Getting a Better Body

[Note for discussion of diet and weight loss.]

It’s that time of year again, when the New Year’s resolution weight loss ads outnumber even the regularly scheduled weight loss ads. I don’t watch standard TV, so I’m safe there. But I do listen to the radio, and they’re there. I change the station; they follow. I glance at the magazines in the grocery store check out. Suddenly I find myself staring at the tabloid headline “Elvis Sighted in Overturned Port-a-Potty” because that seems like the safest news ever.

And the Internet? On the Internet, they are everywhere.

The ones I’ve seen this year mostly follow themes of “getting a better body” and “creating a new you,” and I find myself thinking, None of that is true.

I mean, I could make a lot of dietary and exercise choices that would impact my body. I could, if I wanted, alter my diet (at least in the shorter term) for outcomes such as weight loss, increased physical endurance, better blood chemistry, more thorough pain management, or steadier emotional health. Each would have some kind of effect.

But they wouldn’t create a “new” me. Nor would they get me a “better body.” However I try to influence it, for better or for worse, this body is the only one I’m going to get.

So much of the rhetoric I see surrounding diet, weight loss, and some mainstream fitness plans (which often sell the promise of weight and/or visible fat loss as a perk) seem predicated on the idea that we can somehow “trade in” our bodies. Like if we log enough miles run or crunches crunched — or enough low carb meals or few enough calories or whatever — we’ll somehow qualify for a corporeal upgrade.

Only, that’s not the way it works. I could follow all the trick diets and all the trendy exercise routines, and I will still have this body. I could overload on simple sugars and deny myself exercise — both of which are pretty well guaranteed to make me feel like shit warmed over — and it would still happen within this body. I could eat and exercise in the ways that best balance all my health needs — and the end result would still by my body. I probably would not look or feel precisely the same with each choice, but some parameters would simply not be altered — or alterable.

Not that I think people can’t make dietary or exercise changes for good, solid, realistic reasons. But I think the reasons people are trying to sell me right now are none of those. They assume that if I do all the “right” things — in other words, pay them enough money — I can somehow behave as if a new body is coming, as if this one doesn’t matter.

When in fact, this body is the only one I’m going to get. I can love it or not, accept it or not, treat it well or not — but there is no exchange policy.

[Notes: The video I'd like to end with includes discussions of sex, the word "fuck," and discussions of disordered eating.]

[Margaret Cho from Notorious C.H.O.]

Not Playing

I went to yoga class on Christmas Eve. As I mentioned on Facebook, after class, the instructor gave us candy. Specifically, they were small squares of dark chocolate. And specifically, the instructor laid them out on top of the cubby rack and said, “I’m setting out some chocolates here. Feel free to take one on your way out if you’d like.”

Which:

1. As far as I’m concerned, yoga and chocolate is a winning combination.
2. It was a relatively low pressure situation. That is, for anyone who didn’t want to take a piece of chocolate, there was pretty much zero external pressure on them to do so.

So I was surprised when the woman in front of me turned around and said to me, “Just what we need — more calories!”

Now, I had just had an awesome practice, and I was looking forward to ending it with chocolate, so I really, really did not want to have to engage and come out of my happy place. I kind of stared for a few seconds, then said, “I’m not sure what you mean.” Then I walked to the other side of the room to put my props away.

[Sadly, our chocolates did not have Jesus on them.]

I know, I know. Lying is not actually a good thing. But in a way, “more calories” are what we need. I mean, I’m sure most, if not all, of us did not need the caloric content of that chocolate piece at precisely that moment. But all of us — even people trying to lose weight or slim down or whatever — do require caloric intake on a fairly regular basis.

Okay, okay. That’s not what she meant, and I know it.

What she meant was something more like, “The ‘bad’ of eating those chocolate calories will somehow negate the ‘good’ of me exercising this morning!” Moreover, because she felt she could say this to me — a stranger — with no additional context, she expected me to know what she was talking about. She expected that this type of remark — food policing — was so ubiquitous that I’d both understand what she was getting at and respond in kind.

Not playing that game.

To be clear, I don’t feel like she was trying to police my food intake. I don’t think she noticed if I took a chocolate or not — and I don’t think she would have noticed, really, no matter what I’d said.

I do, however, think she was thinking about her own food intake in terms of calories out being “good” and calories in being “bad.” I do think she was looking for some feedback that started from that same framework. Maybe my eyes would widen, and I’d exclaim, “I can’t; it goes straight to my hips!” Maybe I would roll my eyes and go, “Chocolate! It defeats us at every turn!” Maybe I’d shrug my shoulders and say, “Whatever, we just worked out: we earned it!” They’re all different responses, but they’re all responses that operate under a framework that assumes food — especially certain kinds of food — requires penance, either before or after the fact.

Certainly, people are welcome to choose or not choose whichever foods they like or don’t like, for reasons that are entirely their own. But that’s the thing. People don’t have to seek approval for their eating choices from others, and I do not like being recruited to be the curator of someone else’s food baggage. Certainly, food choices and feelings are a person’s own — but then they need to own them. Don’t ask me to be complicit in your choice to eat or not eat any given thing.

Because as far as I’m concerned, that is a twisted, tangly emotional game, and I am not playing.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Guilty Witness

This post discusses intimate partner violence and victim blaming. It will also likely contain plot spoilers for the episode.

