Running Scared: How I Got Into Fitness

We should institute a paper-bag mask and trench coat uniform for all would-be pervs. Make them so much easier to spot! Photo Credit.

It started with running away.

The Backstory
At nineteen I was sexually assaulted by a boy whom I was dating, hereafter referred to as Very Bad Boyfriend. The physical toll it took on me was rather minor (I had a worse recovery from my appendix surgery and don't even get me started about child birth). But after the dust settled, I realized that the mental toll was immense. I was depressed, withdrawn and suffered from frequent nightmares mixed with bouts of pull-that-crazy-woman-off-the-bridge PTSD. My remedy of choice was simple: pretend it never happened.

But it had. I was forced to admit this when I discovered through a newspaper article that, five years later, VBB had done it again. And again. I called the police department that same day and made a report. By the time I hung up the phone I was shaking so badly that I threw up. This will be so healing for you, everyone told me. You'll get to face him and show him what he really did to you. You can finally get really angry and justice will be served. In the end, after nine months of court battles, the only part of that that came true was the getting really angry part. He went to prison for three months and jail for nine but, strangely, it didn't feel just to me. I still felt hurt. If anything, I felt more hurt by him. Dredging up all the old memories and then listening to what he did to the other girls only made me wallow in my pain and the guilt I felt for not reporting him sooner.

In an ironic twist, the day after he was sentenced, my third baby was born. And the next day I started running. Never having been a runner before, at first it was just running away. I couldn't feel the emotional pain when I was in physical pain so as soon as I finished my 5 am nursing, I'd be out the door and into the dark. But my legs couldn't carry me fast enough or far enough to escape my thoughts, or the ten pounds of post-partum weight than I had decided to focus all my misguided anger on. Running was a good release but I was still scared.

The Beginning

I thought perhaps muscles would make me feel less vulnerable so I took up weight lifting. My first gym was one of those really sweaty, kinda dirty, 80's-metal-pumping gyms. It was fun to see muscles where literally none had existed before (How does one function without a tricep? To this day I don't know how I was able to drive or lift my children or brush my teeth without that telltale little cut across my arm), but I was still riddled with insecurity, scared of my own shadow and plagued with nightmares.

When my husband decided to go to night school I was worried. "Why don't you go to the Y," he suggested. "Maybe try kickboxing? They have a class the night I'm in school." "I don't have any gloves," I protested weakly. "You better start punching some bricks to toughen up then," he grinned.

The Power of A Good Teacher

It was the head strike that sold me. "Imagine you are actually grabbing someone's head and pulling it into your knee," the instructor yelled. That I could do. I had crash landed in Turbo Jennie's TurboKick class. A petite blond with biceps that could crack a walnut, she projected a no-nonsense, slightly dangerous air. When she punched I could see people going down. By the next class I was looking around the room for a real specimen to try it on, preferably someone I wasn’t related to but I wasn’t going to be picky.

One day after class I decided to ask her. "Have you ever, you know, punched someone? For real?"

"Like in a bar fight?" Her eyes lit up as she considered it and frat boys everywhere got a simultaneous, inexplicable shiver. Then she waved it off, "Nah. But I was a competitive boxer in college." That explained a lot. She wouldn't punch your lights out and send you home with your pride in a take-out box but, by golly, she could. No one would dare mess with Jennie.

And that's what I was lacking. All these years I had made it about him, about my attacker. When the truth was, the problem was with me. I felt weak. Scared. Ever-vulnerable. I was living in a world that felt unsafe to me and I didn't know how to deal.

I know I'm not alone. A 2007 University of Minnesota study reported that almost a quarter of female college students had been sexually assaulted. Take four of your best girl friends and then ask them. Their answers might surprise you. My point is the world is a beautiful, exciting and fun place but a safe place? Not so much.

During the court case VBB said that he had picked his victims because he knew we weren't the type to fight back. And here's my dirty little secret: I didn't fight back. I just cried. Sure he had the element of surprise, not to mention six inches and 60 pounds on me, and I've had enough therapy by now to be able to say that it wasn't all my fault - a typical reaction of victims trying to control the uncontrollable - but what I did, or didn't do rather, definitely affected the outcome. From the moment we went out together, VBB was in control. I let him set the boundaries, the mood, the location and almost every other aspect of the date. So by the time the battle came, I was exhausted, isolated and so far outside of normal that I lost the fight before it began.

I am not that girl anymore. Besides flat abs and arms that no longer wave like they're sending a sailor off to sea, Jennie helped me regain confidence in myself, whether I was doing a roundhouse (and picturing my attacker's head) or doing a body roll and realizing that it's okay to be sexy again. I don't have any delusions that the kind of cardio kickboxing I do will actually save me from a determined attack – I'm pretty sure no one has ever been TurboKicked to death – but I like to think it makes me less of an easy mark. I stand taller, walk faster and meet people's eyes when I pass them on the street. If it looks like I’m sizing you up, it’s because I am.

The Appendix

A few weeks ago I noticed a teenage girl watching me in the mirror during kick boxing. I could tell she was trying not to be obvious but she was watching me. And laughing. During a break I approached her. "Hey, are you enjoying the class?" I asked, trying not to feel like the last kid picked in gym class. Grinning, she answered, "It's great. I'm sorry to keep laughing but you just have this totally intense expression on your face. It's like you think you're really killing someone."

Grateful: My Body is a Gift

This post was done as a joint endeavor with the inimitable and beloved MizFit as our tribute to gratitude.

It seems like sometimes we fit bloggers get a bit obsessive about our bodies. (That would be the understatement of the year except that "Michael Jackson is a bit off" wins every time.) We tweak what we put into our bodies and catalog what comes out. We monitor the various ways, times and parts of it that we exercise. We love it, we restrict it, we dream about it, we punish it. We can even get obsessive about not being obsessive about it. And really, it's quite understandable. The human body is a miracle. It works like no machine ever could. When everything goes right - and the majority of the time it does - it is so seamless that I sometimes take it for granted.

