Mindset

Victory Nomenclature (a first world problem)

/ Bethany / Leave a comment

I participate and lurk in a few facebook groups where the focus is on moderation, balance, and healthy habits. I get a lot out of these groups, or I wouldn’t participate.

There is a tradition in these groups that I love in and of itself, but I don’t love the name of the tradition. (I realize that writing about something I dislike officially makes me a blogger with too much time on my hands and no really serious problems to worry about, and for that, I am grateful!).

The tradition I am referring to is the “Non Scale Victory” (NSV) post.

If we are acknowledging that there are many victories that are more important than the number on the scale, why do we even use the word “scale” in front of a victory that has nothing to do with a scale? Why do we need to use a qualifier such as “non-scale?” I can see two possible reasons:

  1. To encourage women to think outside the (scale) box when thinking about their victories (and I’m all in favor of this!!)
  2. Because, deep down, some of us may still feel like the scale is king, and other victories aren’t AS good, and so need to be held to a different standard.

How can we label our victories more descriptively based on what they are, instead of what they are not? Why not call it a “Mindset Victory” or “Healthy Habit Victory” or “Moderation Victory” or “Chilling the F*ck Out Victory” or “Body Image Victory” or “Kitchen Victory” or “PR Victory” or “Gym Victory” or “Showing Up Victory” or “Standing Up for Myself Victory” or  just plain “Victory?”

Obviously this is not a huge issue in terms of all the more significant problems of the world. Just some food for thought!

Mastering Walking Before Trying to Run

/ Bethany / 3 Comments

Lately I’ve been feeling as though I am losing some of my cardio conditioning. And I probably am! I’ve dropped metcon workouts, and my health has steadily improved since. But I’ve also been pretty sedentary, other than weightlifting workouts, if I’m being honest. Something about all the heavy squats makes laying around very appealing. And it’s been hot. I’m not a summer person. My favorite season is fall. I like milder weather.

So, when I noticed getting more winded when walking up steep hills, it was tempting to mentally examine where in my schedule I could fit some metcons in. And then I realized I was jumping from two to one hundred in one fell swoop.

Why not try an in-between step? A month or so ago I added a healthy habit goal to my list that involved going for walks. If I was having trouble motivating myself to go for walks, which I actually enjoy, what made me think adding metcons would be any more successful? So, I’m choosing to focus more on the walking habit. As they say….”you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run.” Or something like that.

Anyway, I took a trail walk with my kiddo the other day, and walked him to the babysitter’s house yesterday instead of driving. Both times I really enjoyed the walk and the bonding experience. I was tired yesterday, but I felt better after the walk than I did before. That should tell me something.

How else can one apply this principle? I hear friends talk about overhauling their diets all. the. time. And then getting down on themselves when they can’t maintain the restrictions for more than a few hours/days/weeks/months. Why not change one meal at a time? Set a goal to eat (protein for, veggies for, fruit for, or just plain eat) breakfast? Or to eat enough at lunchtime so you aren’t starving at night? One goal at a time. Walk before you run.

Have you used this principle to make any habit changes in your life? I’d love to hear about some other examples!

Body Image Progress

/ Bethany / 8 Comments

I wanted to share some body positive successes I have had in the last week. I don’t always have “good body image days” (said in the same spirit as “good hair days”). My body positive attitude development has been an exercise in patience, just like my strength development.  But I had two experiences last week that showed me that I am making progress in this area, even if every day is not great.

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De-load Week Deep Thoughts

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Today I noticed that “I don’t feel like it” feelings were kicking in. I didn’t sleep well last night and I didn’t really feel like training when I got up. I did it anyway, because I’m following a training program and if I missed a day, I’d miss the particular work that was scheduled for today too. It was a light, short workout (still on a deload week), and I was glad I did it. Take away lesson: training programs are good. Habits are good, too.  Speaking of habits, I am over three quarters of the way to finishing the goal I set this year to do 150 strength workouts! Yay me! It’s August and I’m still going strong on the New Years goal I set. That is huge, right?

