Such an interesting discussion about body image/weight.
PG, you’d hate me – I’m tall and slender. I know this because of the size clothing I wear and what people tell me. But I was a chubby kid growing up, with a mother who treated food as something other than nourishment, so I have body image issues. I never had a full-fledged eating disorder, but I definitely skirted close in college.
I very consciously tried to not connect food to emotional stuff with my daughter, and generally succeeded. Although she’s known quite a few girls with eating disorders, she doesn’t have one. She’s a very different body type than me – takes after my mother, actually.
The two main reasons I exercise – to deal with my osteoporosis and to be able to eat more food. There probably are days when I overdo it.
Where I used to live, there was a woman, about 10 years older than me, who exercised like crazy. She was a high-powered lawyer with an important job, but managed to find time to work out every day. Her daily schedule seemed to look like this – a run in the morning; elliptical and swimming for 90 minutes to 2 hours at lunch, and then a run after work. We moved, I don’t know her that well – but when I go back, I sometimes see her walking around town. She can no longer run and she can barely walk. She seems to be in constant pain, walking with a limp. I suppose it’s possible that there’s another reason for what happened to her body, but I’m very conscious of her when feel like I’m overdoing it.
As for today, I ran a very slow 5 miles. It was cold.
Hopeful- SI disorder can mean the SI joint is rotated out of position. I’ve had that several times. It takes manual PT to put it back into place. If it is “out” nothing else will do much good. It requires retraining the surrounding muscles to hold it in place.
MOWC, so can x ray or MRI confirm that the the SI joint is rotated out of position? Doctor did not mention any PT today, but he said he will wait for the imaging results to see what’s wrong. I am due back in 3 weeks to see him.
When I had the PT last October/November, I felt just slightly better afterwards, but pain stayed and seemed to have gotten worse, but at that time, there wasn’t any specific diagnosis for PT, just “lower back pain”.
Maybe. My PT could tell with a few strength tests and by a leg length test. If I was rotate lit, I could not resist him pushing my leg down while I was on my side and lifted it in the air. A PT trained in manual PT knows how to do all that.
I’ve had a history of SI joint problems on my right side and have found manual PT to be of great benefit. Part of the treatment plan involved exercises designed to strengthen core and pelvic stabilization including lots of glute, hamstring, adductor and transverse abdominal work. Eventually, one legged squats with stability challenges became my best friend. Lumbar region/SI joint health becomes an exercise lifestyle change to prevent recurrences.
On another note, an aspect of our body image culture that is not discussed too often is the pressure put on men to have a certain body appearance. Large, well developed pecs, a washboard stomach. Our print and television media go to great lengths to define this as a manly physique. Of course, years of overemphasized pec work is a surefire way to develop protracted shoulders leading to shoulder and scapular-thoracic issues and the extremely restricted food plan and hours of daily ab work needed to have washboard abs is not a realalistic life style for most guys. And it certainly doesn’t help that the Photoshopping that runs rampant creates unrealistic expectations. Several months ago, I read an article by a male body model where he explained how the use of lighting, skin toner and depravation dieting are necessary achieve the 6 pack ab look. Interestingly, he posted two different pictures of himself, taken at the same time, one showing what he really looked like without the use of lighting and one with the 6 pack look achieved by the use of lighting.
Circuit class this morning - really fun. Weights, Bosu, TRX …all in an hour! Came home and took the pups for a big walk since I’m taking the day off. We have a local brewery that sponsors a run the last Friday of the month in warmer weather and that kicks off tonight - so I just might try it out. Why not? Meet some new people, vary my routine.
In other big news, a Lululemon store less than an hour away is having their grand opening today! Guess where I’ll be! I wish you all could join me (everyone who wants to, that is)!
Unfortunately my last PT did not help at all, part of the reason might have been the fact there was no specific diagnosis.
When I go back to the orthopedic doctor in 3 weeks with the xray and MRI results, depending on the outcome, maybe he would recommend PT again, it seems it works for MOWC and Michael if SI joint is confirmed to be the problem.
The pain increased many folds after the injection yesterday, higher level of pain (than before the shot), this morning it took me forever to get downstairs, never thought the height of that ONE step could hurt that much!! I read that the increased pain is normal after injections. I already sent in a message to the doctor to ask what I should or should not do. (e.g. can I continue to do exercise despite the pain? or should I stop for a little while)
When I had the cortisone shot for my frozen shoulder a year ago, it hurt like hell for about 24 hours after the injection!!! Then it took about 2-3 weeks before the full benefit kicked in…
I’d at least come browse with you Sabaray! Have fun at the brewery run.
I’m off today too and my girls came home last night and S was here for the evening too. Holiday weekend. Ran at the gym yesterday and will now do my best to get lots of steps in for the next few days. Easter is at my house so that on top of cooking for the family will keep me busy and around lots of good food! Cold today, but warming up a bit with some sun tomorrow so we’ll probably try for a long walk at a park or something tomorrow.
Michael- it’s true that men have to deal with body image issues and “fake” standards, too. Thanks for reminding us of that! Men also have the height issue. My morning radio station was discussing that this week. Some recent study/survey showed that for every inch under 5’10", a man has to earn an additional $30K to be desirable to a female partner. I think I have those numbers right. Ridiculous.
Gloomy and windy this morning- 3 miles done. We get out early today. Wish I could go to sabaray’s new Lulu!
