Health at Every Size

Easy Days, Challenging Days, and Not Reading Too Much Into Them

/ Bethany / 1 Comment

I love watching my kiddo at swim class. He is developing his skills and comfort level with floating on his back.

It’s interesting to observe that he has days where everything seems easy and fun for him and he makes a lot of progress (last Thursday), and days where he is having a hard time for whatever reason (today). Today he took an unexpected nap in the car on the way to the lesson, was overall droopy and tired after a busy day yesterday, and apprehensive about using the toilet. He still demonstrated the skills he’d solidified on Thursday, but didn’t work on them for as long. He was mentally ready to be done early today.

That was totally okay – I never thought to myself “oh, these setbacks means he will never learn to swim. What a waste of time and money.” Yet, we often think those things about ourselves when we have a day where we don’t practice our own new skills/habits to the extent we would like.

Just like I can observe him without judgment or apprehension, I can also learn to observe my own learning process in the same way. Skills will come in time, with consistent work, if they are meant to.

Eeeek, A Food Post! (Intuitive Eating Progress)

/ Bethany / 7 Comments

In the past couple months I’ve had a lot of changes going on in my relationship with food. I’ve been making a lot of progress with eating intuitively. I’ve been hesitant to blog about this, but I wanted to at least document these changes for my own processing. And I kiiiinda want to share it, because I feel like it might help somebody, but I feel REALLY nervous about it, too.

One of the things I have been asking myself lately is “why am I hesitant to share publicly about food relationship developments?” A few answers come to mind:

  • I want to focus on healthy behaviors, not weight. Due to MANY years of conditioning, talking about food and nutrition still feels dangerously close to talking about body weight, for me. (Phew! Just acknowledging that helps a little bit.) I am afraid of people reading into the fact that I am talking about food and automatically think that I am promoting dieting or intentional weight loss.
  • As I am learning is common with kids who have their food micromanaged, I still have some internalized shame and guilt about food. It makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. It makes me feel like I am inviting commentary on my body weight or my food choices.
  • I think women in general are culturally programmed to hide the fact that they actually enjoy eating, so they feel shame and guilt when talking about food.

So, just to put all my cards on the table: In my food posts, I’m talking about my own personal relationship to food. I am not suggesting other people do what I do. I am not promoting dieting or intentional weight loss, regardless of what happens to my own body weight as a result of changes in my relationship with food. Even if my body weight changes as a result of changes in my relationship with food, I have no reason to believe that the new body weight will be permanent (as evidence shows that lasting weight loss is very uncommon).  I do enjoy eating. I think the cultural expectation that all women eat like birds is fucked up (nothing against people who are naturally small and naturally have bird-like appetites. You people carry on and keep doing you).

Okay then! Let’s begin.

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Simplifying My Fitness Plan So I Have Energy for Real Life

/ Bethany / 6 Comments

I’m noticing some uneasiness about my new fitness plan. I’m simplifying it a lot, because I have more responsibilities while my husband can’t do housework or drive. Jennifer Campbell of Healthy Habits Happy Moms suggested that I may need to re-examine my expectations for myself and my habits while my husband is laid up. I didn’t want her to be right, but I quickly learned that she was. Plus, it is winter and my kid is driving me a bit crazy anyway. So, my new fitness plan is as follows, for as long as it serves me:

  • One lift each day, using the Wendler 5/3/1 template. Wendler’s program uses the back squat, deadlift, bench press, and military press. I’m gonna add a day of Pendlay rows because I can’t leave well enough alone. So that’s 5 days of lifting, for maybe 20 minutes each. 30 minutes if you count warm ups and stretching/rolling. Hopefully fast enough to be done before my kid drives me batshit crazy.
  • Olympic lifts technique practice if/when I feel like it, to keep technique in my muscle memory. Nothing too heavy. Or not.
  • Walking when the weather and my schedule allows.
  • Doing “on my feet” tasks around the house as I feel like it.

