ra(i)n

Did it anyways. Ran in the rain like a crazy person. Am soaked.

And it was glorious. First time running outside since mid-November. I hadn't been through the neighborhood since people put Christmas lights up. That was a nice little perk.

oh nevermind.

Ix-nay the unning-ray. It's raining. Alllllll day.

In a week the weather has gone from snow and temps in the teens, to near 50 degrees and cloudy, to rain and temps in the 30s.

Mother nature, she's hilarious.

freak weather makes for good running

It got up to 48 degrees today. I knew as soon as I woke up this morning ("morning") that it had to be warm because I had kicked off my comforter sometime in the night. (My apartment's heat, uncontrolled by me, rises with the temperature outside. It's sorta weird, and the opposite of what I'd like, but hey, I only pay 20 bucks a month for it so I'm not complaining.) Got up and found a package on my doorstep, my running shoes that I had left at my mom's over winter break. Thought, okay, God is telling me to go running. But then I remembered I had a hair appointment in a half hour, and every girl knows that you can't mess up that fresh-cut hair do by getting sweaty. (It's not everyday my hair smells like a $30 grapefruit.) So I didn't go.

snowrunners in shadyside!

I would just like to note the abundance of ballsy wintertime runners in the Shadyside/Squirrel Hill area (and how much their ballsiness makes me intensely aware of my lack thereof. Really, how does one decide that it is a splendid and appealing idea to go into the icy wilderness and put unskinned knees and perfectly intact ankles in peril, all in the good name of health and exercise? Power to them I guess, but I'm still going to be bitter and jealous while I do my yoga and Jillian Michaels workouts inside.)

the snow is not my turf

December is riddled with excuses to indulge, and now that it is over, it has taken its toll. I haven't weighed myself, but don't really need to: I can just feel it, that uncomfortableness in my own clothes and skin. I can count on one hand the number of times I worked out last month and cannot even begin to count the number of cookies or Hershey Kisses I had. I know this is common, that the holidays, the stress of finals week(s), and the laziness of vacation all play their roles, but I need to get back on track.

Except I have a problem, one that I've been aware of for awhile, but has come into sharper focus in the past few days as Mother Nature dumped a pile of snow on our dear city and turned down the thermostat: I don't know how to work out in the winter. This sounds dumb. It is sort of dumb. And it's not really all exercises, because the strength and flexibility workouts I like the most are Pilates and yoga, and both of those can easily be done in the home.

It's cardio. I was so pumped about getting back into running this summer and fall, and now I'm afraid it's just going to slip to the wayside. I've ran in the snow before, in training for track and junk in high school, but I just really hate the way it makes me feel: my cheeks and lips get chapped like a little kid who went sledding all day, I get cramps from tensing up and trying not to slip and fall on my ass, and, most of all, my lungs feel like they are turning inside out. Plus there's the fact that you need to buy expensive fancy gear for cold weather running, which makes me cringe because I don't have money to blow on this, but also because one of the reasons I love running so much is that all you need are a pair of shoes and a pair of legs.

So, to avoid the outdoors, I could go to the gym, but besides the fact that gyms bore me to tears, I just can't seem to get into the same rhythm on the treadmill that I do on the pavement. And ellipticals are alright, but I don't feel like they give me the same intense, pure cardio workout that I crave. Plus, of the two gyms that are available to me, one is up the steepest effing hill known to mankind (Who decided to build the Pete on the top of the biggest hill in Oakland? Who? I want to know, so I can sue them when my uncoordinated little body slips and topples all the way into oncoming traffic on 5th Avenue) and the other is in a cramped little room with no TVs or views of the city through the windows, just the shiny sweaty moving flesh of other people to stare at. I could probably dedicate an entire post to my gripes about gyms. Perhaps I will sometime. But right now that would not help me.

I think what I want is a perfect solution, and I'm not going to get it. The running I love is outdoors, through neighborhoods and parks and woods, and not on a track or a treadmill or any other made-for-running apparatus. I know I'm going to have to compromise, but I guess what I'd like to figure out is how to reduce my losses. Like finding cheap, quality spandex/Under Armour stuff, or the streets in Shadyside that are the best plowed/salted.

So, sorry for this post that is essentially one big complaint, but it's just a problem I've encountered every year for awhile now: not just how to keep working out in the winter, but how to love it.

Food, we need to talk.

