Why We Exercise

Obviously, women's body image has been screwed up for a good long time now. When I was a pre-teen and teen, a lot of fuss was made about anorexia and bulimia. A mere decade later, the country's in a full fledged obesity epidemic. In true Goldilocks style, we went from too thin to too large in no time flat and all because our reasoning about body image seems to revolve around three basic axioms: Being skinny is better. Exercise is awful. Cupcakes are delicious.

No wonder we spend a lot of time frustrated and, dare I say, not so very happy.

Somewhere along the lines, we started viewing exercise as a necessary evil, something that's time consuming and painful. Something with no intrinsic value beyond possibly burning up the last "bad" thing we put in our mouth. We became obsessed not by how much better exercise can make us feel, but by how many calories we've burned. 

What the heck?

Source: toneupnyc.tumblr.com via Ada on Pinterest

Even though weight loss is supposedly 90% eating and 10% exercise (I'm not sure the research is conclusive enough to prove this ratio, but I do believe our eating habits play the biggest role in our overall weight), we repeatedly turn to exercise as the sole means to weight loss, even though people can exercise their hearts out on a regular basis and not lose a pound, or may even gain a pound or two. (Oh hey, there muscle mass.) While exercise is a surefire way to tone your body and maintain your weight, you're going to have a hard time exercising out a shitty diet. When I was at my chunkiest, I was actually playing hockey 3-4 times a week. And let me tell you, no amount of killers ("Again!") could compete with my hitting up the ice cream freezer in the dorm dining room each night. (Oh hey, there freshman fifteen.) 

As I've started exercising more over the last few months,  I'm reminded of just how miraculous exercise is. Even if running is hardly my favorite exercise in the world (Apparently running one minute and walking 90 seconds is no big deal. But bumping up that ratio to two minutes running and one minute walking? Death. Death surely must be coming for me soon.) I find myself looking forward to my morning runs because I know I'll have more energy and focus the rest of the day. The endorphin boost I get from 30 minutes of exercise is fantastic enough that I'm willing to overlook the beached whale feeling I experience while running. And that's saying something.

If we want to feel happier and be a bit fitter, we need stop using exercise as a torture device. We should view exercise as a necessary challenge which serves up way more pay out then that ever tempting cupcake. We turn to sweets and alcohol because "we deserve it" after a hard day or a long stretch of "being good," but we rarely, if ever, apply that same reward concept to our exercising. Don't our bodies "deserve" exercise for being our always faithful sidekicks through this entire one wild and precious life?  Dare I suggest that exercise should be viewed as just as much of a luxury as a fatty treat, because what is exercise if not a sweaty celebration of what our bodies are capable of. 

Exercise to feel better: more energy, more concentration, more self confidence, and less stress. Exercise to be stronger. Exercise to make the answer to the question is, "Can I do it?" a resounding "Of course I can." Our body images will never improve if we insist on seeing exercise as a temporary means to punish our eating habits.
 

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Trading Chocolate for Free Weights

On Sunday morning, Andy caught me putting a piece of a Cadbury Caramello bar in my mouth.

"Wait a minute," he said. "You can't eat that."

 "Oh yes I can," I replied. "It's Easter. Lent's oooooover."

"Oh." Andy paused for a second. "Did you win?"

While Lent isn't really meant to be "conquered," I suppose I did win in a way. After vowing to give up chocolate for the Lenten season, I did not eat a bite of cocoa or processed chocolate for 45 days.

Lent's always marketed as 40 days - because Sundays are technically "free days" - but I only took advantage of one Sunday this year - the first one, when I drank a cup of hot cocoa while reading in the evening. I should admit that this past Saturday I thoughtlessly put a bit of melted chocolate and butter in my mouth while making the flourless chocolate cake for Easter dinner, which I spat out as soon as I'd realized what I'd done. As I see it, if you're going to give something up, you might as well go all out.

I learned a few things from my 45 days without chocolate:

1) I like citrus flavored sweets well enough that giving up chocolate really wasn't much of a sacrifice. Now if you told me I had to give up sugar all together for 40 days . . . .

2) I felt better when I wasn't eating chocolate. Even though I was still eating sugar, my sugar consumption must have dropped considerably over the last month because I've felt pretty off since resuming chocolate consumption on Sunday. Of course, I'm sure quantity is not a factor at all here. #sarcasm.

3) It is much easier to resist something when it is expressly "forbidden" then when it's a matter of free will. I noticed on Sunday that when the dialogue in my head about chocolate shifted from, "You can't eat that," to "Should you eat that?" I almost always, without fail, decide that yes, yes I should eat that delicious piece of chocolate cake/bar/candy, etc. etc.

