Mathematic Monday

I’ve been thinking about math lately. A lot. Runners tend to get caught up in the math of it all. average pace, mile splits, weekly distance. Marathon runners  often experience acute exacerbations of math-mania.  Since the average marathon training plan lasts 4-6 months, we have a lot of time to for mathobsession. We can even use prediction tables to predict our marathon finishing time based on shorter races. Or the infamous time-machine table that will tell you how fast you could have run a specific distance if you had run it during your prime running years. 

When you really think about it, running and math are a natural combo. After all, as runners, we are measured by how fast we reach the finish line. Running is a fairly all or nothing venture—you cross the line before your competitor or you don’t. You meet your time goal or you don’t. So no big surprise that we tend to get a little numbers crazy. 

As I reflect on some of the reasons I was attracted to running, I have to admit, one of the big reasons is the safety I feel with objective numbers. My fascination with all things scientific and predictable goes way back to high school, where I  was a member of the Math Club AND the Brain Bowl. So no big surprise that running was my solution of choice to my newly discovered disease of Adult Onset Athleticism.  As a proud aunt of a competitive dancer turned competitive cheerleader, I have witnessed first hand how the more subjective sports operate.  How many times have I seen Bre or her team deliver a flawless routine, with few technical errors, only to be voted down by a judge on an elusive, ill-defined “style” category? Too bad for your team, coach, you picked a song that happened to be playing when the judge found out her husband was doing some playing of his own. That judge wasn’t seeing execution of style, she was planning another execution of sorts. 

My own experience with less math-obsessed sports was short lived, but very powerful. Last year, I was trying to transform my body. As a result of my work with Precision Nutrition, JP Fitness, and a lot of support from some good friends, I became leaner and more fit than ever. One of my assignments during my time with Precision Nutrition was to meet a new fit friend. I had been enjoying Chelle’s spin class at my local gym for a number of months prior to the assignment. I didn’t know Chelle really well, other than to know that she was around my same age, and therefore, picked great spinning music. I knew that she participated in adventure races. What I didn’t know until my assignment, was that Chelle had also dropped more than 80 pounds and was successfully maintaining that loss. We were both at a place in our weight loss and fitness where we were searching for that elusive “what comes next.” We had numerous conversations about how to take our physiques and our fitness to the next level. Our gym is owned by an IFBB pro judge and his wife, an IFBB pro fitness competitor. They hold monthly seminars for figure competitors, and women from all over the country covet those spots to work with our gym owners. Chelle and I posed the question, “what if we do the figure competitor program just to see how far we could push ourselves, physically and aesthetically?” Neither of us really wanted to be on stage exactly, but we sort of had our own Barbizon moment-“Be a Figure Competitor. Or Just Look Like One.”

So Chelle and I took the PN assignment one step closer. We each agreed to independently evaluate the figure competitor lifestyle, compare notes, and decide the next course of action. For my part, I talked to several women in my age range who were actively competing. I asked them every conceivable question about training, eating, hair, makeup, stilettos. I even took a private pilates session from an ex-pro-bodybuilder who puts on a local show every year. I left no stone unturned. Chelle did the same. 

I have to admit, I was intrigued. I particularly admired how these women felt so present and confident in their physical bodies. Even though they were working out, they took extra care in choosing flattering athletic clothing. I realized that I had allowed this part of myself to become dormant during the years that I spent in an obese body. As I looked down at my baggy drape of a t-shirt and standard, old-school phys-ed issue gym shorts, I realized that as I was gaining weight, I started treating myself poorly. I refused to spend money on stylish clothes, workout or otherwise, because I was convinced that I didn’t deserve them until I reached some ideal weight or size on a chart. I decided right then and there to start treating myself as if I were a figure competitor already. Even though I was still well above the level of body fat that would be stage-appropriate, I decided to start acting as if I were already there. I found cute workout attire that flattered the body I was in at that time. Funny thing, I actually started behaving differently. I remember the first time I saw a line of demarcation in my delts—I was wearing one of my new, body-conscious figure-girl tanks. I was doing those YTWL things on a bench, and I saw my arms in motion. At first, I didn’t even realize that the reflection was mine. You can’t get light bulb moments like this in a baggy t-shirt.