Thinking about that last post, I'm brought back to Pollan's rules, and the one I said was my favorite:

"Don't create arbitrary rules for eating if their only purpose is to help you feel in control."

I knew this was my favorite because of my disregard for dietary rules, but I don't think I explained that disregard fully in that post or this blog (realized this when Ben suggested I post my own rules and I thought "Ooo ... that's exactly what I wouldn't do.") And I think I didn't express it explicitly because I didn't wholly understand why I don't like rules in the first place. I knew they didn't work for me. That they were frustrating. But it didn't come into full view until last night, when I realized that I didn't like them because dietary rules and restrictions often put the blame on the food itself, not the way we eat the food or why we eat it the way we do. They don't recognize that people's relationship with food is deep and intimate, and by simply removing and replacing some items you are only addressing the shiny, approachable exterior of the problem.

For example, all of last year I lived under this guise of "Well I eat pretty healthy foods most of the time, so even though I'm a little overweight, I'm okay." Then sometime over the summer it hit me that my problem wasn't necessarily what I ate, it was how much. I'm an overeater, often emotional, always because of lack of self-control. And I knew it deep down the whole time, I just ignored it because I wasn't emotionally ready to address that aspect of my relationship with food.

What was my breaking point? I don't know. Living on my own. Buying my own food (you eat more, you pay more!). Growing awareness of what "wasteful" really means, and how much I waste (both in the trashcan and in an already-full belly). Gaining respect and ownership of my own body and self. A new-found sense of control, I guess.

Which is what diets are, really, an attempt at control, but all too often for external reasons. I have to lose weight to look good in that bikini, wedding dress, etc. So we do it the way we've been taught to control anything: with rules. No more chocolate. Maybe instead of targeting the individual foods we eat, it's better to look at our relationship with that food. Why do you like the foods you like? Why do you not eat certain foods? How much do you really know about what you are putting in your body? How much do you care? If it's very little, why?

So I won't give you, if you are someone who is unhappy with your relationship with food, rules on what to eat and what not to eat. That's entirely subjective and, anyway, it takes a lot of time to grow to love certain types of food, something I don't think nutritionists take into account. What I will give is advice on perspective.

• Think of "diet" in its original definition, meaning what we eat. That's it. Over time it's been morphed into this temporary quick-fix to a problem that can't be fixed quickly. Think of a change in diet as a gradual, continuous slope. 
• Your life, your happiness, should be your reasons for this change, as opposed to events or milestones. The latter is too frivolous on its own to uphold any serious changes. However, if a graduation or a wedding is merely a catalyst to ignite changes that you've been aching for deep down, this is fine, as long as you address the deeper reasons. Simply wanting to look good in pictures is not enough. 
• Go slow. If you eat a lot of fried foods and decide you're going to stop completely and only eat steamed or grilled, you will get frustrated. If you go to the gym for the first time in 10 years and say I'm going to run a mile, you will be disappointed. Listen to your body, and if you're out of breath from walking on the treadmill, great! Stick with that and gradually build up. 
• If you can't love your body yet, at least respect it. One day it will become love.

exercise excuses

I hate to say it, but I've got to be honest: since I ran that race a couple weeks ago, my workout schedule has.... dwindled. To near-nonexistent. So I told myself last night that I would go running this morning, but then I had troubles falling asleep. I laid in bed this morning for about twenty minutes, half-listening to the painful sounds of KissFM, trying to decide whether I should go running or work on a paper or go back to sleep.
The little voices of reason in my head duked it out over using my time wisely, for things I really need to get done, as opposed to things that aren't really neccessary.

It was then that I realized that if I hadn't been having this useless debate with myself, I'd already be out the door. So I got up and put my shoes on.

I have a problem with keeping up with exercise during both the winter and times of endless school assignments. My brain justifies not working out because I have so many other responsibilities.

But if I stop and really think about it... I spent an hour last night watching Mad Men, something that really is not necessary but a passion nonetheless, so I make time for it. Time that could have been spent writing a paper. I love running and working out, I really do, but I guess the difference in my priority levels is attributable to the fact that watching Mad Men is a passive act (well, sort of, except when I yell at the Don in my TV screen to stop being a wife-cheating douchebag), while exercise is active and thus more strenuous. Maybe I'm just lazy.

But I felt so good when I got back from my run--which surprised me because I thought my hiatus was going to kick me in the ass--that I realized this is not a battle I can let lethargy win. Because the longer you go without exercise, the less vital it seems, the more you forget how good it makes you feel, and the easier it is to push it further back on the mental shelf.

