexively excuse away as “being nice”) tell me “oh look, you look so strong!” and all I can focus on are the unflattering curves I have (or lack of curves on other parts of my body) while lifting in a singlet. So yeah, I can relate too, although I can recognize that these thoughts are not healthy or helpful, and tend to keep them to myself. (At most I’ll mention them to my husband and once, I mentioned them to my best friend.)
I also feel ashamed of these thoughts, like I’m letting the (Body Positive Feminist/Strong is the New Skinny*) side down. Life is weird.
*”strong is the new skinny” is of course, flawed for all of the ways you mention above
It is weird, right? Because I feel that body positive feminism guilt – there should be a word for this – all the time. Like, my ass isn’t perfect! Waaaaah! It’s a bit stupid. But stupid doesn’t really stop me 😉
Hm. I want to have stronger upper arms, and I also agree that those kinds of deltoids on ladies is stupidly sexy, but I really like the way they look now. Very Victorian upperclass round and fat and soft. I have this weird fear that if I do any strength training, I’ll not just be able to wear sleeves that fit again, but I’ll lose the soft round fatness. 🙁
(Actually, I feel like my body overall resembles the ladies in that Turkish Bath painting, only with a normal number of vertebrae thank you very much. I really like how it looks, except that modern fashion doesn’t, and even if I think I look awesome naked, once I get clothes on, I feel fat and lumpy. It’s awful!)
I do need to get unlazy and exercise more, though. Being a Turkish-Bath-Lady-with-normal-number-of-vertebrae isn’t so awesome for my health, since it comes from sedentary living and an addiction to cherry coke. My dysautonomia really needs me to do strength training on my lower body and to stop with the sugars and carbs, which will lead to losing weight. I’ll feel better, but I’m afraid that making the effort will cause my eating disorder to kick into high gear again, instead of just simmering.
Since starting weight training a month ago after 2 years of just cardio, I am amazed at how much I don’t care so much about putting on 2 lbs, even if my fancy scale says it was 2 lbs of fat.
Because, the weight machines say I can do more sets of more weight on most of them than I could when I started a month ago. And, doing more feels better to me than losing did. I mean, scrimping and saving on calories feels weird to even think about now, literally only a month later.
I definitely still want to be thinner, but in a more abstract way than before. I still don’t know what a fit lady from either side of my family would actually look like, but I think I can find that out better by adding reps and weight than I could by running a caloric deficit.
Reading this, I realized that I do have a visual goal: I want to stand up straighter.
Getting stronger isn’t a euphemism or a code-word for me: an accident a few years ago stole a lot of my strength from me. I used to be able to run and bend and stretch and lift heavy boxes and swing kids around for hours. I don’t think I’ll ever recover all of that, but I want as much as I can have.
I’ve been fat and I’ve been skinny and I’ve been strapping, and right now I hardly care what shape I am, as long as that shape houses more muscle, more strength, more power. I’ve made a lot of progress over the last few years, but my doctors and PTs (understandably) taught me to focus on moderation, not power; though they tell me there’s nothing off-limits for me, the unspoken message they sent was one of caution, not power.
My body was enormously powerful once, and I want it back.
And you’re helping me. Thank you.
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I’m the worst version of myself when I get anywhere near dieting. I have a limited capacity to give a damn about what I eat to begin with, so when I actively think about eating less and avoiding food I typically gravitate to and then *fail* at that, I get stuck in this awful cycle where I still eat what I want but guilt myself about it. Whereas now, with running and strength training, I feel like eating is a reward and a necessity. And, bonus, I’m more aware of eating well so that I can keep getting better. In the end, working out helps my diet *and* encourages my self image, instead of making me into a grouchy, guilt-ridden shade of myself.
I’m kind of confused about this. Don’t a lot of people lift/strength train to “lose weight”? Maybe it depends on the kind of person/body? Mysteries.
It’s not really the best way to lose weight. You can lower your body fat percentage, but talking strictly weight, muscle weighs more than fat and building muscle raises your metabolism, generally making you want to eat more. Anyone who wants to correct me, please do.
