Slow Fat Triathlete

Progress Report - On the Mat

2012-01-16T10:08:00.000-08:00

I realize that there hasn't been much Slow Fat Triathleting on this blog lately. I've been more entertained by various forms of ranting for Health At Every Size and against size prejudice and related forms of stupidity. It's the zeal of the recently liberated...

And frankly, there hasn't been a lot going on as far as moving my bod. There's really only so much you can write about using your abdominal muscles to press your lower back firmly into the mat; or bridging, or planking. Especially if you're not even doing it, which I wasn't for a while. Had my traditional post-Christmas cold, which made the thought of getting down on the floor abhorrent beyond measure. And for some reason, probably associated with my still-convoluted myofascial mess, I would arise from my floor work with a pounding headache, even after the sinus congestion had abated. So that was a disincentive.

But in the last few days I have reapplied my nose to the grindstone and my posterior to the yoga mat. And there's some real good news to report. I am stronger, I have more endurance, and I have way, way less pain. My bridges are higher and firmer with less effort. You couldn't drive a truck over them but you might manage a Fiat 500. My planks are plankier; my clamshells clammier (don't ask). I'm more flexible, and I can move between exercises with greater ease. When my SI joint was cranky, just turning over from supine to prone was a serious endeavor.

My brilliant chiro has loosened up some of the really nagging spots, which has enabled me to move more normally and get out of the downward spiral of stiffness and pain. And a lot of it I've done myself, with coaching from my brilliant trainer. Which is cool. I think the lesson here is the reminder (again), that bodies are amazing and resilient, that they can respond quickly to training, and we need to be freakin' grateful for everything they can do.

(Super-basic drawing from The Metallica Workout at Men's Health UK. How could I resist such a source? All the other bridge pix I could find were of women so thin that I couldn't put them on my Slow Fat Triathlete blog, in all honesty.)

Georgia, Georgia...No Peace I Find

2012-01-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of blogging and petitioning about the Children's Health Alliance of Atlanta, and what many consider to be their utterly misguided campaign against childhood obesity. I hate to send them traffic, but these videos are just so heartbreaking because they are so wrong. In one "Bobby" asks, "Mom, why am I fat?" Mom herself is fat, and she doesn't get a chance to answer. The video ends with her just sort of staring. In another, "Tina" says that she doesn't like going to school because the other kids pick on her. The end screen states, in stark black and white caps: "BEING FAT TAKES THE FUN OUT OF BEING A KID." Um, hello? BEING BULLIED takes the fun out of being a kid.

Like so many other attempts to "battle" the "epidemic" of childhood obesity, this video campaign focuses on the wrong stuff. Oddly, there's a lot of the right stuff elsewhere on the website. Stuff about movement, about having fun running and jumping, eating fruits and vegetables. They don't say "diet," and they provide some tips for parents. Of course most of the tips seem to assume that the reader has been living under a rock for the past 15 years: "Items that are baked or broiled are healthier than items that are fried." Argh. That's your "tip"? Another egregious application of the widespread stereotype that fat people are not only lazy but dumber than a stack of mud. "If only they knew," think the concerned public health crusaders, "then they wouldn't be fat!"

I was a fat kid. Not super fat, but fattish. I'm sure my BMI (which was never intended for use on individuals) would have been outside the "healthy" range as defined today. I look back at pictures of myself though and think, "Now, why exactly was it I got put on diets?" If my height/weight ratio had stayed the same as I grew into my body, I'd probably weigh 100 pounds less than I do today. Instead, decades of weight cycling have left me with a pretty disoriented metabolism. But that's another story. The real issue is, did being fat take the fun out of being a kid?

Hells no. I had a ton of fun as a kid. Not just as a head-in-the-book, check-out-all-the-library-books-at-once kid, which I was. But as an Action Fat Kid: climbing trees and swinging in swings, playing baseball and basketball, climbing the backyard fence and tightrope walking along the top, setting up my own high jump practice pit, riding bikes, roller skating, swimming, playing tag and kick-the-can with my friends. Yeah, I had friends. I wasn't ostracized even though I was fat and wore glasses, starting in the first grade. My parents, who are neither fat nor stupid, taught me pretty good social skills and gave me lots of love, fed me mostly real food in moderate quantities, at regular intervals, and encouraged outdoor play, running around, having fun, eating fruits and vegetables, and reading. As a result, I was mostly healthy and happy, well nourished, smart, and reasonably confident.

Wasn't I bullied for being fat? I don't recall much. Some teasing and name calling, maybe? I honestly remember being teased more for my glasses, and once, in a ghastly episode that still gives me chills to remember, when some boys from the second grade caught sight of my brightly colored underpants of British extraction - a far cry from the white cotton skivvies that all other first grade girls at Ralph O. Berry Elementary School apparently wore. Yeah, kids can be mean if you're different.

So here's my idea for raising healthier kids, Atlanta "Children's Health Alliance": Teach kids to be confident and fun-loving, proud of their bodies and minds and of their physical and mental gifts. Teach them to curb their meaner impulses when they encounter kids who are different from them - shorter or taller or redheaded, black or nearsighted or foreign, fatter or skinnier or brown or pale. Teach them to enjoy a wide range of foods. Teach them how to build good relationships. Give them love and hope and support. That's an alliance I could get behind.

The Mind Trap - Paradigms Re-Found

2011-12-28T12:53:00.000-08:00

I'm actually pretty encouraged in some ways by Tara Parker-Pope's blog post today on the New York Times website. She writes about the incredible difficulty of maintaining permanent, significant weight loss through dieting or any other mechanism, and about new and existing research showing that dieting, in particular, changes people's metabolism to the point where regaining the weight is nearly a mathematical certainty.

One weight-loss doctor finally decided to try and figure out why his patients just seemed inevitably to regain weight after being on his starvation diet of 500 calories per day for eight weeks. ("special shakes called Optifast and two cups of low-starch vegetables, totaling just 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks" - how could anyone fail to keep weight off after realizing how satisfying that could be?)

Anyone who has felt a diet transform herself (or himself) into a food-obsessed, irrational wreck can attest to the fact that your body and brain get messed up by the process.

