Eyes on My Own Paper

I haven’t written a blog post in a long time. Like, a really long time. February, to be exact.

Even before that, my posts had become infrequent compared to when I first started. The reasons were actually positive. I had plenty of time to blog when I first started my business, because I didn’t have any clients.

Within a few months that changed. I picked up my first client, then another, then another… Gradually I found myself with a small but consistent little business.
Life got busy. I was seeing clients three days a week, and I still had my full-time job at Trader Joe’s to pay the bills and maintain health insurance. Suddenly my time was at a premium. A quality problem indeed!

I also found that sometimes I would put out a blog post and it didn’t get many views, so I increasingly focused my marketing efforts on social media. Facebook and Instagram provided a greater “bang for the buck” with a much lower time investment. A blog post required hours to complete; a well-received social media post took minutes.

But I missed the blog. There is something about long-form writing that soothes my soul, whether it finds a large audience or not. It’s cathartic.

Which finally brings me to why I’m breaking my almost six-month silence on the blog.
Because I have suddenly found myself with unforeseen time on my hands, and the need for a little soul-soothing.

What happened?

Easy. I got injured.

Renewal

I recently turned 40. A momentous occasion (allegedly).

What did I do to commemorate this milestone birthday?

Well, for one thing, I renewed my driver’s license. I know how to party, right? 

Standing in line at the BMV hardly seems to warrant a blog post. Pretty boring stuff.

Sure, today standing in line at the BMV is just another mundane adult task that requires minimal effort.

But a few years ago? Different story…

The year was 2014. February 19, 2014, to be exact. At this point I had never heard of Ludus Magnus or Matt Wenning.

Steps Back, Leaps Forward

When it comes to diet and exercise, we often expect our progress to look like this:

Stay dedicated, try hard, and every workout will be a crescendo of ever-increasing gains, right?

We are having a really good day, and do something awesome at the gym. Maybe a new lifting PR, maybe hitting a certain amount of volume or speed on an exercise. And then, we “expect” to be able to hit or exceed that same level at each subsequent outing.

But the truth is, those great days are rare. Most days we don’t feel our best. What then?

Painful Assets (Part 2): Food for Thought

To recap where we left off last week in our stroll down memory lane… As a child, I had already fallen into a vicious cycle that only worsened as I grew older:

I had natural biomechanical mobility issues exacerbated by weight gain (and probably severe inflammation from a high sugar diet). Physical activity was uncomfortable and associated with ever-elusive weight loss. Trying to do something I wasn’t good at made me feel even worse about myself. So I avoided most physical activity, which further contributed to weak muscles, stiff joints, and continued weight gain. I ate to comfort myself but felt intense shame for doing so (and was often shamed by the adults in my life when caught with the foods I loved), leading to secretive binge eating.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how I wound up a morbidly obese, yo-yo dieting, exercise-hating adult so stiff and inflamed that I could not do one proper squat when I walked through the doors of Ludus Magnus.

Me holding my best friend’s son in 2008. I weighed almost 300 pounds. I was thirty years old and felt like I was eighty.

I promise, I do have a point in sharing all this beyond self-obsessed navel gazing. I don’t think my experience is that unique; sadly, I think it is all-too common.

I felt like a prisoner to these early established patterns for decades. I couldn’t simply wish them away or extract myself from them overnight. It has been a long, slow process of action: changing one thing at a time, making it a habit and enjoying some success with it, and then changing the next thing.

Having found a way out that works for me, I want to share my experience so that hopefully I can help other adults struggling with these issues, as well as parents who have children exhibiting some of the same problems that I had.

Painful Assets (Part 1)

My trainer, Matt Wenning, has a new book coming out soon, and he recently gave me a copy of the manuscript to proofread. Sorry, no spoilers today! I will say that in addition to a treasure trove of technical information, he includes a detailed biography that goes all the way back to his childhood and discusses his challenges, talents, habits, etc., and how it laid the groundwork for who he is today.

I’ve been pretty open in this blog about my life-long struggle with food, weight, and body image, and that it has roots deep in my childhood. But Matt’s writing got me thinking about other aspects of my early life in addition to food, and how those issues that started when I was so young all contributed to the situation I found myself in as an adult.

For the sake of brevity I want to tackle this subject in two posts (I originally wrote it as one, but it was entirely too long!). Today’s post is mostly background about what my physical and emotional life was like as a kid, and how several factors came together to mold a body and mind that regarded physical activity as uncomfortable and punitive.

My next post will be about how I use the pain of the past to help others today. I will offer some observations and suggestions based on my experience that I hope can help adults struggling with these issues, as well as parents who have children exhibiting some of the same problems that I had.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

The year was 1987. I’m nine years old, in my third year of dance classes with the annual recital coming up. In addition to my usual tap and jazz routines, my teacher put me in a big group number set to Lionel Ritchie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling.”

The routine opens with the girls coming on stage one at a time doing a move where they clap their hands above their head, and then drop down into a deep squat and clap their hands again. Over and over several times until all the girls are on stage.

There’s just one problem.

Walking on the Moon

Great Dane. Baby hippo. Hellfire missile. Small person. Large child. 55-pound squat bar with two 25-lb plates.

What do these random items have in common? They all weigh over 100 pounds.

The same amount of weight I have lost over the past three years. 104 pounds, to be exact.

Hitting this astounding milestone coincides with my three-year anniversary of walking into Ludus Magnus and training with Matt Wenning.

Was losing 100 pounds my goal when I walked through that door?

Hell. No.

A 20 Minute Hike that Took 3 Years

I’m not great at selfies.

For my “featured” photo on a blog post, I try to use a reasonably polished-looking picture. And I usually have someone else take that picture for me. As my friend Suzanne will tell you, it’s not just selfies. Photography in general is not my strong suit.

But today, I am proudly broadcasting this selfie over the interwebs for the world to see (okay, maybe just the awesome cluster of people who read this blog, but still…). Behind this selfie is a three-year journey of sweat, strength, and self-discovery.

Bricks Over Spoons

It’s been a month since my last blog post. My goal is to publish at least twice per month, but in the past few weeks I’ve had some unexpected (and upsetting) change come my way. I sat down to write a few times, but I just didn’t have it in me.

But today I’m grateful to be back doing what I love, and I’m returning with a message of hope for anyone who has ever struggled with emotional eating.

What happened?

Spice Up Your Rack

Practice makes perfect, right?

Well, sort of. Turns out, it’s slightly more complicated than that.

There’s something called the Law of Specificity. When I first heard that term, I had no idea what it meant. It sounds fancy, but it’s quite simple.

If I want to be a better basketball player, I have to practice shooting, dribbling, and quick footwork. If I want to swim like Michael Phelps, I have to spend hours upon hours in the pool. If I want to get stronger, I have to lift weights. Practice makes perfect on the specific thing I want to do better.

“Well, duh,” you may be thinking. “Why do we even need a ‘Law’ for something so obvious?”

That’s what I thought, too. Stay with me…

Motivation is Overrated

My trainer Matt Wenning told me something in my early days at Ludus Magnus that I will never forget. I said that I was really surprised at how good a workout I was having that day, since I had been feeling stiff and sore before coming to the gym.

He said, “Never judge how a workout is going to go based on how you feel.”

Boom. Mind blown, grey matter everywhere.

Turns out, I don’t have to want to do something in order to do it. I don’t have to “feel” motivated. I don’t have to “feel” my best. I just have to physically pick my body up and go do it. Once I get into motion, my mind will usually catch up and want to be wherever I am, doing whatever it is I’m doing. Even if my mind doesn’t get with the program every single time, that doesn’t matter. It matters what I actually do, not how I feel about it.