So goal this winter: Don't slack off, stop over-analyzing, turn your brain off and your body on and JUST GO.

flashforward

Did it! 3.1 miles in 30:10, which is better than I expected, considering I wasn't "training", just running for fun all summer. I am very happy. I meant to take a picture of Kelsey and I after the race to post on here but forgot to amid the pancakes (and beer?!) and speakers blaring shitty pop music.

So instead you get a picture of me from districts (that race I mentioned previously) 6 years ago:

Note: This is probably the skinniest I've ever been.

races embrace the metric system

I feel like I must explain why I am on this at 11 p.m. on a Friday night, probably more for my ego than for your actual interest, but the reason is health-related so I can claim to not be that vain.

Tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. I'm running a 5K (3.1 miles) with my friend Kelsey. The race is called Run Shadyside, and it's a run/walk through my neighborhood to benefit the Boys and Girls Club, so, you know, good causes and all that junk.

But it's way more than that to me, seeing as it is the first race I've ran in 5 years, since I left cross country in a disillusioned huff. My last memories of races (which were all also 5Ks) are of severe disappointments, crawling into the benches on the empty bus while the rest of the team stood outside and chatted in all their sweaty glory, so I could be alone to hate myself and accept that I'd never be able to run it in 21 minutes like the top girls on the team. The best I ever did was 25, at the district championships my freshman year.

Which, looking back, was fine, great, an achievement for the little fat girl who used to make up excuses not to play kickball in gym class. But I let the pressures of the running world, and my self-imposed definition of what a "runner" was, get under my skin and convince me that I was one of those girls on the team that spectators saw and poofed their lips and cocked their heads at. A charity case.

I don't blame myself entirely for this mentality though. The (slightly ridiculous) competitive nature of high school sports chipped in its fair share. I got to the point of: Why compete if I can't be as good as I want to be?

Of course, this race will be a lot different than those distant memories. There's nothing at stake here, time-wise. Thirty fewer seconds is not going to mean the difference of my team advancing, etc. No one on the sidelines screaming at me to pick it up.

And I'll have Kelsey, my friend who's running it with me, by my side cheering me on. She never did cross-country, but she did play soccer and ran track (and was good at both, from what I hear.) After a substantially more sedentary freshman year at college, she began running during the summer to get back in shape. Last spring, less than a year later, she ran the half-marathon in Cleveland, and last weekend she ran the Great Race in Pittsburgh. So, although she's not as fast as some of the girls I remember from cross country, she's still faster than me. But she's running this shorter race for me, not to beat me, but to encourage me, which is so, so great in a lot of ways that she may not totally understand.

I'm trying not to set any goals for myself besides to finish it, and run the whole thing, which I know I can do. I want to do this to feel good and to show myself that races don't have to mean torment, that no matter the outcome I've still achieved something awesome. I want to face an irrational fear and roadblock and take one giant step over it toward a positive image of myself and my body.

Plus, there's free pancakes afterward. I think I deserve to indulge in one or two.

rant and then run

Okay, maybe it was a bad idea to post a picture of Lindsay Lohan; every time I look at it my gag reflexes act up. Could be the stretchy pants (leotard?). I don't want you to vom when you click on my page.

But I posted that picture for a reason. If you've lived through the past decade and are under 30, you know why. Otherwise, let me fill you in: about five years ago, Lindsay starred in a delightful Tina Fey comedy called Mean Girls, in which she looked doe-eyed, glowing, and healthy. Fast forward a couple years, add some fame and booze and drugs, and you have the present stick-figured, crispy-orange version of Lindsay that so often graces our tabloids. This trend is all too common in Hollywood, trading in curves for angles to please the cameras or the public or most likely, the angry gold-chain clad Hollywood gods who sit in LA offices grunting and banging on tummy-tuck skin drums. Who are probably fat themselves.

As much pressure as this is for actresses and models and the like, it doesn't stop with them. Thanks to E! and VH1, we are a celebrity obsessed nation, and will do anything to look like them, as unrealistic as it may be. (News flash: they have personal trainers to monitor every move and every morsel. Do you?) Which is why I was particularly upset when I saw this ongoing article in Health magazine about an actress trying to shed her baby weight. She is 5' 5.5". Her starting weight was 130 pounds, and her goal was to get down to 115.