Losing weight and losing fat are different, and although strength training may do both, bodies are deeply, deeply mysterious. We see as through a glass, darkly.
A lot of people do, yes!
Other people have the strength training as the priority – like for me, because I need to improve my strength to control my dysautonomia, or for my sister who has to build up her muscles to fight early-onset osteoporosis (she was diagnosed as a teenager). And sometimes, where the training is the priority, losing weight can be a secondary goal.
I am a skinny person, have been all my life. As to the question of doing strength training (which I’ve only recently really discovered) to do something or to look better, for me it’s both. I want to gain weight, I want to look different. Yeah, thin privilege, etc., but in my experience, people do not like the Olive Oyl look. It’s hard for me to put on muscle, though, and it speeds up my metabolism even more, making me want / need to eat even more. But there’s really something I truly enjoy about doing the work and seeing my muscles change.
I had the same experience when I started working out at 41. I had to eat a big dinner afterwards. I had this great ayurvedic place just around the corner from the gym, I’d go straight there right after each workout. I did have to eat more for a while, but once I’d put on the weight to make me not-skinny-just-slim-and-healthy (but relatives still call me skinny to bug me), I found I needed to be eating a little bit less, and less. In fact, as I said in another comment here, I found that once I’d put on the weight, and some muscle (not much, I’m not good at developing much muscle, alas) and developed a workout routine, I was less hungry all the time. Perhaps it’s because your metabolism is very fast when there’s no fat to burn (ie when you’re skinny), but it slows down once there’s a little more meat on your bones. Makes sense, doesn’t it? That was my experience, anyway.
But like so.
What if I know I need to lose weight? But I also want to love my body and be strong? But I’m aware that there is fat on my body that didn’t used to be there, shouldn’t be there, and would make me happier and healthier by not being there? (And by saying “shouldn’t,” I don’t mean to fat shame — I mean that the speed with which I gained it leads me to believe it has little to do with my body type and everything to do with unhealthy ways.)
These are pretty much rhetorical questions that have little to do with the content of the post itself, but I’m just frustrated about how hard it is to navigate the gray area between being body positive and knowing in my heart that I do, in fact, “need to lose weight.” Lately I’m increasingly zen and fine and cool with my particular sack of flesh, but I’m also increasingly chubby, and I feel like I’m betraying some kind of body positive feminist code every time I think “ugh, I could stand to lose a few, or a few dozen.” And I also–I know this is awful–wonder if being overly positive is keeping me from being as healthy as I should be. Which I know is super backwards and wrong and faulty logic. But body image, it’s just a big twisted mess, isn’t it?
Why does everything have to be so COMPLICATED.
Oh, man. All I can tell you is to focus on the behaviors. Eating a good, protein-rich diet, being physically active, lifting things, hugging golden retrievers. The behaviors are good, the numbers are based on the Earth’s gravitational pull and are arbitrary. Focus on the behaviors, and you’ll be healthier, and the numbers will be what they will be. I’m not here to say “don’t try to lose weight,” I am not the boss of you.
Yeah. I’m into that. I’m into the idea of just… trying to do better things without counting them, scoring them, making lists, doing diets with trademarked names. I’m just so so deeply tired of all that. I wish I didn’t have to THINK so much about ANY of it.
the thing you want is “intuitive eating.”
I understand completely, but from a slightly different perspective. I’ve lost about 80 pounds in the last 3-4 years, mostly because I took up ballroom dance. I’m often in this weird head space where I say, “My body is so much healthier now and I feel good about how I look, but I could still lose weight. I’m bigger than all the other dancers on my team, and I can definitely be stronger, more flexible, etc.” Sometimes I don’t know whether to just be happy with how I look and focus on maintaining or keep striving to lose weight. It’s this weird middle ground of “I’m happy with my body, but it’s still not good enough yet.” And I haven’t figured out how to reconcile those two things.
It’s exciting that you found something active that you really like to do. I did ballet until college and I loved it and I never had to force myself to do it “because it’s good for me,” I just did it because I loved it. The fact that it was exercise was a bonus. (But it did come with a heaping side dish of all the “but I could be better” issues you’re talking about.) I need something like that again. It’s been hard to find it. I keep trying to make myself run, and then I remember that I hate running, and I get all down about it, and then I’m back at square one.