Later this week I will begin the final mesocycle of the 12 week training cycle I am doing. This one is different – it’s a competition prep mesocycle. I don’t actually have a competition in four weeks, but it will be good to get a feel for what the training would be like. I’m actually nervous about the volume and time that may be involved. I’m not sure if I will be able to put in the time required, as the workouts are long and I have a kiddo whining at me. I’m also not sure how my body will respond and recover from the increased volume. I’m planning to try the first couple weeks and see how it goes. Feel the fear and do it anyway! I’m trying to remember what it was like 10 years ago when I trained for my first marathon, and we were getting close to the race and the runs were long. I think I took a lot of naps. That’s all I remember.

I actually am interested in competing now. When I first started training at the Barbell Club at my local CrossFit affiliate, and they told me that competing once a year was somewhat expected of most members, I got super intimidated and wrote back that I was not sure if I wanted to compete. Now, I’m getting into the culture and starting to understand the sport more and I think I might! A friend of mine competed in the Bay State games this year and I watched the video footage after the fact, so I could see her performance. And I was surprised to see that I would not be lifting the lightest weight in my weight class! Maybe I could do this. I don’t know that I’ll win any medals, but feeling like I would come in “not last” is a good feeling. Of course, those who come in last are still putting in a great effort too! I don’t mean to put them down in any way. Hopefully you get my intention when you read this. I was just surprised because I assumed that all the lifters would be lifting more than me, because I am so new to the sport is all.

In other news, I was actually successful at packing a lunch for work today!

 

 

Learning Curve: Packing Lunch

/ Bethany / 7 Comments

This is a scary post for me to publish.

Why?

This quote from Go Kaleo’s post sums it up.:

There’s another, even more dysfunctional factor at work…..women in our culture have been conditioned to associate eating with feelings of shame and guilt. I’ve run into this on my facebook page and here, I’ve had several people make up ridiculous rumors about how much I eat and speculate that I must be taking steroids in order to eat as much as I do and not get fat. This is a response I get for eating a healthy amount of food to support my activity and my weight, and for acknowledging in public that I eat that much. Women are supposed to be dainty and delicate and eat like birds, and in popular media women enjoying eating and eating more than a few bites of food are frequently portrayed as undesirable, and presented as comedy. So many of us have internalized these perceptions, and the result is a tremendous psychological pressure to not eat (or at least to not be seen eating), and highly dysfunctional eating behaviors.

So, I feel nervous about going into my energy requirements in detail, when it isn’t in the context of wanting to count calories in order to lose weight. Especially as a fat person – I feel nervous that I will be judged harshly for not attempting weight loss. I fear that calorie talk in general will call attention to that. I have some anxiety that as a fat person, I shouldn’t call attention to the fact that I eat at all.  So, I definitely have some internalized shame and guilt going on about this.

Just putting all that out there, before I go into the actual topic of this post. Why am I publishing it anyway? Because I strongly feel that this culture of guilt and shame around women eating is harmful, and the only way it is going to change is if women are going to make eating more visible/normal.

Now that it is out of the way, here it goes….

I am proud of myself for taking steps to better fuel my body this week.  A big step? Learning how to pack meals and snacks for days at work / on the go.

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Striving (or not) for Pull ups (so I don’t die in a Disney movie)

/ Bethany / 1 Comment

As I wrote about in Why I Let My Weight Go and Why I Stopped Aspiring to an Athletic Physique, I spent most of my adult life exercising to change how I looked. Sometimes it changed how I felt, but I viewed that as a side benefit, and still would feel inwardly frustrated and obsessed when it didn’t change the way I looked fast enough. I would get discouraged and I almost never continued an exercise program for more than a year continuously.

Now, I am doing something different. I took up weightlifting because I find it satisfying and I love the way it makes my body feel. I realized that I really don’t want to run – running does not feel good at all at my current size. That’s okay! Which leads me to…..pull ups.

Being able to do a pull up has been my personal holy grail of fitness for a long time. I couldn’t do them in those elementary school fitness tests. I always fell for the siren song of the gravitron at the gym. The assisted pull up. I could work my way up to an unassisted pull up, I told myself. I never got too far and I didn’t actually enjoy the feeling of the gravitron. The handles were too thick and difficult to grip. Etc.