It feels too….easy? Short? Mild? I’m not used to having so much gas left in the tank to handle household tasks (but that is the point of simplifying so I guess it is working). I’m not used to having a clean living room that I cleaned myself. I’m used to my muscles being tired so that lying on the couch feels good. I’m used to my legs being tired and needing to rest a lot. I’m used to being more sedentary when I am not actually lifting. I’m used to not wanting to walk up the stairs to get something. I’m used to my living room being more cluttered. I’m used to my husband doing some housework, and me doing less housework. Now that my husband is injured, I’m doing almost all the housework….and I’m keeping up with it for the past few days myself, and not feeling tired and resentful about it.

Noticing that life feels easier to handle is GOOD. My mental uneasiness, however, means I clearly have some beliefs to work through – such as “exercise needs to be intense in order to do anything.” Or, “being tired means my training is working.” Or “being tired means I’ve done something” or “not being tired means I haven’t worked hard enough.” I thought I was over these beliefs, but clearly I’m still hanging on a bit.

I also have some nagging thoughts like “what if I lose all my progress on the Olympic lifts?” To that thought I respond that nobody is paying me to get good at those, and that my number one priority is my health and my family. If that means taking a little break for a while to do something else, that is okay. Once a hobby adds stress to my life during a time period when I have plenty of stress from other areas, I can stop telling myself that it is helping my  health.

Over the past month I’ve also challenged some of my food beliefs and been happy with the results. We are eating a lot of sandwiches, salads, and cereal in our house these days, in order to minimize cooking. I am buying packaged sauces and dressings rather than making them from scratch. It’s helping us get more flavor variety into our meals without too much work. I’ve been eating a lot more salad. My favorite salad dressings right now are Annie’s Papaya Poppyseed, and Brianna’s Blue Cheese. I have a bunch more I want to try. We’ve been eating off disposable dishes, and I’m just now starting to phase my regular dishes back in, now that I have some extra energy.

So, just as I am adjusting  my family’s food plan to minimize stress, so too I am adjusting my movement activities to do the same. Yesterday I went to barbell club and did bench presses, some light snatches, and some experimentation with hanging from a pull up bar using bands. Today I did deadlifts at home. My hamstrings and glutes are like “oh hey! We forgot about deadlifts.” But my legs still had enough energy in them to keep up on the dishes today. We used some disposable and some regular dishes. Because it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I can phase the regular dishes back in gradually, and see how it’s working for our sanity.

My kiddo was sick today, so I had plenty of quiet time. It was a much needed recharge day for me.

Here’s to a week of feeling oddly energetic! I can get used to this :).

Realization: My Workouts Should Not Drive Me to Drink!

/ Bethany / 4 Comments

To be fair, it isn’t really my workouts that are driving me to drink. It is my three year old.

I’ll back up a little.

While the weather was warm, having a porch gym has served me well. I could lift on the porch while my kiddo played outside. If it took me an hour or two to get my warm up, lifting, and mobility and recovery work in, that was usually fine. My kid would play, eat snacks, and generally entertain himself.

Now though, it’s winter in New England. The gym has moved into my living room. My husband is injured and can’t play with my kid as much, and it’s too cold to get out much at all. Basically, my three year old is bored, and in mama-obsessed mood. He wants a lot of attention from me. And yes, he gets out of the house. He goes to his babysitter a couple days per week where he plays with other kids and goes on outings, and I take him to gymnastics class and swim class and the library and the grocery store and…..it’s still not enough. Especially since my husband and I were sick for a couple weeks on top of everything. My three year old is bored.

I’ve been trying to get back into my routine of lifting 3 times per week, for 1-2 hours start to finish.

Yesterday, I really had trouble getting going. I didn’t really want to lift. I wanted to go for a walk. It was sunny outside, and 27 degrees, which was the warmest it had been all day. I didn’t listen to myself though. I didn’t want to throw off my lifting schedule. In truth, it made me a little nervous to do it. So, I decided to lift instead.

Within the first sets, I noticed I felt irritable. I tried to get my kiddo to go upstairs and play with my  husband. No dice. He spent the whole workout running laps around the living room and trying to climb all over me between sets.

At one point, I decided to try a bench press. One of my coaches at barbell club had shown me how to do it the way the powerlifters do it. I got my rack out, figured out the height adjustments for benching, figured out where to place the bench in my set up. I got myself in position and ready to do a bench press.  I was about to lift the barbell off the rack.

And then something soft hit me. My kid had taken a sock and launched it at me, slingshot style.

