Health Goals Part II - Exercise Goals

As I said in a former post, I used to hate exercise. I viewed it as a form of torture inflicted on me as punishment for being fat. Then I discovered fat acceptance and I stopped exercising entirely for a while. What a relief! But a weird thing happened… I occasionally felt like being physically active. This had NEVER happened before. After all, exercise was something I associated with punishment and who would choose to be punished? But once I wasn't requiring myself to do it I found that sometimes I just wanted to move. And so I did. Then I noticed that on the days when I was more physically active I felt better. My mood was better, I had more focus, I felt less stressed, and I slept better at night. It turns out this is a thing.

Words "I <3 ME" written in the sand.

Here's some proof: I just read a NY Times article: Rethinking Exercise As A Source of Immediate Rewards by Jane E. Brody. In it she talks about the findings of Dr. Segar, a psychologist whose specialty is helping people start and keep up with regular exercise habits. Dr. Segar wrote a book I want to read called "No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness." Basically Dr. Segar and others have found that prescribing doses of exercise like medicine for weight loss doesn't work. Duh! Instead, what does work is noticing the immediate rewards of exercise - the ones I discovered by accident - and deciding those are important to you. Exercise is one way of prioritizing your own self-care. As Dr. Segar says, "I like to think of physical activity as a way to revitalize and renew ourselves, as fuel to better enjoy and succeed at what matters most." I like to think of it that way too. I can exercise because I deserve to feel good in the body I have right now and I matter enough to take care of myself, not because I'm fat and I need to change myself. This is, coincidentally, exactly what Health at Every Size focuses on. (Here is a link if you need one.) The idea behind HAES is threefold and I'm showing it in pictures:

Respect, including respect for body diversity.
[Picture is the word "respect" spelled from news clippings.]

Compassionate Self-Care - eating in a flexible and attuned manner that
values pleasure and honors  internal cues of hunger, satiety, and appetite;
finding joy in moving one's body and being physically active.
[Picture says "Keep calm and practice self-care."]

Critical Awareness - challenges scientific and cultural assumptions;
values body knowledge and people's lived experiences.
[Picture is a man with jigsaw puzzle in his head holding a puzzle piece.]

So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm maintaining an awareness of fat phobia and the lessons I've learned through fat acceptance. I'm working on respecting people of all body types, including myself. And I'm aiming for compassionate self-care. The most relevant part to this post being "finding joy in moving one's body and being physically active."

So there it is. My primary goal with exercise is to focus on easy structural changes that make me more active and also on finding physically active things I love to do so I won't feel like I'm being punished when I exercise. This means no treadmills EVER.

Pug doing a handstand.

Here are the structural changes: 
* No more elevators or escalators. I will take the stairs unless I am with a disabled person who needs my help pushing elevator buttons.
* Walk or bike everywhere under 5 miles. This also helps the environment so it's a win-win!
* Take public transit to work. Why waste gas and pay for parking when I can take the bus? This gets me exercise because I have to walk to/from the bus stops, it saves me money, and it helps the environment.

Here are my specific fitness goals:
* Be able to do a handstand.
* Also cartwheels.
* Be able to do 25 pull ups, 50 pushups, 200 situps, and 200 squats.
* Do a split - either type.
* Run a 5K - maybe a color run? - ideally with a friend.
* Take a ballet class.
* Do some yoga.
* Try the kickboxing studio in the center of town.
* Find a rock climbing buddy and go climbing.

Picture of a fat woman hoola hooping that says
"Yes, I work out! No, I am not trying to lose weight."

Do you know about Health At Every Size? If so, have you tried applying the ideas to your life? How has that worked for you?

Health Goals Part I - Dietary Goals

I had my final post-surgical follow-up and am now officially cleared to exercise! Huzzah! In celebration of this fact, I am posting my new health goals and plans, in two parts. Here's the first part:

Dietary Goals
I'm fat. I'm fine with it. I have a good life as a fat person which includes great friends, great housemates, and some pretty awesome men who find me attractive as is. So I am not attempting to change my weight through these dietary goals. Let me repeat that: this is NOT about losing weight. I have exactly zero intentions of restricting my eating, counting calories, or depriving myself of the foods I like. Life is too short and chocolate too tasty for that nonsense.

Game of Thrones Meme: What do you say to dieting? Not today!

I am trying to eat in ways that make my body feel good. I've found that doing so actually does involve a bit of regulating what I eat. I've noticed that I feel like shit when I go too long without eating, when I fail to drink enough water, or when I eat certain foods *coughSOYcough* so I make sure I regulate that. I've found that I do best with a higher protein diet, more of some micronutrients (potassium, vitamin B, iron), and less of other micronutrients (salt). I also tend to eat when hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (aka HALT) as a holdover from other stupider addictive behaviors, so I try to stop and assess whether I'm actually hungry or whether one of those other factors is making me think I'm hungry before I start eating.