So I went back to Chelle, excited at the prospect. So far, my experience with the figure girls was a home run! I was so excited about reconnecting to my inner glamour girl, and I was all but ready to sign up for the camp. But Chelle challenged me. She had also done her homework.We both agreed that the training  sounded fantastic! What self-respecting jock wouldn’t become delighted at the prospect of  working with one of the most respected fitness IFBB pros in the country? Chelle’s main issue was the nutrition. When we compared notes, we realized that all of the competitors that we talked to were indulging in nutrition plans that were not exactly compatible with optimal health. The clincher for Chelle was how she was going to explain her nutrition plan to her ten year old daughter.  I realized that I was indulging in some selective hearing when I was talking to those women. I heard all about the clothes, the makeup, the style, the bikinis, the shoes, the training. But I had conveniently blocked out the restrictive dieting part. And the time I saw one of them face down in a large bag of Lay’s the day after her competition. The more I investigated, the harder time I had finding a mentor that did not engage in dieting behaviors that restricted entire categories of foods for extended periods of time. Chelle was right. Did I want to role model restrictive dieting for my niece? When I really assessed the nutrition plans with my scientist’s eye, I saw large gaps in essential nutrients. Depriving my 45 year old  joints of essential nutrition did not feel any more respectful than re-loading those same joints with the 80 pounds of fat I had lost. When I considered how success is measured in the world of figure competition, I realized that I didn’t want to put in all of the tough effort into training for a sport, only to have the competition be solely based on what someone else thinks is attractive on a woman’s body. 

Needless to say, I decided to channel my math madness into splits on the  track instead of grams of carbohydrate or the size of my waist.  But my time with the figure girls was not wasted. I returned to the track in cute, figure flattering workout gear. I carried myself with the attitude of the figure competitor. I de-frumped my wardrobe. I even bought a pair of stilettos! 

But I didn’t need those stilettos to compete this past weekend. On Saturday, I ran 11 fast miles with my pace group, in a royal blue and black running skirt designed for long distance racing with matching royal blue fuel belt, and royal blue lace locks in my running shoes. When I clicked off the GPS as we returned to the start of our route, my team-mates were only concerned about our overall pace, and not at all worried that I was looking a little soft so close to my competition the next day.  On Sunday, I raced a sprint triathlon in a lime green tattoo print racing suit with matching skirt and snap in race number for the bike and the run. As I sprinted toward the finish, the race clock didn’t automatically add 2 minutes because my abs weren’t visible. 

I realize that there are healthy figure competitors and unhealthy figure competitors, just as there are healthy runners and unhealthy runners. But at the end of the day, my presence at the Boston Marathon in April 2010 is not dependent on somebody’s subjective assessment of my fitness. My ability to line up at that start line in Hopkinton and run 26.2 miles to Boston is all about the math. So if you happen to catch the Boston Marathon on television, look for me. I’ll be the runner with the royal blue running skirt and the thousand watt smile. If the camera happens to zoom in, you might even see me suck in my abs and throw my shoulders back. But you won’t see stilettos until the after party.  

The Sum of Her Parts

Dissection of the human body belongs in the anatomy lab, not in fitness forums. Well, maybe it exists in the basements of deranged serial killers too, but that is a separate topic for another day. Before you click out of here, let me explain. One of my favorite fitness gurus, Leigh Peele, recently posted an article on her website about women’s perceptions of other women’s bodies. She polled 2000 women and asked them about their perceptions of the word “bulky” as it applies to women’s bodies. The majority of women defined these physiques as bulky:

And the majority of women, 71%, in fact, said that they would rather be “too thin” instead of “too muscular”.

