I used to have dreams about not being able to run. Usually, I would be trying to elude capture, but the fastest that I would be able to muster was the speed of someone trying to run in water. I'm sure there was something deeply psychological in this -- like those dreams where I'd try to talk but no sound would come out, or where I'd "know" that I had a superpower, such as flying, but it would fail me while I was using it and it would be a losing battle between my active belief in my power and "reality." Fact of the matter was, however, that I also just couldn't run.
I'd always had a competitive spirit. Classmates would fear me in gym class, as I was generally considered ferocious. It was very much a willing spirit more than an able body, though. I would hurl myself down the soccer field and frustrate the efforts of my opponents, and I would be furnace-red in the face and feel like I was about to throw up after about ten minutes. I would never let that stop me from putting forth the same effort each time, of course, but it was always so much mind over matter.
I think that, in general, if you're a girl and you're skinny, nobody cares beyond that.
Which isn't to say oh poor little princess me. I won a number of genetic lotteries when my biological parents' gametes combined, and I'm well aware of that. But in a similar way to how patriarchy gives power to men but also hurts them, our fat-shaming body culture gives power to the thin but also hurts them. The systems choose whom to give benefits by reducing people into boxes that are inevitably inaccurate, ill-fitting, and restrictive, to varying degrees. We'd all be better off without it.
I'm sure there are a lot of fat people who were a lot more fit than I was back then. Society wouldn't treat them that way -- oh, you're fat, absolutely everything in your life could be made better by losing weight, didn't you know? (that's sarcasm, by the way) -- but my burning, constricted lungs that made my legs slow beneath me, my noodle arms providing no help, seem evidence enough to me. But hey, she's skinny -- why would she need to actually be in good shape? I mean, she eats right and her numbers seem good, I'm sure she doesn't need any exercise. And if she's sluggish and depressed, I mean, she just needs to relax from all the stressful things she's doing, right?
Fitness is a few things to me. It's mental health. I'm notably less mentally healthy when I haven't been keeping up my exercise routine -- anxiety is the big one. While they aren't 100% gone, the frequency of my anxiety attacks has decreased enormously since I've gotten serious about regular exercise. And in general, I just feel a lot more "on" and focused.
Likely related to the above via some nervous system sensitivity, it's pain management. I grew up with chronic muscular-skeletal pain, the cause of which could never be diagnosed, and which, at its peak when I was in my early twenties, sometimes left me bed-ridden. It was the reason that I got a wireless keyboard and mouse while I still had a desktop computer in college -- not out of convenience but because sometimes I simply couldn't get out of bed due to the exhausting pain. And now, it's been about nine years
It's physical health, of course. I want to be strong. I want to be energetic. I want to take good care of the one body that I have to take me all the way through the end of my life. And that's also tied into an emotional component for me: I have witnessed multiple close family members live out the end results of unhealthy lifestyles, with the limited mobility and strained joints and gasping breaths. There are so many things outside of one's control -- one malicious gene, one errant mutation, one freak accident, one super-strong germ -- that I want to be as responsible as I can in stewarding that which I do have control over.
It's also body modification. It always gives me pause when I consider what makes our society consider some types of modification to be normal and others to be deviant. Weight loss is obviously a big one: it's considered not only normal but highly desireable. But if I were to let my body come to stasis -- not being totally sedantary or gluttonous, but also not actively working out or resisting the bottle quite as hard -- I would not be as thin as I am now. I wouldn't have anyone telling me that I need to lose weight (again, genetic lottery winner here), but I would probably be a good 15 to 20 pounds heavier. Through my lifestyle choices and activities, I am totally modifying my body's natural state.
Yet conservative society will look askance at someone with skin modified by tattoos or certain types of modified hair (e.g., bright pink or spiked) or a large number of piercings. But how weird is it that, at least in contemporary mainstream American society, women are expected to scrape hair off their bodies with sharp metal blades, bringing their body hair to a pre-pubescent state? It's totally body modification. And if you want to do it and can do it safely, go for it. And if you want not to, then go for it. It's definitely just icing on the cake of mental and physical health, but I modify my body -- not dramatically, but definitely modifying it from where it would naturally land -- to better fit my personal aesthetic style. Because fashion is important to me, and as a short person with a tiny frame, I know that I will never cut a physically imposing or solid figure (grass is always greener, isn't it? for so long, I envied the tall, broad girls), so I want to make it a sharp one.
And I keep it healthy. Which is why I don't count calories or track food. Because I know myself well enough to know that that would be a bad road for me to start down. It would be too easy for me to do unhealthy things to my body if I objectified it, turning it into numbers and figures and goals. My body is me, not some disconnected project, some Excel spreadsheet.
Which is all to say that, from that point in my life -- where power-walking two miles on the treadmill was a major accomplishment -- with the fitness work that I've done over the past five years and that I've talked about here... I think that I want to run a 10k. I'm not looking to win or get a particularly good time. I want the challenge. A normal run for me is 4-5 miles, which puts me between a 5k and 10k. So I want to aim up.
It sometimes stuns me when I stop and realize that I've gotten to this point. It's not nearly as dramatic a change as some people have made in their lives, but it's still big to me. It's empowering to have set out to do something and done it, and now being able to aim higher.
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I've discussed my fitness tools here before, but some time has passed since then, so here's both a recap and an update. Again, I'm a relative novice, and I also believe that what works for each person is highly individual, but maybe some of these things might also work for you or help you to find something that works for you. Most of all, I think that physical fitness is a do-able thing.
