The running continues to delight, amaze and frustrate me. I feel SO GOOD after I'm done with a run, but man, the progress is painfully slow. Today I ran laps around the city water supply up at Mt. Tabor, which sounds dull, but honestly, this is Portland:
I'm having a hard time getting my speed up when I run outside and it's starting to piss me off. On the treadmill, I'm doing 9 or 10-minutes miles, but outside, it's 11 minutes or more. I really want that fucking tattoo! And yet the 8-minute mile goal seems just as far away as ever. Sometimes I wish I had a coach barking at me to go faster, but the truth is I have never been in better shape than I am right now. I have never run more than one mile without wanting to die. Today I ran over four miles straight, stopping only for a fraction of a second to adjust my sock so I wouldn't get a(nother) blister. I couldn't even do that as a teenager.
Which reminds me how I need to write about the box of old photos and journals my sister gave me. The photos were somewhat life-changing and I plan to dedicate a whole post to how they made me feel, but inside the box I also found the original cheer leading uniform my mother made for me when I was TWELVE.
It fits.
Which is insane. Especially since this body still feels so foreign to me. It's stronger. It goes faster. It's bendy! It has better orgasms and wears smaller clothes. But I still have no idea how much space it takes up. I just feel like ME. Not that I haven't been thinking about body size lately, especially since my little sister and I broke up over my inability to fully embrace the Fat Acceptance Movement. I LOVE the idea of body acceptance at any size and I'm proud of her for the way she has learned to love her body, but you'd be hard-pressed to convince me I was even remotely healthy at 310 pounds. I was out of control. I played video games all day and ate fast food all night. Even walking was painful. I was miserable, but not because of how I looked. It was always about how I FELT and how being obese limited my ability to do normal things. Like conceive children. Or wipe my ass in a public restroom.
Now that I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum, it still isn't about how I look. I would have been perfectly happy to be a size 14 for the rest of my life and I never would have known the difference. But now I apparently have something called "thin privilege," which I agree, I do. It kind of annoys me, to be honest. Sure my inner fat girl loves being accepted as "normal," but my inner feminist wants to punch a bitch every time she (or he) tells me I look skinny.
The more I think about it, though, the more I think the real me, the one who is neither feminist nor fat girl, woke up this morning, put her running shoes on and KICKED SOME ASS. When I got home, I ate fresh berries with greek yogurt and a spoonful of crunchy organic peanut butter. My "diet" is the opposite of restrictive; in fact, it has never been more colorful. Running does this amazing thing where I can eat pretty much anything I want and still maintain my weight (food insurance, as my friend Donna puts it), but it turns out I only WANT to eat foods that make me feel good.
I no longer receive any kind of emotional gratification from food.
I eat because I need to. I only think about food while I'm eating it (or shopping/meal planning/cooking for other people). Food is fuel - delicious, delicious fuel - and it's my body that tells me when I need it, not my brain.
I'm not gonna lie - it's pretty rad. I never knew my body could feel like this and I never want to go back to the days of thinking about food 24-7. I'm not all the way there yet (caffeine and booze much?), but I feel like I'm really learning to take care of my body and in return, my body is taking care of me and my crazy, crazy brain.
This obviously hasn't been the path of least resistance. It took, and continues to take, some difficult decisions. So, much to the Fat Activism Movement's dismay, I feel strongly that if being this size affords me any privilege, it has only been earned through sweat and tears (and lots and lots of therapy). I should not have to apologize for it. Big or small, no one should have to apologize for their size.
To increase your speed in running you have to do 'speed drills'. Without them you will continue to build distance but usually not speed. Basically it is like you are starting running again- but instead of run-walk-run-walk you do run for 3-4-5 minutes-one minute sprint-slow to normal run for 3-4-5 minutes- one minute sprint. Until you can shorten your recovery time between sprints. Do this 2-3 times a week if you are running 5-7 times a week. You will notice an increase in your speed in a few weeks.
Posted by: Jen-Again | February 08, 2013 at 07:50 PM
Running on a treadmill will always be faster, you have a machine doing the work for you. If you want to increase your speed you need to interval train, doing sprints.
