Awright, let’s get the party started for this week with one of the first-place winners: Deb.
“Running has helped me fall back in love with myself”
Hello Krista and Strong Grrrls,
Pick me, pick me to be the Stumptuous Fitness Model! Given my big transformation, people have been encouraging me to enter
before-and-after contests, but most of them are so cheezy and have nothing to do with fitness, I have shied away. So when I read about
‘no bikini shots unless you are climbing a mountain in it’ for this contest, I thought, ‘this is perfect for me’.
So this is my story. On July 17, 2003, exactly 6 months to my 40th birthday, I was carrying 222 lbs. on my 5′5′ frame. I was increasingly sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. Doing fun things with my three kids like tobogganing were daunting because I was so out of
shape, and the vicious circle of lack of fitness, discouragement, inactivity/overeating and overworking had me absolutely stuck. Life
had definitely become a spectator sport. I had tried for 20 years to lose weight primarily to look or even ‘be’ good, but this motivation
always fizzled, leading to desperate unsustainable plans, and/or resentful rebellion. As a mom and a psychologist, I felt more and more uneasy about not walking the talk re good self-care and wellness. Finally my health risks and feeling like crud loomed large enough with
this big birthday approaching for me to try yet again, but from a different perspective — one of reclaiming and caring for my self and
well-being.
I had my work cut out for me on all fronts. Fitness-wise I was so deconditioned that walking for 30 minutes every other day was
ambitious; the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walking could have hired me given the various ways I had to hobble home to vary the pain on these early walks. Even worse than the physical pain was the waking up to facing how out of shape I had become, and cultivating the patience and willingness to begin where I was, and accept the slow way out, workout by workout, rather than giving up. Walking out in public was a challenge; I remember on one walk with a friend when a young man hailed us from his carload of buddies as ‘fat sluts!’… luckily my mouth was not as slow as my body, and I yelled back ‘we’re not sluts’… but it stung. No wonder so many heavier women stay inside not moving their bodies. Bah!
On the food front, I knew from dozens of attempts that restrictive dieting was a recipe for cycles of miserable deprivation and miserable overeating, and that this process needed to be something I could keep up for the months and years to lose weight, and then forever to keep the weight off. For the first time in so long, I began to tune in to my inner senses of hunger, appetite, fullness, and satisfaction, and to nourish myself accordingly. I began to think of food primarily as fuel, but fuel that could still taste good and be satisfying… to my
tastebuds. Food could also still be fun… but I cultivated a very discriminating sense of what was ’splurge-worthy’ like Elaine in
Seinfeld deciding if and when someone was worth one of her stockpiled contraceptive sponges. Bit by bit, I broke up with food as ‘friend’ – and found other ways to comfort myself, as well as lighten theworkload that was a major driver of my need to numb out so often. I learned to learn from slip ups, and get back on track a.s.a.p. over and over. And this all continues, to this day.
My fitness started to improve, and exercise became less daunting, and eventually even a little fun. Using a treadmill to be able to easily
increase increments of minutes walking at higher and lower speeds, I gradually began to jog during some intervals. I started doing some
machine weights at a women’s only gym where I developed more and more confidence in my body and began to feel stronger. The weight was coming off. I measured myself every month, especially around my waist, which was dangerously over 40 inches at the start. I entered a road race, and while I did not beat Beethoven (run 8 km in the 50 minutes it takes for a symphony to be played), I was so happy to be off the
sidelines and in the throng!
My identity was shifting towards a more capable and athletic me, coming home to my body and its powers after a long long expatriation.
I started going to a coed gym, lifting free weights with some personal training, and attending spinning classes… what an endorphin high
those were (and are)! I was hooked! I was asked to join a women’s athletic group of runners and triathletes (See Jane Tri) who meets
once a month to eat cookies, laugh and talk about sport in our lives. My initial reply was ‘but I am not an athlete’… she retorted, rather
pithily, ‘well, you sure exercise a lot!’. I went, and started to blossom even more fully into my new sense of self with a great group
of kindred spirits… we are all middle-aged, mostly moms, and equally happy to celebrate the moxie of someone sidestroking their way through their first tiny triathlon to the incredible travails of sinewy Ironwomen and marathoners. We love to talk about lessons from sport: the goal setting, the commitment, the finding ways to fit it in, the triumphs and disasters. I am totally inspired within this group, and
with other dear friends from the gym, to hold fitness as fundamentally about wellness and capacity, not appearance, otherwise a potentially lonely challenge in this shallow world.
I ended up losing 85 lbs all told by close to the 2 year mark, by which point fitness had become truly foundational to my life. I have
always worked full-time, and have a busy family life, but I schedule time for my workouts faithfully, flexing to go out a few mornings a
week to swim at 6 am, a few lunch times to do a spin class, and other varied times to run, do yoga and lift weights. Eating well has become second nature, as have little habits like taking a cooler to hotels to help keep me feeling normal when away from home, packing lunches, getting out grocery shopping when staples like lowfat yogurt are low. Re travel, I also workout wherever I am… running, in particular, is a very portable sport!