When I was in my 20s, I was following nutrition and fitness coach who asserted that any truly healthy person should be able to run a mile and do a pull up (among other things). At the time I could run a mile but I could not do a pull up. The assertion that I should be able to do one stuck with me, however. I mean, look at all the action scenes in the Disney movies, for chrissakes. So many characters would be dead if not for their grip strength and their ability to do a pull up. Aladdin. Beast. Simba. Quasimodo. Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. All dead if not for their pull up abilities, right?

When I started doing CrossFit in 2011, the coaches showed me how to do ring rows. Ring rows are used as a scale-able alternative to pull ups in CrossFit. You can make them more and more difficult and use them to build strength if you cannot yet do a regular pull up or assisted pull up. I was excited.  I was finally going to be able to pull myself back up onto a bridge should someone chuck me off, Disney villain style.

When I was four months pregnant, I found myself way too exhausted to keep going to the evening CrossFit classes. I bought a set of gymnastics rings so I could continue the ring rows on my own. I think I ended up using them twice during my pregnancy.

A few years later, I dug them out again when I started doing CrossFit on my own earlier in the year. I did lots of ring rows between January and May. I was no longer focused on my weight, but I still had the goal of wanting to be able to do a pull up in my mind.

And then I started training for Olympic weightlifting instead. My body felt 100 times better when I stopped doing CrossFit style metcon WODs. I switched to a Catalyst Athletics weightlifting program…..and still incorporated some pull up training (ring row training, in my case).

But the weightlifting training is both time intensive and tiring, and I realized that if I was going to focus on that, I might have to cut out other training (pull up training), because I needed to have energy for the rest of my life, too. My kid, my marriage, my job, basic functioning. I felt nervous about cutting out pull up training…..until I realized I was doing it on autopilot. Do I even WANT to be able to do pull ups? I don’t know! If so, WHY do I want to be able to do pull ups? I don’t know! It’s just what I have aspired to for the past 15 years….but I am a very different person than I was 15 years ago. I don’t need to have the same goals. It’s okay to move on. I may never be able to pull myself up after hanging on the edge of an icy staircase, Prince Hans style. And I’m willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, that could be an unrealistic goal for me in the present moment.

So, I decided to take a break from pull up training, at least until I figure out the answer to the question “do I actually WANT to do this?” My body is working hard at other things, and I know that if it turns out I actually do have my own inner motivation to one day do pull ups, I’ll be able to accomplish it that much more easily, because I will be more dedicated to the goal.

Or….maybe I can make a habit based goal, not an outcome based goal. 3000 ring rows in 2016….and just see what happens.  That’s an option too!

Why I Stopped Aspiring to an Athletic Physique

/ Bethany / 2 Comments

I have a long history of aspiring to an athletic body type.

When I was in high school I bought a book called “The NYC Ballet Workout: Fifty Stretches and Exercises Anyone Can Do For a Strong, Graceful, and Sculpted Body.”

That’s good marketing, isn’t it? As a vulnerable person, I believed it. Until I got discouraged and somehow forgot about the book and moved on to something else. I don’t remember what became of the effort to look more like a ballet dancer. Nothing dramatic or memorable, and obviously it didn’t work.

Then there were the various women’s bodybuilding books. Then the yoga. And the two marathons. And the frustration that came with not having a “runner’s body.” Surely if I persisted and kept at it long enough, I might look like those distance runners?

Then one day in 2011, I watched a video of a talk by Tom Naughton, Science for Smart People. In this talk, Naughton uses an example of correlation that involves athletes bodies (skip to 24:45 in the video). He talks how, if  “everyone knows running makes you thin,” because marathon runners tend to be thin, does that mean that “playing basketball makes you tall, because elite basketball players tend to be tall?” No. As Naughton says “Basketball players are tall because being tall makes you more likely to succeed at basketball, and the fact that competitive runners are thin doesn’t tell us anything, except perhaps that being thin makes it more likely that you will take up running.”

This sounds like the simplest concept in the world, but that fact that it blew my mind is…well, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about THAT.