I sternly told him that it was not safe to throw things at me while I am lifting, and carried him upstairs to my husband.

He still made his way back downstairs before the end of the workout, and climbed on me while I was stretching. And climbed on me for a while afterwards. He hadn’t napped. I made plans to go buy wine and cook some macaroni and cheese as soon as I put him to bed. Comfort and decompressing was needed.  As I was cooking dinner, I realized “I should have just gone for the walk I wanted to. I’d probably be in a much better mood right now!” I had a great time watching the Bachelor and felt better when I went to sleep.

And then it hit me….this isn’t working for me right now. I shouldn’t finish my workouts so stressed out that I need to decompress from them. And right now my kiddo is making that a reality.

The positive side is, having equipment at home gives me loads of flexibility to make changes! What if I tried something different? I’ve been wanting to try more powerlifting again (after taking a break for a while to focus on Olympic weightlifting). What if I just committed to one exercise every morning? I could do a Wendler style 5/3/1 program or a Stronglifts 5×5 model. I could make a schedule, for example: Monday deadlifts, Tuesday bench press, Wednesday squats, Thursday overhead press, Friday Pendlay rows. Each morning I could spend less than half an hour on a lift. While my kid ate breakfast. I’d be able to crank it out and be done before he started driving me batshit crazy. I could do it even on the three days of week that I go to work. On days I stay home I wouldn’t be too tired afterwards to do all the extra stuff that is on me to do while my husband is injured. I could maintain and even increase my strength. I could maybe do an Olympic lift on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday if I feel up to it if my kid is entertained, but I could take a break from focusing on them.

And I would be able to take a walk in the afternoon if the weather is nice enough that I actually want to.

So, this morning I came downstairs and did some sets Pendlay rows as my kid ate breakfast. And wrote this post. It feels strange to just do one exercise and still have this much energy after a workout.  And it feels nice to be done with a workout and not be ready to drink. Let’s see how this goes!

A New Year, A New Spreadsheet, And 2 New PRs!

/ Bethany / 1 Comment

I only added a couple new habits to my list this month, so today should have felt like any other day, and not like a whole new year. However, I’ve been out of my usual routine, due to my husband’s injury, and our entire family including myself getting sick while I was on vacation from work . So today felt almost like I was starting something new, even though I was just getting back to my normal routine.

Today I tested my maximums in the back squat, shoulder press, and deadlift, because that’s what the rest of the CrossFit box had done this week while I was out sick. I didn’t want to be left out of the barbell fun.

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2015 Year End Report! (How’d I do with all those habits?)

/ Bethany / 5 Comments

The other day, on my “habitiversary,” I wrote about all the cool outcomes that happened this year as a result of tracking habits (instead of body weight or clothing size). Since today is the last day of 2015, this post is all about the numbers. How’d I do with my habit goals?

Here is a list of habits I worked on in 2015, and how I did.

  • Eat a green vegetable every day (RESULT: 364 days. Next year this goal needs to allow for sick days)
  • Strength training workouts: (goal: 150 times in 2015. RESULT: 172 times!)
  • In bed by 10pm (habit added on Feb 18; goal: 200 times between Feb 18 and Dec 31. RESULT: 216 times!)
  • Name something I feel grateful for every day (Goal added 7/31, and attained!)
  • Take a walk (habit added on July 6; goal: 75 times by Dec 31. RESULT: 92 times!)
  • Date with my husband (habit added April 18; goal: 8 times by Dec 31. RESULT: 7 times)
  • Get rid of items from our home (habit added April 18; goal: 500 items by Dec 31. RESULT: 1186 items!)
  • Deposit at least $10 into our emergency fund (habit added September 13; goal: 15 times by Dec 31. RESULT: 18 times!)
  • Doing or saying something nice for my husband (habit added September 15; goal: 80 times by Dec 31. RESULT: 77 times)
  • After 9pm, no TV shows started (habit added October 25; goal: 50 times by Dec 31. RESULT: 50 times!)
  • Make a pot of rice and beans (habit added November 10; goal: 6 times by Dec 31. RESULT: 5 times)
  • Finish my food for the day by 8pm (habit added November 12; goal: 25 times by Dec 31. RESULT: 35 times!)
  • Do some household chores as an alternative to a walk (habit added November 12; goal: 8 times by Dec 31. RESULT: 9 times!)
  • Take my Vitamin D every day (my blood work shows a deficiency and I’m not good at remembering it so I’m adding it to the list). (goal added 11/17. RESULT: 39 times)

So, I reached or surpassed my goals in 8 of these habits. In the rest of them, I am happy with how close I came to the goals I set. Even though I did not make it 100 percent of the way there, establishing the habits have helped a lot in my life. I am proud of my progress, and looking forward to 2016.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Happy Habitiversary to Me!