Indeed, I am in love with running, and running has helped me fall back in love with myself. Here is something I wrote that expresses this:
running
you’ll not know my running
in how far or how fast,
don’t ask of miles and minutes –
numerals cannot speak
of chipmunks scattering
and sunshine strobing
in bursts of delight
across my leafy path,
of leapings over puddles
with grand landings
of boyish triumph
or splattered laughter,
of gallivanting along
with wag-worthy tailwinds,
gobsmackingly impressive
the inevitable other way,
of some steps so languid
I could be floating naked,
and others as resolute
as a summoned midwife’s,
of the syncopated swing
from haunch to loin
of my longest bones,
hypnotic and true,
of my belly’s undulations
to rhythms my ribs
have concertina’d by heart
since before I breathed air.
Well you wanted to know about accomplishments. Mostly, I consider moving into and fiercely and flexibly maintaining my fit lifestyle for
almost five years now to be my best accomplishment. I am strong for hauling groceries and laundry in my ‘activities of daily living’ as well as for skiing and dancing til the wee hours in my ‘activities of sweet opportunity’. I have more energy at 44 than I have had in decades!
In terms of events, I have gone on to whoop Beethoven’s ass several times, as well as run three half-marathons and one full marathon. The marathon, last fall in Toronto, was an intense experience with many ups and downs. I ended up slightly dehydrated, with some nausea and insanely sore quads in the last half despite my faithful training…requiring me to move to Plan B (and C… and… ) re finishing times… indeed, by the end, I was walking and jogging from hydrant to pole to sign, quite bonked, but I finished, very tired but even more proud.
I have also been participating in local triathlons. I set out for my first race with a little bow stuck to my bike handle bars to remind me
of the gift of wellness and regained ability, full of eagerness and anxiety, especially given the torrential rains that day. Well luck was
not on my side, and I ended up with a flat tire I could not change halfway through the ride. I so wanted to finish though, that I got a
lift back to the transition area and did the run anyway, feeling totally triumphant despite my disqualification (”doping” was the
rumour I tried to spread when people saw the DSQ in the results, but without much luck). I was hooked, and have gone on to make triathlons a great way to ensure cross training and upper body strengthening through swimming, as well as be part of that fantastic community of kickass female athletes.
Within my fitness communities, I am inspired to give back. People comment on how ‘nice’ I am at races because I have shared my
celebratory focus with them. In my spin classes, women have said ‘I was dogging it, but then I looked over at you digging in, hammering
away with a big smile on your face, and thought, I can do it too’. I have given a body image workshop at my gym, and a retreat for See Jane Tri. I am in the middle of getting qualified to teach group fitness, specifically spinning, and can hardly wait to be able to DJ, yell
words like ‘awesome’, and bring my love of zany fun into this heart-rate-in-your-eyeballs workout!
Professionally, I have begun working with overweight and deconditioned women in my roles as a psychologist and life coach (a new aspect of my quest to help people change their lives that has had me back in school, part-time, with Integral Coaching Canada for the past two
years). I cannot express to you how happy I am when a client, who has often had a crappy sense of their body and its capacities since
childhood, finds their unique way into movement and aliveness in their body as a vessel and vehicle for their selves… bike-riding like a
kid again, solo salsa dancing in their living room, hiking! I feel like I know the worlds of both unfit/discouraged and fit/capable, and
can, therefore, usher and nudge and guide people from one to the other with huge compassion and optimism that it can be done. I will continue to work in this field; I would like to move into even larger scale work in the future by giving talks at Can Fit Pro to trainers/
instructors, workshops for women, develop a website, maybe even write a workbook. I am scared of most of these new ventures, but my fitness experiences over the past five years have given me more willingness to be a wobbly beginner, and to hang in to make things happen. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is doing things despite fear.
On a small scale, but the one that matters so much to me, I am proud of being a great role model to my kids, especially my daughters. One of them was once discouraged that she could not do the monkey bars like her twin brother… I was able to tell her about starting where
you are and steadily progressing with determined baby steps with total credibility, because I had done so, and she knew it. My other daughter is a fierce basketball player – I am so thankful for this wellspring of confidence in her body as capable and athletic in the midst of her teen years when so many lose their way. I hope them seeing me grimy, sweaty, injured, joyful, digging in with my imperfect wonderful body, and taking time away from them for recharging myself through sport, will help them both stay grounded and well as they grow into fabulous strong women.
So Krista and grrrls, if you are looking for one wrinkly, grinning, determined, big-hearted chick as a model for fitness as all about
function, fun and feeling damn good, look no further!
Cheers, and thanks for your website and this opportunity!
Deb
Photos of Deb >>