I started taking better care of myself in 2007, after having completely burned myself out mentally and physically. I was at such a low point in my well-being that what I needed first was just plain old rest, which I was fortunate enough to be able to do following my graduation from undergrad, when my family situation allowed me to work part-time and live at home. As my recovery progressed, I began adding in some gentle exercise.
Encouraged by the results, I really started making fitness a priority in 2009. I used playing lots of DDR, meal portion control, and not drinking all the time (let's just say that my first year in professional stage management involved the use of some chemical coping mechanisms). And when I was home, I would make walking/running outside and a couple old fitness videos (no, seriously, it was Tae-bo on VHS) part of that. But let's be real: it was mostly DDR. I became a DDR master. Expert level on all the regular songs, regular to difficult on those fucking red songs, the real deal. Scoff if you want to, but if you're doing that much vigorous jumping around, it's going to do something.
When I started graduate school a couple years later, living in an apartment building with hardwood floors meant that jumping around in my living room wasn't as much of an option. I incorporated running more significantly, both outside and at the school gym. I also turned to other fitness videos.
The first one I started working with was this 30-minute kickboxing workout by Adrienne White.
It was a great starting place for me. It was guided -- one of the things I like best about fitness videos is that they allow me to really be in my body and not have a busy headspace trying to remember what comes next or how to do a particular exercise -- and it made me break a nice sweat while not being discouragingly challenge.
I then added in Janis Saffell's 50-minute kickboxing workout. It made me want to die...
...and I really liked it a lot. It pushed me, and I felt great afterward.
In the summer of 2012, I started using the Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 DVD. It's a four-week, 3-2-1 high-intensity interval training (HIIT) program, with one 20-minute workout per week, with the intention of doing the workout 5-6 days per week. Each workout is three circuits; each circuit is three minutes strength, two minutes cardio, and one minute abs. The only equipment required is a yoga/fitness mat and two handweights.
The first time I tried the video, it killed me. Week one, using three-pound weights, with all of the beginner modifiers to make it easier, just killed me. I did "Week One" for about three weeks. Then I did two weeks each for others, until I got to, and stuck with, Week Four, using five-pound weights.
I then fell into a routine of alternating the Week Four workout (for strength) with running six days of the week, taking one day off to rest. I'd throw in a few sun salutations if I'd been having to do a lot of sitting at work. Later, I found another Jillian Michaels video that I like, her Cardio Blast, which is a 45-minute kickboxing/plyo workout, no equipment except for a yoga mat.
With all of these resources, I was pretty well set for a while. Then, I moved to NYC -- where I live just a few blocks from Fort Tryon Park. It's a beautiful park overlooking the Hudson River with a lot of paths dedicated to foot traffic, and it's also quite hilly. With lovely late summer weather and a cool breeze off the river, I'd go for a run a couple times per week -- no more than that, in an effort to spare my knees.
For strength work, I also did a modified version of this FitSugar Full Body Circuit Workout. (There's a printable reference poster available as well.) Modified largely because sideplank push-ups hurt like hell -- body hip joints don't make for pleasant pivot points on the ground -- and I'm still that little girl who quit ballet after half a year when she was five because the tutus were insufficient reward for the physical suffering. So those fuckers get skipped.
Of course, I only had a month of living in NYC before work took me to Minneapolis for a couple of months. At which point I ate all of the food. All of it. On top of having arrived to Minneapolis and gone straight into tech (i.e., a lot of sitting, a lot of stress, a lot of drinking, not a lot of sleep), I was feeling rather sluggish after a couple weeks. Fortunately, the apartment complex at which we were being housed had a fitness center, at which I was able to avail myself of the treadmills, ellipticals, and free weights, as well as using the videos I had saved on my computer and the JM Cardio Blast DVD I'd brought along in the optical drive.
Using the free weights in a weight room does rather mean that you have to know what you're doing rather than being able to just watch a video. I ended up doing an even more modified version of the FitSugar Full-Body Circuit, since I'd put 20 minutes on the elliptical at the head of it. (Circuit one: narrow squats, plank rows, side lunges. Circuit two: lateral plies, back lunges, seated Russian twists. Circuit three: weight room ab bench.) Somehow, despite seemingly doing nothing but eat, I managed to come out of Minneapolis in better shape than I went into it.
I also discovered rock climbing in Minneapolis. Vertical Endeavors was located right next to our favorite gastro-pub (Icehouse), conveniently enough, and one day, we did some rock climbing followed by a late lunch. It was terribly fun. The facilities were great. They even had automatic belaying systems on a lot of the climbing paths, which spared one the awkwardness 1) of needing a partner to 2) stay on the ground with nothing to do but watch your ass while you climbed. Needing to rent a full gear package, it was a little on the pricey side -- you paid a flat price for a full day of access, which could have great value, except that for us climbing novices, there was only so long we could climb before our muscles gave out. But I would love to find a place to be able to climb regularly. I haven't found a place since returning to NYC, though.
It's been too wintery for me to run outside for the past couple months, and the timeline of my next out-of-town gig meant that I wouldn't be around enough to make it worth it to invest in a gym membership. So I've been sticking to apartment workouts, with the Full-body Weights Circuit. For cardio, I added a Cardio + Abs workout that I pieced together from Shape's 15-minute cardio blast and FitSugar's 3-minute Ab workout, with 2-4 rounds of sun salutations and then a cool-down/stretch at the end. Altogether, the entire routine takes a little under a half-hour. I created an online interval timer for this workout here, with 15-second rests within circuits and 30-second rests between circuits.
I'm starting the new gig tomorrow, where I'll have access to a fitness center, so I'll be able to start getting back into running. And the weather is starting to warm up, so I hope to return to running outside soon. Fingers crossed, it will be from there to the race course!
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