I hate running, too. That cycle of thought is awful. I hope you can figure out some things that keep you happy! For what it’s worth, I totally agree with Nicole’s advice about hugging golden retrievers.
We are the same human! I used to dance a lot, every day, and I was in great shape and I never really thought about it. I’m not very good at other forms of exercise and a little afraid of seeking out dance because A. Way out of shape, B. I danced at a friendly noncompetitive studio and I know that is unique and C. I was never very good. But now I’m starting grad school and I am not in shape if not on the verge of being overweight. I like the idea of focusing on positive behaviors: Cooking, Drinking more water, power walking, doing Nicole’s work out (to music and with Ballet arms!) And finally I really like this Be less Crazy article from The Hairpin: http://thehairpin.com/2012/07/be-less-crazy-about… “construct a story about your life that positions you as an imperfect but lovable adventurer — someone you want to root for! — who’s boldly going someplace she hasn’t been before.”
Oh wow, we really are the same person. I went to the same type of dance school! They are so rare! I’d love to get back to dancing, but it’s hard when you lose your form after years of disuse. I tried a ballet class a few years ago and it felt like wrenches were torquing every joint. It felt so WEIRD. If I stuck with it, I bet I could get back to loving it. But it was discouraging to do something that used to feel pretty great, and have it feel so bad.
God. Yes. AGHH. I’m trying to lose weight, and the reason (I hope) is not because I hate the way I look now and will only be happy if I look a certain way; the reason is because I have a number of risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and if I reduce my BMI somewhat and reduce my waist circumference (which are both imperfect measures of disease risk), I hope that I’ll reduce my chance of developing some additional illness down the line that will make my health situation even MORE complicated. But it’s all so deeply fraught. I could do all this and still have a stroke at 50. I could not do all of this and live until 90 (here’s hoping!) And I have to almost physically brace myself against the fucked-up values about bodies and weight and dieting that our society throws at us. Eat only “clean” food! Eat only yogurt! I can’t eat pizza, I’m dieting! Lift! Don’t lift! Run! Don’t run! Juice! Take magical raspberry ketones or some shit, it will instantly solve all your problems, make you beautiful and confident and unable to fail! AGGHHHHHHH.
But the good thing, the lesson that I learned before entering this whole mess and the lesson that’s going to keep me whole and happy no matter what I look like, if I ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’, is the decoupling of weight from happiness, and the ability to love and appreciate this body that I live in. I look a little fondly at my tummy chub in the mirror and pretend to be a walrus now. It’d be nice if I could eventually lower the possibility that I get these diseases I’m vulnerable to. But it is so hard and exhausting and depressing to even try to engage with this subject that I’m not going to give myself or anyone else shit for not hitting their goals in it, or for not even bothering with the whole damn thing.
“I look a little fondly at my tummy chub in the mirror and pretend to be a walrus now.” I wanna pin that sentence to the Pinterest board of my heart and keep it there forever.
It’s awesome, everyone should pretend to be a walrus. Or a bear. “Fuck you, I’m gorging on fish and sleeping in the sun like the fabulous queen of the sea that I am, and if you try to screw with me I’ll stab you with a tusk.”
“I’m just frustrated about how hard it is to navigate the gray area between being body positive and knowing in my heart that I do, in fact, ‘need to lose weight.'”
This is a thing I deal with constantly. I never want to feel like I’m shaming myself (or, inadvertently, anyone else) while talking about my own struggle with weight and health. I just try to focus on doing things that are good for me — I go to the gym regularly, I try to prepare my meals in a healthy way most of the time, I try to maximize the amount of time in which I feel good versus the amount of time I feel bad, and I try not to think negatively about how clothing fits or how I look in the mirror. But at the same time, my family has all kinds of health issues in its history that are also affected by weight and fitness, so I want to keep the risk of those things at a minimum. It can be so hard sometimes, especially when I don’t want to not be body-positive. It’s so frustrating!!