[Alfred Hitchcock Presents "Guilty Witness." Video via YouTube.]

Of course it turns out that he doesn’t hit her. Of course there’s some other explanation.

Except, of course, that there are signs in the episode — the bruise, the flimsy excuse, the yelling, screaming arguments heard from below.

And there are the excuses — the neighbor woman is overreacting, it’s none of our business, some couples just like to fight.

I’m sure, for some viewers, there’s even the temptation to ignore it.

The stats — the real-life stats — don’t let me ignore it:

• “One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.”
• “Less than one-fifth of victims reporting an injury from intimate partner violence sought medical treatment following the injury.”
• “In 70-80% of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner was killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder.”

To downplay — to derail — it at the end by going, “He was cheating on me. He was leaving,” — I just can’t even.

If, in the fictional lives of the characters, there was recurring domestic violence going on, then that is a story that deserved to be told. Because it is a story in line with the facts. Or, if there was never any recurring domestic violence in said fictional lives (something that, judging by the first part of the episode, I find difficult to believe), then please stop using our real lives as red herrings in your made-up tales of suspense.

Yoga Month, Yoga Wisdom

So, September is National Yoga Month. A lot of places — both brick-and-mortar studios and online spaces — are offering free classes. Not having access to good filming equipment (or, you know, a yoga teacher certification), I thought instead to share, throughout the month, some of the things yoga has taught me over the years.

I think the first has to be that not all pain is good pain.

I know it should be fairly obvious, but it was actually a hard lesson to learn. Before I started with yoga — and even after, in certain classes and with certain teachers — a lot of the physical activity I did was of the “no pain, no gain” mentality. Honestly, I attribute a lot of that to the fact that what I was doing before was pretty well grounded in a mainstream “fitness means achieving one specific aesthetic ideal, and until you do this, your body is not really worthy” mindset.

It’s easy to ignore pain — the bad kind of pain, the kind of pain that means too much strain on joints or forcing a pose too soon — when you’re focused on the image of the body you might one day have at the expense of the body you’re in right now.

Yoga, for the most part, taught me that this was not something for which to strive.

Guest Post: My Favorite Canadian Sound

Kimberly, who blogs at Kimberly’s Cave, says of herself and this post:

I’m a creeping-up-to 30 year old Canadian teacher on exchange for the year in Australia. I’m passionate about reading, writing, grammar, and Psychology. I am also extremely fond of Walt Disney, Coca Cola, and winter. I do relish a good summer heat wave and days of lounging poolside while perfecting my tan, but it’s “winter” in the southern hemisphere right now. So, to all your northern hemisphere-ians melting in August’s heat, enjoy this cool blast of a perfect winter’s night.

I recently weekended at a ”holiday house” in Goolwa and was asked by an Australian to, “Sell me Canada,” after we’d gone back and forth about nice and not-so-nice things about Canadian cities I’d lived in and visited. Finally he challenged, “Well, what’s your favourite smell of home?” and while I couldn’t answer that without some thought, I could instantly recall my favourite Canadian sound…..

Yes, Snow. You may not think snow has a sound. There ARE certain necessary conditions to acheive the beautiful sounds of a winter’s eve.

It’s been snowing all day. ALL day. From the time you peer through the curtains at first light until long after you’ve crawled back under the toasty covers for another long night.

Dry enough to scatter with the scuffle of a boot, to squeak under each footfall. Wet enough to gather on every branch, mailbox, and Christmas light.

Snow plows are busy on the highways. They won’t disturb us for days. The roads have only the barely visible tire tracks of the few unfortunate souls trekking to work on the perfect winter today.

Dark now. Late. Tummies are full of a hot meal – it’s time to layer up. Warmest boots, sweaters, vests, scarves, mittens, a hat.

Crisp air meets breath and crystallizes magic puffs.

Every natural and man-made creation has disappeared. In their steads, rolling mounds of snow; the warm glow of green and red under eaves of white; ever-fattening branches reaching out to say hello.

Look up! No black winter night, not a star in sight – rather a rich purple light reflected from a flawless world blanketed in white.

Roadways gone, cars put to sleep under a deep layer, houses nearly swallowed up. Nothing exists but the icy air creeping in at the tips of ears, noses, toes. Crunch underfoot, and not another sound.

An enveloping experience that hugs you from all sides, whispers for you to stop – have this moment, nudges you to believe that, yes, winter is living, breathing, speaking, loving me tonight.

A fragrant curl of smoke draws you back inside to hear the roll of kettle boiling, the pop of firewood crackling, and Silent Night reminding – hold on to this moment. Wrap your chilled hands around After Eight hot chocolate; savour mom’s special Christmas baking; squeeze onto the couch with your family; prop your icy toes at the fire; melt away.

Canadian winter. Nothing can touch it. Nothing.

__________________________________________________

If you’re interested, you can check out the version with — spectacular — photos on Kimberly’s blog here.

And if you’re interested in guest blogging here yourself, feel free to email me at anytimeyoga@gmail.com.

