August 2010

…NOT!

But I know a lot of people who are. Or for half-marathons, triathlons, 5Ks, boxing matches, black belts, and body building competitions…you name it, people are training for it! And sometimes it feels like I must be the only one out there who doesn’t want to compete!

I was reading a blog post by Tara over at 263 And Counting about her decision to stick with her half-marathon training and not go for the full.

In it she wrote this:

“For three days I lost sleep, I didn’t eat and I gained three pounds due to the stress of actually thinking I could do it. At the end of those three days I realized something important: This wasn’t fun anymore.”

And this:

“I like the idea of being the distraught fat girl comes back to save the world theory but this is not the time nor the place.”

And this:

“I need this journey to be slow paced enough for me to learn what works and to examine what doesn’t work. I need this journey to be about pushing boundaries and setting goals that are not only attainable but also achievable in a safe manner.”

The next part of my post isn’t addressed to Tara specifically, but to all of you DFGs out there who might be thinking, “hmmm…maybe I should start running…”

To be honest, I think too many of us DFGs like to jump on certain fitness bandwagons because we see all the glory and high-fives and “you go girl”s that others are getting and we want it too. And it appears, somehow, that running a race is an easy way to get it, whether it be a 5K or a marathon.

I think a lot of DFGs set themselves up for unintended, unimagined consequences when they decide they should push themselves that hard and intensely. I know a lot of DFGs who think (consciously or unconsciously) that training for and running a marathon will make them skinny. It’s in the back of their minds the whole time.

I am not saying that all DFGs do this…but I did it and I see others doing it too.

Now, I am all for a challenge, fitness or otherwise. But it’s important to know what will really fill you up. It’s important to know what you *really* want…what fits your personality. We need to be sure of what we’re really after when we make a commitment to something as huge as running a marathon.

Part of my problem was that, for too long, I didn’t really know what I wanted. And so I went after other people’s goals and aspirations. I let other people’s dreams become mine. And I’ve been doing that for such a long time that I didn’t even realize it!

Now that I do know what fills me up, what makes me excited to get up in the morning and push myself, I know that I don’t have to use fitness to get the high-fives and “you go girl”s. For sure, I am exercising and loving my kettlebell and kickboxing workouts, but for me the glory is coming from something totally unrelated to weight loss or fitness. And it’s a beautiful thing.

Do you know what you REALLY want or are you letting someone else’s dream become yours?

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Do you remember the story by Hans Christian Andersen?

In it, an Emperor who cares for nothing but his wardrobe hires two weavers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric that is said to be invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or “just hopelessly stupid.” The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position or stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they “dress” him in the new suit and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects. A child in the crowd calls out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession. (Thank you Wikipedia.)

Lately I’ve sort of been feeling like the Emperor. I have come to such a place of peace with my body and with food that I can hardly believe it. It’s like a miracle. At first I was hesitant to really say it loudly and proudly because I don’t know how much weight I have actually lost. I haven’t been on a scale in over a year. But let me say it now:

I AM losing weight!

But there’s a part of me that wonders if I am just “hopelessly stupid” because no one is saying a word to me about it really. Maybe it’s not obvious to anyone else…maybe I haven’t really lost any weight at all? The first time I lost weight everyone made comments. But then again, the first time around I made a big huge stinkin’ deal about it. It was all I could talk about. It became my whole identity, for crying out loud!

This time I am not talking about it much at all. It’s not taking up practically every waking moment!

And even though I don’t want to admit it, I sometimes wonder what other people think…are they looking at me and thinking, “well, you don’t look like you’re at peace with food” or “You shouldn’t be at peace with that body.”

But I know better than that. And I know what’s more important to me now is that people know me as a happy, vibrant, excited, woman who is focused on living her life, pursuing her dreams, and loving her friends and family.

I have toyed with the idea of getting the scale out of the closet and maybe someday I will, but for now I think I like it this way. It’s freeing to not be associated with a number. I am free to focus on things that are much more fun and which fill me up with joy…it’s taken me a while to realize just how much space that damned number used to take up in my head!!