A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place.

Almost resisting the temptation to say "Well DUH," I read on. Ms. Parker-Pope comes to the conclusion that I have reached myself in the last little while. "This translates into a sobering reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat." Right! So this is the end of page 1 of an 8-page post. What more could you possibly say for 7 pages? How about: "So quit being mean to yourself and/or other fatties and focus on being healthy and happy in the body you have"? Would that be too simple?

Apparently. Ms. Parker-Pope brings out some really good stuff, some studies showing that some people seem genetically inclined to put on weight more easily and retain it more stubbornly. And then she gets into the National Weight Control Registry, an organization which I hold to be more than a little insidious. The NWCR purports to show that long-term weight loss maintenance is possible. Many researchers and people with common sense believe it shows the opposite. The NWCR has a few thousand "success stories" in its roster. Here's what Health At Every Size (HAES) researcher and writer Linda Bacon has to say:

First, the data they gathered is hardly long term: It includes individuals who have maintained a thirty-pound weight loss for one year or more. Studies show that two-thirds of weight regain happens within two years, and at five years all the weight has been regained.So some of the individuals in the NWCR registry haven’t even made it past these danger points. And even among this elite group, 72 percent are regaining!*

Ms. Parker-Pope then interviews a woman who lost a lot of weight and has kept it off for years. This woman's regimen includes minutely detailed food and weight journaling; constant weighing and measuring of every mouthful (she knows, for example, that lettuce is about 5 calories per cup); researching menus and performing calorie calculations before any meal outside the house; avoiding all foods with white flour and sugar; and exercising 100-120 minutes a day. “It’s one of the hardest things there is,” she told the Times. “It’s something that has to be focused on every minute. I’m not always thinking about food, but I am always aware of food.”

I find that "I'm not always thinking about food, but I am always aware of food" has just the faintest odor of semantic self-delusion to it. Hey, if that's how she wants to live, that's how she can live. But I sure as shit don't want anyone telling me that her way is the only way to achieve health just because it has reduced her body weight. What the interviews with NWCR survivors tell me is that the people who keep large amounts of weight off long term are obsessing in a way that would be unhealthy for me if I were doing it.

Ms. Parker-Pope clearly gets a hint of this too: "Just talking to Bridge about the effort required to maintain her weight is exhausting," she writes. And then there's this great, great sentence:"If anything, the emerging science of weight loss teaches us that perhaps we should rethink our biases about people who are overweight." YES! YES, YES! YES! Tara Parker-Pope, it's not your fault you haven't been able to keep weight off despite repeated attempts.

Tara is still bummed, though: "In most modern cultures, even if you are healthy — in my case, my cholesterol and blood pressure are low and I have an extraordinarily healthy heart — to be fat is to be perceived as weak-willed and lazy. It’s also just embarrassing." Well, it's only embarrassing if there is widespread social stigma and you also agree to be stigmatized. How 'bout we work to eliminate the social stigma instead of buying into it?

But no. 'Cause here's how Tara Parker-Pope ends her post:
"And even though all the evidence suggests that it’s going to be very, very difficult for me to reduce my weight permanently, I’m surprisingly optimistic. I may not be ready to fight this battle this month or even this year. But at least I know what I’m up against."

Here's the thing, Tara - and I think we can be on first-name terms now because we're talking about some deep-down stuff here - you are healthy according to your metabolic indicators. You are a writer for the New York Times, the most prestigious newspaper in the United States. I infer from your writing that you have a family of your own. You state that you enjoy exercising for 30-40 minutes at a time, which experts are finding is the single most important thing you can control for your health. You might have an awesome life! How about you get ready to fight a different battle in 2012? How about battling to spread the word that people can be just fine without losing weight at all? How about posting a pic of yourself so that the world can see that a widely-read, respected health writer isn't thin? I'll get behind that.

Meanwhile, thanks for sharing some good research.

*Bacon, Linda (2010-02-02). Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight (p. 145). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

Tell "Health Experts" They Are Tools This Christmas

2011-12-23T20:15:00.000-08:00

The National Obesity Forum has told the BBC and presumably other compliant hacks that you should "Tell loved ones they are overweight this Christmas." I am, alas, not kidding. At all. I believe that the next article recommended in the sidebar on the Beeb's website -- which is not open for our irate comments, BTW -- would be "My loved one served me a hot steaming mug of Shut the Fuck Up," followed closely by "How to Repair the Psychic Damage You Did This Christmas."*

"Christmas may be a time of indulging for many, but health experts believe it is the perfect time to tell a loved one they are overweight." That's right. At the time when you want to nestle all warm and cozy in the bosom of your family, feeling the glow of peace on earth and good will to all beings that you think are important? Dr. David Haslam, Chair of the National Obesity Forum, wants your family to tell you, "sensitively," that you are fat.

This is fucked up on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin. First of all - does the National Obesity Forum think that fat people don't know they are fat? When our culture spends so much energy telling them that every single day? So we're not only fat but completely moronic? Or does Dr. Dave think that instigating hateful, misguided, and shaming (to those who will allow themselves to be shamed) conversations at this festive time will just flick on the switch? "Oh, that's what's been going on all these years! I thought the rest of you were just shrinking in the wash."

Dr. Dave says, "Suggesting to someone that they should consider losing a few pounds may not be a comfortable conversation to have. But if someone close to you has a large waistline then as long as you do it sensitively, discussing it with them now could help them avoid critical health risks later down the line and could even save their life."

But here's the deal, Dr. Dave: nope, it won't. And why is that? Because, in the words of Dr. Linda Bacon, who reviews and conducts real research on metabolism, dieting, exercise, and psychology: "Not one study has ever shown that diets produce long-term weight loss for any but a tiny number of dieters. Not one." Furthermore, there's actual scientific research showing that it is perfectly possible to be fat and healthy. And lots and lots of research showing that weight cycling or "yo yo dieting" is downright bad for you. And you know what else is bad for you? Being stigmatized, bullied, and stereotyped at every turn as lazy, stupid, undisciplined, and lacking in self-respect.