I am ambivalent about the “body acceptance” or “fat acceptance” movement. First, as long as the best predictor of gaining weight in the next year is that you’ve lost weight in the past year, it’s pretty clear that conventional theory on dieting isn’t working for the vast majority of the population, who might in fact be better off if they didn’t try to lose weight at all. Shaming people into losing weight is clearly not working (at least not in the general case). So that becomes an argument in favor of backing off… but I agree that for many people, their health (their knees, their endocrine system, their heart) demands that they lose weight.
So my question becomes then: “how do you best help people to improve their health, which may well involve losing weight AS WELL AS getting more exercise?”
Personally, I have to go back to dog training theory, because that’s what works for me. The key principle of dog training (and in fact it’s been documented for pretty much anything with a brain stem) is that “what gets rewarded gets repeated”. Humans–all mammals, all living organisms–are hard-wired to find eating food highly rewarding; it’s one of the essential elements of being alive. The abstract concept of health is not intrinsically rewarding–but there are things that lead to health that can be directly rewarded. Walk a mile–and reward yourself. If you’re human, those rewards can be as abstract as putting a dollar in a jar or calling your sister to brag–or as concrete as eating an apple or a bite of chocolate. I don’t think deprivation diets work for anyone, long-term (IMHO); they just increase the desire for the forbidden fruits. My answer is to use those items as rewards and incentives, as lures to good habits. I know it’s a lot easier for me to run 6 miles when I have six wrapped candies in my pocket, one for each mile!
3.2 miles running + another 2.3 miles walking. For some reason my legs felt like they were full of lead this morning, so I cut my run a bit short. There are probably 20 - 25 treadmills at my gym; I usually use one of my 3 “favorites.” Today all those were in use, so I picked another one. Even though the incline was at 0%, it just felt as if I was running uphill the entire time. Weird!
This afternoon I’ll be “doing battle” with the wedding person at D’s camp venue over the contract. (H says it’s horribly written.) But, I figure it’s better for me to call her than let H lose on her – after all, we’ll be dealing with her on an ongoing basis!
I had an interesting discussion with DH. I mentioned over dinner how I felt that running was such a mood lifter & self-esteem builder. He said running, for him, had been a completely different experience. He ran in middle & high school & pretty much hated it. So DD & I pressed him for the reasons that he did it. They were 1) his dad insisted that he do some kind of sport 2) he was good at track & could win events, even if he didn’t enjoy it and 3) it got him out of regular PE. He said that even when he won, he felt tons of pressure since now he felt that he was expected to win every time. And the other boys would rag on him if they beat him the next time. It made me sad!
Gertrude- that’s interesting. That book by/about Suzy Favor Hamilton that I read (she became a high end call girl) says pretty much what your husband said. She felt SO much pressure to win all the time that she hated racing and got herself into such a state of anxiety that she was, literally, crazy.
Gertrude your husband sounds like me and some other folks on this board. The expectation to win is probably why I stopped in college. Running to win is different than running. Running to win hurts. It’s painful. It’s stressful. And it can beat up your body.
Why do it then?
You do it because the winning or your performance expectation is more important than the pain.
And when you start to win, you set a bar that it is hard to back off of. Running then becomes synonymous with performing at top level. If you can’t steel yourself off from the pain and expectations you either take a break, pause or quit. It’s hard to go back and “just run” when you “know” you can compete at a high level.
Individual “timed” sports like runniing, cycling and swimming are different than most sports. You can give 100% in golf, basketball, etc. and by in large you aren’t experiencing pain. And you can have fun doing them! (Pain is a marathon at 100% effort.)
But the pain goes away at the finish. You experience a euphoric feeling unlike anything else after performing at your highest level. That’s what keeps you coming back.
Huh, Gertrude, I wonder if that’s part of why I hate running. I’ve also always been painfully slow and running was punishment if we were not doing well at practice (for whatever sport). Even when I was running several miles every day, I never had that euphoric feeling. There are literally zero runners in my family on either side (though we’re all pretty athletic including several D1 athletes and several retired military) so maybe part of it is genetic? I don’t know.
Today is a pretty good day. Some of the pain is back but still nothing near what it was. I’m at 3k steps and I’m hoping to get over 5k today!
Mr and I tried to take pup on a walk but she was not cooperative. She kept trying to choke herself. She’s normally really good on the leash but not today and neither of us really have the strength to train her right now (Mr is under the weather too).
Yeah, I think there is a real difference between running competitively and running for pleasure. I run only for me. I feel good every time I do something faster, better, new. Generally no one else even knows about it - except all of you, who are nothing but supportive - so there’s no pressure at all. I can have bad days & just figure I’ll have a better one next time. No coach to please, no teammates to let down.
Romaini reminded me of something I often noted with my son and sports - running was often a punishment for whatever - for not listening, for someone arriving late to practice, poor performance - whatever. Now I realize how awful that was!
Wow, there seems to be a common theme. Little kiddo was a competitive swimmer, and one of her coaches decided to do just that - if the kids misbehaved, dryland was running. Seriously, cross-training benefits swimmers, but if you hand it to them as a form of punishment, it is not going to make them motivated to run stronger and longer. Kid hated running with a passion, but something clicked after she did a triathlon… She can now run for fun.
They actually sell shirts for runners that say “My sport is your sports’ punishment.”
I hated running in junior high sports and used to cheat if we were told to run laps or something in field hockey practice. My gym teachers would never believe it now!
Like Ohio said- racing hard hurts! However, there is a great feeling of self-satisfaction when you finish. Just making it through is a victory!