Getting Political

As some of you may know, I’ve been doing some blogging over at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona (PPAA). It’s important to me not only because I support Planned Parenthood’s mission and goals but also because it’s one way for me to make a difference in my community. In short, the political climate in Arizona is scary — in no small part because, at least the way I see it, the ultra conservative legislature is more extreme even than what is unarguably a rather conservative state — and I’d like to change that.

That’s part of the reason why I participated in interviewing some of PPAA’s endorsed candidates for the state legislature, namely Lela Alston and Bruce Wheeler.

Disclaimer: I have been actively involved in politics since age nine, when my mom and I went around with a petition to recall the newly elected governor of my then state of residence. (He wanted to privatize a lot of community mental health services, which consequentially cut the services offered and more strictly limited who qualified for said services.) I was on roller skates. Not only did the petition fail — the governor served for 12 years in the state — but we got yelled at and cussed out an awful lot for a woman and child walking around with a clipboard. I am under no delusion that politics are anything but messy.

Nor do I operate under the delusion that politicians are anything other than human, biased and flawed. In fact, I happen to have my own biases, some of which are flaws. But when it’s a choice between someone whose basic values are in line with mine and someone whose values are diametrically opposed? It’s not exactly a difficult decision, you know?

PS — If you happen to live in Arizona, you may wish to check out this PPAA Guide to Voting in Arizona. It is about making sure you’re able (if eligible) to vote and to have your vote counted — regardless of how you plan to vote. It should be helpful to all prospective Arizona voters, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.

Walk Myself Thin

I’m standing in the exercise and fitness section of my local used book store, browsing the titles on running and anything else that might be of interest. I’m specifically looking for Born to Run, anything else on barefoot running, or anything else on distance running that isn’t marathon or triathlon focused. I’m not discounting training for a marathon one day, but I am not ready to read that book just yet.

Not finding anything between Running and Walking for Women Over 40, Run Your Butt Off (with a subtitle about losing weight), and Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide, I pick up the marathon book. After all, I’m not over 40, and while I’m sure a lot of the advice isn’t age-specific, some might be. As for Run Your Butt Off, the last thing I want is a running book with a primary focus on making me smaller in the lower body. I use my butt — all of it, at its current size — for running, and I like it just fine, thanks. Of the three, the marathon book looks the most interesting: maybe it will have a chapter on building up via smaller distances.

I’m leafing through it, sort of squatting on the floor by the shelf, when he arrives. I don’t really pay attention at first, except to make sure I’m out of his way. When he starts looking through the running and walking shelf as well, I move a few feet back and continue skimming. A few minutes later, I’m deciding the book is not for me (too much marathon-specific advice for me right now) when another book plops to the floor in front of me. At first I think it must have fallen off the shelf, except that it doesn’t tumble in the way of an accidental fall but travels and lands flat as if someone is gently tossing it to me.

The book is Walk Yourself Thin, and the guy smirks. “You might want to start with this first,” he says and leaves, clearly not waiting to engage me in any kind of meaningful discussion about running, walking, fitness, or weight.

I consider chucking the book at the back of his head, but I have a longstanding moral policy against throwing books. Even if he deserves it, the book doesn’t. Besides, it’s bad karma to be an asshole, and right now, the cosmic balance is in my favor.

I glance at the cover then set the book back on the shelf without opening it. I don’t need to. I don’t want to walk myself thin any more than I want to run my butt off. I would like to safely and sustainably increase my running distance and maybe even figuring out how to shed the Vibrams and go barefoot, but I’m perfectly comfortable doing all that with this body at this size.

If, however, I am overcome with the urge to power walk wearing but stoplight-color-coded shorts, I will totally give this book a second look.

A Queer Tumblr Cross-Post

No, I really do mean “queer” as in “some sexual orientation other than straight.” Originally posted at my Tumblr, but I thought it might be substantive enough to post here as well. Trigger warnings at the beginning for talk of suicide and self-harm.

Day 5 – Thoughts regarding inner turmoil about your sexuality; Did you have any? Did it escalate to self-injury or suicidal thoughts?

I don’t think any part of my (past) history with self-injury is related to inner turmoil about my sexual orientation.

That said, I do have some. Like, I know I’m queer — but I wonder how much of my same-sex attraction as been quashed (and/or opposite-sex attraction augmented) by:

• A childhood and adolescent religious community that viewed same-sex attraction as explicitly sinful, perverted, and predatory.
• Family members who would be varying degrees of Not Okay with me out of the closet. (Some would outright disown me, some would “love me anyway” but try to change me, some would try but just Not Get It over and over, etc.)
• A heteronormative society where EVERY RELATIONSHIP SCRIPT I EVER SAW during the first 15+ years of my life taught me how to respond in flirting/romantic/physical scenarios with guys. True, a lot of them aren’t realistic or are based on stereotypes, but even that is a far cry from the NOTHING I saw about girl-girl (or woman-woman) relationships growing up.

Now, I do not love my current partner any less, nor do I doubt the long term capacity of our relationship. However, I *do* wonder about my overall tendency to end up in (public, longer-lasting, more socially acceptable) heterosexual relationships.

How much of that is me, and how much is me playing it safe?

Day 3 & Day 4

Continuing the Daily Dose of Yoga with suggestions for December 3 and December 4 — or whenever you like, if you like them, according to how they serve you or not.