Right. So let's see just who this National Obesity Forum is, behind the benign-looking website oozing concern for the state of all us poor sick fatties and the costs of trying to keep us from killing ourselves with whipped butter souffles topped with lard.

Well, Dr. Dave is the "Acting Editor of the National Obesity Forum Newsletter Advisory Board of 'WLS' Weight Loss Surgery patient support group." Weight Loss Surgery, huh? Well, clearly he has no vested interest. He claims that bariatric surgery "is among the most clinically effective, and cost effective procedures in any field of medicine.” Uh-huh.

Who else is on the NOF Dream Team? Well, there's Dr. Matthew Capehorn, NOF's Clinical Director who was, get this, a paid shill for a – get this – weight loss SPRAY product!!! They think fat people are too stupid to know they’re fat? How about being so stupid that you'll endorse a spray-the-fat-away product?

Then there's pharmacist Graham Phillips, who promoted making Orlistat (Xenical) available over the counter to anyone with a BMI over 28. Orlistat is notorious for its gastrointestinal side effects (anal leakage, anyone?). Phillips also owns a chain of pharmacies in Hertfordshire.

And who funds the National Obesity Forum's website?

Pharma giants Sanofi, who have pulled at least two weight loss drugs from the market amid claims that they make people so depressed they kill themselves.
Mega-pharma giants Roche – they make Xenical. Surprise! Oh. No. No surprise.
Giant pharma giants Abbott – they pulled their weight loss drug Merida off the market.

Makes you think it’s not an obesity epidemic, it’s a lust-for-unconscionable-profit epidemic. At least it's comforting to know that the Brits, in this as in many other areas, actually are not classier than us.

Happy Festivus!

*I normally don't swear on this blog, since I post it in places where people can see it. But this story makes me so mad that I am whipping out my profane vocab. If this offends you, try not reading words beginning with "f."

Don't Be Afraid of the F-Word

2011-12-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

So as you know if you've been hanging out here, I have been suffering with back pains of various sorts for months now, and I finally got it together to start working out with a personal trainer last week. I haven't worked with a personal trainer before, not as such. I worked with the inspiring Lisa Engles as a triathlon coach, and I've worked with a whole panoply of physical therapists for one injury or another (wrist, shoulder, hip flexor, Achilles tendon, back on various occasions). Having my own personal personal trainer though, that made me feel like I was committing to getting my mobility and athleticism back in a very real, and very financially draining way.

The first session went really well, as I mentioned. Khrys was funny and straightforward and cheerful, and we started chatting and giggling about things like the Great Mythbusters Cannonball Oops of 2011, Christmas lights, triathlons, and burpees.

I was resting in child's pose after a series of very modest forearm-knee planks when Khrys piped up, "So... I'm gonna try and verbailize this..."

My ears swiveled on their telescoping stems and started to quiver. Here was the inevitable conversation about my size. I was interested to see what this smart and engaging woman had to say about it. She had been quite complimentary about my strength and form as I did squats earlier, and we had talked about my athletic career as well as my rather unathletic 2011.

"I don't know... I don't wanna... Have you always been --"

"Fat?" I offered cheerfully.

"No! No! I don't like that word," she answered, looking a little embarrassed.

"It's OK," I said. "There's nothing wrong with that word. it's just a word. I'm fine with it."

She didn't offer any other word, and I let her off the hook. I told her that I was always a big kid, that as an adult I have gained and lost hundreds of pounds, always ending up fatter than before no matter how hard I worked to keep the weight off, and that I had started having issues in my sacroiliac joint in my mid-twenties, when I weighed at least 100 pounds less than I do now. I told her that the first time I had been laid up with back pain, I was at nearly my lightest adult weight (about 190) and was very active. I also told her that I understand that physics comes into play, that greater mass equals greater force at work, but that I believed that the body learned to adapt to the forces, given appropriate training and care.

So that was that conversation. I think we're going to have more conversations about the F-word, why it's not scary to be fat or call yourself fat. Khrys didn't take one look at me and say, "Well, obviously you're here to lose weight." or tell me I was too fat to go around exercising or anything. I think we're going to get along.

But It's a Good Hurt

2011-12-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

One of the things I espouse vigorously is that it's completely unproductive to compete with your past self. Whether your past self was thinner, had more time,more driven by a specific goal, didn't have the injuries or illnesses you have now, or was just younger, any sort of regimen that is based on "getting back to where I was before I was ___________" is, in my opinion, futile. It really only works to figure out what you want yourself to be now and then set some goals that are compatible with that.

As I have previously mentioned on this blog, it sucks to have to take your own advice. I have even wondered if my physical and psychological travails of the past several years have been forcible, not to say rude, karmic prods in the direction of really, really internalizing my own advice. But I don't believe in karma.

Having deteriorated over the past 10 months to the point where lots of everyday movement was painful and exercise had come to seem unwise, I decided to embark on a journey with Khrystyne Kaphan, the personal trainer recommended by my chiropractor. It was ridiculously hard to get our schedules in sync, but eventually I decided to change my work schedule around so that I could work with Khrys. And today was our first session.

She asked questions about my injuries and pains, current and past habits and experience with the vocabulary of lunges and squats, planks and stretches. She watched me from several angles as I did 22 squats, which I was rather surprised I could still do at all. Then I got down on the yoga mat - an adventure in and of itself - and we commenced with the floor work. This is where it became useful to refrain from comparing my current self to the self of seven or eight years ago. We were working on things that were elementary, Core for Dummies stuff, and I was only doing then at the most elementary level. The important thing, though, is that I was doing something, I wasn't hurting myself, and I felt confident that Khrys, watching every contraction of my muscles, wasn't going to let me hurt myself if she could help it.

Most of the work over the next few weeks - or maybe months - will focus on reeducating my core to support me strongly and move me around more fluidly; relax things that need relaxing and strengthen things that need strengthening. Every exercise of the 12 assigned me as daily homework, with one exception, is familiar to me from past workouts and bouts of physical therapy. I could probably even have strung them together in a sequence not unlike the one that Khrys put together for me. But I didn't. Sometimes you just need a little direction, a little push, and a little reassurance that you can still do something, even if it's small.