Go to a BMI website. Enter her stats and you'll find out that 130 puts her score at 21.5; 3 points above underweight, 3.5 points below overweight. Read: average. Normal weight. In the middle. Already healthy.

Now plug in 115 pounds, and you'll find that she wants her BMI to get down to 18.8, 0.3 of a point above underweight. Nearing the danger zone.

When I flipped to this article one day at work, I jumped up and waved it in front of the face of every girl/woman in the office, trying to find someone as vehemently disturbed as I was. (They thought it was ridiculous, but not to the eye-bugging, finger-jabbing extent I did.) In a magazine that is meant for the general public, they are blatantly telling women: Oh hey, you're healthy? According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal government, the highest power in the land? Well, guess what, not good enough. Watch us glorify this woman getting borderline undernourished and then go pacify your tears with Chubby Hubby because you will never be as good as her.

So Health magazine lost one reader, like they care. They have an agenda to fill, this whole nation has an agenda to fill, one based primarily on images and false perceptions. But that's not mine, and, hopefully, not yours.

I think before one can embrace a truly natural, healthy, holistic lifestyle, it's vital to shed these notions of not being good enough, skinny enough, attractive enough-- all the artificial baggage that is dumped on a woman by society as soon as she's old enough to grow boobs. When I became a teenager, I wasted two foolish years with my fingers down my throat because I somehow knew I could never be happy if I didn't get skinny. I finally got grossed out by this and joined cross country instead. I wasn't that fast, but running made me feel alive. And after a year, I got down to 135 pounds. Then at practice one day my coach referred to me and one of my friends as "the big girls" on the team, which was true, relative to the gazelle-like top-ranked girls. I quit.

This past summer, five years later, I started running again. For me. Not to win a race, not to lose weight, but to remember how it feels to hear the blood pumping through my veins.

The Skinny

I spent this past weekend with my mom and sister, my lone comrades in the natural health crusade. All three of us have had similar difficulties with health throughout our lives, since we're, you know, related and all, and so I'm able to talk to them about my problems and achievements, knowing they'll understand on a level my friends cannot.

Probably the most striking similarity between us is that, despite our obvious and vocal efforts to be healthy, none of us are thin. Thanks to that smiling angel named Genetics, we all carry our weight around our middle, the most dangerous place on your body to store extra pounds, since it is home to your guts. We're not obese by any means-- my sister and mom are quite small, in fact, both in frame and stature, whereas I'm... not. We're just not skinny.

Which is an interesting concept to most Americans, where we associate weight with health: If I'm skinny, I'm healthy.

This is so, so not true. You can be underweight and undernourished, or nearing overweight with no detectable health problems, granted you eat well and exercise. It's all about how you take care of yourself.

Example: I have a friend who has lost her grip since starting college. She drinks too much, but has managed to not gain any noticeable weight. I was baffled by this until one day, I asked her what we were going to do for dinner. She said she wasn't going to eat much so she could drink more later that night. I hesitated, fighting my desire to yell are you STUPID?! and instead shrugged and went into the kitchen to make myself some food.

People do this, and think it's a good idea. She knew if she ate and drank, she would gain weight from all the calories. So she sacrificed one, thinking as long as she kept her weight steady, she was okay.

This friend of mine is an extreme case of unhealthy tendencies, but people do things like this all the time. I'm going to have cheesecake with my boyfriend tonight, so I'll skip lunch. It's not just the average population that has this mentality, though; I've seen it advertised. There is a TV commercial for some sort of health snack thing, where this little crudely drawn woman limps into a room with her friends, saying she did four hours of aerobics because she indulged in a hot fudge sundae. Although I'd promote an exercise trade-off like this one over deprivation, because it is technically healthier, the fact that they are advertising exercise as a punishment irks me.

If you view exercise as something you have to do to balance extra caloric intake, it will never become something you want to do. It will be torture. All that huffing and sweating will wrongly translate in your mind into abuse for bad deeds, instead of a treat for your body, which it is. (We're made to move. Why do you think kids play so much?) You will push yourself too hard in your workouts, hating every agonizing minute, because you'll think it is necessary for the trade-off. I have to do this to be skinny.

I'll tell you right now, if your focus is entirely on weight and outward appearance, not on health and inner harmony, you need to reevaluate your priorities, because you'll never get what you want. I promise if you focus on doing what's good for your body, instead of punishing yourself for missteps, you will become healthier. You may never be Kate Moss, but you'll look and feel the way you were meant to, inside and out.