Today I am all about the gratitude for my body.

My Top 5 Favorite Things About My Body
1. I have carried and birthed four children. Three were healthy, all were beautiful. Even in the death of my infant daughter, I was grateful to my body for taking care of her as best as it could and I was grateful to her body for sticking with me as long as she did.

2. I have a quick mind. When we talk about our bodies, we often neglect to think about the part that does all the thinking. I may forget some of the minutae (What Mrs. X? It was my son's pretend birthday today in Kindergarten and I forgot to bring treats for the whole class and make a poster of what a special kid he is and now he's sobbing at his desk? Um...) but I have a great memory and love for the stories in my life, the epic tales that have made it worth every minute of my time on this ride.

3. I can run fast. I'm no Olympian but I can sprint to a toddler chasing a ball into the street like you wouldn't believe. My legs have never ever failed me when I have truly needed them. They are strong and powerful and beautiful.

4. I have a great immune system. This is one of those things that you don't think about it until it isn't working. The truth is that I rarely get sick. And when I do, I recover quickly.

5. I feel everything. Sometimes it's hard living in this world when you are a very intense person but at the same time I firmly believe that that same intensity makes colors brighter, smells linger and the gentle words of a friend more meaningful. I cry a lot but I also laugh a lot and it all adds to the experience.

Reader Becky's Story

Becky, her mom and her sister

I recently came across a very inspiring entry on Reader Becky's (a.k.a. chilerocks) blog. Her mother, her sister and herself all decided to join a Master's swimming club and compete in a relay race together. Swimming was always something they had shared growing up but the years intervened and all three moved away. But swimming reunited them more than the miles could separate them and they took on this new challenge as a family. Each woman brought her own challenges to overcome. Becky recently gave birth to her second son (and incidentally has the most horrifying childbirth story I've ever heard - she had a c-section and was not numb.) Her mother recently overcame a long and difficult battle with cancer. Her younger sister is just starting the process of figuring out who she is and launching her life.


The team swam the 200m medley with Becky (that's her above) doing a beautiful butterfly. Despite their best efforts, all the other teams finished first and so Becky's sister had to do the final lap on her own. The women were undeterred in their passion for their sport and just grateful for the opportunity to do it. Becky sums up their experience by saying, "It was a fun meet and a good check on our "Someday I'd like to do that" list. Hopefully it will also motivate us to swim even more so we can do more meets." I am quite sure they will.

Fiber: Can You Have Too Much of a Good Thing?

When it comes to eating disorders I often have a been-there-done-that-bought-the-t-shirt attitude. What I forget is that despite being around since at least the Greeks, these pernicious disorders are constantly evolving to take advantage of current trends and products. So it was with some surprise I read an e-mail from a brave and beautiful reader. She writes:

The past few days I've been extremely bloated with water weight, edema I suppose. It's everywhere, but most noticeable in my legs, fingers and belly, but definitely water weight. I know you've done a lot of reading on eating healthy and on different diets and such, so if it's okay and not too triggering for you, I was curious about your opinion about what might be causing this. I don't eat a lot of salt - I don't like salty-tasting things and try to eat as little preservatives as possible, so I'm definitely not consuming excess sodium, and I drink several liters of water a day (usually 6 or so), so I'm not dehydrated. I do binge and purge; I had it under control for a bit but the fast few days have been doing it again, but it has NEVER in all my years of ED behavior made me this bloated with water weight. I've recently been taking fiber powder as a laxative, and I suppose taking an excess amount (a cup and a half some days, and a serving is two spoonfulls). It's weird - I always said I would never take laxatives because it's not "real" weight loss, yet I'm taking insane amounts of fiber (though in my head that's not a laxative, just has a laxative effect). Part of me just wants to make the bloat from the b/p go away (and somehow thinks fiber will make that better instead of worse). A friend mentioned that excess fiber can actually cause bloating, and too much can have the reverse effect if you don't drink enough water... but I do, and this is more water weight bloating than food weight. Is it possibly related to the fiber still, and do you have any ideas of what it could be or how to make it better? It's been messing with my head since all my clothes are tight and it affects the number on the scale and is just plain uncomfortable. I don't know if you have any experience with this or have read anything about this in all your research, but if you have any thoughts about it or ways to make it go away.

Can You Have Too Much Fiber?
The Harvard School of Public Health recommends 20-25 grams of fiber a day for women and 30-35 grams for men. However, they don't really set an upper limit. For most of history getting too much roughage in one's diet was not really a problem. In fact, most Americans get far less than the recommended daily amount. People eating real food find that fiber ends up being self-limiting. Sure lentils pack a whopping 16 grams of fiber per cup but anyone who has eaten an entire cup of lentils can tell you how that feels - after they return from multiple trips to the bathroom, that is. But in this day of Metamucil, Benefiber, and fiber-fortified cereals, granola bars, pop tarts, waters and even soups, people who trend towards the more-is-always-better school of thought can easily overdose on the stuff.

Fiber is a tricky thing. Too little and you end up being constipated - as all those strangely invasive commercials will tell you - not to mention that fiber helps with heart health, reduces diabetes and helps with irritable bowel symptoms among other things. But can you have too much fiber?

Excess fiber, generally defined as greater than 50 grams per day, has several well-documented effects. Besides the gastronomical effects (everything from explosive diarrhea, gas, and cramping), it can lead to vitamin deficiencies as it interferes with their absorption. Not to mention the excess bloating mentioned by the writer of the e-mail.