Anyhow, I was looking for a good pic of a fat girl doing a modified plank pose or any of the things I was doing today, but instead I came across this super cute bronze figure of a fat girl doing the cobra, which I am NOT doing for a long time yet. Get your bronze figure from Eastern Serenity. Serenity now!

If You Think You Want to Write a Book

2011-11-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

I get a lot of emails from people in the vein of “I’m thinking of writing a book about my experiences as a ______________.” Also, people at cocktail parties apparently all want to write books. In the spirit of helping others and being supportive, I decided to take the things I usually tell them and make a blog post out of it:

Do you really want to write a book? When people say, “You should write a book,” does that idea fill you with excitement or horror? If the latter, stop reading now. Why on earth would you write a book if you don’t really, really want to? Better to go into the garage and hit yourself on the head with a hammer a few times. Sooo much easier.
Why do you want to write a book? If the answer is, “To become famous and make money,” stop reading now. Go get the hammer. The book business is not very profitable, especially for people like you. And me. If the answer includes phrases like “fun” and “love to write” and “I already have 2/3 of it written,” as well as “I don’t care about money,” you are all set.
Who would buy your book? Be specific. “People” is not a good answer. “Moms who want to do triathlons while still taking care of their kids” is a pretty good answer.
Where would your book go in the bookstore? What section? How would people search for it on Amazon?
Who else has written books about what you want to write about? Search Amazon.com to see if your “South Pacific travel memoir” idea is crazy overused already. Hint – probably.
Why is your book different and/or better than their book? If the answer is “Because it’s my story,” stop reading now. Give me the hammer and let me hit you over the head with it. Thank you. If your book includes a gripping description of completing the Iditarod using hamsters instead of sled dogs, that’s different.
Do you know exactly how your book is structured, from beginning to end? If not, put the cocktail down, go home and write a detailed outline. How many chapters are they? What are they about? If you can’t think of a detailed outline because you need to actually write to know what you will be writing about, write the book before you go any further down this road. If you can’t write an outline or write the book, then that should tell you something.
If you haven’t yet done the stuff you’re thinking of writing the book about, go do it. Take extensive notes while you’re doing it, and then find me at next year’s party.
Why are you the person to write this particular story? Have you spent 15 years training hamsters to pull sleds in the Arctic? Are you a regular mom from Sioux City with a dream of hamster sledding? Why you?
Go online and Google “how to write a book proposal.” There’s a pretty standard way to do a nonfiction book proposal. If you’ve seriously answered questions 1-9, you will have made a pretty good start at putting your proposal together.
You will most likely need a literary agent. If you have gotten this far and you still want to write a book, find me again as that’s a whole nuther post.
Are you sure you don’t want to write a blog instead? Look how easy it is.

I realize that this came out sounding kind of snarky, which I actually don't mean it to be. I really want people to write books. But only if they really want to, and only if they really want to after doing the research and thinking seriously about the current market for books. If you are good and persistent, you may well get an agent and sell your book to a publisher. You may decide you want to self-publish, or publish in electronic format, or any number of things. You may have a riveting story and be a scintillating writer and you might change the world. So go do it!

What Do You Think of This?

2011-11-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

Hey all; happy post-turkey, falafel, pizza or whatever meal you use to give thanks with... we used a bunch of turkey, some ham, and traditional trimmin's and it was a fine day.

On another note, I am honestly curious to get a lot of comments on this ad. What are your reactions to it? What do you think it's trying to say? Looking forward to a lively discussion.

Baby Steps in Classic Boots

2011-11-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

Triathlete-wise, there's not much going on. I had a personal training session lined up with Brittany, who was recommended by my chiropractor, but then two days beforehand she called me up and told me she had gotten another job and wasn't going to be able to work with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are the days that I customarily work at home and have a flexible schedule. This is the second trainer I've tried to connect with; the first one, even more highly recommended by my chiropractor, doesn't work Tuesday/Thursdays at all. What's wrong with Tuesdays, I wanna know? Are all the trainers in Sacramento skiving off, getting together to eat Ring Dings, drink Kool-Aid, chew the fat about their clients? So to speak.

I've tried to line up appointments for Mondays or Wednesdays, and time and time again it happens that something happens right at the time that I would need to be leaving for the right train to make the appointment. I'm thinking I might change my schedule so that I'm home Mondays and Wednesdays, just so I can find a trainer.

In other news, I threw away a few nasty-ass Jell-o brand "chocolate mousse" desserts that had been lurking in the back of the fridge for... yeah, no. I'm not gonna even tell you how long. And the pathetic thing is, I knew they were nasty when I bought 'em.

I've also bagged up some clothes for Goodwill and bought a few new ones. I'm not the first person to realize that I was putting off buying clothes because I felt that I was "too fat." Or the first person to get happy and buy some new duds. Or even the first person to buy a nice pair of black boots from Zappo's just because.

P.S. I am also buying whole milk organic yogurt. Did I mention that last time? It's pretty amazing.

Dumb Ones

2011-11-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

Dear blogfans, I just wanted y'all to know that I have eaten my very last frozen "diet" meal. I was working at home on Thursday and had let lunchtime come and go. Very hungry, not much doin' in the pantry. I found a frozen "Smart Ones" Weight Watchers brand meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Shaking my head, I stuck it in the microwave and did what I was instructed to do.

It was freakin' awful. The mashed potatoes were watery, weirdly salty and seasoned with apparently a mixture of MSG and chives. The meatloaf was chewy, weirdly unsalty, and basically disgusting with a side of awfulsauce. Everyone, extend an arm in front of you, palm up. Bring the palm firmly to your forehead while emitting a forceful "Duh!"

But now I will never, ever buy or eat another Dumb Ones meal. I'm free! I'm free! And freedom tastes of reality.

In related news, I no longer buy nonfat yogurt. Organic whole milk plain yogurt is so amazingly tasty and satisfying, it's like ambrosia. Some rolled oats, some walnut pieces, a little honey, and a dollop of Nancy's finest, and breakfast is a beautiful thing. Giving up Splenda might be harder. Stay tuned.

