This is Not a Diet

This is Not Your Typical Weight Loss Story – Part 1, Leah

15 05 2013

I am going to be publishing a series of posts written by people I have met who have a variety of experiences with their weight and weight loss. If you listen to the narrative of the diet industry, weight loss stories are simple: lose weight, live happily ever after. the end. However, this is rarely the case. I have several people lined up to write about their experiences with their weight from some viewpoints we don’t usually hear about. My purpose in doing this is to give more people a platform to share their stories and to help others see that it’s normal to have experiences that are more complicated than what we would be lead to believe.

My first guest post is by someone I have been friends with online for several years now. I first met Leah on Fatsecret.com when we were both using the site to count calories and lose weight. She has a blog of her own and a Facebook page. If you’d like to continue following Leah’s ongoing story, the are links at the end.

This is Leah’s Story:

I started my “healthy living” blog in April of 2010, determined to change my weight from 220 pounds to 135. I have a history of disordered eating (anorexia, recovery, EDNOS, recovery, binge eating, dieting?) and thought that the blog would help with that stuff, too.

Originally, my blog was all about my transition to vegan eating as outlined in The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone. The original title of my blog was “Leah’s Journey to the Kind Life”. I was determined to document the entire experience, and just knew deep in my heart that I was meant to live as a vegan for the rest of my life, and that is was part of my fate to blog about it, and spread the word about how amazingly healthy and easy veganism was.

Flash forward a few months, and I went back to Weight Watchers. Then, suddenly, I knew for a fact that I was going to be on Weight Watchers for the rest of my life, and also that I would continue to be vegan forever. I decided to merge the two diets together and rename my blog “Leah: the Kind Weight Watcher”, the first ever blog to combine Weight Watchers and The Kind Diet, a revolutionary concept that would not only work really well, but make me famous, possibly even getting a call from Alicia Silverstone herself one day…

And then, after losing a ton of weight this way (around 75 pounds total, in about a year and a half or so…), I decided that I was ready to maintain my “perfect” weight of 145, which was up 10 pounds from my original goal. I also decided that though I would stay vegan, I would put Weight Watchers behind me and instead focus on learning to be an intuitive eater. I mean, tracking was for weight loss, not weight maintenance. I didn’t know any “naturally thin” people who tracked their food, and I wanted to be one of the beautiful naturally thin folks.

I based my intuitive eating venture on the book “Intuitive Eating” by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. I treated it as a diet, and never truly gave myself permission to eat, and therefore ended up gaining back 9 pounds in 6 weeks… so I went back to Weight Watchers. Then I switched to My Fitness Pal. Then I tried Intuitive Eating again. Then Weight Watchers. Then My Fitness Pal. Then a combo of all three at some point…

All of this was while blogging honestly about the changes in my diet plans. It was clear to me that I was no longer truly “Leah: the Kind Weight Watcher” but rather “Leah: the Crazy Confused Desperate Dieter”. However, I was constantly told by my readers how much they appreciated my brutal honesty, so I kept on keeping on.

By May 2012, I had slowly but surely gotten back up to 165, which was 20 pounds above my goal weight. But I felt oddly comfortable there, and had made a decision to stay at 165, seeing as it was the weight that my body seemed to naturally gravitate towards. It was my weight at age 18, too. I was a size 14, which meant that I could shop in the cute clothes stores at the mall. I looked pretty darn cute, too. And I was healthy and happy, according to both my doctor and my therapist. Plus, that weight seemed maintainable for me, and not just that, but EASILY maintainable. I could satisfy my hunger throughout the day, and exercise when I wanted to, and stay at that weight easily. Decision made. 165 was my happy weight.

THEN… tragedy struck. In late May 2012, my mom, who was my best friend, died suddenly and unexpectedly after a surgery that apparently went wrong. My world collapsed. I couldn’t think, I could barely breathe, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t do anything… but I found that I could still eat. Yes, I got really good at eating.