I did have one more instance since then when I fell for the whole “if I do x, I will look like people who are successful at x.” I did CrossFit for about 5 months in 2011 and early 2012. I really admired the bodies of some of the other athletes in the gym, even more than any other kind of “athletic body” I had seen before. And once again, I felt hopeful that *this* would be the thing that would change my body.

I stopped CrossFit when I was four months pregnant and exhausted.  So I didn’t have a chance to draw any conclusions about the effects consistent CrossFit would have had on my appearance.

But eventually it sunk in. I took a few years off of athletic pursuits when I had my son. I suppose my brain had time to process everything I had learned so far.

Earlier this year, when I set a goal to do weight training, 150 times, I remembered how much I enjoyed CrossFit, so I took a CrossFit approach to my programming. But CrossFit involves Olympic weightlifting, I knew I needed some coaching, as the Olympic lifts are highly technical. So, I went on USA Weightlifting’s website to find a local weightlifting club. It turned out that the weightlifting club local to me was at a CrossFit affiliate.

This time, when I walked into the CrossFit affiliate and saw some beautiful, athletic looking women,  I didn’t think to myself ” I’ll bet I could look like that if I worked hard at CrossFit.” I knew that, odds were, those women weren’t coming from the same place I was. They had different genetics and circumstances. They almost certainly did not walk into the gym on their first day looking like I did. Now, I’m not making any judgments about whose body looked “better” or “worse” on their first day; I’m simply acknowledging that we all looked different. And therefore, if I worked hard at CrossFit, I wouldn’t look like The Really Cut CrossFit Chick in My Gym Who I Just Met. I would look however *I* would look if I worked hard at CrossFit….whatever that means for my particular body and genetics.

To confirm my thoughts on the matter, I asked The Really Cut CrossFit Chick in My Gym Who I Just Met how long she had been doing CrossFit, and if she had played any sports prior. She said she ran track all through high school and college. My suspicions were confirmed that we did NOT walk through the door on our first days looking the same. I knew a big shift had taken place in my mind, because I wasn’t judging or comparing the other women’s bodies to mine, or mine to theirs. I simply noticed that we were all different, and I go there every week to do my work, and I don’t stress over how my body compares.

When I realized that focusing on Olympic weightlifting exclusively felt better to me in my present health and circumstances, I was able to let go of CrossFit pretty easily. I knew that CrossFit wasn’t going to do anything magical to my body. My body would be limited by my own strengths and weaknesses, and while I could certainly work on weaknesses if I chose, it wasn’t going to do anything magical to my body…..so I would be happier if I set myself up for realistic expectations. I work on Olympic weightlifting because it’s a fun challenge and it makes my body FEEL good. Whereas I ran because I thought it would change the way I LOOKED.

I’m not at all suggesting that people should only do sports that they are genetically suited for. I’m suggesting that if your underlying reason for participating in a certain activity is to change your body type, you will probably be disappointed, unless your genetics happen to be inclined towards that body type anyway. If your underlying reason, however, is having fun and feeling good…..you will probably have a rewarding experience, regardless of whether your body changes. Like these women.

It is my hope that by sharing this perspective, that other women who hold the same beliefs I did will open their minds a bit, allowing them to choose activities they enjoy over the ones that they hope will change them. If you are feeling discouraged with your choice of activity, it’s nothing wrong with your body – find something else that feels great to do!

Nervous for Clean and Jerk Day

/ Bethany / Leave a comment

I felt nervous about today’s training. I’m still don’t feel incredibly solid on my clean and jerk form. Last Thursday was such a frustrating day and form just wasn’t happening. Saturday was a better day. I am still working on my speed in the clean, and on catching the bar in the correct position. So, I’m usually a little nervous for clean and jerk day.

Yesterday was supposed to be a rest day for me. I felt tired and slow. Then I unexpectedly had to fill in for someone at work at a CSA pick up and farm stand. Lots of heavy lifting and restocking in hot weather. My back did not want to do that stuff at all, and my lower back muscles kept cramping up as if to say “you said this would be a rest day!”

