About the numbers on the scale
In 2010 I landed back in Utah, from gallivanting around the world. Spending a lot of time in Turkey, largely enjoying wandering around the Aegean Coast for the better part of a month. After spending enough time in the interior regions and backwaters I was happy to visit an area that was decidedly European. Familiar cultural trapping become something you do miss, also decent coffee is hard to find in the Middle East the further inland you are. But you miss seeing girls in tank tops in summer, you miss casually drinking with locals (after 9pm you shift from tea to raki), and even the crappy Europop music after a while. So seeing this region was a welcome relief from the everyday to which I had become accustomed. Despite the 50C+ heat index.
After returning to Utah, I returned to the depressed mood, which was the reason I left in the first place. After a long period of living off of mediocre burgers and alcohol I found myself at about 170lbs. I quit smoking and rediscovered biking. Since about 2011, this has been me. Amateur athlete, it became a big part of my life. Funny thing about that, I lost all the weight, suddenly was able to deal with depression without running 9-12 time zones away.
Lately I've been hearing from many friends about weight. How they want to lose weight, typically. At first I thought this was just female friends, long cultural practice of body shaming or cultivation of body image issues, or something that I don't exactly understand because it didn't apply to me. But then I realized it was most people. About that same time I realized that all of my male friends were lycra wearing cyclists, or speedskaters. Cyclists always want to lose weight. That's just the name of the game.
I generally take the opposite view of the "love your body" mantra that permeates most feminism based teachings. Granted, there are people with severe issues, but for one second, lets not focus on them.
If you aren't happy with how your body looks or functions, good, change it, get out there are run or bike or go to the gym. Because the other extreme is worse, much worse.
I work with a lady who is morbidly obese. She's nice, but there is a gut reaction, the same reaction I'm guessing is hard wired in. Evolution taught us to avoid disease, and that reaction to avoid her took getting over for this reason. I felt guilt about this reaction at first, but as I am who I am, I talked with other people about it and learned it was an extremely common reaction. In the past year I have worked here she has had both knees replaced, is getting both hips replaced and needs her knee cap reattached. She struggles to walk. She had to recently return a couch because it was too difficult to get up off. The vast majority of non-work conversation with her is typically about her medical problems. I don't know exactly how someone gets to that point. It's the extreme we wish to avoid. We diagnose the mental disorder at the other end of the spectrum, we understand and fight against the problem of being too thin. We don't seem to bother treating the disease that is obesity, we simply treat symptoms. I slowly realize this is what is happening to her, she's falling through that gap in the system. We expect her to toughen up and lose the weight, but we don't expect someone who is anorexic to gain the weight without mental help, we don't expect people with bipolar disorder to control their moods without help. Why are we not actually treating the disease that is obesity?
Second on my mind is the fit-bit revolution. The idea we can actually achieve fitness by increasing the amount of steps we take per day. But unless you increase the number on the pedometer by 3000 steps all in one go, nothing really happens. I run into a lot of people who are somewhat shocked that they get up and walk around an extra 3000 steps in a day, but don't lose weight, or feel any better. It's good for your long term health. But it actually doesn't stress out your body in to adapting to something new, you need 30 minutes to do that.
There is a lot to be said for that 30 minutes where you have nothing to do but exercise. In one stint of therapy or another, I learned about "mindfulness", which seems like the western word to make meditation more palatable. I learned I could get that state on a bike. I wrote a while back about climbing on bikes, about the people who really love it. About how you get boiled down to only a rapid heart-beat. How the world gets muted behind everything else, how in an incredible effort you disassociate yourself and everything takes on a calm. For me that was mindfulness. Activity doesn't need an end goal, it needs to be an escape from anxiety or depression or just life. Out by yourself you are an Olympic athlete on the last leg of a gold medal run, you are holding off the pack in the Tour De France winding through the alps, or you are an intrepid explorer in regions unmapped and untouched by man. You aren't a parent, you aren't the ambitious professional with an annoying coworker or boss, you aren't a student or teacher.