My good friend Emotional Eating held my hand a lot during those first couple of months. We spent every evening together and sometimes even hung out in the middle of the day. EE made me feel numb, and helped to distract me, too. EE also helped me to transition out of vegan eating and into vegetarianism… because all of those home-baked goodies that family loves to give around those times were not vegan. Neither were snack cakes or Doritos or cheesy pizzas.

In just a couple of months, E.E. helped me get back up to 209 pounds… and that’s when I realized that E.E. was not a real friend. I needed to drop E.E. from my life.

So that became the new focus of my blog. How to rid myself of emotional eating, and finally say goodbye to all of those disordered eating habits and triggers that have plagued me for years. I also am no longer a true vegetarian, because I have started to eat fish occasionally.

And that’s where I am now. I’m working to finally completely let go of my EDNOS thoughts, trying to become a true intuitive eater (while still occasionally tracking calories on My Fitness Pal), training for a half marathon, and learning the art of self appreciation. It’s about how even though I’m proud of my health goals being met, they are not the only thing that I’m focused on anymore. I have other goals and dreams that have nothing to do with a smaller number on the scale or on the jeans tag. I am not weighing in regularly, and actually don’t know what I weigh right now.

My blog has evolved and changed as I have evolved and changed. And I’m so glad that it has, and that I have kept it up throughout these years, even when times are tough.

Blogs can change, and that’s okay. People change.

If you want to start a healthy living/diet/fitness/etc. blog, keep in mind that your goals will probably change, and that your loyal readers will stick around, support you, and embrace the changes. Be true to yourself in life and your blogging, and the rest will follow.

If you’d like to follow Leah, you can find her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leah-The-Kind-Weight-Watcher and her blog at http://kindlifeofleah.blogspot.com/

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: blogging, emotional eating, guest post, Health, health blogging, the Kind diet, vegan, weight loss, weight watchers
Categories : Not Your Typical Weight Loss Story

Before and After and…

21 04 2013

Since shifting my focus away from weight, I’ve been contemplating the multitude of “Before and After” pictures I have shared and what to do going forward.

I have very mixed feelings about those pictures, to be honest.

On one hand, I want to take them all down. This isn’t about what I look like, it’s about lifestyle. Health. Fitness. Happiness. Inner peace. Etc. When people see those pictures everything is all wrapped up in an outer package. What does that really mean? It means less than people think it does. It can mean so many different things. This image, of a large body made small, is a ubiquitous symbol of success. A montage of bad and good. Failure and victory.

But you can’t see everything in these pictures. You can’t see my health. Yes my health has improved and I am in much better shape than I’ve ever been fitness wise. Coinciding with that, my body is smaller. But one does not necessarily equal the other. One can find her body shrinking for reasons other than improved health. A person in the grips of an illness or eating disorder might be able to produce a before and after picture of a larger body turned small. Conversely, a person may add daily exercise and better foods to her life and remain in a body of the same size. It’s all more complicated than I realized when I initially created those pictures. I wonder about the message they send and if I stand behind it.

On the other hand, this is my personal story and my personal truth. All of those pictures are still me. I am proud of them. For me, they do represent a positive change in my lifestyle and my overall well-being in addition to the smaller body. For me, it did all work that way. I am not ashamed of any picture in the montage. I embrace them all. Steps on a ladder. A record of change. Pictures of different points in my life. I have decided not to take any of them down, just as I do not edit my old blog posts no matter how much I have changed my mind.

In fact, I decided to make a new one, because I think these pictures will mean a lot to me when I am older and wiser. Even now, I like looking at them. No, they do not tell the whole story and they don’t tell a story everyone experiences. But they do tell a big part of my story. This is my personal truth.

I vividly remember taking each one.

The first picture is the only picture I can find of myself before I started losing weight. I was checking out the house I ended up renting in Phoenix, AZ and I caught myself in a picture of the bathroom mirror. I knew I was in the picture, but I was very far away. I had to crop this picture from a much larger shot intended to show the rooms of the house, not my body. It’s an accident this picture exists. I was in Phoenix in August and I had never experienced anything like that desert heat. I remember the smell- like dry asphalt baking in the sun. But the scenery was amazing. I felt like I was on Mars.