Day 3: Considering Ahimsa

I’ve most commonly seen ahimsa translated as “nonviolence,” which is, as far as I know, accurate. However, when considering it as part of a yoga practice, it might be helpful to consider it in a broader or deeper sense. I’ve also seen ahimsa described as “do no harm” and practicing compassion, and as practical matters, both of those strike me as more complete and therefore more helpful. For instance, it’s certainly possible for me to be technically nonviolent toward myself or others while still doing them harm or regarding them without compassion.

Shunning someone out.

Self-deprecating talk.

Guilting anyone for something that has already happened.

Nonviolent — but, I would argue, not really in line with an observation of ahimsa.

And you know what? Developing a consistent practice of ahimsa — learning to feel and act compassionately toward others and ourselves — is tough. It’s worthy of being considered a yoga practice in its own right. Because as the sum total of my life, what matters more: how compassionate I am, or how many sun salutations I could do?

Day 4: Heart Opening Asana Practice

This was uploaded by Esther Ekhart, one of my favorite yoga channels on YouTube. It fits in quite nicely with Day 3′s discussion of ahimsa:

[Video from EkhartYoga via YouTube.]

It starts with a fairly fiery core practice that builds into some heart-opening postures. I’ve only viewed (and tried) the practice once, so my memory is not the most informed, but — This is a practice that assumes ability to get into a number of common asanas without assistance. Additionally, it assumes some familiarity with said yoga postures; they are described some but not in a whole lot of detail and not with too many modifications offered. (To give a complete picture, though, Esther Ekhart has another YouTube channel that details a lot of individual poses with much more instruction and modifications. I get the impression that the new channel’s intended audience mostly includes people who are familiar with the first channel.)

Physically, core awareness and control helps create support for safe backbending, which a lot of heart opening postures involve. In terms of chakra work and the subtle body (if you’re into that sort of thing), activating energy in the heart center can help cultivate the capacity for love and compassion within ourselves. Whether that’s strictly true or not, I find that a heart opening practice does serve to remind me to consciously think about how to do no harm.

Unwisely: Part 9

Yet another story continuation. Trigger warnings for relationship abuse and self harm.

I want to say we didn’t ignore it. And technically, we didn’t.

The first time we talked in person again, after that class, I said, “One good reason.”

He said, “There aren’t any.”

“Damn straight,” I replied.

But after that, in terms of ignoring it, we really did.

I want to say that we didn’t avoid talking about it. We didn’t pretend it never happened. We just didn’t dwell on it. But I know now that would be lying to myself.

I thought we could get past it. He was horrified when he did it, I thought — that he could keep himself in check for a while, that I could learn to see it coming. He didn’t; I did. Briefly, of course, we returned to a passing for normal, a place where we were both trying to hear and make ourselves heard.

We met for studying a lot because it was purposeful, platonic, safe. We had something neutral to talk about again where, even if we disagreed, we at least knew those disagreements were academic rather than personal. It’s a little safer to argue over whether Willy Loman is the most sympathetic character in Death of a Salesman because at some point, we felt silly arguing over imaginary people anyway.

Except talking about Death of a Salesman lends itself to talking about the concept of the American Dream, which leads to us dangerously discussing our own futures.

We were in a park, our first meeting without the pretense of schoolwork, though not the first meeting where we’d abandoned the pretense. My head rested on his chest, our bodies at right angles on the grass. For a long time, we just lay there in the sun and breeze, enjoying that the day was too dry for mosquitoes and too cool for flies. Cool snaps in summer are not unappreciated.

“It’s nice to be able to get out and actually be in a day that looks beautiful, you know?” he asked. “Like in summer sometimes it looks beautiful, especially, like, at the beach. Only it’s way too hot to actually enjoy spending much time there.”

“Or in the winter,” I agreed, “when you see the sun sparkling on some clean snow, and it looks like it would be a fabulous idea to go for a walk or have a snowball fight. Then you get there and remember that snow is both cold and wet. Even if you go back inside right away — which, sometimes, you have to be out shoveling snow or whatever — it takes forever to get warm and dry again, especially if your socks get stuck inside your boots while you’re taking them off.”

“I like the cold,” he protested, laughing. “You can always put on more clothes to get over being cold, but you can’t get less dressed than naked. And a lot of places even frown on going that far.”

I turned over to face him, propping myself on my elbows. “Though there’s sometimes a limit to the amount of clothes you have with you. And when it’s happening, I hate being cold way more than being hot.”

“I’d like to move north of here someday, I think.”

“Greenland, here you come!” I joked.

He rolled his eyes. “A little extreme, but somewhere that doesn’t get hot-hot and that’s farther away from big cities. Buy a bunch of land, plop a house in the middle of it, not have to deal with so many damn people all the time.”

“Far away from everyone in the cold?” I smiled. “That sounds like lots of snow to shovel, icy socks, and not my idea of a good time.”

He closed his eyes. “You’d get used it it.”

“Who says I’d be there?” I bristled and drew back a little.

He opened one eye. “Let’s not start this again.”

“Start what?” I felt myself slipping. I may have sighed. “I’m just not into it when people make assumptions about what I will or won’t like or where I’m going to be one day.”

“Which is fine, but maybe you could tell me without being a bitch about it.”