Using Fiber To Purge
The part of the e-mail that really caught my eye though was using fiber as a purging technique. Bulimics have long used emetics, laxatives, diuretics, exercise and even feeding tubes as ways of purging food from their systems. But taking a cup and a half of fiber powder (the equivalent of 90 grams of fiber) to achieve the laxative effect is one I'd never heard of before.

After thinking about it though, I can certainly see where the temptation lies. Both Gym Buddy Allison and I have O.D.'ed on fiber powder - weirdly on the exact same day, you should have heard that conversation at the gym! - and both of us did it out of a desire to use fiber to control our weight. The problem is that everywhere you look, fiber is the new "it" word for weight loss. Fiber "fills you up" and "triggers satiety" and even, as evidenced by Fiber Choice's Weight Management tablets, help you "control your weight."

I've bought into that marketing mania. If I have a choice between buying a regular granola bar or a "fiber bar", I pick the fiber bar every time. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Except that all the extra fiber adds up and now my body is used to a lot of fiber and needs it to, you know, keep things moving. It's funny how these things sneak up on you. Everything I've read says that if you eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and whole grains you'll get all the fiber you need from your diet. So why the huge boom in fiber-enhanced products? I'm guessing it's for the money. Either that or some ConAgra CEO finds "sharts" funny.

If you've never seen this Sarah Haskins video before, it's a must-watch! Warning: use the potty first if you have a weak bladder.

January Great Fitness Experiment: The Lose 10 Pounds Diet

Reader Maggie made an astute observation in her comment on my post "Can You Be Too Old To Exercise?" Smart girl, she writes:

[...] it really bothers me when a fitness magazine has an article about loving yourself and your body the way you are... and on the next page there's an article telling you how to lose 10 pounds fast (!).

Shape Magazine heard Maggie and decided to give her a late holiday gift (just like when your aunt "forgets" you are allergic to peanuts and gives you a gigantic tin of her famous peanut brittle): On page 150 they have a delightful little article called "Banish Those Body Issues" illustrated with a photo of 6 naked women. (Why is it that for a woman to show she is body confident, she must be naked? Is confident and clothed some kind of oxymoron?) On the very next page is the article with largest font from the cover: "Drop 10 lbs This Month." Not only that but it was subtitled: "Our best plan ever!"

To paraphrase my favorite karaoke song ever "Why do you build me up (build me up!), buttercup baby, just to let me down (let me down!)?" (If you are currently singing "And worst of all (worst of all!), you never call darlin' when you say you will (say you will!)" then you will love this.) Shape gave me a challenge I could not refuse. I am going to do their "Drop 10 lbs this month" plan and see what happens. Will I learn to "banish those body issues?" or will I banish that pesky poundage?

I've always wanted to take a magazine at their word and then write about the results. It's like those commercials that say you can burn (tiny type) up to (huge type) 1,000 calories an hour doing Zumba! Now I love Zumba but I've done that class with a heart-rate monitor on and I'll be darned if I ever broke 400. This workout not only says it will "burn more than 400 calories in just 30 minutes!" they also promise "you'll have firmer muscles, your clothes will be noticeably looser, and the number on the scale will plummet. Plus you'll feel like you can take on antyhing the world throws at you." I don't know about you but interplanetary objects chuck stuff at me like all the time. Who can resist that?

It's the smart aleck in me. I can't help it.

All snarking aside, a lot of people look to magazine workouts for ideas and while occasionally they come up with some flat-out craziness, often they have some good plans for spicing things up. In addition to novelty, you can't beat them for cost effectiveness. In this time of financial hardship, shelling out a few bucks for a magazine certainly beats an hour with a pricey trainer. Also, they are widely available, come with pictures and are a good place to start. And what is January if not a good place to start?

My sister, who knows me better than I know me, pointed out that a lot of people find my Experiments intimidating because I'm such a die-hard exerciser (post about compulsive exercise coming at you soon!) "Why don't you do something that everyone can try?" she asked me the other day. "Oh but everyone can try the stuff I do," I began to enthuse. She cut me off, "What I should have said was, 'Why don't you do something that everyone will want to try?'" Ah. And while I do realize that some of you read this just for the freak-show appeal of watching me do hilarious and sometimes idiotic things - and that's not going away, don't worry - I do worry about alienating people who are just getting into fitness. Exercise is for everyone! No matter how young or old, how weak or strong, how thin or thick, how introverted or extroverted; there is something for everyone. So this month there are no excuses. This is a real workout - your quads will burn - but it is customizable to every level, requires little to no equipment and has a good healthy balance of strength training and cardio.

The Workout
You've got two days of the strength circuit in the magazine, two days of high intensity interval work and one day of something low-n-slow like yoga or walking. Every 4th day is a rest day.

The workout the Gym Buddies and I will be following is:
Monday - Shape Magazine strength circuit (see pictures below)
Tuesday - Boot Camp interval workout (you can sub biking, running, swimming or any other activity that gets heart rate upupup and then takes it down for a rest and then back up again. The key is the intensity - you want something short and hard. Don't go over 45 minutes. You want a suggestion? Do the 8/12 bicycle sprints!)
Wednesday - Shape Magazine strength circuit
Thursday - Yoga/walking
Friday - Turbokick interval workout (again, sub in what you like)

We will also be doing a Hip-Hop cardio class Monday nights that falls into the steady state cardio category and a TurboKick class on Saturday but that's just because we love those classes so much and can't bear to give them up. You don't have to add anything else in.

While I would be highly surprised if I lost 10 lbs this month, this workout has some new moves and takes anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes depending on how much time you have to give to it. If you can get past the editorial hyperbole, I think you might like it. We did it at the gym today and it kicked our butts! So throw those resolutions in high gear and join the Gym Buddies and I this month. This is your month, people and I want to hear all about it! Who's in with me?