I feel exactly the same way. I love my body, but recently, I graduated and got a desk job and I have gained probably ten pounds that just feel wrong on my body. I feel weighed down, literally, and not as strong or confident. I felt my absolute best when I was abroad, living in Italy and walking tons every day and eating meals with fresh ingredients at regular times. Even though there were a lot of carbohydrates in everything and my dinner was always bigger than my breakfast and lunch (big no-nos if you read practically any diet site), I felt the healthiest I’d ever felt in my life, and also weighed the least, even though I hadn’t been trying to lose weight. I wish I could get back to that, but imitating such a lifestyle while working 9 hours a day and cooking for only oneself is really tough.
I don’t mean to open up the can of worms (and this is The Can of Worms, isn’t it) but what it comes down to is that among all the myriad goals that I have for myself, amidst ‘being fluent in French’ and ‘learning more about World War II’ one of them is ‘having a body that I consider attractive.’ There are versions of myself that I find more attractive than others. This isn’t the sum total of my existence, it doesn’t determine my worth as a person, and while obviously I’ve Done The Reading and know all the ways that body image can be problematic, I still don’t think that wanting to be physically attractive is an inherently bad desire. My body and I have the deepest, most intimate relationship I’ll ever have. As in any relationship, I can love something or someone unconditionally but still perceive its flaws. A woman can love her partner and still want them to address problems that they struggle with. I love my body, I respect the work it does, and I still want it to weigh about 20 pounds less. Yes, it’s nice that I can get stronger! I have smaller goals, like being able to go on longer, steeper hikes, that are really great to achieve. But that isn’t why I’m doing this, and it’s exhausting to pretend otherwise.
I know that a lot (probably most) women are tired of talking about *this* aspect of fitness, and are excited to talk about getting stronger! Obviously I acknowledge that ‘get thin’ is the overwhelmingly dominant message that society is sending out. I think Nicole is doing an awesome, conscious job of maintaining a space where women are encouraged to discuss different kinds of fitness goals, without the assumption that those are secondary to the goal of being thin. The problem is that in the feminist spaces I have loved in the past, like the Hairpin, it felt taboo to acknowledge that I wasn’t just trying to lose weight for health reasons. Is it possible for that to get discussed in here without flogging that poor weight loss horse to death? Is it even possible to talk about that goal without alienating others? Baaaahhhhh, bodies. Can’t live with ’em, can’t exist as an amorphous cloud of pure energy and light.
I don’t think wanting to feel attractive in your own body is a bad thing by any means. I think where it starts to slip is that what we are told and shown is “attractive” is an extremely limited subset of the way human bodies look. At least 90% of the time, an “attractive” person has little to no excess body weight, all apportioned in precisely the right places. It is extremely difficult to find a model of fat attractiveness in the general media- especially one that’s not further weighted (ha!) with concern trolling, or a subcurrent of ridicule, or who feels the need to apologize about her appearance. So I guess my question back to you would be: why is it that feeling attractive requires you to be thinner than you are right now? Why can we only be deemed attractive and worthy of not being shamed if we force our bodies to fit in that tiny, well-publicized subsection?
And I completely feel you on the bodies thing. Once they perfect the cloud, I’m moving myself into a floating cyborg brain. BODIES, AMIRITE.
“I think where it starts to slip is that what we are told and shown is “attractive” is an extremely limited subset of the way human bodies look.”
Agree with this. I also think that thinness-for-its-own-sake is so inextricably linked with all the shit it’s linked up with, that perhaps it’s hard to stop and reach a point where you say ‘I have lost X lb and that’s enough’ – it’s very easy to creep into the mindset of ‘I have lost X lb, now I must not ever put on a single one of them or I will be miserable’ and ‘I have lost Xlb, would I be even happier if I lost another few?’.
It’s also pretty firmly tied up with achievement and ‘success’ and very goal-oriented, I see so many of my friends who say they’ll be happy if they lose another 2lb, and then of course they’re not, or once they’ve not got that goal to strive for they’re not sure what to do with themselves.
It is a proper Can of Worms indeed (foot-long ones in Richard III?).