The second picture is from the locker-room of the 24 Hour Fitness I belonged to for a total of three years while living in Phoenix. I had just run a continuous mile on the treadmill for the first time in my life, ever, including high school. I was very excited. I remember the feeling that anything was possible. “I got this.” I said to myself.

The third picture is the day I hit my initial goal weight of 180 pounds after 18 months of calorie counting and exercising 5-6 times a week. Making a goal and meeting it after so much effort is a very rewarding experience indeed. My confidence was through the roof. I wanted to do this, I did it. I rule.

The fourth picture was taken shortly after I reached my lowest weight ever, around 160 lb. The pictures I have of myself at this time give me a strange feeling to look at. It’s the smallest I have ever been in my adult life by a lot. This picture is probably the only picture I’ve ever seen of myself and thought, without a doubt, “I am skinny.” This is a bizarre experience for someone who has always been larger. Surreal. I don’t remember anything about the day or the circumstance of the picture. I took it in the bathroom of my house because I thought the outfit made me look a lot thinner than I usually felt. It’s strange to look at this picture and think about how much I thought about what I looked like. I’m glad I don’t spend that much time thinking about it anymore.

The fifth picture was taken last year in June. I hadn’t hung the Kandinsky painting on the wall in my new apartment in Redwood City, CA. I was settling in to life in California and my new job location, new gym, new climate. In this new place, in my smaller body, I felt gloriously anonymous. No longer did strangers approach me at my gym, at restaurants, at the grocery store and comment on my body size. In Phoenix, it would frequently happen that someone who had seen me “before” wanted to come talk to me about the “after”. Suddenly, I wasn’t Kate-Who-Used-to-be-Fat, I was just me. Average sized person. Nothing to see here. It was very freeing. I felt that I had left that chapter behind in a way. Now I was free to just live my life.

The sixth and final picture I took today. The painting is on the wall and the place is kind of a mess. That’s how you know I live here. I just ate brunch with my boyfriend; scrambled eggs with spinach, mushrooms, green onions, and garlic and roasted potatoes. I am almost finished with the novel I’m reading (Jennifer Egan’s Look At Me – so good.) After I finish writing this I’m going to go outside and walk around the neighborhood for awhile. Everything is blooming. California smells like blossoms and spices- sage, cilantro, eucalyptus, jasmine…

to be continued…

Comments : 14 Comments »
Tags: before and after, before and after picture, body image, inner peace, outer body, personal truth, weight gain, weight loss
Categories : Maintenance, Weight Loss

The Media Diet

13 04 2013

I’ve been a larger person for the great majority of my life. I’ve never experienced being someone who has teeny little invisible-to-others flaws they pick apart in the mirror. In fact, for most of my adult life I thought it would just be fantastic to wear a size 14 so I could shop somewhere that sold clothes I liked. I never coveted a “thigh gap” or a stomach with so little fat you could see my abdominal muscles. I thought it would be great if my thighs didn’t chafe when I walked from all the rubbing.

The closest I ever got to the nit-picking your body phase was at the end of my weight-loss and the year that followed. I flew past original goals, to wear that size 14 and be able to walk anywhere I wanted to without getting out of breath or chafing my thighs. I was wearing size 8, even 6 in some things. My thighs didn’t chafe. In fact, they didn’t touch at all. In clothes, my stomach looked flat. I lost most of my breast tissue and went from a DD-cup to a small C or even a large B.

While I was deep in the process of obsessively losing weight, I became a consumer of a type of media I previously never knew existed: fitness and health. I started looking at pictures of fitness models. I started following them and reading about their workout routines and diets. I worked out at least 6 times a week, for 1-2 hours each time. It was all very intense. No walks in the park for me! I weighed myself every morning and I adjusted my diet accordingly. I was the thinnest I had ever been in my life and I kept it that way with constant vigilance. But I still didn’t look like the fitness models. There was a time when I thought I should, and could, look like them if I just tried a little harder. Why not? I lost 125 pounds. I could do anything. All it takes is enough “will-power” right? If I didn’t get the six-pack, I must be full of lazy-excuses. That’s what those fitness model types said, and look at them! It must be true…

Except that it’s not true at all. My body is my body. I first gained weight in the third grade. My adult body had never been so small. I have been so many sizes in my life, from 6 to 24. I have yo-yo dieted, losing and gaining 20-40 pounds at a time. I even lost 100+ pounds, gained it all back and lost it again. I bet I have lost close to 500 pounds in my life if you added it all up.