For me, there has always been something about name calling. “You know what? I’m pretty sure I have to be anywhere else right now.” I stood up. “We can talk about this later.”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back down. My arm grated inside my shoulder socket. “We can talk about this now.”

“That hurt,” I said.

He blinked, confused.

“We can talk about this later.”

Better Wars

Counting from the moment I said, “What the fuck?” and started counting, I have heard or read the phrase war on obesity 9 times today and some version of eradicate/-ed/-ing obesity 12 times. Now, I’m always uncomfortable when I encounter obesity addressed with combative terms because, well, that’s my body.

It reached WTF Status today because this is the moment where I realized — Of all the things that impact my life on a daily basis, this is the one worthy of a social war?

Where is the war on endometriosis — or other chronic pain conditions? Realistically, the pain and bleeding with endo have cost me far more in terms of my societal contribution (let alone my, you know, personal enjoyment of life) than my weight ever has.

What about eradicating the rape, domestic abuse, and rape culture that contributed to my PTSD? And wiping out barriers to mental health care and treatment? These are pretty common societal issues — up to and including the fact that rape culture affects nearly 100% of people — so it seems like this would be an incredibly more worthwhile undertaking than is, like, what size jeans I wear.

For that matter, why is there no war on fat hate? Again, receiving incessant messages, personal and cultural, that my body is “bad” at my current size — up to and including explicit predictions (from Internet Troll Experts) that I’ll be dead before I’m 50 — causes me more harm than does any lived reality of my body’s composition or size.

In sum, there are better wars for us to be fighting. My body is just fine at the size it is. If you absolutely feel the need to eradicate something, please note the list above. But please don’t try to eradicate me.

I live in this body, all of the time. And except for isolated experiences with cactusfuckers and douchecanoes, I pretty well like it.

Teacher Secrets 10

I recognize that for some of you, I am not your first best chance at a high school education: I am your last.

And I take that very seriously.

I Didn’t Mean You

An acquaintance of mine posted a fat joke on their online journal:

Doctor: At a healthy weight, I should be able to feel your ribs.

Fat Patient: Do McRibs count? What about baby back?

Personally, I think the joke is unfunny for many reasons — relying on tropes and relying on painfully obvious punchlines, to name a couple. But it was the commentary that got me the most:

If you’re fat enough that your doctor is lecturing you about your weight, it is time to cut out the McDonald’s, amirite?

Which, as someone who’s had doctors and other health care professionals lecture me about my weight in any number of circumstances (while I was eating too few calories, without knowing how much I ate or exercised, as I’ve continued to increase my physical strength and endurance, in the absence of any blood pressure/blood glucose/cholesterol/etc. readings that would indicate health problems), I’m pretty much no longer willing to accept doctors — or joke tellers or joke commentators — at their word. So I replied:

Not sure if you remember, but there was a time when I broke my foot (slipping on a household object) and was first thing lectured by the ER doc that I needed to lose 50 pounds. I’m fat: some doctors are prejudiced against fat. Sometimes, hearing the weight lecture means nothing useful in terms of changing diet or exercise.

For whatever it’s worth, I’m kind of over the “fat lectures for concerns that are incredibly likely not fat=related” phenomenon. I haven’t received other types of fat lectures from health care providers, so I don’t know how I’d react to those. Shit, maybe the novelty would amuse me.

I’m also kind of over people pretending my body size is not a real thing in the world. My clothing size is firmly plus, and my BMI has both feet planted in the obese camp. Those are the cold hard numbers of women’s fashion (always So. Consistent. from brand to brand) and weight divided by height-squared (with a coefficient if not using metric). There’s freedom in calling a body what it is without stigma, but there’s also stigma unacknowledged, which is why it’s not so great when someone’s response to that is:

I didn’t mean you! I was talking about people who don’t do anything about their weight then act surprised when docs call them on it.

Well, yes — all of that is a legitimate description of me.

First, WTF? I’m honestly not sure how that’s a legitimate conclusion from the conversation.

Second, I’m not doing anything about my weight right now, except eating in a way that fuels my life and exercising (almost) as much as I want in a way that contributes to both physical and mental health. My weight has not substantially changed in something like 10-11 months, which is as long as I’ve been keeping (basic) track.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, when someone calls into play — and indeed legitimizes — a form of social stigma and denial of medical care that I myself have experienced, then yes, you did mean me. Because I’m pretty much there in most of the justifications I’ve heard:

• I’m talking about obese people.
• I’m talking about people who don’t try to lose weight.
• I’m talking about people who claim they’re healthy in spite of what they weigh.

You know — me.

Other people don’t get to pick and choose the parts of me they are or aren’t talking about — or to.

Unwisely: Part 8

This is a continuation of a story from previous installments. Trigger warning for relationship abuse and self-harm.

He passed me a note during class.

Rather, he set a folded piece of paper on my desk and sort of slid it toward me before continuing to his seat. Sitting apart during class wasn’t unusual for us; not speaking — even if it was just saying hi — to one another beforehand was. I gazed forward as I pulled my hair back in a bun and waited for class to begin.

Only as people became involved in the clarification discussion of whatever poems we’d been reading did I nudge the note toward my lap and unfold it under the desk. It read:

I got my work schedule switched around. Now I can see you during the day sometimes, and your parents won’t have to worry.