But until they invent a way for a floating cyborg brain to have sex and ride a horse, I’m keeping my body because I like it. It does wonderful things for me, and I’ve shaped it into what I want it to be and spent a lot of money on decorating it! My body and I are friends, which isn’t the case with a lot of people.
I’m nodding so fervently to everything you’ve said here @amativus. I would hope we CAN respectfully talk about healthy weight/fat loss goals that come from a healthy self-image and perspective, in these circles. I feel like I’ve come full circle – I used to think, if I am not thin I’ll be gross and no one will like me. Now I think, I am pretty great, and looking totally slammin’ would be the icing on this hot hot cake. Thought process 1? Awful! Garbage! So bad! Thought process two? Maybe that is just fine because at the end of the day it’s my body and my choice, and if I want to perform a certain version of beauty on my terms then that is my prerogative.
And to address the really good question by @sednarea51, at least on a personal level — yes yes yes I think different shapes are beautiful and it’s horrendous how homogenous society’s idea of beauty is. Personally, I don’t feel that I am the shape that I would be if I were taking better care of myself. I don’t feel that I currently embody my actual “body type.” I don’t feel that I need to look like a model, either. I just want to optimize what I got.
YES, that last bit is exactly what I was trying to express. I know my body very well, and I know what my body is and is not capable of looking like, and I know what forms of myself I find attractive. I know whether my body weight is natural for me, or whether it’s reflecting a really poor effort to take care of myself. I guess to me it feels like another form of concern trolling or gaslighting to have other women constantly questioning whether my goals are genuine or Because Of The Media, as though I haven’t developed any level of critical evaluation for these kinds of things. @sednarea51 asked “why is it that feeling attractive requires you to be thinner than you are right now?” which, once you get down to a root level, I don’t really know how to answer – why do humans find other humans physically attractive? I would not categorize “having a body weight and an amount of body fat that reflects the general body composition of most humans before the 20th century” as falling into a “tiny, well-publicized subsection” of the way that human bodies look, and if you think that it does, well, we will just have to disagree.
I feel the same way. I generally avoid talking about it, because, like you say, it can be an alienating thing, and it is important to maintain safe, feminist spaces where people are not bombarded with messages about how they look. At the same time, I think it is okay to acknowledge that what is working well for some people is not working for others. I don’t think I will be better or more attractive than anyone else, regardless of their size, if I lose 20 pounds, but I just want to achieve a certain shape, in addition to a level of fitness, that I don’t currently possess that will make me feel good about myself. Not really sure where I’m going with this, other than, I feel you. It’s difficult to express that yeah, honestly, I want to be thinner because I feel more attractive and comfortable with myself that way (but is this just playing into the dominant culture of weight loss for women or is it more gaslighting in that, no matter what, women should feel guilty about their bodies?), but also, that does not mean that being thinner/thin is the comfortable and attractive way of being for other people or that attractiveness is what people should be striving for. Poop, I give up.
NOT YET. (goes back to tinkering with machine)
Something I am struggling with in myself right now is having a body that I feel good about in terms of health and appearance balanced with by my limited time/money/ability (I have a visual disability which makes most group-oriented sports or fitness classes difficult) resources. One thing I ask myself a lot is WHY I consider the body I had when I was skinnier more attractive to me. Some of those reasons are mundane things like my clothes fit better and it’s easier to find clothes that fit better and it’s the body that I’m used to having, but one really crucial thing is that my skinnier body is one that I see reflected back positively in movies and tv. Rookie ran this piece about body image a few months ago with a line that really resonated with me: the writer wanted to be thin because thin girls and women are protagonists in our cultural narratives in a way that fat and built girls and women are not. It’s prompted me to do a lot of dismantling about why I think my not-skinny friends and girlfriend are gorgeous but that I can’t offer myself that same kindness. I want being in my body to be easier and self-affirming.
I guess what I’m saying is that I think it’s worth investigating in your heart why being thinner is being more attractive to yourself. Not because you’re wrong or bad or betraying the sisterhood, but because it’s an idea that doesn’t exist in a vacuum and for some people, definitely me, dunno about you, it is one that is based on a stupid premise that causes harm.