/ Bethany / 9 Comments

Today marks the one year point for when I set my first habit goals and set up a spreadsheet to track them . I’m calling it my habitiversary. I’m not sure I like the term; let me know if you think of something catchier ;).

I started with a just a couple, and now I have a color-coded rainbow spreadsheet to track many habits across many areas of my self-care. Not to mention a blog, and a series on how to help others get started making successful habit changes.

When I started last year, deciding to track healthy habits instead of a number on a scale or clothing size was unfamiliar territory for me. I decided I wanted to be open to whatever outcomes would come.

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My 2016 Habit Goals Unveiled

/ Bethany / 2 Comments

I haven’t posted in a while. My husband has been bedridden with a fractured patella and I have not-so-quietly been going insane.  Today bedridden husband I are both sick. So my parenting consists of letting my kid binge watch his Christmas present (Rachel and the Treeschoolers). And telling him that I will turn it off if he doesn’t throw the trash IN THE TRASH.

While my kid is learning science concepts from Rachel, I finished up my goals list for 2016.  I added a couple new habits to work on, reset my goals for the habits I am continuing in 2016, and set a couple reasonably achievable goals that are one-time events, not habits.

Here they are!

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The Rainbow Spreadsheet! (Habit Tracking Template)

/ Bethany / 12 Comments

I just set up my habit tracking spreadsheet for 2016, with updated habit goals.  Since I’ve been doing this for a year now and have accumulated a bunch of habit goals (one or two at a time!), I decided to group them by categories and color code them.

I shared a screenshot of my spreadsheet in a few habit groups.

Habit Sheet

(You’ll have to settle for a crappy screenshot, because I have zero photoediting skills and can’t figure out how to sharpen the image if I expand it).

In one group in particular, people got really excited and asked me if they could share and use for educational purposes. Presumably they also loved my broad based view of health and realistic goal setting, not just the pretty colors. So, I edited my template so you can download it and edit it for your own use. (The first tab in the document is an example of what the set up looks like for a first-time habit tracker. The second tab has “the rainbow spreadsheet,” an example of what it looks like for a second-year habit tracker – me!).

Now…..here is the really important thing. I KNOW EVERYBODY LIKES RAINBOWS and gets super excited and wants a rainbow spreadsheet of their very own.

I urge you all to read through my entire sustainable habit series, starting with Part I, to help guide you in getting started. If you do that, your spreadsheet might look awfully monochromatic for a few months. Be patient. Don’t rush things. You too can have a rainbow spreadsheet soon! In fact, you can have one now and I can’t stop you. But I highly recommend you read all the background info and start with just one habit. Because ultimately, what’s more exciting? A rainbow spreadsheet NOW, or actual success (however you define it), and a rainbow spreadsheet later?

And yes, I’m totally okay with people sharing this post and using it for personal and educational purposes, as long as you credit Power, Peace and the Porch Gym.

Open the Power, Peace and the Porch Gym habit tracking template (aka “The Rainbow Spreadsheet”)

Enjoy, and happy habit forming!

 

As it Turns Out, The Water Is Fine.

/ Bethany / 4 Comments

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about a new habit I had started that was provoking some conflicted feelings. A month has gone by since I started this habit, and I’ve been having some thoughts and feelings I wanted to document before I forget about them. So, you get a post! Yay!

The habit goal I am writing about is “finish my food by 8pm, 25 times by the end of the year.” I was experiencing both optimism and apprehension about adopting this habit. My biggest fear was that a habit like this would send me back into a dieting/restriction oriented mindset.

Overall, this habit is going a lot better than I expected, both in terms of emotional response and implementation.

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