The reason I do not, and never will, look like one of those headless ab posters actually doesn’t have anything to do with laziness or excuses. It’s just not the way my body is going to look due to my genetics and personal history. It took me a long time to recognize and be able to accept that, especially with all the messaging telling you that if you just Tried a Little Harder, you could make all your perfect body dreams come true.

The fitness and health world is not at all what it seems to be. At my heaviest, I would have killed to be the size 14. Visible abs were never on my radar. My outlook on myself was far healthier before I ever started reading about health and fitness. Isn’t that just backwards? Shouldn’t the health industry be promoting actual health and fitness, not obsessive body re-composition?

I had long ago stopped looking at fashion magazines and models. I knew they were underweight and that it was crazy to think I would ever look like them. But the fitness look seemed so “healthy” and that’s how it was promoted. Anybody can do this, they tell you. You just have to want it bad enough. Just eat a “clean” diet, lift weights, and wake up one day looking like Jamie Eason!

Fast forward to now. My outlook is totally different. I’m never going to look like Jamie Eason. I’m me. I look like me. Kate. Hi! Nice to meet you. My thighs touch and my belly is not flat. I am strong and healthy.

The 2013 picture was taken a few months ago. I’m wearing the same outfit today, so I must be a similar size. I don’t weigh myself anymore though, so I can’t say for sure.

I went on a new type of diet, you see. I went on a Media Diet. I already didn’t watch much TV or read magazines, but I do spend a lot of time online. Throughout my changing lifestyle I had managed to build up quite the repertoire of places to consume other people’s tight, toned, surgically and digitally enhanced bodies online and read about their endless nit-picking of their imperceptible flaws, Facebook being the most gluttonous.

The most important tool of the Media Diet for me the Facebook UNLIKE button. Does the page post fitspo? Unlike. Does it go on about counting carbs after 3 pm to get the flattest belly? Unlike. Does it tell me I’m not good enough the way I am? Unlike. Does it send me the message that if I don’t look like the model in the picture, I’m a lazy, full of excuses waste of space? UNLIKE at the speed of light!

If it does not lift me up and support actual health and actual fitness, I don’t need to consume it.

We are bombarded with messages about not being good enough every single day. You cannot completely escape this. I can’t stop going to the grocery store and seeing the headlines about which celebrities are too fat and which are too thin. But I can take an active role in many parts of my life. I can choose.

You do not have to buy those magazines or follow those pages to be healthy. If you’re like me, you might be a lot saner and healthier without them.

My New Years Resolution this year was to stop reading weight/health/nutrition books. I am proud to say that in 2013 I have only read fiction and art books.

Come to think of it, ever since I went on my Media Diet, I am doing a lot of things I enjoy that are important to me that I wasn’t doing before. I’m not working out 6 days a week anymore. I am walking in the park. I am hiking. I am practicing yoga. I only go to the gym 1 time a week, for BodyPump, which is just plain FUN. I have drawn in my sketchbook almost every day this year, something I kept telling myself I would do that I never did. I guess I needed to free up the mental space for it. When I get sick or am too exhausted, I do a crazy thing: I REST. I do not worry about what it might do to my weight the next day.

I don’t track anything anymore, except my menstrual cycle. When I exercise, I do it for myself, for my mental and physical health, and because I want to, not for calories burned. I don’t do it to earn my dinner. I’m going to eat dinner either way. And sometimes it’s going to be pizza.

I have allowed myself time and space to think about what is really important to me, how I really feel about my body, and to stop comparing myself to anyone else. Comparing yourself to other people is stupid. A person with my body and my history is never going to look like someone who has always been thin. That’s a great big “DUH.” right? But I think a lot of people still don’t get it.