Tiny turtle eating a ginormous strawberry.

To track what I'm eating, I use the myfitnesspal app on my phone.  The app also keeps track of water intake, workouts, and how much you weigh. It even acts as a pedometer - or it would if I carried my phone around with me more. The app has a social feature too if you have friends who use it, so that's cool. So how do I use the app?

Well, I don't track my weight on the app because weight tracking stresses me out and I'm not trying to lose weight. I also don't track my workouts on there because the app will automatically factor those calories burned into your calories for the day and I want to exercise for my health not because I'm trying to burn calories. I do like the water tracking feature, since I feel better when I'm hydrated. I also like the pedometer since it's kind of neat to look at the graph and see how many steps I took each day. But the thing I really love about this app and the reason I use it every day is that it breaks everything you eat down into easy to digest graphs (see what I did there?).

Picture of myfitnesspal app.

There is a daily pie chart showing when you ate the most calories (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks), a pie chart breaking down what you ate by macronutrients (carbs, proteins, fats) and a chart showing what you ate in micronutrients vs the how much you need. You can customize your objectives to say what you're aiming for in total calories and what percentages you want to be eating of the macro- and micro-nutrients. If you're trying to lose or gain weight you can put your weight and what you want to weigh and your activity level so it'll make goals for you. I chose not to input a weight goal and instead to make up my own objectives based on what my doctor and nutritionist told me. For example, I set the macronutrients to 30% proteins, 30% fats, 40% carbs because I wanted to eat more protein than the original myfitnesspal recommendation. I've left most of the micronutrients alone but I set my salt intake to 2,300 mg per day (lower than it started with) and my potassium to 3,500 mg per day (higher than it started with). I put in the caloric intake my nutritionist said I should do. Basically, this is a nice and customizable app that works for me.

Cat eating salad and looking weird.

Cat eating a snow cone and looking weird.

It should be obvious but in case it isn't, this app is for adults. Not for kids. If your kid's doctor recommends it and you're looking for something similar for kids, you can try Kurbo which is made for kids and which uses a traffic-light system (red is eat rarely, yellow is eat sometimes, green is eat most).

Ok. So far this post has been all about how I track what I eat. What are my actual goals? They are:

* Drink 8+ glasses of water a day.
* Take a daily multivitamin.
* Stick as closely as possible to the macro- and micro-nutrient breakdowns I've set up in the myfitnesspal app.
* Avoid soy, MSG, and foods with long lists of unpronounceable ingredients.
* Eat only when sitting down at a table with no distractions.
* Stop and assess whether I'm actually hungry before eating or getting seconds.
* Eat every four(ish) hours. Aim for something like an 8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm eating schedule.
* No food after 10pm.

See? Totally do-able and it focuses on my health, not my weight. If you're interested in modifying your diet, I'd recommend a similar approach. It's so much better and more sustainable than dieting.

Pink spray painted graffiti that says "Riots not diets!"

Do you have dietary goals? If so what are they? Are they health-focused rather than weight-focused?

Dresses for Everyone!

Ok. I still plan to make my scary patterns. But I've been distracted by dresses!

At dinner about a week ago, Terzo mentioned that he wants a superhero dress like Secondo's superhero skirt. Which got me to thinking about how I could easily use that same tea-length twirly skirt pattern and turn it into a dress. I'm thinking some sort of a-line or princess style dress. Maybe with long sleeves? I could also use that bustle dress I just bought. Or perhaps I'll luck out and find a "mother-daughter" pattern...

Least terrible matchy-matchy outfits you'll see in this post.

Ok, random confession time! My brother and I are not biologically related. I've sometimes wondered what it would be like to have bio-siblings but mostly I'm just happy with the brother I've got, because my brother kicks ass.

Me and my brother, not looking related. 

That said, when we were kids my brother's bio-siblings also lived with us and they all look very similar to each other. Which meant that in our family there were four dark brown haired, brown eyed, tan skinned kids and one pale blonde kid with blue eyes. Random strangers always knew they were related but I was assumed to be a random friend tagging along for the trip. I found this exceedingly upsetting. One night, after a particularly trying day on a family trip where a random woman literally argued with me about whether my sister was my sister, I cried to my Mom about it. My mother being my mother, she concocted the hair brained scheme to dress us all alike so people would know we were siblings. Many terrible homemade matchy-matchy outfits ensued. 

Matching powder blue marching-band-ish outfits.

Thankfully none of them looked like this...

Awkward mother-daughter outfits in lime green and orange.

So why am I telling you this?

