Friday Funny: The Poo Chi Workout

After a big topic on Wednesday, some fun and laughter on Friday! This cracked me up when a friend sent it to me and I had to share. Not only can I - and likely most women I know - relate, it shows someone who is so comfortable with her body that I'm inspired. Watch, laugh, and have a great weekend getting out there and getting healthy!

Rear-end Mirrors

You know how it seems like some women are just never happy with how they look even though they look perfectly fine to everyone else? Yeah, I've been that woman. Seriously, who hasn't? Our eyes are not calibrated for reality when we're looking at ourselves (or our children, for that matter). Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in most cases women drop themselves like a hot potato.

I left negative self-talk in 2010 because it was just bringing me down and making me feel, well, pathetic.  I don't like feeling pathetic so I stopped.  Since I've stopped using my obviously malfunctioning mirror as a gauge for my self-esteem, I've realized how much of how I feel about myself is related to how active I am. When I'm working out and eating well, I feel like a bombshell. When I can't get to the gym or have a few days of haphazard nutrition, I feel more like a bomb.  No rocket science there. It's virtually the same body either way, but it's a lot easier to feel positive and confident about it when I am taking an active role in making it stronger.

Well, that all reversed itself on me last weekend. I've been working out consistently throughout my pregnancy, but I haven't been feeling very bombshellish. I've tried to remind myself that it's time to stop being so selfish and suck it up because it's just temporary and seriously, get a grip, how shallow can I be? It worked for a while but I still felt larger than life.

Then on Saturday I came home from my 5 mile run, high on endorphins. I was so thrilled that I had such a great workout that I didn't think twice when my son wanted to take pictures of me. As I flipped through them I was caught off-guard.  I wasn't seeing a mushy, over-stuffed, sloth of a person. I saw someone who looked pretty darn awesome for five months pregnant and just back from a run. In fact, I felt so great about it that I uploaded them to my Facebook page.

It was nice to have that reversal of perspective. I was immediately able to appreciate the level of fitness I have been able to maintain and be proud of it. I had gotten caught up in self-pity over what I felt I had to give up but realized I hadn't given up anything. I had gained the best gift of all: a strong body that can maintain fitness throughout pregnancy, a husband who showers me with compliments no matter how hard I make it for him to do so, and a son who wants to take my picture.

Cue the sheepish grin. I guess I have it pretty good afterall.  Remember folks, a lot of fitness is mental, and the messages we send ourselves resonate loud and clear. Don't be afraid to look in your rear-view mirror: believe the nice things people tell you and look for a few of them yourself.

In other words, get out there and get healthy!

Turn it out to tone it up

A few days ago I switched from NPR to a commercial music station in my car, and in the span of one red light had been subjected to three high-energy, intense commercials for fast food.

Within seconds I caught myself thinking, "hmmm, a snack sounds good..." and conjuring up ideas of what I might want to eat.  Whaaaat?  Luckily, it hit me right away that I not only had I just eaten lunch and was not even hungry, I hadn't given a single thought to food until I heard those commercials.  I switched back to NPR.  At least that way I just feel under-educated.

I read an article once that showed the significant drop in self-esteem among teenage girls after reading fashion magazines and started paying more attention to how I felt about my body image after reading them.  As a result, I stopped buying them (and the celebrity gossip mags, as curious as I was about who has cellulite and why the Bachelor got dumped) and have felt much more positive and healthy.  After that experiment, I've been more aware of the role that the media plays in not only how we feel about ourselves and our bodies, but how our children shape expectations for what their bodies should look or feel like. 

Seriously, I hear about first graders on diets.  First grade girls.  The only thing first graders should be worried about is...well I haven't got a clue.  I don't have a girl.  But they shouldn't be worried about their weight, I know that much. 

I listen to my own music on my iPod, DVR television shows to skip commercials, and avoid fashion magazines because they harsh my mellow.  I really love where I am with my body and my fitness, and I want to roll around in it as long as I can. I'm not in any hurry for someone to tell me it's not good enough or that I need to be thinner/faster/younger/tanner.  Let's not get carried away - I am still a vain woman and want to feel like I am cute and fit and fun to be around!  I've just taken the long route to learning that I can decide that for myself.  And when I am in doubt, I ask my husband and he is always quick to feed my delusions. :) Good man.

Look, it's not realistic to think that we can lock ourselves in a bubble and live in our own reality where no amount of media influences our perceptions or decisions.  All I ask is that you be aware of how these messages impact not only your perceptions but your actions.