Many people would look at my body and find things to dislike about it, but I am not them, so it’s okay. My hips? They are glorious. My stomach and thighs that touch once more (but don’t chafe)- so nice, so comforting, so warm and soft. Fat is not an enemy, it is part of my body. It gives me my hourglass shape. It gives me my fabulous D-cups. I gives me warmth. I am no longer constantly cold. I don’t feel dizzy. I have a lot more energy. I am more comfortable sleeping. I feel more attractive and less self-conscious.

Contrary to what I thought, being the thinnest ever didn’t make me happier. It didn’t make me better. It just made me look different. I remember how I felt when I took the middle picture you see above, and I kept staring at it thinking “Wow, I am actually thin.” It was strange and intriguing. It was an out of body experience for sure. When I look at the picture of me now, I see me. It’s not weird, it just is. Living the life I want to live naturally returned me to the body I was meant to have. The funny thing is, this is the body I probably would have had if I had never dieted at all. If I had just let my body mature as it was meant to. But everything told me I wasn’t okay the way I was, and I believed it. I don’t believe it now. And anyway, it’s not for anyone else to say.

You shouldn’t consume things that make you feel like crap. That includes food and media. Are there people in real life or online in your life who treat you like crap? Do they talk down to you? Do they act like they know you better than you know yourself? Do they make you doubt yourself? Cut them out. You deserve better. And make sure you’re not one of them.

Truth.

Comments : 20 Comments »
Tags: before after pictures, body image, body media, diet, fitness, media, media diet, self- acceptance, Weight, weight loss, yo yo diet
Categories : My Lifestyle

Life After Numbers

20 03 2013

It’s no secret I have changed my mind about some things. I have moved away from numbers and data and onto a more holistic, experience-based approach. If you read the posts I’ve written over the last few months, you know all about it. If not, any of these posts will give you an idea of where my mind has been lately:

Weight and Weight Loss, I’m Over It

Book: Health at Every Size

Changes You Cannot See

Sometimes people ask me if I think I could have gotten to the point where I am now if I had not at one point approached this from a different angle. If I would have lost the weight if I had never counted calories daily for almost 2 years and weighed myself daily for another year after that. The only truthful answer to that question is “I don’t know.” I can only tell you what actually happened.

I don’t regret any part of this lifestyle change journey thing whatever you want to call it. I feel that every part of it was necessary for me personally. Would I do the same again? No, because now I know more. Would I recommend anyone else do as I have done? Some parts. Maybe. I would recommend everyone do what they need to do.

My goal has, in essence, always been the same: to be happy and healthy. When I started out, I was physically out of shape, had trouble breathing after walking up stairs or any distance, ate a lot of processed, fast, and restaurant foods, drank way too much alcohol, and smoked cigarettes. But in the beginning, my goal was to lose weight. My goal was to lose weight until I lost all the weight I wanted to lose. I lost 100 pounds. And then I lost another 20 pounds because I could.

Along the way, I got in shape, I can now participate in any physical activity I want to do, including running. I eat a vegetarian diet of mostly fresh foods I cook from scratch in moderate portions. I drink 1 or 2 glasses of wine occasionally. I haven’t smoked in 3 years. I also started writing this blog, speaking out about what I see going on in the world of body image, health, and fitness, and started my Facebook page, which currently has 22,000 followers.

All of those things I do now, or don’t do anymore, those are the lifestyle change. Weight loss or not, doing or not doing those things are what makes me healthier. I have no plans to stop doing those things. I love my healthier lifestyle! It gives me so many incredible benefits.

I like being in shape and being able to go do whatever I want to do, keep up with anybody. I like shopping in stores where I have more choices that can reflect my personal style. I know I am enjoying the privilege reserved for non-fat people that means I can walk into a room without all kinds of negative assumptions being made about me, wrong as I feel this is. I like feeling good about my body, which comes not from being perfect, because trust me I’m not. I choose to feel good about my body, and because I have been actively working on that for over 3 years, I feel very good about it indeed.