PS — I really am sorry. I was out of line, and I know that’s not an excuse, but I won’t let myself get out of line again.

I refolded it, still facing forward.

He’d been trying to change his work schedule for a while, that much was true. And it would be more convenient for us to see one another. If we wanted, if I wanted.

Strangely, even in that moment I didn’t believe he wouldn’t let himself “get out of line” again. I could hope that “out of line” moments would take their time in coming to fruition, but at that point, I recognized a repetition as inevitability rather than possibility. And at that moment, I recognized that the life of our relationship was limited.

But not over, not yet. For that, I still don’t know why. Part of me wanted to explore. Even though I knew this relationship wasn’t going to meet my initial hopes and expectations, I still wanted to see what it could be. I thought I could do that and still keep myself safe when I needed to.

I didn’t believe I was in control of the situation, but I thought I was at least in control of myself. I wrote back:

This is your only second chance.

Obese Health Happens

I received an email today in what I think is a response to this post (maybe among others) from a couple of weeks ago. It reads:

I don’t think it’s responsible to say that the only thing we can tell about a person’s obesity is the definition of obesity. I know a lot of obese people who eat crap and don’t exercise enough. It’s undeniable that obesity is linked to bad health practices.

You say you’re healthy and aren’t completely sendentary. But it also sounds like you don’t wantch what you eat. You might not be too unhealthy now, but wouldn’t you be able to your yoga or running or whatever better if you did it while you were at a healthy smaller weight?

I don’t agree with hating on fat peple, but it’s not honest to say that obesity is healthy.

Why is it that when I’m upset or angry, my favorite thing to do is answer in numbered list form?

One, defining health as exercising enough and not eating “crap” is overly simplistic and limiting. For starters, this definition does not address chronic non-weight-induced physical conditions such as endometriosis, nerve damage, or pelvic floor dysfunction. Additionally, it doesn’t begin to tackle mental or emotional health issues like PTSD. Dear world, when talking about health, we can do better.

Two, yes, really, the only thing one can tell from the fact that a person is obese is that the ratio of their weight and height-squared meets the definition of obesity. Certainly, weight and BMI are sometimes correlated with other bits of information like diet and exercise patterns — I’m not saying that never happens — but the correlation is not perfect because they are separate factors. If one makes a judgment about a person’s health based on all three factors, that inherently means knowing more than a person’s weight. (Not that I am suggesting that we go around judging other people’s health. But I am sometimes in situations — say, with my nurse practitioner — where I consult her professional advice on the subject.)

Three, while I can’t speak for running, I can definitively say that no, I would not be able to practice yoga “better” if I were at a smaller weight. For starters, a crucial aspect of my current practice is being present with the body I have now. Regardless of how my weight might change — down or up — my practice doesn’t get better or worse based on that. Even without a mindfulness aspect, I’ve been my current size (of course), and I’ve also been smaller. For my own body, I have more strength, more flexibility, and more endurance at this higher weight.

Four, “healthy smaller weight” really hasn’t been true for me. I’m sure there’s some small variation, but basically, when I was at a significantly smaller weight, the activities I was engaging in to get and keep that body size weren’t healthy for me. While I’m sure some people do have “healthy smaller weight[s],” I’m also sure that for others, “healthy weight” and “smaller weight” are two distinct categories. And coming back to point one, if all I know about someone is their weight, then all I can tell about them is… their weight.

Five, what I would suggest is irresponsible and dishonest:

• Saying “health” when what you mean is beauty, attractiveness, or other comment on body appearance.
• Suggesting that any of those is best measured by the quotient of a number on a scale.

Tori in plank pose.

Getting Over Myself

I’m pretty flexible. Sometimes I pride myself on being flexible, and that is my downfall.

When I enter pigeon pose, there is nothing in my front leg knee or hip that prevents me from comfortably settling into any angle or configuration up there. On my extended leg, my hip flexors — including but probably not limited to my psoas — are tighter, but not so much that I can feel myself tipping off to the side. Definitely not so much that any of my teachers suggests an adjustment in the pose.

For a long time, the main alignment cues I heard were these:

1. Do not cause yourself pain in the knees just to get a larger angle. In fact, do not cause yourself knee pain — which is by and large a solid piece of life advice right there.
2. You should be feeling the stretch in the outer hip (or butt cheek) of the front leg.

The latter is still totally valid instruction if the outer hip/piriformis is a tighter area of the body — but I’m starting to think that is not anatomical fact for everyone.

(Video by Sadie Nardini via YouTube.)

To get significant stretch in my outer hip, I have to fall way out to the side to find it. In doing so, I lose pretty much all the opening in the hip flexors on my back leg. From a certain perspective, this might not matter so much, if the primary intent of the pose really is to focus on the outer hip.

But that may not be the primary intent of the pose, at least not for everyone, according to different physiological needs. If, for example, I make pigeon about my back leg hip flexors, the opening is way more intense and therapeutic than anything that’s going on in my front leg.

Only, to do that, I have to get over myself — quite literally. I end up needing to recenter myself across my hips and closing the angle in my front knee. The latter is what actually took me the longest to concede. I’d been so hung up on the idea of a smaller knee angle meaning less flexible that I wasn’t really paying attention to what was happening in the rest of my body. It wasn’t harmful, that wider knee angle, but it wasn’t helpful, either.