4) Giving up chocolate need not be a part of your diet plan. I'm pretty sure I gave up chocolate for Lent and did not lose a single ounce.

Coincidentally, this Lent saw me return to spending a little more time working on my physical fitness. In lieu of eating chocolate, I lifted free weights and did my sit-ups.  So I emerge from this Lent with stronger willpower and muscles. I don't really approach Lent from a religious place. Instead I prefer to use Lent as a time of reassessment: to really look at what you truly can and can't do. Now that Lent's done, I'm glad not only that I'm back to my old chocolate eating self again, but also that I took the opportunity to use the season to kickstart some better habits.

Did you give anything up for Lent? How you'd you do?

 

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Ah, February Sunshine!

Lucky us: we've recently had a slew of sunny days. We're also experiencing a pretty impressive range of temperatures each day, consistently on a range from -15 below to 40 above. That means dry pavement (hooray for a drive home made almost entirely in 5th gear!), sparkly snow, and some beautiful frosty trees and shrubs. Since our cabin has a fantastic southerly exposure, it's also made for one toasty cabin.

This morning, we woke up to 57 degree cabin, so Andy started a fire, we ate some breakfast and then headed to town for the weekly errands. When I came back a little after three this afternoon, the cabin was a stuffy 88 degrees! Ick!

It seems a little ridiculous to have the door wide open in February, but sometimes you've just got to waste a little energy. That said, I knew I didn't want to waste the sunshine, so I headed out on a little hike down the lake in the late afternoon while I waited for the cabin to cool down.

I can't get enough of these blue skies. If you could put sunshine in a bucket, I'd take a big slurp out of it and then dump it over my head.

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Enter Michelle Obama arms

Some people find the end of winter depressing. I am not one of them.

My heart sings at the sight of mucky roads, crystalline snow, and water dripping from rain gutters. I welcome the lengthening days with open arms, knowing they hold the promise of green sprouts, moving water, and a chance to shed my many layers of wool, down, and fleece for more form fitting outfits. 

Wait . . . . What? Form fitting outfits? HORROR!

It's a well known fact that I put on about five pounds in butter weight each winter. I don't worry about it too much. As butter is apt to do, those pounds melt in the heat of summer. Since reaching adulthood, my weight's always yo-yoed a bit - never enough to make my BMI a concern, or even to change my dress size. So each spring, there's a little pudge that needs to be redistributed, or rather, evaporated. It's fine.

But over the last couple years, I've grown lackadaisical in my workouts. Time once spent doing crunches and lifting dumbbells has been reallocated to other pursuits. Since apparently my word of the year is "willpower," I knew getting back in better shape needed to be a goal for 2013.

There were a myriad of factors that lead to me dusting off the dumbbells last week:

At my annual physical earlier this month, the clinic scale displayed a number five pounds heavier than I was expecting, even for a mid-February weigh in;

The shimmy into freshly laundered jeans had become more a "suck in gut and yank";

My knee pain (which comes from having muscles that are too weak to keep my knee where it's supposed to be) flared up slightly last month;

and I'd seen maybe one too many inspirational fitness pins:

Source: Uploaded by user via Ada on Pinterest

So last week I finally stopped pretending that my daily walk to the mailbox and hauling in firewood totally had me covered for cardio and strength training (although both activities certainly weren't hurting with my fitness) and got down and did the gut-busting ab workout I picked up in an issue of Sports Illustrated for Women way back when. (I loved that magazine . . .so much better than today's Prevention and Health, which seem to discuss self-tanner application tips more than they discuss actual female athletes. *sigh*) Then the next day I put myself through a series of upper and lower body exercises. 

I'm not going to lie. It hurt like a dickens. Today's the first day that I haven't felt achy and sore and that's just because I took yesterday off and haven't gotten around to today's exercises yet. (As soon as I finish this post, I swear. . .) 

While displeasure with my body's appearance is usually what prompts me to pick up the weights again, there are so many reasons for women to strength train, besides a better looking body. Lifting weights 2-3 times a week results in a higher metabolism, lessened risk of osteoporosis, lower blood pressure, and better heart health, just to name a few benefits. That's reason enough for me to keep at the old dumbbells even after this pudge is gone. Yet we women tend to gravitate towards power walking and the elliptical machine when we think about getting fit. Cardio's all well and good, but we miss out on a lot if we neglect our weight lifting.

As a member of the girl power generation, I take pride in being strong. It's empowering to be able to open your own salsa jars or pull yourself out of the lake onto a dock with using the ladder. To me, it's worth a bit of sweat equity to stay proud of this body that's my home for my entire life.

So here I go again. Lifting the weights, doing the lunges, crunching the tummy. I'm not stopping until my arms look like this:

Come on springtime. I'll be ready for you!
 