Those extra 20 pounds I lost? I maintained that weight by weighing myself daily and adjusting what I ate to compensate for small changes. It all seemed well and good, until I fell and got that concussion. The concussion set off a cascade of inter-related changes. One was that I realized right away how much mental energy I was expending about my weight and keeping it in a very tight range. It became clear that I could not do that in the state I was in after hitting my head. Not doing it made me rethink it entirely. By the way, the concussion turned out to be a HUGE blessing in disguise, but I still don’t recommend it.

Between that and reading Health at Every Size, a few things clicked for me. I don’t want to live my life based on external data points, whether they be calories, pounds, inches, percentages or any other method of tracking and calculating. I want to live life by the way I feel and thoroughly experience every experience, without checking to see how many calories my activity burned or thinking about how my meal would affect the number on the scale.

I slowed down on the weighing, until finally I stopped last October. At the time I stopped, I weighed 15 pounds more than my lowest weight. And I am okay with that. I have my chest and hips back! I missed them.

One reason I used to weigh myself so much was to “keep myself on track.” I no longer need to do that, and probably haven’t for quite some time.

You see, I don’t eat the way I do or exercise to keep my weight at a certain number. I do those things because they are part of my life. I like to do them. They benefit me. They keep me healthy and physically fit. Whether I weigh more or less, this will not change. If anything, now that I’ve finally decided to just DO this and trust myself, I’ve become so much more in tune with how I feel about certain foods or exercises and I’ve found a renewed love of the healthful activities. I have given up the stranglehold on my weight.

I have eyes and pants though, and I know what’s happening with my body. But I’ve become selfish. My body is mine alone, and the only person who needs to love it is me (and my boyfriend) My weight is not all that interesting, nor is my size. Everything I have to say is more interesting than whether I got bigger or smaller. So I’m keeping it to myself. I don’t need to be congratulated or consoled about my weight anymore. I’m good.

4 years ago, I was very embarrassed about my weight and size. Sharing with people helped me let it go. I have let it go. Sharing my weight or size serves no purpose for me anymore.

Part of listening to myself is no longer looking for others approval. Sure, it’s nice when everyone congratulates you for losing weight and tells you what an inspiration you are and all that. But in another way, I feel like it just focuses on the wrong thing. You should be proud of me because I hiked almost 8 miles on Saturday and could have kept going and I made myself a beautiful veggie filled meal for dinner. That’s the right thing! That’s an action, something I DID. Does it make it more or less worthwhile if it results in weight loss or gain? Not at all.

Another part of why I’ve decided to keep my body size to myself is the sensitivity to the people who follow me. I want to have a page and a blog that is safe and happy for people with eating disorders or disordered thoughts about their bodies and weight. I care deeply about trying to create a world that is less treacherous for women (and men) and our body image. I cannot do that and simultaneously get excited when my jeans are loose or angry when they’re tight. I truly believe in what I am preaching these days, and that is self-acceptance and mental and physical health. I’m living it.

I could end this post by telling you whether I’m bigger, smaller, or the same as I was last October. Do you think your perception of what I’m saying would change depending on my report? Is it only okay if I’m not bigger? Is it only a success if I’m the same or smaller? If so, you don’t get it yet. That’s okay. I’m going to keep writing.

I just won’t be writing about my weight and size.

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: body size, HAES, Health, health at every size, self- acceptance, Weight, weight loss
Categories : Weight

Breast Implants, Bikini Competitions, and Female Empowerment

14 03 2013

A few weeks ago, the Arnold Classic took place. My boyfriend tuned in online and watched most of the events, as he usually does. This is how I came to see the bikini competition.

Until recently, my experience with the world of bodybuilding has been limited. I had seen bodybuilding competitions on ESPN years ago. I enjoyed the movie Pumping Iron with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s such a strange documentary of a man who is so driven to be champion he skipped his father’s funeral so he would not miss training. It becomes even more bizarre when you watch it keeping in mind that one day this man will be governor of California. I could write a whole post about Pumping Iron 2 – which is infuriating as it follows Bev Francis who is clearly the hugest and has the most impressively crazy unnatural looking muscles in the movie, but doesn’t win because she’s not “feminine” enough. I remember watching that and thinking, if the point is not to have the biggest muscles, what is the point?