Shape Magazine Workout Scans
*note: This workout uses a weighted ball but there is nothing special about the ball. If you don't have a ball, use a dumbbell or a milk jug or two soup cans. You can even do the moves without any weights at all! (Click the images to enlarge)

Trend Watch: Soft Porn Fitness

"If you've got it, flaunt it!" so the saying goes and fitness people certainly subscribe to this mantra. Seen a health or fitness mag lately? Unless it is Experience Life, I'd bet you a trailer of tuna steaks with whole wheat couscous and arugula ('cause everyone has those on hand right?) that the cover model is in some state of undress. The bikini-clad-standing-thigh-deep-in-generic-water pose is so popular that I don't think Shape has done a cover in the last 5 years without it!

Fitness TV shows, DVDs and podcasts are no better with female trainers sporting tiny booty shorts and sports bras. All the better to show off your hard-won physique right? Why else do we work out if not to get a body worth publicly baring? Ahem. Heck, even CrossFit's been porni-fied. And if you've ever tried CrossFit you will understand how very weird that is.

But is the trend going past flat abs and cut biceps towards something more... porno?

Reader Katie recently wrote me about a fitness site she feels very conflicted about:

The website is www.bodyrock.tv . [...] This website has really started to transform the way I approach workouts. They are short, intense workouts--from as little as 9 minutes to 45 minutes-tops. It's all bodyweight based and just requires a floor mat and the ability to do pull-ups someplace. The woman on the site is very fit and is not shy about sharing that these workouts are ALL she does and that a lot of her battle is also in the kitchen.

It all sounds great. Until you look at the site. I'm embarrassed to look at the site around other people because of the way her videos are shot, and the photos taken to show the individual movements. I feel like I'm looking at a soft-porn fitness site! When I've showed people where I've been getting several of my workouts from, they react with this same mixture of raised eyebrows, but then respect for her solid routines (and body). On the one hand, she sends such a positive message about being physically fit, nourishing your body with healthy food, and to a degree to not be ashamed to show off your hard work. On the other hand, she totally exploits her body and this razzes my feminist sensibilities. Therefore, the message gets a little muddled between the obvious display of silicone and play toward sex appeal and lack of modesty. This site combines so many of my vices---fitness, sex appeal, my love/hate relationship with this site's goals, and finding the real reason I work out--how much is for my own fitness and how much for outward appearance?

Here's a screen shot of one of the videos Katie is referring to: (to see the whole video, click the picture to go to her site. Her videos aren't enabled for external embedding - sorry!)

And here's a shot of Zuzana from her home page demonstrating a lunge:
I have to admit that while I am very used to seeing how sexified most fitness women are, this site seemed a little extreme. It wasn't the clothing per se but more the poses, expressions and mannerisms - ones our society normally associates with porn rather than fitness. Hawt TV trainers may dress like the sexy gym teacher or co-ed cheerleader every man dreams about but - here's the difference - they don't usually act like it. Zuzana calls our bluff and refuses to allow us to pretend that we're not looking at her boobs.

Celebrities on magazine covers and mad-hot Czech women on the Internet are one thing but what about real life? I remember the last time a girl showed up at my gym with night-club makeup, teased hair and sporting cleavage on both ends. People, both men and women, made negative comments about her look and the attitude they assumed she had. Jealousy rearing its ugly head? Or indignation about the breach of the implied moral code? Both?

Changing a Negative Self Image [Aplogies All Around]

It is not often I feel genuinely sorry for celebrities and yet - have you seen the video of Giuliana Rancic pestering women on the red carpet at the Golden Globes about their diet secrets?! Jezebel provides a helpful mash-up:

Click thru to see the vid - it doesn't allow for embedding. Sorry!

It's a veritable body-image gauntlet. How is it that the most important question a reporter can think of to ask an actress is what her diet and exercise routine really REALLY is? Especially when said reporter is so waifish herself. Just watching it was like being sandblasted with body snark, jealousy, insecurity and shallowness. I can't imagine what it must have felt like in person. Made me love Christina Hendricks though with her, "Maybe you should eat more food and lay off the booze" admonition!

Actually, watching this vid made me think of how things have been around here at GFE lately: a hail storm of body image woes. A sweet reader recently e-mailed me saying, "I wish you wouldn't be so hard on yourself. Because when you're hard on yourself, it makes me hard on myself." Unless it's from joy, I don't often cry reading your e-mails (usually I snort liquids and make embarrassing noises trying to stifle my laughter) but this time I did.

I forget sometimes that I walk a fine line here by sharing all my deep-seated crazy - and there's been a serious uptick in insanity since the Jelly Bean has been born, I'm not going to lie to you - and holding all of you hostage on the crazy train with me. You should know that for every weight-loss thought that I write, I think 100 (1,000?) in my head. It's an illness, this self hatred.

The scale, the calories, the inches, the percentages: for years these numbers ruled my life and I don't want to go back there. Truly, I don't. But you should also know that every recent resurgence of my disordered eating has been after the birth of one of my children. Hormones, sleep deprivation and baby weight combine into this trifecta of evil that makes me so very hard on myself. Plus this time around my therapist, whom I loved dearly, is now working for the prison system and alas I am not a criminal.

And so I blog about all this trying to keep it transparent, thinking that if I'm accountable to all of you then perhaps I can avoid repeating past mistakes. But I forget that some of you are fragile too. And some of you are just sick of hearing about this. In retrospect, I don't know that it is helping me much to indulge in the negative self talk. Making excuses for my bad behavior just allows me to wallow in it instead of making the necessary changes.

I asked my sister today if it is possible to change one's entire personality. To let go of my Type A insanity and embrace a more mellow me. She said she believed I could with a lot of work. I hope so. I'm going to try. I'm not exactly sure how to go about it yet but I hope to be gentle in the process.