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The Desire To Run

For the last couple months, I've had a desire to run. Not run "away," mind you, although depending on the day, sometimes that can seem like a good idea. Just a desire to lace up some running shoes, hit the pavement and start going.

There's just one little issue.

I don't run.

My brother runs, my father runs, my uncles run. I have a cousin who runs marathons. I've been trying  to run since my preteen days and all that it's ever resulted in for me is a really red face and a bunch of loogies. (TMI? TMI.) I've managed a few 5Ks in my day, but really, I don't like running and running doesn't like me. As I've grown older, it's become apparent that pounding pavement makes my knees go in two different directions. (Any fellow patellofemoral pain syndrome sufferers out there?)

So why try again? Why bother, when I've proven it's not my cup of tea over and over again?

When I returned home from London, I ran for a couple months and I'd gotten fairly decent at it before my knees screamed at me to stop. Now, through tape and exercise, I've figured out ways to make my knees behave and since my exercise this winter has been limited to the daily mile-long round trip to the mail box and the occasional hike to the fishing hole, it's time to step my cardio exercise up a bit. I've been a slug.

While I haven't exactly been packing on the pounds this winter, I've become a little more "plush" then I care to be. After all, I'm 27 years old. If I'm not in the best shape of my life now, when will I be? I'm no star athlete, but as someone who swam and played hockey and soccer as a teen, I know my fitness level has the potential to be much greater than it is currently.

Then there's the whole bucket list thing; I've always wanted to run at least one marathon in my life. Last summer I stumbled upon this blog and began to why I've always made running a marathon one of those goals I'll worry about tomorrow. All sorts of people surprise themselves into running marathons and here I am, an able bodied 20-something, complaining that my knees are too bad to even bother trying.

Really?

I am the person who moved to London with no job prospects and no housing lined up after college and managed to live there happily and successfully for my visa's allowed six months. I am the person who took a B.A. in English - which everyone said I'd need another advanced degree in if I wanted any sort of career - and turned it into a decent freelance writing business. I am the person who bought a manual transmission car, without knowing how to drive it, which I now happily toodle around in.

But I won't run because it's hard? Really?

Every once in a while we all need a kick in the butt, a reality check. A time to stop pining and a time to start doing. 

With our current spring-like weather, much of our snow is melting. The shoulder of the road is clear and dry and ready for runners. If I put off buying a pair of running shoes much longer, I'm just procrastinating. 

So I think I'll start running again. Because I want to. Because I can.

Do you run? How did you get started? Is there anything new you'll be trying out this spring? 


 

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Guest Post: Making the Miles Count

Note from Ada: This week and next I'm asking some of my bloggy friends to help fill the Of Woods and Words soundwaves. I come from a family of runners and I've always wanted to be one myself. However, despite keeping a life goal of someday running a marathon hidden in my darkest corners, I really only run when chased. However, my cousin Megan from Megler is a bonafide runner, with more than personal fitness in mind when she's running.

"Ask yourself: 'Can I give more?'. The answer is usually: 'Yes'." -Paul Tergat, Kenyan professional marathoner

There are a lot of reasons why people are drawn to the sport of running. It is the easiest sport, after all. Almost anyone can do it. All you really need is what you were born with: serviceable eyesight, two functioning legs, and the will to quickly place one of them in front of other over and over again. Shoes are helpful, but as the surge in the popularity of barefoot running is rapidly proving, they are far from necessary. What is vital though is that “will” part; the keen desire and motivation to do something that an alarmingly large number of people see as “crazy.”

Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat - running, even great distances like the half marathon, marathon, or even the super marathon, is not crazy. Historically, it’s the way we humans got around. Humanity was running for centuries before the domestication of horses, the invention of the wheel, the cart, bicycle, car or airplane. Though running, as a mode of transportation, has fallen out of fashion, it’s no less vital to our survival as a species. After all, when the zombies rise, who do you think is going to get eaten first? Yep, that’s right - the folks who are too slow to get away.

Being faster than the undead horde that wants to disembowel and eat you was plenty of reason for me to get up off the couch and start putting miles on my running shoes. Slightly less forward in my mind, however, was the looming goal I set for myself of running the Walt Disney World Marathon in January of 2012. In preparation for that, I decided it would be a good idea to get a few shorter distance races in before the main event, which is how I came to hear about the annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon in Chicago.

As I was planning my training for the marathon, I researched a few half marathons to find one that was close to home and about half-way through the training schedule I’d written for myself. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon sounded like it would be fun. There are live bands scheduled to play at every mile marker, a race expo in the train station I commute in and out of every day, and a friggin’ sweet after party. While all that stuff is cool, my real deciding factor in picking the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon were the charities associated with it.