My boyfriend is into bodybuilding. He trains like a bodybuilder and looks like a bodybuilder in their off season. He reads about bodybuilding and through him, I know a lot more about it than I used to. But I’m not claiming to be an expert by any means. I certainly have no personal experience with it.

On Facebook, there are a lot of bikini, fitness, physique, etc competitors or hopeful competitors. I feel like I am friends with some of them, although maybe they aren’t going to like me after this post. I want to make clear that what I am about to write about is not about the people who participate in these competitions. This is not about jealousy or hate or anything of the sort. All bodies are good bodies. I think these women’s bodies are beautiful and worthy of respect, just like everyone else. However, I have some major concerns about the phenomenon of these competitions becoming mainstream and something more and more women of all ages are aspiring to.

I have specifically chosen not to use images from the competition in my post because I do not want to attach anyone’s image to this post without their permission. You can see the competitors using a simple Google search.

I’m not sure what I was expecting to see. I guess I thought it was going to be similar to the bodybuilding competitions I had seen before. What I saw was not at all what I expected.

I did not expect every single competitor to have huge breast implants.

I did not expect them to be wearing 5 inch high stripper heels.

I did not expect the big blonde extensions that covered up the backs of most of the women (why are they covering their physique if that’s what’s being judged?)

I did not expect the flouncy bouncy prancing.

And I really did not expect the poses to be so sexually suggestive.

What exactly is this all about? Then my boyfriend read me some of the comments people were making about the competitors on Muscular Development.com. They read like the comments you might read on a porn site. I’m not going to repeat any of them. They do not deserve repeating.

Then there was the pose where the woman faces her back to the audience, arches her back, and sticks her butt out. It was too much. I honestly couldn’t believe that this is what these sweet women I know online dream of doing. I’ve seen this pose before… in Penthouse, Hustler or Playboy. And the women in those magazines are sometimes wearing more clothes.

This is where I started to get angry. Women are being lured into these competitions as an end goal of a path to health and fitness. But it has nothing to do with either.

What do breast implants have to do with health? What do stripper heels have to do with fitness? It’s worse than something like a Hawaiian Tropic bikini competition or a wet T-shirt contest to me because at least those things are straight forward and honest: they’re about sex appeal. People talk about this like it’s a sport. It’s disturbing and I believe, destructive.

This is not what health is all about. Because I have read so much written by competitors and former competitors, I know a lot about the risks to your metabolism and mental health that are a part of attaining the figures you see on stage. I know about the weeks of intense dieting down before a show, dehydrating yourself, etc. I know these women don’t look like this year round. And I’ve read the tragic and heart-breaking stories about eating disorders and hormonal breakdowns for years to follow.

But does your average person know all this? Does your average woman looking at the model on the cover of Oxygen at the grocery store with the fitness competitor physique know what that model did to look like that? I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t know. I remember seeing fitness models for the first time and thinking: WOW, now that’s “healthy”. Because I used to be ignorant about these subjects too, like most people are. Why would you know what they do to prepare for a show or photo shoot unless you were somehow involved in it?

The image of the super-fit woman is taking the place of the image of the super-skinny woman, and I don’t see it as an improvement, any more attainable, or any healthier. In fact, you cannot attain the “ideal” figure, because if you do lose enough body fat, you will lose your breasts as well. There’s nothing wrong with small breasts, but the “ideal” fitspo figure is ripped with larger breasts. The only way to get that figure is with surgery.

If a woman chooses to get breast implants, that’s her business, her body, and I sincerely hope it makes her happy and I am happy for her if so. However, I would like to work toward a world where less women felt there was anything wrong with their natural breasts and where less women felt that they needed to have surgery to change their cup size. It becomes my business when the image of health and fitness requires plastic surgery. It pains me when I think about women suffering through having themselves cut up and sewn back together and all the health risks that go along with it because they believe their bodies aren’t good enough without surgery.