My sincerest apologies to those of you I have made sad, mad, crazy or just otherwise irritated. I'm going to cut the negative self talk in the future. I won't be perfect but I'm going to try. I love you guys too much not to. Hopefully I'll learn to love myself that much as well.

Thanks for your patience with me. We're all in this together, right? Where do you draw the line between a healthy dialogue and pointless obsessing? Anyone else want to smack Guiliana??

How Audrey Hepburn Ruined My Day

Note: This is hands-down the most enigmatic post I've ever written, not because of what it says but because of the effect it continues to have on other people. I wrote this in February of 2009, when I was not in a very good place mentally and I thought it would be a nice little chunk of mental vomit that a few women would relate to and we'd all move on. This post remains to this day the number one post that brings people to my site from search engines. It is the most active post comment-wise in my archives.

Almost weekly I get people sympathizing with, chastising, hating and lecturing two-years-ago me. Some people say Audrey absolutely did have an eating disorder. Others comment that there's no way she was 103 pounds. Still others chalk it up to the deprivation she experienced during World War II. And there's even one commenter who claims to be related to her. It's bizarre. So I thought I'd share this post with you again on the off chance one of you can tell me what is still so compelling about a woman with a teeny tiny waist.

And just so we're clear: I would not write this post today. I still adore Audrey but I no longer covet her unattainable figure. In fact I'm a little embarrassed I wrote this but that's where I was at the time.

103. 20. Those two numbers have haunted my every waking moment for the past three days. Even though I have a known weakness for numbers - body fat percentage! max reps! weight! calories! IP addresses! (xkcd, I love you!) - the tenacity of these two little numbers in my mind has surprised even me. Every spare moment this weekend when my brain has not been occupied, all I can think is 103. 20. 103. 20. Their power over me is tied to a third number: 5' 6.75"

That's right. My height. I'm nearly 5' 7" which may possibly be the one number I have always been quite happy with. I have never wished to be shorter and thanks to a weird complex I have where I always think I'm taller than everyone, 6 1/2 foot-tall men included, my height has always been a happy number for me. Good thing too since it's not like it's something one can really do much about.

My height also puts me in good company. Kate Moss is 5' 6.5". Angelina Jolie is 5' 7". Jackie Kennedy was 5'7". And Audrey Hepburn, one of my favorite actresses and style icons, is my height exactly. (Well, she was anyhow. For those of you who missed the memo, she's dead now. She died a few months before her 65th birthday of cancer.) Why do I care about other women's heights? Because it gives me the information I need to compare myself. Sigh.

103 was Audrey Hepburn's weight. 20 inches was the size of her waist. I found this out courtesy of one of the magazines I read that is supposed to promote health (in fact it even has the word "health" in its title so it must be true!). This same article also called Princess Di "normal" with a waist of "26" at her largest" and Kate Winslet "large" with a 28" waist. But seeing as I do not share the coloring nor stylistic predilections of the tragic Di or the beleagured Kate, back to Audrey. It is said that all throughout her life and illustrious career, she made it a point to never exceed 103 pounds. And according to all sources, aside from her two pregnancies, she never did.

Let's get real. 103 pounds (a BMI of 16.2) is a positively ridiculous number for someone of our height. Kate Moss, the Waif of all Waifs, is reported to weigh 114 pounds (BMI 17.9). Angelina Jolie, if you believe the tabloids, is near 110 (BMI 17.2). All are considered underweight to the point of it being a health risk. At my very sickest with my eating disorder, I never got as low as Audrey Hepburn maintained for her entire adult life. For me to get to 103 would require calorie restriction and exercise the like of which I dare not even imagine.

A 20-inch waist is also similarly extraordinary. One of my thighs is bigger than her waist. The only women that I know of that can even approximate that number are Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O'Hara) and Dita Von Teese, both of whom use highly restrictive corsets to achieve 18" for the former and 16" for the latter. Audrey's waist was 20 inches even in a bikini. (For the record, it is reported that Dita's uncorseted waist is a mere 21".)

I know all this and yet I still pine for a 20 inch waist. Why would I do this? I am healthy - exceedingly healthy if you want to talk those kinds of numbers (you should see the blood pressure reading on this baby!) - so why aren't I happy with that? It's because deep down I yearn, like most women I think, to not just be functional but also to be beautiful. And I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but for this beholder, Audrey Hepburn has always reigned supreme.

Part of my problem with this is that for everything that Audrey was known for in her life, being eating disordered was never one of them. She maintained an impossibly tiny figure without making herself ill. Good genetics, I suppose. And I imagine she was very careful with how she ate - there are certainly no records of her being a glutton. But here's where the crazy voices kick in: Why does she get to be so thin and beautiful when for me that weight would earn me a one-way ticket to the mental health ward? Why doesn't she look sunken-eyed and gaunt in any of her pictures? I lose 10 pounds and I have bones sticking out in all sorts of wrong places. And where did she put all of her internal organs? In her pocketbook?

I am embarrassed to say how much these numbers bother me. I have spent the last two days looking up corsets online and wondering if I could wear one under my gym tank tops without the Gym Buddies noticing (not likely) and still be able to breathe enough to do my cardio (extremely unlikely). I have been wondering if I ought to take out all oblique exercises just in case my crazy strong ab muscles are actually making my waist bigger - an assertion that Jillian Michaels uses in her book Making the Cut as her reason why she never does them - despite the fact that it would give me an unstable and unbalanced core.



There is a reason that comparisons are odious. Certainly I am stronger than Audrey, she being no fan of sport or exercise aside from dancing in her youth. And other than coloring (and height!), we share precious little with which to draw a comparison. So you would think that I could stop obsessing. But I can't. I have admired her for so long that to learn that the reality of looking like her is so far out of my reach as to be a logistical impossibility feels terribly sad to me. A loss, even.

Kate Middleton: Does the Title of Princess Come With An Eating Disorder?