In a petty way, it was uncomfortable to admit to myself that the best option for me was to get over myself — i.e., my ego — and actually get over myself — i.e., both hips.

What I’m Not Telling

What I am telling is a story about physical abuse (also a TW for self-harm though I’m not yet at the explicit part of the story). I am telling this because it’s a story about domestic violence, yes. But I’m also telling it because it’s a safe story to tell.

For starters, it is an old story about a brief time in my life. Not to discount the emotional badness from just that experience, but the additional interpersonal entanglements were few, and those entanglements are now pretty far removed. I can tell this story now because I’m reasonably certain that no one will recognize it — or themselves in it — with sufficient certainty to want to act.

That’s not true for my other stories, the ones I’m not telling. Those are the stories where the people in it — including people not involved in the violence or other abuse — were friends and family or are friends and family now. Those are the stories with even more questions:

“Why didn’t you tell someone?”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“Why didn’t you come to me? I would have helped you.”

Those are answers I’m not prepared to give right now, may never be prepared to give in the realm of real life, either because they’d hurt people I love or because I just don’t know. Some questions have no good answers, and others have answers that hurt too much to speak.

The second reason this story feels safer to me is because it entails physical hitting. It’s a societal line in the sand that a lot of folk — though by no means everyone — has been conditioned to accept as not okay, though they may or may not act on it. But even after I recognized and named how shitty other wrongs made me feel — a process that in itself took years — it took me a long time to label verbal abuse and sexual manipulation as abuse. It took even longer to accept, on an emotional level, that they could be just as harmful as physical abuse. Not because I think people should “just get over” them but because I’d trained myself to believe they didn’t matter as they were happening to me.

I feel safer telling this story because I think more people will understand that this is abuse. Because where I’m less sure, I don’t think I can handle the reactions:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

“You probably just need to grow a thicker skin.”

“This is why you have the responsibility to protect yourself.”

“You could have just said no, right?”

What I’m not sharing are the details of those stories. It might not be for a while, and when I do, it will almost certainly be in fiction first. That’s a safer outlet for me, though I think it still mars the truth a little.

What I am saying now, though, is that I still have stories to tell.

This post is part of the Domestic Violence Awareness Month Blog Carnival.

Already Doing

Note: I explicitly do not speak for anyone else here. My intent is to describe what is true for me, not to prescribe what should be true of anyone.

Because one too many people has, directly or once removed, called me lazy or delusional today.

When I say there’s nothing I can do in order to lose weight, it’s not because I’m lying to myself.

No, really. There is no me that eats McDonald’s every day while parked in front of the TV, then whines whines myself into victimhood when I don’t lose weight.

There is the me whose biggest consistent nutritional “vice” is my daily mug of black coffee — a mug which, by the way, you will pry from my cold dead hands. Well, that and the fact that I no longer count calories or Weight Watchers points but instead regard food as fuel for my life.

There is the me who wishes I had time to do a 75-minute yoga practice and a 5K every day and who feels a little bit sad when I have to choose one or the other.

There is the me who finds freedom and empowerment in enjoying my body and respecting it accordingly — aside from a clothing size or a number on a scale — until one too many jackasses pronounces me lazy and dishonest because I am fat.

Basically — all the steps a reasonable concern troll (just let that idea roll around in your brain for a bit) could expect me to take to facilitate weight loss? I am already doing.

Certainly, I could push it further engage in practices that are unreasonable and unhealthy for me in the name of pursuing weight loss, but — really? Is that what you want from me?

If so, you go ahead.

I’ll be over here, cooking and running and building exciting core yoga sequences and deflecting and refuting all the body policing that comes my way. You know, lazy things — the things I am already doing.

Work Wellness Challenge

At work right now, we’re having a wellness challenge, where the overall challenge is made up of several dietary and exercise challenges. (It seems this wellness challenge lives almost entirely in the realm of physical wellness.) A lot of the mini-challenges — like an exercise log and recipe invention — fit very well with my likes and needs. A few of them — like a food journal — make me a wary. And the overarching challenge for the series of events is a weight loss challenge.

I shouldn’t have been surprised since the weight loss challenge has been an annual event since I’ve been here. And the supposition has always been that one participates in the other events as part of the weight loss challenge. But this year, I was taken aback at the strength and surety of my own reaction. “Why did they have to go and fuck that up?”

Certainly, I can see the appeal that weight loss holds for a lot of people. However, setting it as the lynchpin in a wellness challenge is a flawed strategy for wellness.

1. Even if all participants performed exactly the same on all the other food and exercise challenges, individual bodies are going to respond differently. Weight (loss or not) isn’t a reliable indicator of participation in the other activities.
2. Some people may have their weight remain the same or even go up as they begin or continue to practice healthy physical habits. It would be disingenuous for a wellness challenge to focus on weight loss at the possible expense of healthy practices.
3. For some people, dieting and weight loss are emotionally fraught issues. It would be dangerous for a wellness challenge to focus on weight loss at the expense of mental and emotional health.

And it’s not cool to exclude some of us from conversations and activities about wellness because we don’t want to lose weight.