I really wish that more women would value the things we can do, our hearts and minds, and the differences we can make in the world beyond our outer packages and sexuality. The bikini competition was a striking example of everything that is wrong with how too much of the world sees women. We are not objects existing solely for the viewing pleasure of others. We should not be pitted against each other solely based on our outer appearances. I did not find it empowering. I found it distressing.

I believe there is a place for these competitions. There are pageants of many kinds in the world. But they do not exemplify health and fitness any more than Miss America exemplifies intellectual achievement. They should not be held up as the gold standard of physical fitness. Health and fitness are about well-being, physical and mental, not what you look like on the outside. Empowerment is about what you can do, not the appearance of your body.

Comments : 22 Comments »
Tags: bikini competition, bodybuilding, breast implants, female empowerment, objectification, pornography, stripper heels, stripping
Categories : Destructive

Recipe: Bean and Corn Chili

7 03 2013

I stopped writing recipes awhile ago because I kind of hate writing recipes. Actually, I loathe writing recipes. It’s tedious. I never measure anything and I cook in such a freestyle way, it makes me terrible at writing them. Since I blog for fun, I don’t care to spend my blogging time doing things I don’t find fun.

I also really want to encourage people to try breaking free of always using a recipe. Learning to cook for your own specific taste is a great skill to acquire. Personally, I enjoy my own cooking more than any restaurant I can afford, and I know what went in it. Because I choose to add or not add ingredients based on one simple factor: how much I like that ingredient. I like my food spicy, so I make it spicy!

I make chili pretty frequently as a meal I can reheat over and over again all week. I usually make enough for 6-8 meals. I would make more, but I need a bigger pot!

I’ve been messing around with adding different things to my chili like sweet potatoes, carrots, or eggplant, all of which have been delightful. But this week’s chili was so awesome I decided to break my no recipes policy and write it up for you and me too so I won’t forget it! It was a result of a very empty kitchen. There are other things I would have added if I had them on hand but I made this on a day when I really should have gone grocery shopping two days before that.

By the way, this recipe is accidentally vegan and gluten free. If you want to calculate the calories, I recommend entering the recipe (with any edits you make to it) into an app or website like My Fitness Pal.

bean and corn chili

Ingredients:

about 2 tbsp olive oil
1 large yellow onion, diced
2 jalapeno peppers and 4 serrano peppers (HOT! Skip or replace with bell peppers if you don’t like heat), quartered lengthwise then sliced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped golden raisins
1/4 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
12 oz can black beans, rinsed
12 oz can kidney beans, rinsed
12 oz can pinto beans, rinsed
2 12 oz cans diced tomatoes (juice as well)
about 3 tbsp tomato paste
1 bag frozen yellow corn
spices: cayenne pepper, chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper

Cooking:

in a large pot, heat olive oil over med heat.
saute onion until it starts to become transparent
add peppers, saute 3-5 more minutes
add garlic, golden raisins, and sun-dried tomatoes
first round of seasoning. you can add more later, but you can’t take spices out, so if you’re unsure, use less. in the end, you probably want more than you think. I use a generous amount of cayenne pepper, chili powder, and cumin, and just a few shakes of cinnamon. The cinnamon is that hidden “what is that?” flavor and it is so good with the sweetness of the raisins.
this may all be blackening a little on the bottom of your pot now. that’s good.
add everything else and enough water to cover. I think I used 4 cups of water.
stir and return to hotness for a few minutes (maybe 5 min, the frozen corn cooled everything down)
reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 45 min -1 hour, stirring and adjusting seasoning about every 20 min.

Serve as is or add shredded cheese, sour cream, avocado, or cilantro as a garnish.

Keeps, refrigerated, for about 5 days. Freezing is also an option.

There, I wrote a recipe! And it didn’t kill me

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: blogging, cooking, Food, gluten free, Health, plant based, Recipe, vegan, vegetarian, writing
Categories : Food

This is Not a Diet

This is Not Your Typical Weight Loss Story – Part 1, Leah

Before and After and…

The Media Diet

Life After Numbers

Breast Implants, Bikini Competitions, and Female Empowerment

Recipe: Bean and Corn Chili

This is Not a Diet it’s Your Life

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