Land mines and bulimia: those are my only two real memories of Princess Di. Being young enough that the '80s were just a (colorful plastic-scented) blur of Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake, I wasn't much interested in fairytale weddings unless they came with a cartoon prince and soundtrack featuring Robin Williams. So I missed all the drama that plagued Diana Spencer from the moment she added "Princess of Wales" to her moniker. But like any good celebrity, she did leave a legacy and for me that included her good works with victims of land mines and even more vividly, the immense media scrutiny of her looks and her eating disorder. Hers was a Princess story that ended about as far from fairytale as you can get without turning it into The Producers.

I don't think anyone would wish Diana's fate on another young girl and yet with the recent engagement heard 'round the world between Prince William and Kate Middleton, here we are on the cusp of Princess 2.0 and I'm not sure we've learned anything. Here is what we know so far about the princess-to-be:

- She wore a sapphire blue Issa dress in the interview where she and Prince William announced their engagement that was so gorgeous that replicas of it sold out in mere hours.

- Her engagement ring is a huge diamond-sapphire ring that used to be Princess Di's. And maybe it was supposed to go to Prince Harry but with no wedding prospects he handed it over to brother Will and at any rate, replicas of the gorgeous ring have spawned a whole new industry, that's how much everyone loves it and blah blah blah what does this have to do with Kate??

Clearly, just like Princess Di, her sartorial style is a winner. (Confession: I totally want that dress too - it's got to be the best combination of flattering and subdued sexy I have ever seen.) Indeed, her style may be very similar - at least wearing ridiculously large hats in pictures styled by professional royalty groomers - to the late beloved Princess. And the comparisons don't end there. In addition to having impeccable taste and perfect grooming, Princesses are required to have a certain, well, princess-ly body type.

Princess Di was hugely unprepared for the media barrage that commenced upon her marriage and even more so after the birth of her first son. Much of this media attention focused exclusively on her looks: her clothing, her hair, her jewelry and especially her body. Mere weeks into her marriage, after a run-in with Australian paparazzi, she said "I was concerned I was a fat, chubby, 20-year-old." She dealt with all this scrutiny by turning to bulimia which she described as not only a weight-management tool but as an "escape mechanism" from the insane pressure being heaped upon her.

Looking back, it seems a despicable way to treat someone who was so beloved and yet if anything the media eye is even more focused on Kate. While engagement rumors swirled late this summer, websites rushed to post pictures of her "dramatic weight loss" first positing that it was an effort to get into princess form and entice William to propose and then proclaiming it was because she was so upset about the wedding drama that she lost weight from stress causing William to go into fits out of fear of his mother's fate befalling his true love. Some articles gushed over her new (UK) size two figure, talking about how she wooed William by posing for lingerie shots while others bemoaned her "concave, bony" chest. Every article has to print her height and weight, as estimated by various experts and "friends" who don't hold back on philosophizing about every morsel she eats. Even Kate Middleton's mother doesn't escape the diet police who kindly call her a "health hazard."

I'm not usually inclined to believe quotes from anonymous "palace insiders" (in the National Enquirer no less) but I think this one has the ring of truth: "Kate’s obsessed with her weight and is bothered when people comment on it." It would be quite the feat to not be obsessed with her weight when the rest of us so clearly are and how could you not be bothered when people comment on it? Personally I enjoy it so much when people comment on my weight that I've taken up earwax-cultivating as my new favorite hobby.

For the miles of type written about the Princess-to-be, I wish more of it had to do with Kate's actual interests or her plans for public service or what books she reads or even if she thinks Dancing With the Stars: Bristol Palin Scandal Edition really is rigged by waltz-loving gun-toting Republican mercenaries. Just reading about her speculated weight drama makes the crazy voices scream in my head; I can hardly imagine what it must do to her.

She seems (I write that like I know her at all which I so totally don't - the closest I've ever gotten to anyone royal was when I swore I saw Pamela Anderson on a Southwest flight out of L.A. and she's a queen of a whole different stripe) very level-headed and capable. She's got almost ten years on Princess Di, at the age she wed, and that can make a huge difference in terms of confidence and self-esteem. Plus, it seems like the castle is taking precautions by having her meet with a support team of experts to prepare her for the onslaught. I hope so. I really want her to succeed (if only so she'll continue to find adorable dresses that I can then copy) and to find happiness and fulfillment in her new life.

But in the end, Princess Di's words echo presciently from the grave, "The most daunting aspect was the media attention, because my husband and I, we were told when we got engaged that the media would go quietly, and it didn't; and then when we were married they said it would go quietly and it didn't; and then it started to focus very much on me, and I seemed to be on the front of a newspaper every single day, which is an isolating experience, and the higher the media put you, place you, is the bigger the drop."

After watching beautiful Princess Di fall victim to eating disorders, why are we already setting up Kate to follow the same pressured path? Or is body scrutiny just part of the deal when you become a modern-day princess? Do you think Kate Middleton's better equipped to handle it than Princess Di?

The Real Reason You Exercise: To Get a Man

Tagline: "It's all about men."

This is exactly the type of idiotic advertising that companies do just to get a rise out of people so we'll all post it on our blogs and natter about it and give them lots of viral publicity and attention.

Sadly, I am unable to resist the bait and so I'm giving it to them. ("That's what SHE said!" ba-dum-bum.)

Men's Health magazine has launched a new advertising initiative ostensibly targeted at men but really aimed at getting the women folk up in arms. Probably because we're so cute when we make that little scrunchy mad face!

The basic gist - as you can plainly see; it's so unsubtle that I'm probably lowering your IQ by explaining it to you - is pictures depicting women exercising all alone, covered in sweat and exhausted. Why, you ask, is this poor woman blowing off a fun night with the girls to ride the one stationary bike in the deserted gym that isn't facing the beautiful scenic view? You see, it's because she wants a man. And as we all know (or at least so the magazines keep telling us), a man will only love us (subtext: will want to give us a good tumble on his high heat cycle *wink wink nod nod*) if we are svelte. Nay, not just svelte but skinny.