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Strengthening My Patience Muscle

/ Bethany / 11 Comments

Patience is a most useful and important mental skill, and an area of deficiency for me in the past.

Some background: I got through school with good grades because I had a naturally good memory and didn’t have to study much. Unfortunately, it means that I didn’t develop patience as a habit and a way of life like some of my friends did. That worked well for me in the younger school years. As the high school years went by I was put in more and more difficult classes as a result of my previous good grades. I didn’t do as well in some of those classes, because I had almost no experience or patience with studying. Still, I did well enough that nobody had any worries about my study skills. I absorbed and remembered things quickly enough in general that I didn’t raise any red flags. All through school, I tested well, but sometimes would lapse on keeping up with homework, especially if it was particularly tedious or repetitive.

I was not naturally talented at sports, and you know how mean kids can be about that…. so I didn’t join any sports teams or cultivate patience that way. I did play musical instruments, but I was naturally talented and so I enjoyed practicing, for a while. I actually was interested in possibly joining the swim team, but I wasn’t the fastest swimmer, and I got discouraged rather than asking a coach how I could improve my speed. As most people do, I gravitated towards areas where I had natural talent. Hence not too much opportunity for cultivating patience.

Fast forward to my kid’s first and second year.

Now, as a parent, I realize that patience is a skill I would do well to develop. Not just in a “don’t yell at your kid too much” sort of way….but in a “respecting that everything will come in it’s own time” sort of way. In a “I don’t control the world and I harbor no illusions that I do” sort of way. In a “sometimes you don’t get it on the first try, and it’s still worth doing” sort of way. That last one is the one that comes least naturally to me, but I very much want to cultivate that mindset in my son.

I have made some progress in developing patience. For example, taking up a habit based approach to health is an exercise in patience in and of itself. Every habit I am working on is over the course of the year, not the week or the month. I specifically chose that time frame in part to teach myself patience.

The fact that I stuck with my own personal habit approach for the last 7 months is proof that my ability to exercise patience is improving. That my “patience muscle is growing stronger,” if you will.

At the same time I was starting some of these new habits, some friends were attempting drastic lifestyle changes (it was the new year!). I knew in my heart that those approaches were not for me. I knew that my approach could be slower and less dramatic….but I also knew that it was likely that their drastic lifestyle changes would be abandoned in a matter of days or weeks, and I was almost certain I could stick to the habits I set. I told myself “who cares if it takes a year to make all the changes I want to make? Or longer? I’ve got nothing but time. What I DON’T have time for is more cycles of extreme ‘healthy living’ followed by ‘f*ck it all, it’s too overwhelming and it sucks anyway.'” That approach hadn’t served me well and I knew that whatever the outcome, if I had the time to spend 30 plus years getting it wrong, eating green vegetables and committing to weight training for a year couldn’t possibly do any harm.

That is also proof that my patience muscle is growing stronger.

When I decided to start learning Olympic weightlifting this spring, I thought I would be good at it, because I was pretty strong. Once I learned more and realized that speed was also a huge part of it, I questioned whether it was worth doing, because I “wasn’t any good at speed or power.” I caught myself thinking that maybe I should just abandon the idea. And I responded to myself that even though my previous way of living was to only try things I was instantly good at, it was okay to try something that I would have to work at. It was a good idea, in fact. The very best athletes in the world did it. I told myself that this was an opportunity to, for the first time in my life, consciously choose to work at something because I enjoy it and find it satisfying, not because I am “the best” at it. I thought of my son watching me do this. And I stuck with it.

This is also proof that my patience muscle is growing stronger.

And I think the way I have approached my training has shown patience, too. I had no sense of embarrassment starting at the bottom, with the training bar. I know some people with previous strength experience get impatient about that. I am taking care to focus on my form now at the lighter weights, so I don’t develop bad habits to unlearn at the heavier weights.

This is also proof that my patience muscle is growing stronger.