It's this way you lose weight, because there hits a point where you don't care about the number on the scale, you care about what you are and how to push yourself. So don't love your body, take care of your mind instead. Your body will catch up with that. Never make your goals a number on the scale, make it a time accross a finish line or an extra mile.
After returning to Utah, I returned to the depressed mood, which was the reason I left in the first place. After a long period of living off of mediocre burgers and alcohol I found myself at about 170lbs. I quit smoking and rediscovered biking. Since about 2011, this has been me. Amateur athlete, it became a big part of my life. Funny thing about that, I lost all the weight, suddenly was able to deal with depression without running 9-12 time zones away.
Lately I've been hearing from many friends about weight. How they want to lose weight, typically. At first I thought this was just female friends, long cultural practice of body shaming or cultivation of body image issues, or something that I don't exactly understand because it didn't apply to me. But then I realized it was most people. About that same time I realized that all of my male friends were lycra wearing cyclists, or speedskaters. Cyclists always want to lose weight. That's just the name of the game.
I generally take the opposite view of the "love your body" mantra that permeates most feminism based teachings. Granted, there are people with severe issues, but for one second, lets not focus on them.
If you aren't happy with how your body looks or functions, good, change it, get out there are run or bike or go to the gym. Because the other extreme is worse, much worse.
I work with a lady who is morbidly obese. She's nice, but there is a gut reaction, the same reaction I'm guessing is hard wired in. Evolution taught us to avoid disease, and that reaction to avoid her took getting over for this reason. I felt guilt about this reaction at first, but as I am who I am, I talked with other people about it and learned it was an extremely common reaction. In the past year I have worked here she has had both knees replaced, is getting both hips replaced and needs her knee cap reattached. She struggles to walk. She had to recently return a couch because it was too difficult to get up off. The vast majority of non-work conversation with her is typically about her medical problems. I don't know exactly how someone gets to that point. It's the extreme we wish to avoid. We diagnose the mental disorder at the other end of the spectrum, we understand and fight against the problem of being too thin. We don't seem to bother treating the disease that is obesity, we simply treat symptoms. I slowly realize this is what is happening to her, she's falling through that gap in the system. We expect her to toughen up and lose the weight, but we don't expect someone who is anorexic to gain the weight without mental help, we don't expect people with bipolar disorder to control their moods without help. Why are we not actually treating the disease that is obesity?
Second on my mind is the fit-bit revolution. The idea we can actually achieve fitness by increasing the amount of steps we take per day. But unless you increase the number on the pedometer by 3000 steps all in one go, nothing really happens. I run into a lot of people who are somewhat shocked that they get up and walk around an extra 3000 steps in a day, but don't lose weight, or feel any better. It's good for your long term health. But it actually doesn't stress out your body in to adapting to something new, you need 30 minutes to do that.
There is a lot to be said for that 30 minutes where you have nothing to do but exercise. In one stint of therapy or another, I learned about "mindfulness", which seems like the western word to make meditation more palatable. I learned I could get that state on a bike. I wrote a while back about climbing on bikes, about the people who really love it. About how you get boiled down to only a rapid heart-beat. How the world gets muted behind everything else, how in an incredible effort you disassociate yourself and everything takes on a calm. For me that was mindfulness. Activity doesn't need an end goal, it needs to be an escape from anxiety or depression or just life. Out by yourself you are an Olympic athlete on the last leg of a gold medal run, you are holding off the pack in the Tour De France winding through the alps, or you are an intrepid explorer in regions unmapped and untouched by man. You aren't a parent, you aren't the ambitious professional with an annoying coworker or boss, you aren't a student or teacher.
It's this way you lose weight, because there hits a point where you don't care about the number on the scale, you care about what you are and how to push yourself. So don't love your body, take care of your mind instead. Your body will catch up with that. Never make your goals a number on the scale, make it a time accross a finish line or an extra mile.