I mean, Lindsay Lohan's got nothing on this bony chick:

And this poor woman? Begging to have somebody jump out of the woods holding a chainsaw. Do women not watch horror movies? And why has nobody told us about reflective gear? And pepper spray??

The truly crappy thing about these ads are that they're partly true. As much as it pains me to write this, a primary motivating factor in getting women to exercise is their looks. You can enthuse about heart health and longevity and increased intelligence all you want and we'll all nod and agree. And then we'll jump on the elliptical and whine about how we're "working off dinner" last night or "running off the thigh jiggle". It's a sad state of affairs but it's true. And to any woman who denies being at least partially motivated to work out by her looks, I would ask "What if exercise gave you all the health benefits - but made you fatter. Would you still do it?" Of course not. It's why you see Katherine Heigl running on the treadmill for an hour and then lighting up a cigarette in the parking lot.

But there is one little nuance that the marketers forgot (perhaps intentionally?). Women don't get thin for men. We get thin for other women. We know that men like a few lady lumps. And yet we pursue perfect thinness. Not because it makes us more sexually desirable - often it has the opposite effect - but because it makes us the Alpha Female. We're competitive like that. Sigh. Stupid Men's Health.

Do Boobs Make the Fit Woman? [The Controversy Over Breast Implants in Fitness Models]

Image from Natalie Dee

"Knockers!" "Jugs!" "Fun bags!" "Sweater puppies!" Sitting in the darkened audience at the talent show my friend put on as a fundraiser for breast cancer research, I listened as all my friends called out their favorite euphemisms for boobs. I wanted to contribute - what's more fun than sitting in a big room talking girlie bits with all your best girls? (And no men, we weren't wearing panties and having pillow fights.) - but the pressure mounted as all the good ones were getting taken. Looking down for inspiration, it came to me: "Rocks in socks!" I blurted out. Silence. Then my friend next to me giggled, "Really??" I stood firm in my answer. "Indeed."

Nursing four babies has not been kind to me in the chest department. Sure I look amazing as long as I'm slinging the milk shakes but as soon as my drive-in becomes take-out only, I end up worse than before I began. And I'm not the only one. Plastic surgery is a topic that comes up among the Gym Buddies from time to time - it did this very morning in fact! (See, now don't you wish you came and worked out with us?) While there are a couple Buddies holding out for a tummy tuck and one who wants a reduction, the rest of us, if money grew on trees, would get the girls fixed.

Part of it is because while we can lose the baby weight with nutrition and exercise, we can never fix the saggy bits and we'd just like to have our old selves back. But part of it - the part we don't talk about very much - is based on a fundamental unrealistic yet oddly pervasive belief in the fitness world: that you can be very lean and still have very big boobs.

Image from Muscle and Fitness Hers

Reader Juni, obviously tuned in to the Gym-Buddy wavelength, sent me this question:

"So I buy just about every fitness magazine on the market and I gotta say that it makes me sad that I find it quite rare if I see even ONE model without breast implants. It’s such a strange contradiction, you know???? I mean, I do get it, you have a low body fat percentage and you likely have what I like to call “Boobinis”. Yet, as a women who works out to feel strong and happy with her capable body it makes me sad to see this and conflicted…. "

Juni makes an excellent point (and also "boobinis" is hilarious - I'm totally stealing that one from now on!) In case you missed 8th grade health class, breasts are largely made up of fat. So if you lean way out, reason stands that your chest will disappear just like the fat off your stomach. This is a conundrum for fitness models. Traditionally female "fitness models" had a very specific look, something akin to this:

Body fat low enough to show 6-pack abs yet still enough on top to fill out a sports bra with cleavage! Image from Muscle and Fitness Hers

While it's no secret that in the larger world of movie stars, Maxim and reality TV shows stick thin with grapefruit halves is highly desirable, you'd think that in the health and fitness realm with its emphasis on muscle mass over Barbie limbs that we'd get some slack in the chestal department. Not so. If anything, breast implants seem more prevalent in fitness modelling than typical women's modelling.

While some fitness professionals, like the ever-controversial Zuzana of bodyrock.tv, are unapologetic about their augmented assets, others are starting to buck the trend. Top fitness model Kim Strother (if you have read any health or fitness mag in the last two years I can guarantee you've seen her, even if you don't know her as anything other than "girl demonstrating ab crunches on large exercise ball") talks openly about losing jobs because she refuses to enlarge her athletic chest.

Self magazine's features director/fitness Meagan Murphy calls Strother the "new-school archetype" saying that she is "healthy, strong and aspirational." Murphy adds, "The supermodel won the genetic lottery. The fitness model worked damn hard for that body, and you can tell." She even points out that Strother differs from traditional female models in that most of the sample clothes sent for photo shoots are a size medium to accommodate her athletic build.

Kim Strother, full-time fitness model. Image from Slate.com

Normally "athletic build" is seen as a derogatory term - I remember the first time a gymnastics coach told me I had "athletic thighs" I cried for a week and went on a crash diet - but these days some fitness magazines want a model that can do more than just look pretty in booty shorts. They need someone strong enough to hold a plank in the sand for five minutes while wardrobe and lighting are adjusted, someone who can jump 83 times in the air to get the perfect "spontaneous" shot, someone who can demonstrate proper squatting form. And with online video complements to articles, that is getting harder and harder to fake.

Personally I hope that Strother is the wave of the future, if only for the fact that with as many kids as I have there's no way I'll ever be able to afford implants (and also, did you know you have to replace them every decade or so? A little too high maintenance for this surgery-squeamish girl!). On the other hand, I had two mommy friends get implants just this last week and they're super happy with the results (or at least they will be when the swelling goes down.)