Posted by: mm | February 08, 2013 at 09:45 PM
It's your body and it's your life. I'm a size acceptance and fat acceptance advocate who promotes body diversity. I also defend people not to have weight loss surgery but I also defend people to have it and be happy when they do whether they have it for health reasons or to feel better about themselves,as I've been on a zillion diets, I didn't have any weight related health issues, I just hated myself for being fat and being teased all my life for that, as we live in a sucky shitty world to fat people, that's why I don't understand why people who are formerly fat are so mean to fat people and why people who are fat, are hypocritical and do reverse prejudice against people who are thin, as I've been a victim (or used to as I absolutely WILL NOT PUT UP WITH ANYMORE SHIT ABOUT MY BODY), it's no one's business and the last time I checked no one can walk in one's shoes.
As someone who's in the rare category of being of being considered by the most militant of both wls advocates and fat acceptance advocates, a pariah of sorts because of that.
My situation is different, in addition being a bouncer weight wise, which I have very little control over, my situation with my sister is different. She had wls over 10 years ago, 10 months after I did. She has never gotten sick, has kept off over 100% of her excess weight. No one in my family understands the nervous breakdown I had, almost 5 years ago, because of my complications that got worse that ruined my life or the fact I nearly died from complications which resulted in being reversed from my rny. I still don't project my issues regarding my rny on the wls population.I just say things how I see it and from what I learned.
You only have one life to live. You know this. If people are going to resent you making your dreams come true, that's on them, not you. I was appalled when catching up on your blogs, the last couple of days of people who chose to give you a hard time about applying to graduate school. It's none of their fucking business. The same applies to Joel (sowwy about the comment I posted the other day at the seafood place, you guys are just so fucking cute together)but really, how you conduct and define your relationship is really no one's business, I'm just glad both of you are happy.
Those who do care with appropriate boundaries, in the end are just going to be happy for you. I don't know you, from other then Facebook and what I read in your amazing blogs. Your honesty and wit, makes Mandajuice, some awesome "internet crack" for someone like me, who's life has been limited, now, due to my complications and disability sets.
I don't know why people feel the need to be judgemental assholes and naysayers. I just love that your proving them wrong, with honesty and integrity. I know what it was like when I was thin, I went from a size 24 to a 9/10 the 1st 10 months, then 2 1/2 years later post rny, I went from a 9 to a size 2/4/6 (on the average of a 4) due to developing a love of exercise, after a bad break up (I only picked it up to tone, the fact I went down another 5 sizes fucking was shocking to me) . For another almost 3 years. For someone who was fat all their life, I don't think I could've handled that drastic of a change, all at once.
If anyone has a medicocrum of security, people don't piss on people's parades. I did end up after 6 years, and nervous breakdown of gaining 96 lbs of the 107 I lost and being back up to 24, and 3/4x on average. And in my case, it wasn't the worst thing to happen to me. I was put on a lot of psychotropic drugs. I still don't wish bad upon people who are in better health and kept off all their weight. I also though as a size acceptance advocate, don't think I need to explain myself for losing some of my weight regain to my peers in Fat Acceptance. I also don't love being considered a bariatric failure because of my reversal and weight regain and people being assholes to me in the wls community because the thought of being reversed scares the shit out of them. My surgeon at my heaviest, never shamed me knowing what I was up against, at my heaviest and also would say if he could, that I didn't fail my surgery it failed me. I also at this point while on average I'm 10 sizes bigger then my smallest, I'm also 10 sizes fucking SMALLER then my heaviest. I'm on the average of a size 12/14 in jeans (bigger in tops, because while I can fit into smaller tops I have a lot of extra skin both upper and lower ab area even though my ab muscles are still tight, other then my upper abs, not as tight because they were cut during my reversal). I fit in a booth comfortably, one seat on the bus (I can no longer drive, because of my cognitive impairments) and where both misses and plus clothes because of extra skin from bouncing. While with wls I don't there is anything typical about one's journey, but even at this point, statiscally, I've kept off half my excess weight but if people want to call me a wls failure, they can fucking knock themselves out. It's amazing how many people like to call me a wls failure who are a lot bigger then am... Whatever..