Naturally, this article was up for discussion on a fitness forum that I frequent. Most of the women were celebrating our “bulkiness”—to paraphrase an old disco hit, “we work hard for the muscle!” One woman posted about her own journey as an aspiring bodybuilder, and how she sometimes felt ostracized because of her “amazon” physique. In response, another poster clarified that, in her mind, too bulky or “amazon” was exemplified by this physique:

The aspiring bodybuilder was quick to praise this physique, and wrote about her wish to be that big someday. All good so far, right? Bodies come in different shapes and sizes, and Leigh’s original article brought home the point that we all have different ideas about “ideal”. Ideal for one woman might be the thin, cover girl look. Ideal for another woman might be voluptuous ruebenesque. Yet another might covet the physique of a bodybuilder. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yada yada. Until you traverse into serial killer territory-that’s when I feel compelled to write about it and subject you to my aimless ramblings. The aspiring bodybuilder went on to qualify her admiration of the woman pictured above, by stating that her waist was a little thick. HUH? The woman in the picture has a single digit body fat percentage. Sure, her hips are narrow, and she is ultra lean. And to have, visible, cut abs like that, you actually have to hypertrophy them! So if this woman were to buy into the whole idea of chopping her physique into little tiny parts, what are her options to fix her “thick” waist? Atrophy her obliques? Surgically implant hips so her waist appears smaller? Build even bigger shoulders and chest so her waist appears smaller? Dissection belongs in the cadaver lab. 

To be fair, most of us are guilty of dissection. How many times in my own life have I focused on my midsection? Before I understood how to lift properly to build my best body, I would try to diet myself into some idealized shape I had in my mind. Focusing on my parts never helped me achieve my goals—it always resulted in chronic dissatisfaction. I love wearing my 5 inch platform Miu Miu wedges, because in them, I am 5’ 11 ½”, the height that should have been my birthright. But alas, try as I might, without the wedges, I am 5’ 6 ½”, and no amount of dieting or weightlifting will make me 5’ 11 ½”.

 I think it is time for us to stop with the dissection obsession and focus on building our very best, healthiest bodies. And guess what? Our healthiest bodies are going to come in a variety of shapes and sizes—let’s celebrate the diversity! Some women will naturally be leaner than others. For some women to get superlean, they would have to starve, do steroids or both. Is that healthy? Other women might be very fit and free from disease, yet they are living in bodies that some would consider plump. Is this healthy?  Healthy is a continuum—somewhere along the continuum, people can venture into the “unhealthy” side. Take the woman bodybuilder in the photo above as an example. At some point, she made the decision to cross over into anabolic steroid territory. Not healthy. What about the woman in the first photo? Healthy right? Well, what if she were maintaining that degree of leanness by engaging in dangerous diet pill abuse plus bingeing and purging? Not healthy. 

In the end, we are more than the sum of our parts. We are whole, human beings who deserve to be seen with a wide-angle lens. Again, let’s look at our woman bodybuilder. Even though she might be making unhealthy decisions with her body, does that negate who she is in the rest of her life? What if she is a firefighter/paramedic? When she is first on the accident scene, and delivers the lifesaving chest compressions to the dying stranger, does that patient care that some random person at her last bodybuilding show thought she had a thick waist? Uhhh. No. What if she were a fifth grade teacher? When one of her former students with a learning disability walks the stage with her peers at graduation, does that student remember her teacher’s body, or does she remember her kindness, compassion, and refusal to give up on her like others had before? Chances are, that student is walking that stage with confidence, celebrating a lifetime of hard work. One could only hope that her teacher is there in the audience, proudly celebrating her student, and also celebrating her own newly discovered understanding of what it means to be confident on the stage.

I am not suggesting that we forego our pursuits of our healthiest selves. Living in healthy bodies gives us the energy to accomplish everything we are meant to accomplish in our lifetimes. Our healthy bodies allow us to power through life with purpose and intention. But I AM suggesting that we put down our scalpels and leave the dissection to the medical students and the serial killers. Step away from the scalpel, step toward the camera with the wide-angle lens, start seeing your body for the miracle that it is, and start living your best life. 

At the end of my life, I want to be known for so much more than my thick waist or my seven minute mile. So in case anyone on the forum ever feels the urge to give me some unsolicited physique critique, just know that you won’t be heard. This body’s got her wide-angled lens-on, a well-known shield that protects against those who would dissect me into component parts. Every click of the shutter is one step closer to health and wellness. Every whole, wide-angle picture is another piece of kryptonite that dulls the scalpel of those who would attempt to shatter a healthy body image. Dissection has a place and a time, but you won’t be seeing any more scalpels in my wellness toolbox.