Most races these days, especially larger ones, partner with charity organizations or non-profits. Many runners, myself included, like to have a secondary motivation for their running, such as committing to raise money for a good cause. As a whole, runners tend to be dedicated people, and they’re always looking for ways to make their running more impactful and beneficial, both for themselves and for others. Races that benefit good causes provide warm fuzzies for the runners and much-needed income for charities, especially in a down economy. Everyone wins. As a person who works for a non-profit organization, I’m well versed on the reasons why financial support is more important these days than ever before. Without our support, many of the great things that have come about as a result of charitable donations simply wouldn’t have happened.

Those of us who are old-timers at the giving-game all have our pet causes. One of mine is cancer research. Among a few other charity/non-profit organizations, the R’N’R Half Marathon directly benefits the American Cancer Society, so it was a very logical, natural choice for me.

I don’t need to explain how important cancer research is. These days, there isn’t a person in America that hasn’t been or won’t be touched by cancer at some point. In my own life, I’m sorry to say that at least one of the exceptional people I’ve known who’ve fought the battle with cancer wasn’t able to win it. In 2009, my father-in-law, Mike, passed away from esophageal cancer about a week after my husband, brothers-in-law, and I last visited him. It’s a loss our whole family feels deeply. We miss Mike every day and I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that our loss, and every other cancer death, is unfair. It might sound a little childish, but I find it horribly unfair to look at all of the advances in medical science humanity has made and realize that the one we really needed, a cure for cancer, wasn’t there in time.

To save others from having to go through the pain of cancer and losing loved ones to it is why it made sense to me to use my half-marathon to raise money for the American Cancer Society. I’ve committed to raise $975 and though fund raising has been slow going so far, I’m hoping to reach my goal by August 1, 2011. I know that doesn’t seem like a great deal of money in today’s world, but every little bit helps.

If you’d like more information, please visit My Fundraising Page. You can learn about the history of the American Cancer Society, how they use donation dollars, read survivor stories, and, of course, donate to support the organization and help me reach my fundraising goal, if you choose to do so. Your interest and support are greatly appreciated.

One last note - Thanks to my cousin, Ada, for asking me to guest-blog for her. I really appreciate the opportunity to reach a whole new audience. Thanks, cuz!

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Writers and Exercise

Besides diets, one of the most ubiquitous New Year resolutions has to be to improve physical fitness levels. Personally, in 2011, I’m committing to battling the bulge of my tummy which every day more closely resembles that of Poppin’ Fresh (the Pillsbury Dough Boy). I had started some semblance of a workout routine in early December, but the holidays pretty well sabotaged the best of plans. Now, in the quiet lull of this year’s beginning, it’s time to reach for my free weights once again and start doing sit-ups.

But if you’re a writer, you’ve probably heard people talk about the whole “butt in chair” approach to the art. That is: if you’re constantly distracted by dirty dishes, laundry, Facebook, your blog, the landscape outside your window, etc. etc., you’re not being much of a writer. You’ve got to keep your butt in your chair, your fingers poised over the keyboard, if you’re going to be a productive writer.

On one hand we know we need to treat our bodies with respect. On the other hand we know we have to treat writing with respect. Making time for each of these things takes away time from the other thing. Which begs the question:

Can you resolve to be both physically fit and a productive writer for 2011?

I say, you can’t afford not to be. Unless you’re a niche writer who wants to spend their time writing about joint pain and the slow process of their body falling apart, your writing will benefit from your being physically fit. Simply put: writers need to exercise.

I do know how it goes. When you’re worried about getting in so many hours of work done every week, it’s easy to force yourself to stay stuck in front of the computer for an entire day. In these dim winter days, it seems that sun starts setting before we even have a chance to contemplate getting outside for a walk. Before we know it, we’ve managed to spend a series of days with minimal exercise and fresh air. Although we think we’re doing what needs to be done to be successful writers, in actuality, metaphorically chaining yourself to your desk can be detrimental on many levels.

For starters, that butt in the chair starts to get larger and larger. And for another thing, things grow harder and harder. Your mind gets all murky. Your writing grows dull. You start feeling stupid. And you get real, real cranky.

I find my writing rarely grows more inspired from the act of me sitting at my desk, staring into my laptop’s screen. Instead it’s during those quiet moments when I’m not training my mind on any one thing – doing the dishes, taking a shower, and, of course, exercise – that I think of the most things to write about and have the best ideas for a current WIP's direction. A large portion of my blog entries and commentaries are written in my head while walking to the mailbox.

Nathan Bransford posted on how exercise boosts creativity back in December. No writer truly benefits from growing mole-eyes at the computer. You need consistent amounts of fresh air and exercise to keep the writing enjoyable. 

You’ll feel better. Your writing will thank you. And that butt in the chair will stay a respectable size.

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