Your actions.  When you take action related to your body image, is it in response to a recent media message?  Be aware of what motivates you, and tune it out to tone it up.

Good day!

Guess what? You're not as fat as you think you are.

Women: have you told yourself how fat you are this week? Have you told someone else?  Chances are, there have been half a dozen instances of negative self-talk in your life this week.  I'm guilty, too! 

Now be honest again... are you actually fat?  I mean clinically, are you fat?  Is your body fat percentage over 30%?  Is your waist more than 35 inches around?  Is your BMI over 30?  If not, shut it.

It's a major pet peeve of mine: women who look perfectly fine going on and on about how fat they are when they aren't.  I used to do it all the time, and sometimes I still catch myself asking my husband if I look fat or complaining that I "feel fat".  But I am not actually fat. Intellectually I know this, but after years of being a woman in America who is conditioned to believe that the only path to beauty is through unattainable physical perfection, its hard to believe.

About a year ago I stopped reading fashion and gossip magazines. They just made me feel bad about myself.  I also made a promise to start being nicer to myself and stop expecting to be perfect all the time.  The more I practiced positive self-talk, the better I felt, and the better I started to look to myself.  Over time, I started noticing more and more how many women are still in automatic put-down mode. 

So if you're one of those women who is not actually fat but can't stop telling yourself you are, here's what helped me stop:

1. Focus on your body's strength, not it's size.  In the past two years I have completed the Ultimate Fitness Challenge, ran two half-marathons, and completed a triathlon.  An unfit person would not have been able to do those things.  Once I realized that, it became easier to focus on what my body could do, not what it could fit into. 

2. Do some research.  Get online and start learning about the actual benchmarks for obesity.  Get your body composition measured and start using actual data as a tool for determining your fatness, not your mirror.

3. Every day, celebrate something you love about your body.  Yes, I mean every day.  There is something about your physical self that you can appreciate.  It can be the same thing two days in a row!  The point is to get into the habit of appreciating the beauty you already have.

4. Stop getting second opinions.  Who cares if someone else thinks you're fat.  The only opinion of you that matters is yours.

Besides, talking about how fat you are when you're not actually fat makes the actually fat people around you feel even worse. 

I've gone through a period lately of feeling fat and hearing myself slip into those old habits of being all down on myself because some physical limitations have kept me from my usual high-intensity workouts.  So, I'm calling myself out on it and inviting you to join me back on the positive path.  Take time today to be nice to yourself.

Good day!

The Radio Announcer Syndrome

Have you ever met someone in person and been really surprised by how they look?  I call it the Radio Announcer Syndrome. You always have a mental image of how a radio announcer looks...and then you see them and they never look how you thought they would.

Well, an exchange with an old high school friend made me think about that and how it relates to people in fitness.

I'll just get down to brass tacks - I don't look like I work as hard as I do.  Sometimes I just yell and scream at God for giving me the hand of cards that I have been dealt: a soft, pear-shaped, child-bearing, famine-resistant body that is just as stubborn as I am.  To really get visible muscle tone, I have to exert some serious discipline and be so strict with my nutrition and exercise that it really starts to take the fun out of being healthy. 

It's not fair.

That's why I finally chose doing endurance and physical sporting events over the figure/bodybuilding contests that an old trainer tried to talk me into: I just do not have the genetic makeup for that stuff.  Some girls look like they live in the gym even though they eat crap and lie around all day....others work out hard and do amazing things and are *healthy* as a result...but you wouldn't pick them out of a lineup for having completed a marathon. 

It is totally completely 100% NOT FAIR and I have wasted a lot of energy being angry about it. 

Sometimes I am even embarrased to see people from long ago because I know they expect someone who is uber-ripped, and I wonder if they'll think I am making it all up.  But, over time I have gotten to where I can honestly say I am going to work with what I've got - I can do everything I want to do, I sincerely love love love healthy eating, and endorphins can't see what I look like anyway - they make me feel amazing no matter what. 

Somedays I think I look pretty darn good and other days I know that like most women, my mirror is lying to me.  Either way, I run almost every morning an an healthy person would not have been able to do that. :) 

Let's get one thing straight - I want to be totally uber-ripped.  It has been a dream of mine since I was a kid.  I love muscles and I love muscles and I love me some muscles.  I can't let go of that dream, even though sometimes I feel like trying to achieve it is an exercise in futility. 

Hey, a girl's gotta dream.

I'm taking my steps towards achieving it, fool-hardy or not.  I can't help it...I just love the chase. :)


Chase something today.