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Or, clarification about what *I* think it means to struggle, and why I didn’t want to any more…

Or, how I want to be in the world, revisited…

A couple of weeks ago I was having a conversation online with some friends about kids struggling with those inevitable issues that kids struggle with. And I wrote:

“We so want for them to not feel any pain or anguish. We don’t want them to fail, feel stupid, be fat, unhealthy. And yet, and yet…we felt those things…and we lived. We struggled. We thrived. We had moments of victory! We cried, ranted, raved, and laughed. And what a gift it is!! We didn’t “get it” all at once and have perfect lives. And neither will our kids. And so who are we to take that away from them?”

Yes, Miss I-Don’t-Want-This-To-Be-A-Struggle herself wrote that and I believe it with all my heart. So far, my 47 years here on Earth have not been all happyhappyjoyjoy. And for that I am grateful. I like the learning, the frustration, the damnitalltohell anger, and the days when I just want to cry and cry and cry. And I’ll tell you WHY I like them: I like them because I know they’re part of life, that they’re temporary, that embracing them gives me wisdom, and that I can’t have happyhappyjoyjoy without them. I can’t have those soaring, I-love-the-whole-world days unless I have the days are complete and utter struggle.

Emotional struggle helps me have “ah-ha” moments, as lame as that might sound. And I believe that, as hard as it is sometimes to probe those tender places – to “go there” – it’s harder not to. Because not going there usually results in self-destructive behavior, at least for me.

But that doesn’t mean I want to welcome and invite struggle into my life…on purpose. I don’t want to assume that “life is hard”…or that living a healthy life is hard. As I have said a million or more times before: if we view this as a battle, that’s exactly what we’ll get. Oh, and I love what Jack Sh*t had to say about it:

This isn’t a combat detail. It’s a rescue mission.

It’s counterproductive, if not downright destructive, and there will be collateral damage. Besides, there will always be uninvited struggle and hardship.

So what do I mean specifically? I spent many, many years numbing my feelings with food. For a long time I didn’t realize that that’s what I was doing. I knew I was fat and not happy about it. I knew that I wanted to lose weight, or so I thought. And every time I tried to lose weight it didn’t work.

And then I started getting more aware. And I lost a lot of weight. And then I regained some of it.

I’ve written millions of words on this very blog about the awareness that has come my way.

And the more aware I became, the more frustrated I got, because my overwhelming hunger always seemed to get in the way of losing that regained weight. It was a constant struggle to control myself. And when I just couldn’t control myself, then tapes would start playing: “I’m pathetic, I can’t control myself, I’m lazy, I’m stupid, there’s something wrong with me.” And when I say “me” I mean my spiritual/emotional/personal me, not my physical body.

(I will say right here that I now believe there were some things wrong with my physical body, and getting those things fixed has made a world of difference).

It was a struggle to deny myself food when I felt hungry, whether it was real hunger or not. It was a struggle if I had reached my calorie limit for the day and was still hungry. It was a struggle if I was “good” and didn’t eat, and it was a struggle if I was “bad” and ate beyond the limit. THAT is the struggle I didn’t want in my life.

And so I played games with myself to talk myself out of having those extra calories. I would try and distract myself…and yet, that pit of hunger would gnaw at me. Or I would lie to myself. Or justify. Or make an excuse. Or giggle and laugh to take attention off the real issue.

So yes, I have struggled and I am grateful for my struggle and all the learning that has come from it. But I am also grateful that this isn’t a struggle any more. I am grateful that when I said, all those months ago, that I don’t want this to be a struggle, that it wasn’t in vain. That  I don’t have to white-knuckle it any more.

And because I have found it for myself, I want others to have it too. But I also know that we all walk our own paths…and so who am I to take that away from someone else?

I’ll close with another quote from Women Food & God:

“Women can’t imagine a world in which they stop dieting or trying to fix the size of their thighs. … They have whole friendships built on commiserating about the 20 pounds they have to lose and the jeans that are too tight and the latest greatest diets. They fit in by hating themselves.”

And so it’s scary to think about giving up something that is so engrained. It’s why that phrase “I felt as if I were sinning by announcing to the world/myself that I could trust myself” has been ringing so loudly in my ears. I want to just come out and say it, but it feels like a betrayal of the sisterhood.