I asked about this last year, tentatively and without revealing any personal stake, to receive a tepid response. The organizers were perfectly polite but apparently operated on the assumption that the other challenges existed to make the weight loss “more enjoyable and engaging” — to support the weight loss because who wouldn’t want to lose weight? — rather than as legitimately “enjoyable and engaging” activities on their own, independent of any weight loss goals.

Last year, I ended up not participating in most of the activities and feeling pretty bummed out because of that. Whatever larger problems exist in the world, or even in my workplace, it’s ostracizing to feel like something fun is happening but that I’m not welcome to participate in it because I don’t want to lose weight.

This year, I was more direct and personal in voicing my concerns. “I’d love to participate in some of these challenges, but participating in the weight loss challenge would not be healthy for me. Is there a way to participate in some activities but not others?” I did not get a direct response. However, later that day, the organizers sent out another email explicitly clarifying that employees could participate or not participate in individual activities as they chose.

This is a step in the right direction, though I’m sure I’m still setting myself up for some coworkers asking me:

1. Why I’m participating in the challenges if I don’t want to lose weight?
2. Why don’t I want to lose weight?

At the moment, however, being part of a group where I can talk about it trumps feeling excluded from the group so that I can’t.

Aesthetics

But it has nothing to do with aesthetics, so we all but miss it in every single workout.

– Bryan Kest (via my memory), talking about the psoas muscle during navasana in one of his Power Yoga DVD practices

I may not have every word right, but the basic sentiment is accurately portrayed. And whether a lot of people are particularly likely to need psoas strengthening, the idea, I think, applies to physical fitness more broadly.

First, and this is applicable to my psoas, I tend to ignore stretching some muscles that don’t directly affect my appearance — or that I don’t think of as directly affecting my appearance. For example, I know I have some stiffness in the muscles along the sides of my ribcage. While I do make an effort to stretch them at least a little each day, I’ve never sequenced an asana practice to target the release of those muscles. One part of the reason for that is because my tightness there, while not comfortable, doesn’t really affect the aesthetic shape of my body.

Contrast that with the muscle tightness I feel across the front of my shoulders and chest. Not only have I sequenced personal practices specifically to open up that area of my body, but I’ve also attended a number of classes and used a myriad of videos with the same stated purpose. In some of those instructional practices, the teacher brought in the idea of aesthetics. Having a tight chest and shoulders can contribute to back pain, yes, but I’ve also witnessed plenty of yogis demonstrate the hunched shoulders and rounded spine and remark on how that isn’t very attractive.

Although I’m not sure I’d “all but miss” my heart center if it weren’t a factor in creating what I consider an aesthetically pleasing line to my body, I can’t deny that aesthetics plays some role in the muscles I choose to stretch.

Similarly, aesthetics also plays a role in the muscles I choose to strengthen. Regular readers might have noticed my recent-ish (in the grand scheme of my practice) fascination with feet. For the past few years, I’ve experienced intermittent foot pain in my standing postures. I chalked this up to my foot anatomy and the increasing frequency, duration, and physical intensity of my asana practices, deciding it must be a side effect that comes with the territory. Until I stumbled on the idea online — while researching another topic only tangentially related — it had never even occurred to me that I could stretch and strengthen the muscles in my feet — the way I did the rest of my body — so they’d be better able to support me in standing poses.

Again, I don’t think aesthetics is the only force at play here, but if it were my butt or thighs hurting in the postures? I probably couldn’t avoid knowing how to strengthen or tone those if I wanted to. However, strong, supple feet are really not a showcase image in most people’s conceptualization of the aesthetic ideal.

But it goes deeper — or maybe broader — than that. Recently, the blog Living ~400lbs posted The Fitness Question, asking readers if the benefits of exercise would be worth it if they never lost weight. Weight loss is only one aspect of aesthetics, but I sometimes wonder if there’s a similar principle at play on a grander scale — that is, if a major motivator in people’s exercise habits is the hope or expectation that it will help them to look a certain way.

The expectation can take a number of forms; “tone” is one I hear often — that regular exercise will increase the appearance of muscle definition (which may or may not include muscle mass) while decreasing the appearance of surface fat. Of course this doesn’t happen with every body: on mine, the muscles arrive where they will, but the surface fat that’s always been there I now acknowledge as a permanent fixture of my form.

I also sometimes interpret “tone” as “flexibility” — that is, a truly toned muscle will stretch as well as contract. For a long time, I hung on the hope that if I toned and stretched my muscles enough, I’d eventually develop the flexibility to get into every single yoga asana (or at least every asana a teacher might reasonably demonstrate in class). It took some study of anatomy and even more self-study to understand that:

1. There’s more to it than that. Bone shapes, sizes, and angles vary widely — and they also play a significant role in what a particular asana looks like — not to mention how it feels — for any given individual’s body.
2. Sometimes — like in the case of arm binding — regardless of muscle flexibility or the shape of my spine or shoulders, it ain’t ever gonna happen, at least not in a way that is beneficial for me.

Of course it’s good to use anatomical- and self-knowledge to determine what’s causing any particular limitation and whether it’s helpful or harmful to try to push a given edge. And in the course of that determination, it’s empowering to recognize the pressure (from self or society) to strive for a particular aesthetic and to name that hangup for what it is.

There are aspects of movement, meditation, and health that have nothing to do with aesthetics. It’s a rewarding challenge to find the space for them.