Strong is Not the New Skinny

For as long as I can remember, women have wanted to be skinny.  As a six foot woman, I have spent most of my life feeling too big.  In 6^th grade I was the tallest kid in my elementary school.  In high school I joined the varsity swim team and subjected myself to the weekly team weigh-ins.  Everyone had to lose weight, so when I weighed in at 140 pounds at 5’10”, my goal was to lose 10 pounds over the season.  I got down to 125 one year, mostly by skipping Tuesday’s dinner and Wednesday’s breakfast and lunch so I could be weighed at 2:15 on Wednesday afternoon.  Then we had a 3 hour practice.  Then I went home to dinner.

My story is not unique.  It’s not even as unhealthy as some.  But the fact that it’s even close to normal for a teenager then or now is a disturbing cultural phenomenon that has plagued women and girls for years before I was a teenager and every year since.  We’ve swept some men up into the insanity as well.

As a reaction, a new slogan has been circulating amongst women, both through the media and at our local gyms.  Strong is the new skinny.  The idea is that women are replacing the desire to be model thin with a desire to be physically strong.  Pictures of lean women with biceps and six-packs are everywhere in motivational posts, throughout social media, and on fitness magazine covers.  I asked my own Facebook network if strong was the new skinny and they were resoundingly in favor.  Women do want to embrace the idea of strength, of fitness, of the ability to carry their own groceries, or a couch if needed.

But I wonder if women aren’t replacing one unattainablephysical ideal for another, encouraging the world to continue to judge us by our physical selves rather than by our intellect, our leadership, or our character. The women featured in these ads are definitely strong.  But they are also incredibly lean, not an ounce of fat in sight, nowhere near what normal, fit women look like.  And the ads don’t feature pictures of whole women, but often just their parts.  We get to stare at torsos, calves, and backs.  For all we know, it’s the same woman, featured piece by piece, photo-shopped and well-lit in thousands of pictures. 

My friends beg to differ.  They don’t think about being strong as a means to beauty.  It’s about taking care of yourself.  It’s about improving health, about doing more in life, not just eating less.  Those hours spent picking things up and putting them down are a journey, a process of becoming not just stronger, but better, more confident, more centered.  And if weight training sometimes leads to being sore or a little bigger, women don’t seem to mind.  The alternative is weak and hungry, and the final results say it all. The end of skinny is death.  The end of strong is stronger.

Strong is not the new skinny.  It is not a means to beauty.  It is not about fashion.  Lifting weights doesn’t make women prettier, it makes them healthier.  Strong is simply what women are and have always been in one way or another.  Strong is giving birth, facing a defiant teenager, comforting a suffering parent. It is building a relationship, a family, a home, a career, a meaningful life.  Strong is about lifting, a loaded barbell, ourselves, a broken heart, or a sofa.  Strong is simply that. Strong.

Limbo

Angela Brown Oberer

"Well limbo is not a good place to be."  ~Bill Joy

 

 

 

 

 

I have a secret.  I’m lost.

I’ve been lost for a while now.  I had the knee surgery in January.  The rehab was rough.  I was supposed to be able to run again by March.  I couldn’t.  So I rehabbed some more and tried again in June.  I couldn’t run.  So I tried other stuff all summer to try to rest my leg.  I did strength without the impact.  Weights.  Elliptical.  Walking.  Cycling.  Stairs.  I still can’t run.

 I’ve been trying out the phrase, I don’t run any more.

I keep saying it out loud to people, trying it on like a coat to see if it will fit.  It’s not that I love running.  It’s that I need to wear the coat in order to create a new identity. 

I was a triathlete.  Now what am I?

People ask… 
Can’t you have a knee replacement?  Yes…  But do I really want that?  I’m not sure. 
Can’t you just do the swim and the bike or do a relay?  Yes… But do I really want that?  I’m not sure.

In order to move forward, to make new plans, to forge a new identity, I have to accept my reality.  Or is it that I have to create my reality?  I’m having a hard time with this.  I struggle with the difference between quitting and accepting my limitations.  I’m not sure what’s true anymore.

 Am I just not trying hard enough?

 

 

I don’t run any more?

 

 

Fitocracy

So I noticed a Facebook friend, Cat Melnyk, posted a workout on a website I’d never heard of, FITOCRACY.  It’s a site that allows you to track your workouts, no matter what you do.  I started to check it out using the phone app, but it’s really hard to edit workouts.  By the time I got to the website a week later, I was unable to edit the first workout I posted, even though it was wrong.  Frustrating.

Since then I have logged a few more workouts.  They have a pretty comprehensive list of weight lifting exercises which is really nice.  Each one has a description so you can tell if you’re choosing the right one.  To be fair, thus far it seems a lot easier to earn points from lifting weights than doing cardio.  I had to ride two hours to earn a thousand points, but my twelve exercise weight routine scored about the same and only took 75 minutes.  I have yet to log any swimming, so I’ll have to see how that scores.  Walking is worth much less unless you record your heart rate.  

To be fair, I think you can log almost anything you do.  I searched for anything I have ever heard any of anyone doing for exercise and it's all there.  You can track yoga, yard work, P90X, cross fit, spin class, dance, canoeing, mountain biking, or playing sports.  For each workout you log, you earn points, badges, and props.  It’s kind of like a game.  You can easily track your progress against your friends and strangers, join groups of like-minded athletes, and read articles on a wide variety of topics.  It’s a pretty slick program.  I’m going to stick with it through the summer and see how it goes.   I’d love to have some friends join me and see what you think.  We can even have duals though I’m not sure exactly how that works yet. 

Check it out.  My name is costelloland on the site.  Follow me and I’ll follow you.  This could be fun! 

 

 

Postscript:  I just logged in swimming in the ocean for an hour, and it gave me a ridiculous number of points, so if you are a swimmer, Fitocracy is going to reward you mightily!