Know what I’m really struggling with in terms of patience, though? My body image.  Yup! It’s like I have two separate minds on this issue. One mind is all in on body positivity and Health at Every Size. Indeed, my health has improved greatly. The other mind is struggling with Fat Acceptance….not of other people (at least not consciously), but of myself. I love the strong feeling I am developing in my legs, arms, and back. And I am feeling very frustrated lately with size of my belly. It is more difficult to find pants that fit well on a body that is proportioned like mine, and that feels frustrating. I know that where a person stores fat is largely genetic, and that is the case here. Both my mother and father have lean, muscular legs at whatever size they are at the moment. If they gain weight, it goes right to their bellies and backs. Me too. Even at over 100 pounds lighter than I currently am, my body held fat in my belly and back. So this is something I will need to change my mindset on, not my body. And yet, my patience muscle is apparently not yet strong enough for this one.

So, here is another opportunity to work at something that I am not instantly good at. Body acceptance. Positive body image. Sometimes I get it. Sometimes I don’t. That’s okay. And it’s also okay, and encouraged, to keep working at it, instead of abandoning ship because it didn’t come instantly.

I know I can do this. My patience muscle has come so far already.

Today I Finished!

/ Bethany / 3 Comments

Some days, just finishing what you set out to do feels like a victory.  Today was one of those days when, early in my training session, I wasn’t sure whether my body would cooperate. On Thursday, my body flat out didn’t seem to want to do cleans. Technique wasn’t happening. My left elbow was screaming at me and I was getting easily distracted and frustrated. I couldn’t seem to focus with my kid whining and screaming and I just got angry and then didn’t seem to recover from that, mentally. I skipped to front squats and then called it a day.

Since I was nervous following Thursday’s bad day and feeling unsure of my clean technique, I watched some technique videos as a refresher before I left for Barbell Club. Olympic weightlifting is so complex. You can work your technique for years. Every time you watch a video, you find a different aspect of your technique to focus on. This morning I went back to basics. I watched this video and determined I needed to really focus today on catching the bar in the rack position. This would protect my elbows and wrists. I also knew I needed to focus on my speed in dropping under the bar. So, I decided to work on all my lifts from the hang position. One of the reasons I have some trouble with dropping under the bar (aside from just being new to weightlifting) is that my pulling strength off the floor is very good relative to my speed under the bar and catching the bar in the correct positions…..which are not (yet) so good. So, when I pull the bar off the floor, I pull it so high that I have to catch it in the power position or even standing, because I don’t get under it fast enough before it flies over my head. Starting from the hang position would eliminate some of that momentum and give me time to practice dropping under the bar and catching it lower. (By the way, I’m not a coach, obviously. So before you take me too seriously, read the fine print.).

Yesterday I had undereaten during the day, overeaten at night, gone to bed late, didn’t sleep well, and was woken up early this morning by my Rooster Toddler. There was no fruit left in my house so my breakfast was heavier than I would have liked it to be before training. My left arm felt tight and sore all the way through – shoulder, elbow and forearm. So, earlier in my training today my body felt like garbage. I sat down to recover after every set. At one point I felt a bit nauseous (breakfast too heavy) and I was just hoping I’d get through it without vomiting. I remembered what my coach had said on Thursday though, that it wasn’t always going to feel great. And I remembered when back in my marathon days (10 years ago!) that there were some training runs when you just wanted it to be over as soon as possible. I told myself that was okay. Even if I love what I’m doing, not every day has to feel great.

I am glad I was able to stick it out today. Working out at Barbell Club without a screaming toddler underfoot made a big difference in my focus. I worked all my lifts from the hang position and focused on shrugging under the bar and catching it in a good front rack position and I was mostly successful. The practice was really helpful, even though my body didn’t feel great. I was able to do all the lifts at the weights prescribed in my program. And once I got towards the end of my clean and jerks, I knew I wasn’t going to throw up and I started to feel better. I did all my back squats and presses. I got through it and was happy to have finished because it was productive training for me. I felt better at the end than I did at the beginning. So, I felt victorious, even though it wasn’t my best day or a PR. I finished what I started, I didn’t get discouraged, and I used the opportunity to pattern good technique.

I was definitely ready for an afternoon nap, and even though Rooster Toddler didn’t take one, I enjoyed mine!