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There’s a young woman named Emmie who’s blogging about her weight loss journey here. Recently she wrote about whether or not to go to a casting call for The Biggest Loser (TBL).

Apparently, she had tried out before but was not chosen. She took it hard. Then, just recently, she got a call from a TBL producer telling her that TBL would be in her area again and that she should come on out.

In the end, she decided that she really didn’t want to be on TBL, that she was doing this for herself and in her own way. I think she made the right decision but there were others who thought she was crazy not to want that kind of opportunity.

And I thought, the opportunity for what? To be on national television? To have every minute of every day monitored for months on end? To lose massive amounts of weight quickly? To compete against others? Because I’ve never seen TBL, I don’t know exactly what goes on, but I have a good idea…I’ve read about it and heard others discussing it in great detail. Yeah, how great would it be to have a whole team of weight loss experts taking control of your life for however many months it is, AND walk away with a whole lot of money (IF you’re the biggest loser), 15 minutes of fame AND having lost a lot of weight? You win, right?

At one time, this scenario would have appealed to me because I had no faith in myself whatsoever.

Anyway, I am really proud of Emmie for the decision she made. The longer I am on this journey the more I know, in the deepest part of my soul, that I have everything I need, right inside myself. And so does Emmie and so do you. I have come to believe that when we look outside ourselves we get tripped up, we stop trusting ourselves. And trust in ourselves is the real, long-term solution. If we don’t then we will continue to look outside ourselves and find only short-term answers.

To me, “winning” is having that unshakeable faith deep down inside, knowing that I can handle anything that comes my way.

And so back to the original question: is competition always good? I’ve been around the “diet program” block a time or two (more like 25) and almost all of them end up having a “competition” element to them. Not to mention all the personal blogs out there with challenges and whatnot, all in the name of “motivation” to “keep going” with weight loss. There are fitness challenges, and accountability challenges, and points-counting challenges…I know you know what I am talking about. And maybe for a very few, these work and weight is taken off forever, and they never have to look back.

But if you know me or have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I don’t like challenges. That’s not to say that I haven’t signed up for a few over the years, but I always regret it when I do. It goes against every fiber of my being.

And so, overall, I think this kind of competition is counterproductive. I’m not saying “don’t run a 5K” or don’t challenge yourself in a way that feels right to you. I am saying that the challenge or competition mentality, when it comes to our bodies and our health, is probably more of a distraction than a help. I think it pushes us into a more narrow definition of what’s acceptable for ourselves.

But at the same time, it opposes the idea that we’re supposed to be bettering ourselves, pushing the envelope, and stepping outside our comfort zones. Or are we?

I think it becomes more important to both know who and what we are and to know who and what we are not! There have been many times when I wanted for myself what I saw others having: like the high-fives and the “you go girl” that comes with crossing the finish line of a half marathon. Or being a weight-loss success story. But those moments are fleeting. Or you might feel the not-rightness deep down inside…and if you “fail” at one of these challenges, you will feel that you’ve failed yourself. I know because I’ve been there done that too many times to count.

I get the idea of wanting to excel and be great at what we do, but it seems to me that we, as a society, have gone way beyond that noble idea and are now pushing ourselves too far and too hard. We don’t want to be who we are, we want to be better, stronger, smarter, faster, richer, funnier, thinner. It’s not good enough to excel at what comes easily to us, we must struggle to become…what? To transform ourselves into…what?

When we see “everyone else” getting praise and high-fives publicly, we want it too. But it gets in the way of being ourselves, which ultimately is our greatest gift to others.

And so I believe it’s really important to know what you really want. On the surface, it may seem like what you want is weight loss. I know that’s what I’ve wanted. But what I’ve discovered, now that I’ve had weight loss (and weight re-gain), is that’s not what I really wanted. What I really wanted was to express myself via writing and to be heard. And when I allow myself to have what I really want, the rest just comes naturally.

So focus on three things: what you really want, what comes easily to you, and what you love. In most cases it will be the same thing and it will be valuable to yourself and to others. And when you feel of value, your body will respond in kind. I know mine does.

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