Partly to tell you to NEVER BE THAT WOMAN. There are plenty of reasons why siblings don't look alike. Maybe they're step-siblings, maybe they're adopted, maybe they're full biological siblings who just don't look alike. In any case it's none of your business and why the hell are you going to argue with a child about it? If you make a mistake, apologize and move on. 

Matching geek sweaters.

I'm also telling you to assure you that I am aware of the dangers of matchy-matchy outfits. I know firsthand exactly how scary it can get and I have the family photos to prove it. But I still think I could make some really awesome matching dresses for me and the kids. 

Matching mother daughter beauty queen outfits. *shudder*

Valentine's Day

I had a great Valentine's Day. It started with waffles and hanging out with housemates making each other valentines, which we then used to decorate the wall in the kitchen:

Vito lounges on his "hammock."

Valentines' wall in the kitchen.

After that, I visited my friend Tea and we went on a fabric hunt to gather swatches for her first sewing project: curtains for her boyfriend's living room. We hit three fabric stores and visited her mother and sister along the way to bring valentines.

Tea in the fabric store.

Tea looks at the cottons.

 I was supposed to be a tag-along for the excursion, but I emerged with three patterns I liked.

"Prepster Pullover" kid's button shirt pattern. 

Adorable 1940s retro dress reprint.

Cute kid dress with bustle.

After the shopping spree, I went on a nice Valendate. Here's a picture of my outfit and of the (so. tasty.) mini heart chocolate cake my Valendate got me:

Maroon shirt, floral tie, mardi gras beads.

Heart shaped very dense chocolate cake.

Fierce Friday

Friends, guess what day it is? Fierce Friday!

Since we're quite close to Valentine's Day, I've decided to celebrate the holiday by wearing pink. I've also decided to embrace the true meaning of Fierce Friday by dressing braver than I feel. Today I'm breaking out the lipstick! Huzzah!

Ok… The bulk of my outfit inspiration comes from swing dance attire. I love dancing and swing dancing is not an exception. I got my ex-husband into it too and our wedding dance was a swing dance complete with aerials. Post-marriage I still frequent a monthly GLBT swing dance. In fact, I'm excited to report that soon I will be dragging Bruno along with me because he's taking swing dance lessons. Yay! Anyway, here are some swing dancers:

Straight couple swing dancing.

Queers dancing at a drag ball.

Straight couple doing a swing dip.

Gay men swing dancing.

Lesbians doing a swing dip.

The hat inspiration comes from Boy George, who wore hats with style! As he said, "If you want to get ahead, get a hat!" My hat is not as daring as his hats, but I think it works with the outfit.

Boy George in a sequined police hat.

Boy George in a bizarre flowered hat with a hand.

Boy George in a red bowler hat.

Boy George in a peach colored sculptural hat.

Boy George in a khaki decorated cap.

Alright. Enough of my inspirations. Here are the pictures of me:

Me on the bus in my hat and scarf.

Maroon (vegan!) docs.

Mirror selfie to show off my lipstick.

Matching nail polish and boots. 

Me looking fierce!

Full body shot so you can see the whole outfit.

I wore my favorite jeans, a light pink button down shirt, black suspenders, my maroon boots, maroon nail polish, bright red matte lipstick, and a striped hat. A note on the nail polish: the nail polish was a gift from my friend "Alice." I really like it so I was super happy to learn that ALL of Julep's nail polish is cruelty free and vegan. Woohoo! I see more of this brand of nail polish in my future...

Ok that's it. I leave you with one of my favorite swing dancing videos:

On Fat Acceptance and Fitness

Readers, I'm fat.

I do not mean this as an insult to myself but as a simple true statement. But the fact that such a statement needs to be qualified should show you how denigrated my body type is in this society. If you don't agree with this basic premise, you need to go elsewhere because I am not going to try and argue something so obvious. Instead, I plan to tell you about me because it's my blog and on my blog I get to be a narcissist.

I used to hate myself. There were a lot of reasons for this and most are more relevant to my therapist than my blog readers. Because I hated myself, and my body was a manifestation of many of the things I disliked about myself, my body became an easy target for that self-hatred. I was a queer man in a world that hated queers. I was gender-fabulous in a world with a very strict gender binary. And I was fat in a world that hated fat people. Since I couldn't become un-queer and I consistently failed at following gender norms, I focused on trying to "fix" my body. Even the other queers and gender non-conforming people hated fat folks. And since they were my only hope of acceptance and safety that meant I needed to lose weight - my survival as a baby queer depended on it. So even though I hated exercising I did it for several hours every day. Even though I love food I was always restricting what I ate. Sometimes this made me lose weight - though never enough for my BMI to drop down to "normal." Mostly it just made me miserable.