This is such good advice but I am still stressed about it because in my current life it is relatively easy to do basic workouts but it is SO HARD to eat well/correctly. (Part of this is environmental and part of it is my own personal headcasery.)
Aaah I don’t even know what advice to ask for.
I have never counted a calorie in my life, but as was mentioned in the sport day post, I used to ride horses for a living. I refuse to break a sweat unless it involves a horse or another naked person. At the minute, having had a torn ligament in my hand and then two broken ribs and a sacroiliac injury that have kept me from doing much of anything since April, I feel unfit and weak, and I hate it. I’m just getting back riding properly again and it’s much harder than it ought to be, and it’s terribly frustrating.
For me, being strong is primarily functional; I need to be able to heave bales of hay around, I need enough core strength to move with the horse and ride properly, I need mighty thighs to hang on when things go pearshaped.
It has produced a body that I like the look of, but for me, the thing that makes a body attractive is that it tells the story of its owner’s passions. Mine tells the story that I’m a horse nut and it showcases my art, as I’m on the way to being covered in my own-designed tattoos. I love the look of muscles, they show what the person has worked for and put effort into achieving, a post-childbirth body tells that story which is a huge part of the mother’s life, the scars we pick up along the way tell that story as well. Bodies that have done nothing but diet aren’t interesting to me.
There’s a quotation from Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson that I love, I’d planned to have it tattooed down my ribcage but got a poem in Iranian calligraphy in the shape of a horse’s head instead. ‘Beauty is power and elegance, right action, form fitting function, intelligence and reasonability’. As soon as i figure out where I’ve got space that it will fit nicely, I’m having it on me. I’m thinking about down my thigh following the lines of the muscles.
“[T]he thing that makes a body attractive is that it tells the story of its owner’s passions.” Really nicely articulated, and very, very true. Thanks for putting that thought out here for the rest of us.
Apropos of nothing, I miss my knees, and I wish I could have them back the way I had them when I could ride a bike for eight hours a day and eat 3,000 calories to make it up.
I MISS MY KNEES
Nicole, what do I do about the sore muscles? I finally started the workout you posted a couple weeks ago. I’m two days in and it’s almost a chore to lift my arms up to the steering wheel. Is there anything in particular I should do/not do? So far I have just been sort of stretching, and complaining.
A hot shower right after working out should help!
Bananas, with all the potassium, work for me. I also find that eating something with a lot of protein after workouts tends to ward off a lot of the soreness.
Magnesium is good for sore muscles. Often when you have a twitch, you’re experiencing low magnesium. My doctor used to tell me to take magnesium with B6. Apparently that’s the magic combo for muscle twitches. Also, you can take an epsom or magnesium salt bath. Magnesium flakes are excellent ways to get intradermal magnesium.
Or maybe just take a day or two off between workouts. I’d been told that you need at least a day and a half to recover from a workout. That’s why I only work out (at the gym) truly three times a week at most, and do a light workout at home in the mornings, nothing nearly as strenuous.
Actually, I find that a hot shower right after is the *worst* thing you can do. Take a cool or cold shower to cut the initial inflammation. Take some Advil or similar NSAID if you those work well for you. Then, if you’re sore a day or so later, apply heat. If that if I do the cold shower thing, it helps ward off the worst of my soreness and what kicks in 36 hrs later (and it’s always 36 hrs) is greatly reduced. It’s the same logic behind icing an sprain because a sprain is an overstretching or tearing of a ligament, and what you’re doing while lifting is creating micro tears in your muscle (which then fills in with more muscle tissue).
“we’ve really linked “diet and exercise” like they’re Fry and Laurie or some shit.”
I love you so much.
Yeah, I was recently having a conversation with my parents about going to the gym (a mistake–talking to them, not going) and I asked the question, “what if I don’t want to lose weight [do I still have to eat healthy]?” And they were so befuddled by the question, they couldn’t even answer! We have some food issues in our family.
“Dammit, Jim, we’ve got to stop linking diet and exercise!”