Coming Out as Fat

2011-11-06T17:09:00.000-08:00

I've been afraid of writing this post for some weeks now - if not months or years. I know it might seem odd to claim that I'm a closeted fat person since I have published two books describing myself as a "Slow Fat Triathlete." But this year of injuries, setbacks, and introductions to some very fun, feisty, smart, fat women has made me realize a few things.

Even in the midst of all my writing: "Live your athletic dreams in the body you have now"; "Abandon self-consciousness"; "Be slow, be proud, have fun" and all the rest, I never truly, deep down, down in my deepest heart of hearts, was able to accept that I was a fat person. I always looked at myself as a person on the way to, well, if not thinness, then at least Not Real Fatness. Somehow I was going to find a way to balance my food intake with my caloric output and get back into the land of regular-person-clothing and "normal' weight.

Even though I wouldn't shy away from wearing triathlon clothes, bike shorts, or a one-piece swimsuit in public, I did believe deep down that my fat was disgusting - just like the vast majority of Americans do. I may not have thought it was as disgusting as they did, but I didn't embrace it. Even though my blood pressure, cholesterol, and heart rate are all well within "normal ranges," I worried that my fat body was more likely to be or become unhealthy than a thinner one. I wondered if my weight contributed to my chronic fatigue syndrome, even though I had shown the first signs of that syndrome when I was much, much thinner.

I don't remember the age I was when I went on my first of many, many diets. Maybe 11 or 12. I know that I dieted on and off all through high school, just when my growing body's metabolism was most vulnerable to that craziness. I did Atkins (the first time); cabbage soup; Weight Watchers with my mom; an endless procession of 10-day and 14-day diets from magazines; and finally in high school I fasted for up to three days at a time with nothing but diet soda and water to nourish me.

As a young adult, I went for longer between diets. Some kernel of my soul protested being forced into a template body that was clearly extremely difficult for me to attain and, based on evidence to date, impossible for me to maintain. I played rugby and ultimate frisbee and basketball, I went dancing, I went to the beach. I had dates and relationships. But ultimately I would get sucked back into the trap. NutriSystems - just eat all this food in little packets, and I'll be thin! Thin! And then - you know this drill? Raise your hand if you do. You lose the weight, people get excited and tell you how great you look (and you smush down the little voice in your head that says, oh, so you think I looked crappy before, huh?), you buy new clothes, and then... you "slip." You "backslide." You stop starving yourself and obsessing over each bite. I stopped starving myself. I felt hungry all the time. I craved bacon and cheeseburgers and fries and cookies. Crave them crave them crave them.

And I thought that that was my fault. That my lack of willpower and discipline, my weakness, my insufficient self-love and self-respect were causing me to eat that way in reaction to my dieting. Because I must have hated myself and wanted myself to look bad. Somehow.

As I became older still, it became clear to me that I actually had a lot of willpower and discipline, and even that I did love and respect myself. So how could I still be fat? It turned out that I could easily gain weight while training for a half-Ironman or a marathon, and not because I was stuffing my face with pure butter after every training session. My body is made that way.

Here's what I think now:

Life is too short for dieting. Dieting doesn't work for 95% of the people who engage in it, and it hasn't worked for me in any of its forms.
My body is awesome. It does some extremely cool things. It has had its issues, too, but I'm no longer blaming my weight for them. If my thin friends can have back problems and chronic fatigue, then I can too. Some of my thin friends have had knee surgeries, stress fractures, overuse injuries, migraines, ulcers, pneumonia, annoying skin conditions, debilitating allergies, chronic internal organ pain that medical science has failed to identify or fix, fallen arches, weak ankles, and gum disease, none of which had anything to do with their weight.
I am no longer accepting the cultural biases that thin = health, that thin = good, or that fat = bad, sick, unhealthy, ugly, lazy, dirty, smelly, sloppy, or undisciplined. Where I see these prejudices and stereotypes, I will fight them with devastating wit or nuclear sarcasm.
I'm going to rebuild my activity level, strengthen my back, and regain the joy of physical activity while focusing on all the positives my body has to offer and caring for it like the finely-honed work of art that it is. I'm going to try new things - maybe even dance!
I'm not going to judge other people's diets, exercise patterns, or weight-loss surgeries. I don't know what works for other people, just as they don't know what works for me. I have friends who have had the surgeries and have written and spoken about their journeys in inspiring ways. I know people who have beaten the odds and become Weight Watchers success stories. I know fantastic, talented, and dedicated athletes who are fat.
I'm not perfect, and there is nothing wrong with me.
I am out.
I am a fat activist. That doesn't mean advocating that everyone become fat. It means that I don't think that people should judge others' intelligence/health/self-respect/discipline/productivity/right to live/beauty/athleticism/worth based on the size of their bodies.

Live long and prosper.
(Photo: "Matisse Circle" - Leonard Nimoy)

A Medical Professional. Really.

2011-10-31T18:33:00.000-07:00

Warning: there's a big rant coming (though not, for a change, a big fat rant), and I'm in pain and cranky, so it might not be fun to read.

A couple posts ago I wrote about the incompetent staff of Miya Day Spa in south Sacramento, which should be avoided at all costs. Oh, oops, I didn't write about it here. I Yelped about it here. Anyway, they were lame and they hurt my sore back even more by dropping my legs on the table. Hurt for a day or so, got a bit better, then over the weekend, of course, it got really sore. Last night I found that turning over in bed was about a 15 step process.

Called the wonderful Dr. Chu at Elite Spinal and Sports Care, got a 4 pm appointment. But before he could even start working on me, my back seized up so bad from lying face down on the table that I couldn't move. It took a good 15 minutes of sweating and cursing (on my part), and tilting the table so I could slide backwards off it onto my knees, and then a lot of buttock-clenching, core-engaging, and deep breathing before I was on my feet again. "You really need to call Kaiser," said Dr. Chu. I nodded. "It's really quite inflamed in there," he said. I nodded.

I called Kaiser before I even left Dr. Chu's office, and a very nice advice nurse set me up with an appointment with my regular doc tomorrow morning, and a phone appt. with a phone doc this evening so we could talk about getting some useful medication into my system. I had already taken all the ibuprofen my stomach could handle.