Cartoon rhinoceros running on a treadmill next to a picture of a unicorn.

Finally I was in my 20s. I was a vegetarian who had just gone vegan for lent. I was working as a dog walker which entailed walking dogs for 5 hours and biking ~12 miles between the houses each day. I was fat. I was the only dog walker who was fat. After a work party I went home with my boyfriend and started bemoaning this state of affairs. And he introduced me to the fat acceptance movement. Readers, there is a special place in heaven for the people who introduce self-hating fat queers to the fat acceptance movement. (For what it's worth, this same boyfriend also liked that I was swishy which was AH-MAY-ZING.)

Graffiti: Buddha triumphantly lifting a bicycle.

Fat acceptance changed my life. I read everything I could get my hands on. I intentionally made fat friends whereas I'd had NONE before then because I was grossed out by fat people. I completely stopped dieting and exercising. I questioned ideas I had accepted about how terrible my life as a fat person would be. How could I believe that shit when I saw fat people who were married, who were professionally successful, who were good at sports, who were stylish dressers, etc? So, for a while I swung the opposite way. I did not exercise at all and I ate whatever the hell I wanted - including one day when I literally ate cake for every meal. I think most fat people who finally discover fat acceptance do this. I also think it's why you see all of those posts by newly revolutionized fat people that other people accuse of "glorifying" obesity. We've finally escaped from the hell of others' expectations and we're overzealous in our identification with the cause. I've met a lot of people in this stage and it's an important stage to reach because hating yourself sucks and it's important to put an end to fat phobia.

Fat David sculpture.

So anyway, after a couple years of being very RAH RAH about fat acceptance, a funny thing happened. My eating gradually settled down on its own. Because food isn't a scarcity for me and no foods are "forbidden" I no longer feel the need to eat everything in sight. There are some days when I want dessert and I eat it, but there are other days when I really crave spinach or brussels sprouts or a nice big salad. I NEVER craved that sort of thing before. But my appetite has finally balanced itself now that I'm not periodically starving myself. I've also found myself craving more physical activity. I've always hated exercise but now that I'm not making myself do it to lose weight, the idea of movement is appealing. I've discovered that I love dancing, swimming, rock climbing, weight lifting, yoga, and biking. Basically, I've gradually and accidentally come to embrace the idea of Health At Every Size (an idea you can find out more about here).

Sparkly scale that says "Yay!" and has positive phrases instead of numbers.

I've finally made peace with my body which has included making peace with being fat. Paradoxically, this peace has given me the space I needed to be able to set some fitness goals this year. I'm ok with my weight and at the same time, I want to be more physically fit. I never thought I'd be able to separate fitness from weight loss. But apparently there is one more thing on the other side of fat acceptance. It's getting more healthy for yourself, because you love yourself and want to stick around for as long as possible in the best condition possible. So bizarrely enough, now that I've accepted my fatness, I've decided it's time to improve my diet and exercise. I even made it one of my New Year's resolutions.

And now that you've gotten through all of this, here's a post from Nerd Fitness: How Fat Acceptance Doesn't Have to Glorify Obesity and Shame Fitness. I'm not 100% on the tone of this piece, though I think it was probably difficult to tightrope walk this issue in print. Tone aside, this article expresses some of my thoughts rather well. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it.

And in case you need a boost of fat acceptance in the form of music videos, here are two of my favorites: "Sista Big Bones" by Anthony Hamilton (warning: there is a brief instance of problematic orientalism in this video) and "Big Girls (You Are Beautiful)" by Mika.

Mardi Gras

Well, I've finally figured out how to get some space on the bus in the morning. Show up dressed for Mardi Gras! Here you go:

Me in a black feather boa and a silver and black face mask with black feather plume.

Also, I feel like since it's Mardi Gras I should make a mini comment on New Orleans. I've always felt interested in New Orleans since it was founded and settled by the French (like Québec, where my family is from on my dad's side). Then after Hurricane Katrina some folks from my school raised money to help out and I went out there and hooked up with a local church doing cleanup work. I was horrified by the shitty government response and the resiliency of everyone I encountered there rebuilding, and helping out there did a lot to shape me as an antiracist activist.

On a sillier note, New Orleans is also home to of one of my favorite musicians: Big Freedia. You can hear her on Beyoncé's new track "Formation" (which kicks ass) - I literally did a dance of surprised squee when I heard her on there. And frankly, you should check out her solo stuff because it's awesome and without it I'm not sure what we'd dance to at my favorite monthly gay dance night.

Big Freedia looking fierce. 

Also and unrelatedly, Texas and I are going to a seminar called "The Cross-Dressing God" about Hinduism. Because he's Hindu and I cross-dress. Ha!