You know, my instinct on this is to take a step back from thinking about body changes as a goal and question the necessity of linking exercise and goals at all. Goals, whether they are body-related or achievement-related, feel arbitrary and overly fraught to me. I just kind of want exercise to be part of my routine, something that I do out of force of habit and would feel weird if I didn’t do, like brushing my teeth or eating breakfast. Sure as I do more of it I get fitter and thus need to run a bit faster and lift heavier weights in order to maintain basically the same intensity of exercise, but that’s just kind of an artifact of the process. The thing that works for me is to trick myself into thinking of it as non-optional, and for me the way to do that is not to impose a goal-achievement narrative on it but to make it part of the banal background of my life – something that’s enjoyable sometimes, less so other times, but something I just do as a matter of course.
Anyway, I’m not saying there’s any reason anyone else should adopt this attitude, but for now it helps me maintain a certain level of physical activity without allocating too much mental real estate to the whole thing.
This is a really interesting approach. I love setting goals in life, but I never seem to be able to achieve my fitness goals. And I think it’s because I just have some major road-blocks in my mind about exercise. I can’t seem to keep up with any sort of consistent routine. So, I like what your saying about exercise just being part of the daily routine, non-optional. You just do it because that’s a part of your day.
(tw for body talk, cw for ed)
Ok.
The feelings I am about to express are about me and my body and in no way reflect my thoughts/feelings/opinions about anyone else’s body.
So with that being said.
In the past five years or so I have gained a lot of weight (at least 50 lbs, with about 30lbs in the past 2 years) for my frame. To say I dislike my body is an understatement. I remember when I was thinner, I would have nightmares about my body being this size.
I’m just starting recovery for binge eating disorder and it is a rocky road and it is so difficult, especially because I have ADHD and struggle with impulse control. Unlike anorexia or bulimia, (or substance abuse, as sometimes BED is treated as an addiction to food) BED is much harder to treat because you have to eat but eating is also the problem.
I’ll spare everyone the long post. I understand the problem with thin privilege and beauty norms, so I recognize that part of my desire for a different body stems from that. But I also don’t feel like myself and I hate it.
UUUUUGH recovery is hard you guys.
i was skinny all my life, and when I was 41, my day job doing fittings was threatened by my not being meaty enough. I was told that I could either go up a size, or that my rent-paying client would simply go get another model. I’d always felt a little too skinny, and had never exercised, so I took the challenge. My client actually brought donuts to all our future fittings (I also had a list of Krispy Kreme places in my phone), and meanwhile, I added an extra helping of everything, and went to the gym three times a week, starting slow on the ellipticals and with low weights. The best part about it all was treating myself to dinner at the Ayurvedic restaurant around the corner from the gym: because I was definitely HUNGRY after working out.
I’d never had a good balance of food and energy, and the remarkable thing was, that once I put on the weight and girth required for my day job, and I stopped eating pie for dessert and evened off the food/exercise ratio to a level place (you CAN get tired of pie for dessert every night, and even Krispy Kreme, I found), I found I was no longer tired and hungry all the time the way I was when I was skinny! Hallelujah! And I no longer feel like the wind will blow me away. It’s a nice feeling. I still go to the gym about once or twice a week, sometimes three if I’m not too busy. It feels good. I’m glad I finally did it. And I eat better than I ever did, because now I only need just enough, not the amounts I needed before. It’s weird. I way more, and eat less. I don’t know how that works, but it’s fine with me: I always felt I was spending way too much time and money on food, before.
My goal is to do a pull up without assist. So far, I still use 70 pounds of assist. I’ll get there eventually! And I’m doing lady pushups, as Nicole advised in that article she links to above!
"Dammit, Jim, we've got to stop linking diet and exercise!"
This is a really interesting approach. I love setting goals in life, but I never seem to be able to achieve my fitness goals. And I think it's because I just have some major road-blocks in my mind about exercise. I can't seem to keep up with any sort of consistent routine. So, I like what your saying about exercise just being part of the daily routine, non-optional. You just do it because that's a part of your day.
Okay, I love this. Can you address what is safe to do while pregnant, if its a totally routine pregnancy with no health issues? My body is getting more sore and tired than last time, and I just feel weaker, and that shit is not an option because I don’t have time to be weak. And all the books are like, try gentle stretching!
Any guidance?