Unfortunately, over the last 10 years, I've had this back thing flare up badly about five times. I know exactly what works. Ice at first, followed by heat/ice alternation. A combination of anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants, and strong painkillers. When it's just tweaky, anti-inflammatories alone can help me out. If things are pretty bad, I have to add the muscle relaxant. I don't go asking for the pain pills until the pain makes me cry out involuntarily and break a sweat.

Unfortunately Dr. Frooze, or Fruze or Froos, or whatever his name was on the phone, didn't accept that I am a competent witness of my own experience. He prescribed me prednisone - good call, possibly, given that I have a finicky stomach when it comes to ibuprofen - and some muscle relaxant. I said, "Oh, and when this has happened to me before, I've been prescribed Vicodin for the pain, which seems to help stop the vicious cycle of pain and spasm." Dr. F. smiled condescendingly (I could actually hear this on the phone) and said, "Well, Tylenol will work just fine."

"I'm sorry, but Tylenol does nothing whatsoever for this pain."

"Yes, two extra-strength Tylenol will work very well."

"Doctor, I have had this condition several times and I know from experience that Tylenol will not work at all."

"Well," said Dr. Frooze, "You see, the pain in your back is your body telling you not to move in certain ways. When we prescribe painkillers, we interrupt the signal that your body is giving you. And, don't forget, don't just lie there! You have to move around to keep from stiffening up."

"I--- I... I don't think you understand the situation I am in. I am in a lot of pain."

"Well, put some ice on it for 20 minutes twice a day."

Tears came to my eyes.

"Right. I've been doing that."

"OK then," said Dr. Frooze, "Do you still want the prednisone and Relaxafil [or whatever]?" Like if I didn't get my narcotics I wouldn't want anything else that might help me. Really? Really? Dick.

"Yes, of course. My husband can go pick them up for me."

"So if these don't work for you, you can bring it up with your regular doctor."

"Sure." I was just too worn out to argue anymore. We ended the phone call.

I fumed. What a freakin' jerk! To tell me what was going to work on my pain, and how I didn't know that pain is a signal telling my body not to move in certain ways. ARGH! Grrr!!! MMMMFFFFF! And other expressions of frustrated rage.

The thing is, I just need to be a lot more assertive about what works for me, even if what works is an opioid. I just get self-conscious about it. Like they're gonna think I'm Dr. House or something. I fumed some more. I called Kaiser back and told the advice nurse about my experience. She was actually really sympathetic about it and sounded kind of mad at the doctor. But she couldn't take my complaint. She gave me a number to call.

The number, of course, put me through voicemail hell, put me on hold for 15 minutes and finally hung up on me. It's well after regular hours now so I'm just gonna hunker down with what Tim brings back until my appointment tomorrow.

And Dr. Chu and I are going to find me a trainer who works Tuesday or Thursday so I can work the heck through whatever imbalances and weaknesses are making this back thing act up so bad this year. I want to move again.

So, That's Offensive. Pass It On.

2011-10-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a lot of blog posts by the funny, prolific, and smart Ragen Chastain lately, and she's really been drawing my attention to the prevalence of anti-fatty messages in the media. Not just the weight loss companies with their ever-present ads about belly fat or toning up for summer, but the "journalism" that goes around citing "studies" and "reports" and "evidence." I was on my way home from the supermarket today (with kale, onions, whole grain cereal, chicken broth, organic yogurt, cereal, and yes, Halloween candy for the kiddies and Tim and me), when NPR absolutely blew my mind with "Workplaces Feel the Impact of Obesity." Yeah we get this sort of thing all the time, but I guess I just expected better from All Things Considered. Here was the quote that made me swear out loud in the car:

"Studies estimate that nearly 10 percent of U.S. corporate health care costs are due to obesity and its complications. For a large company like Dow, that means tens of millions of dollars a year. On top of that is lost productivity, not just from doctor's appointments and sick days but also, research suggests, because obese workers are simply less efficient on the job."

Wow. OK. First off, there's "obesity and its complications." There is a small but highly qualified group of researchers, including Dr. Peter Muennig of Columbia med school, who are beginning to suggest that the much-vaunted "complications" of obesity (heart disease, diabetes, hypertension) may in fact be more complications of stress associated with the social and psychological stigma surrounding obesity for certain social groups. This is a guy who used to write about the "obesity epidemic" and wring his hands about DeathFatIsComingToGetYou, and now he writes this. In any event, it's far from proven that obesity causes these health issues.

And then there's the "research suggests" that "obese workers are simply less efficient." Are you freakin' kidding me? This is simply deplorable. Really. Here's what I wrote on NPR's website.

This is probably the most offensive and worst-informed story I have ever heard at NPR. The casual "research suggests" that "obese people are simply less efficient on the job" is just jaw-dropping. I dug up one of the studies that "suggests" this, and found the research's premises highly questionable at best. One quote: "Ricci and Chee (2005) estimate that on an annual basis, incremental costs associated with reduced productivity are $358 per obese worker." In other words, less than $1/day. As a highly educated, highly professional, and highly efficient fat worker, I am appalled that you would produce a story perpetuating the "fat people are lazy" stereotype on such flimsy evidence. What about parents' efficiency in the workplace? What about people with migraines? What about lost work productivity from the smokers who sneak out of the building every 90 minutes to feed their habit? Or those annoying Crohn's disease patients, always rushing to the restroom? I am going to devote the rest of my week (outside of my productive work time) to publicizing and denouncing this story. For shame, NPR.

Hey, at least the smokers and IBS patients might be thin. Or they might not. It doesn't matter. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Your size has nothing to do with your productivity, unless your productivity is measured by how many times you can squeeze through a 14" squre hole in the course of a day (see Pooh, not being productive) or by how many annoying reporters you can asphyxiate by sitting on them. So, as promised, I'm devoting my spare time to letting the world know that NPR's story deserves a great big bogus-slap.

You're welcome.