What do you think - is the fake boobs/tiny figure still the gold standard or do you think smaller boobs are the next big thing? Are implants a way to restore you back to you and increase confidence or are they just more evidence of the unrealistic standard women's bodies are judged by? Do you have a favorite term for your boobs?

The Wrong Way to Encourage Someone to Get Fit

I made a mistake. At first I was going to write this post and pretend I got an e-mail from someone asking me this question but I quickly realized that would be a bad idea on two fronts: one, I'm a terrible liar and two, seeing as I'm the one with the problem, I can't very well be giving myself advice now can I?

Dear Readers,
You guys are awesome and smart and have the best ideas. I have good intentions that often go awry. Please help me!
Love,
Charlotte

Encouragement is powerful. To be perfectly honest, I'm a people pleaser and have been willing to do pretty much anything to get praise since the second I slid out of the womb. (Doctor: "Baby Girl Hilton, APGAR at one minute - 10" Me: *squeeee*) However, I first became acquainted with this fact in a gym setting about five years ago. My first foray into real adult fitness was right after the birth of my 3rd child and I was about as beginner as they come. I knew I liked yoga. I knew I didn't fit into my pants. And that was pretty much it.

Then Nasca took me under her wing. A yoga and kickboxing instructor, not to mention a veteran bodybuilder and fitness competitor, she had a personality part Earth Mama and part Warrior Woman. Contrary to how most bodybuilders operate, there was never any talk of fat or thin with Nasca. She simply thought everyone was gorgeous. Including me. But she did think I should be stronger. Not from a looks standpoint but rather a functional one. I remember going on a joint expedition to Costco - with Costco it's never just a shopping trip; even if you're just getting milk it feels like the modern equivalent of slaying a buffalo and tying it to the back of your pony - and watching her heft 50-pound pallets of flour.

"Come on, use those triceps!" she joked as I struggled to help her.

"What's a tricep?" I asked lamely. "I don't think I have one."

"Everyone has one," she giggled. "Two actually. It's this cool little cut on the back of your arm." She lifted her sleeve to show me a beautiful mark of muscular definition etched into her caramel skin. Then she lifted my sleeve. "See? Yours is right here."

"Where?" I could only see white mushiness.

"Hold your arm like this." She flexed. I imitated her. Still nothing. Concerned, she felt the back of my arm up and down as I tried flexing in several different directions. "Wow," she finally said. "You really don't have one!" And then with no judgement whatsoever she said, "We've got to start you lifting weights."

As anyone who has ever explained something they are very good at to someone who is very bad at it knows, educating newbies is not fun. But to watch Nasca teach me basic weight lifting skills you would have thought I was the most exciting thing to hit the gym floor since thong leotards. Nasca gave me a lot of good information over the next few months but the real thing that kept me coming back was her friendship. She was always encouraging, always positive and always cared about me. If I didn't show up to class one day, she missed me. It sounds like a small thing but it meant a lot to me.

Since then I've tried to be that person for others. I try to notice when there are new people in class or on the weight floor. I try to reach out to them - say hi, offer a friendly smile and a little encouragement. And most of the time I think it works. I've made some great friends that way and people usually at least smile back.

Here's where it all went wrong: During a class a while ago I noticed a girl in the very back. She was new and hugging the door like it was the last escape hatch on the Red October. Nothing came easy to her. The choreography threw her, the music jarred her and the workout winded her. I tried unsuccessfully to catch her eye in the mirror so I could smile at her. She was so obviously uncomfortable that I expected her to dart out the door after five minutes and never come back. But at the end of class she was still there. I made a beeline for her.

"Hey, are you new?" I panted, dripping sweat. "You did really great today! It's a tough class - that's awesome you stuck it out!"

In an instant her look changed from dazed and tired to bald Britney with an umbrella. "Look bitch, I don't need your pity. Fat girls can work out too."

Remember When Kate Moss Was Skinny?

Well she's not now. Don't get your Calvin Klein's in a bunch, it's not like anyone is calling K. Mo. fat. (Hmm... K.Mo. Yeah, okay, I can see why that never caught on.) But in today's game of anorexic roulette, the Waif herself comes out looking rather... normal.

Take Kate in the '90s. Not even any visible ribs! And real breasts!! And yet every major publication hailed her as the malnourished poster child for Heroin Chic.


And who can forget her famous CK undies ad? Sure, you can see her hip bones. And her thighs probably wouldn't touch if she put her foot down. (What exactly is she doing there? Checking for plantar warts?) But her arms have meat on them and you can't count the sinews in her knees.


Then there is this magazine cover - beautiful in the simple way that she made famous - from 2001 (as far as I can tell). No model these days would go out with those collar bones! Where is the pop? The shoulder nub? Her cheeks even lack their signature sunken appearance (probably because she is, for once, posing with her mouth closed).


Even today, as evidenced by her current reign as October's Vogue cover girl, she's thin but, admit it, looks kinda normal - at least by media standards.


See, Kate just isn't serious enough about continuing this Auschwitz chic that she started. If she were, she'd be doing the "banana bag" diet which is neither as porny nor as healthy as it sounds. The awkward moniker comes from the yellow color of the fluid in the IV bags. The fluid that starlets are mainline-ing in an effort to get their vital nutrients without the calories.

According to the Daily Mail, "Designed as IV drips for alcoholic patients in hospitals (who are undernourished from drinking more than they eat), this yellow-coloured liquid is being snapped up by those who opt out of eating in order to fit into their Kova & T Latex leggings."

Why would anyone feel the need to be so skinny that they would choose to get their multivitamin via a saline drip? Because they're competing with this:


And this:


Like I said, remember when Kate Moss was skinny?