It's my fucking body and I'll do what I want within the realm of what I'm capable of. And that's what anyone should do without judgement. Unfortunately you will see whether it's wls related or not, some people are so miserable, that they cannot be happy for those like in your case where you are working on yourself with success. I've had that happen with even what I thought were the closest of friends, even though most of my closest real life friends while I have a few who've kept off their weight, whether or not they had complications,most have not, the average 10 year post op has gained the majority if not all their weight back. I've seen thousands of peoples stories. Most of the people in "my real life" who I knew from groups, do that and they dissapear at least from wls communities. I don't know if you've received comments that try to take away from the fact that you realized that when you made changes in your life, and were able to lose more weight, that there will be people who will not be happy for you, and try to minimize your weight loss by saying well "you had a gastric bypass" or my favorite, throw in that I was eating disordered. Anyone though further out knows, that after so long, that any changes you feel is necessary to make your life better, is on you, it ain't on the surgery, as statiscally you are anamoly. Fucking, I'm anamoly because while most of the wls community because I'm reversed,and unless someone is a blogger or bariatrics and their bodies become their business, most people dissapear usually after 5 years if not 10 due to complications and regain. I refuse to let anyone define me by my weight, the fact that I eat what I can tolerate, and am ok with the fact that I will never be as thin as I was again, but don't feel the need to apologize that when eating doesn't cause me enormous anguish (I still dump, have reactive hypoglycemia, and throw up for no reason) that I don't micromanage what I eat either. If that helps me not have food craziness but at the same time while I can't be the smallest I was, I don't have to apologize for not being my biggest then, or the fact I don't want to be that big again. It doesn't make me any less of a promoter of body diversity.
Unfortunately, the scope of my life is so small now. I just want to thank you, for your blogs, as I hope to be a blogger someday, but my cognitive impairments (as so evidenced by how poorly written this is) is making me reluctant, to finally unleash "Unstapled Lisa" in the blogosphere. You make my digital world a much better place to be in, by being so honest about both the good and bad in your life.
I really do hope you write a memoir style book.If that's not in your plan, I hope you blog as long as it meets your needs. I try to choose my words carefully as there are people on Facebook that we know of, who don't like me, and because I've been honest about my MH issues, make up some incredible fucking bullshit stories about me or assumptions. Because I know you've had a stalker, and you don't know me, while I think you are a fabulous writer that I can somewhat relate to, as far as I put myself out there, both good and bad, and put up wth an enormous amount of shit for it, it's amazing some of the deductions or things I've been accused of that are just fucking fiction because people apparently don't have anything better to do.
This is just my wordy ass way of saying, Amanda, run and rock on with your amazing self. And the beauty about you, is you will. No one can stand in your way.
Not sorry for what I said, I do apologize that it took so many poorly fucking words to say it. Lisa
Posted by: Angelsbare | February 09, 2013 at 06:55 PM
Fat acceptance and health at every size are two different things. Fat acceptance is about accepting fat people without qualifiers i.e. respect and accept them whether they are "healthy" or not.
Health at every size falls under the umbrella of FA but health at every size is more a way of trying to treat your body as well as possible, whatever "well" means to you and your needs and -abilities-.
This is all to say that some people work out regularly and eat a varied diet and are still obese or overweight. That some skinny people eat nothing but junk food and never work out at all and you can't tell from looking at someone whether they're a "good" fat or skinny person or a "lazy" fat or skinny person.
And this is without even counting in that everyone one of us have different starting points when it comes to health and thus personal limitations to what "level of health" they can achieve (HAES) which means that your idea of why someone is "unhealthy" could be way off, meaning better not to speculate about other people and why they look the way they look or have the health they do (FA.)
Mostly, though, it's about respecting other people's right to have their body and their health be their own business. Fat is not a moral issue.
Which is to say, I think it's sad you and your sister broke up over your inability to, what? Respect her views? Or was there an ultimatum involved?
Posted by: Grypo | February 10, 2013 at 02:36 AM
oh god, please do no turn into a healthy-living-blogger rambling on about your nut butters....
Posted by: Meme | February 10, 2013 at 05:41 PM
I think about food 24-7 (size 14) and normally when (skinny) people say "food is fuel" I want to punch them because I can't make my brain think that way. But hearing it from you almost gives me hope because you have been where I am and you are telling me that it is possible to have that switch off. I've never run a mile in my life. I don't even walk a mile regularly. I hope I find something to kick-start my process soon because I definitely want to start feeling the way you are feeling. Good for you!
Posted by: AmyH | February 11, 2013 at 07:45 AM
But seriously. The "windfall" of money you got... Before running out to get new tattoos for everyone did you replace that ONE Christmas present you got for your kids that you had to return to pay your bills???
Posted by: KC | February 19, 2013 at 09:24 PM