Functional Bodies 2: In Praise of Puttering

2011-09-03T18:47:00.000-07:00

I am the laziest person in my immediate family. I'm not being falsely modest; it's plain unvarnished truth. I wrote about my brother's phenomenal energy in my last post. Mom? Yeah. I once bet Mom that she couldn't sit still for five minutes. She lost. Both my parents are inveterate putterers, always thinking of something that needs doing and then doing it. Mom putters both indoors and out, while Dad focuses much of his attention on their gorgeous backyard. Weeding, trimming, pruning, planting, deciding to dig up half the plants and do something else. It never ends. I am the only one in my family who has the ability to sit down in the middle of the day and watch, say, seven hours of college football. There's Dad with one of his puttering tools.

While I was getting a fantastic workout at the new theatre space last weekend, I kept thinking, hmmm, I should be doing this sort of stuff around the house too. And we're having some friends over to BBQ tomorrow afternoon, and of course the patio was all overgrown with weeds and scattered with pollen and whatnot, because my parents managed not to pass the gardening/puttering trait on to me. An opportunity to practice this whole being active around the house thing! So as soon as I got up this morning, before the heat kicked in, I rounded up the shears and the brooms and the big recycling bin for yard trimmings and got my putter on.

The only things that really grow in our backyard are the things that decide to. Our efforts at planting things have met with consistent failure. Tomatoes? Nope. Lemons? Very few. Lime? Likewise. Sunflowers? Droopy. However, we are constantly under attack by star jasmine, ivy, mint, and this insidious creeper that looks a little like a strawberry plant and just grows like stink.

Normally I would attack that shit with a vengeance, slashing and ripping and pulling until I dripped with sweat and had to pass out. But today I consciously took a leaf (as it were) out of Dad's book and decided to work deliberately, putteringly. I worked slowly, rested frequently, sipped iced tea constantly. (This is not something my Dad would do. As a Welshman, he finds iced tea to be offensive.) I took an hour or so to listen to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me, then headed back out. By the time I got out there, the sun was high and the patio was getting pretty warm. So I kept puttering, kept resting, kept wielding the shears and pulling up the ivy and assorted weeds. I left the mint mostly alone because it's flowering now and the bees love it. We need to promote the bees, so I left the mint.

I swept, I used the hose on the patio, I swept the water off the patio. It was very hot now so I turned the hose on myself a few times. Some more resting and then a long, cool, well-earned shower with plenty of loofah and ShiKai body wash. (Not a paid endorsement, I just love it.)

About 3.5 hours of work. Arms, shoulders, legs are all tired, but with no sense of imminent injury. Enough energy left to shop, make a (simple) dinner and even, later this evening, get a batch of vanilla into the ice cream maker.

Tomorrow, another kayaking excursion, this time with my high school friend and literary agent. Minimal house tidying, definitely no yard work.

But because of puttering, I should be good to go out on the lake tomorrow.

Functional Bodies

2011-08-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

As you may know, I'm on the board of Capital Stage Company, which is the coolest little professional nonprofit theatre in Sacramento, and possibly west of the Mississippi. Anyway, Cap Stage is in the final stages of renovating a former gun store in Midtown and making it the perfect space to see bold, intimate, live theatre. It's been a long, arduous process, especially for my brother, who's the project manager, the other two founders (one of whom is my sister-in-law) and the amazing, talented, and chronically overworked staff.

Because we are nearing the end, it's time for tasks that unskilled laborers like me can help with. Last Saturday, I wielded broom, shop vac, and dustpan for maybe an hour and a half, smiting piles of sheetrock dust with deadly intent. Surprisingly tiring. Thursday after work, I managed another couple of hours, this time backrolling the ceiling after the spray work of Jeff the painting dude. I came home looking like a Welsh coal miner (albeit one in a floral tank top and khaki shorts), my arms like jelly from rolling black paint over my head in 90+ degrees.

All this time I was in awe, as I often am, of my multi-talented and massively energetic brother. It's kind of unfair - he's epically handsome and charming, he can sing like an angel, play any instrument, build anything, cook anything, figure out any kind of technology, grow insanely large vegetables, act like Colin Farrell (that's him as King Charles II, w/ equally lovely & talented SIL), direct plays that make grown men cry, and do note-perfect impressions. If he wasn't such a good dude, I would hate him. And he can work all day lifting, carrying, bending, hammering, climbing, sweeping, and pretty much never stopping. It's exhausting just watching him.

It made me realize anew just how much it sucks to sit all day. Even on days when I do a lot of exercise, it's still around an hour. When I was training for half-Ironman races, I would have long workouts of maybe 3-4 hours, conducted mostly at a very moderate aerobic pace. Once or twice a week. Then shorter workouts of 1-2 hours. Total of what, 11-14 hours a week of physical work. Some weeks are more physical than others for the younger J-Will, but he probably gets that amount of work in within a four-day period most any week. He doesn't "work out," he's just highly active and he's got fantastic strength and endurance for what he does. You get good at what you do all the time. I am great at sitting at a computer.

I often feel as though the ideal job for me would be one that combined about 3 hours a day of varied but highly physical labor - tree-trimming, ditch-digging, moving pianos, mucking out stables, whatever - with about an hour of socializing and 3 hours a day of sitting and writing. Yeah, I know that's only seven hours. The eight hour workday should be a thing of the past now that we have tons of technology oozing out our ears. Tim makes fun of me when I voice this wish, but I think it's a good goal to aim for.

Anyhow. I went back yesterday for the big painting day, and I was expecting to get pretty beat up physically. It was going to be 96 in the heat of the day, and I was planning to be there for quite a few hours. Took some precautionary Advil, stocked up on Gatorade for myself and the troops, and supplied myself with a bandanna for sweat-mopping.

I haven't painted in earnest for I don't know how many years. And if you're trying to be quick about it, it's a certain amount of effort. Women's restroom, lavender gray. Men's restroom, sort of a seafoam green/gray. Breaks for fluids. Ticket lobby, some walls cinnamon/nutmeg, some apple green. Breaks for fluids. Hallway, a second coat of black in the hallway. Breaks for fluids. Some cleanup of lumber scraps and sawdust. I was Gatorading like crazy and consuming pretzels like a mad Bavarian. And yet, I didn't pee for over 8 hours.

When the day started to wind down, I'd had a couple of forearm cramps from the unaccustomed roller work, and my back was getting tired. I hadn't gone as hard or worked as long as my brother, but this wasn't about sibling rivalry. It was about my own often-creaky bod hanging in there and getting a bunch of work done with my muscles.

So, anyone got a job for me that's three hours of physical, three hours of mental, one hour of social? I'd be pretty awesome at it. Reply below...

Get Up, Stand Up

2011-08-18T20:00:00.001-07:00

Monday I took the day off. I had just survived Grantmageddon, roughly definable as "a set of cascading deadlines for multi-million-dollar, multi-year grants with way too many moving parts and not enough people around to help out with them because it's the middle of the summer." I knew I was going to need more than just a regular weekend to recuperate, so I took Monday too. And a damn good thing I did, since after a trip to SFO, Los Gatos, and Santa Cruz Friday night and Saturday, I spent the entire day on Sunday on the Big Poofy Chair, except when I moved over to the leather couch for my second nap. Hey, the Boardwalk is tiring, especially the Giant Dipper.

But by Monday I had worked my way up to a little activity, and I voted for kayaking at Lake Natoma because it was hot hot hot. Summer hasn't been at all evil by Sacramento standards, but water sounds a lot better to me than pavement or trails when it's 95 out. So I cruised my way up Highway 50 to the Sac State Aquatic Center, where kayak rentals are cheap and the water is cool. It was all good; I got my backrest (so critical for the creaky-old-athlete crowd), my paddle, life jacket, and finally boat, and I set to it.

But almost immediately I wanted to be doing what the cool kids were doing. And the cool kids were all doing this. I have, of course, seen the stand up paddleboarders. Down in Santa Cruz, lurking outside the Giants' home ballpark in McCovey Cove, even on Lake Natoma. But suddenly I wanted to be doing it too. The guy in front of me at the rental line got one, and I immediately felt a twinge of envy.

I like the sitting down aspect of kayaking, of course, but the paddleboarders just looked so free and light. No heavy kayak to haul around (for the plastic sit-on-top kayaks available for rental tend to be quite massive), no awkward clambering in and out of the boat, no backrest to buckle in. Just stand up and go. And therein, I'm sure, lies the challenge. Of course they are wider than your average surfboard, but the balance thing looks a tad tricky. And then you have to paddle on this side and that, taking care to preserve symmetry of effort? Could be tiring.

However, the Aquatic Center has classes, and the next one I could go to is August 28. Stay tuned to see if I succumb to the lure of the new.

Even if I don't, I still have kayaks to rent. I had a great afternoon out. Paddled till my arms were about ready to fall off, took a break to swim in the cold green water, enjoyed the golden late-summer hills, and engaged in silent smugness about not working that day.

And Here's Another Dead Person to Blame!

2011-08-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, after the passing of Jack LaLanne, the New York Times ran this interesting little nugget. I have often railed about the conflation of exercise with morality and duty, the awfulness that covers up the joy of moving around when you feel like it's something you must do or else become a worse and worse person. And Jack was definitely a part of this insidious philosophy So not to wish ill of the dead or anything but Jack, seriously, dude! Who needs more guilt around exercise? Not moi.

Spend More Money!

2011-07-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

Back at work... ho hum. Humdrum. Red rum.

The transition was eased somewhat by the fact that our fabulous friends Michelle and Russ were staying with us, en route to traveling around the world for an extended period of time. Traveling requires packing; packing requires luggage; and traveling for a long time requires some pretty great luggage. But Russ's daypack was old and worn and didn't measure up, so off we went to REI, where we shopped mightily.

I ogled the kayaks, amazed at how cheap some of the really cheap ones were. $279 for a decked boat, short and stubby and cute, for general all-round messing about in water? That's cheap! Of course, then you're in for $150 (or much more) for a nice lightweight paddle, and then a little dry bag or two, and a personal floatation device.

I decided not to splash out there and then. eBay and Craigslist will definitely be scoured though. Thing is, for safety reasons I am loath to paddle alone, and I am notoriously unsuccessful at getting Tim to take up outdoor hobbies with me. :(

Meanwhile, back, knee, pain, soreness, stiffness, blah, blah blah.

Paddling Your Own Kayak

2011-07-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

As I had anticipated, a week of dedicated vacationing and lounging (see right) has restored some buoyancy to my spirits. The combination of a riverfront vacation house, two kayaks, and a canoe has further inspired me to get my behind out on the Russian River and paddle, a thing I don't do nearly enough considering I live two blocks from a river in my normal life.

In a previous, slightly less normal life, I skittered on the fringes of the river rat community. Working for Project RAFT (Russians and Americans For Teamwork), I was initiated into the adrenaline-soaked mysteries of pool and drop rapids, standing waves, river-wide holes, undercuts, highsiding, and other ways to harm oneself. My first foray on the South Fork of the American River happened on a cloudy Tuesday in May, and our crew consisted of two world-class river guides, a graphic designer, a Russian cosmonaut, his American translator, "Red Ted," and me. We got to the river and I promptly put my wetsuit on backwards.

Over the years, I got better, and I got to have some fairly nutty adventures that involved rivers, including serving as location manager and translator on the 1994 shoot of "A Glorious Way to Die." I became a fairly strong paddler of a raft and even passed guide school at Whitewater Voyages' annual spring academy. I knew and even roomed with some fabulous kayak gods and goddesses, who worked with me more or less diligently on their craft or sullen art. Once or twice I took a real kayak on rivers with little ripples, and twice I even rolled the kayak like a real paddler.

However, I have never felt completely at ease with the kayak. River kayaks are tippy and awkward to get in and out of; sea kayaks, while more stable, are heavy and hard to turn, especially the sit-on-top kind. But I continue to be attracted to them, especially around flattish, unchallenging water. Being on and in water has always been a passion of mine. I used to have a battered river kayak that I would take out on the reservoir in Los Gatos.

So when we found this vacation house on the Russian River (now, alas, largely depleted of Russians) that came with kayaks, paddles, life jackets, and even a canoe, I was stoked beyond belief. I pictured myself spending hours out on the water every day, growing mightier by the minute. As it happens, I have been out almost every day, though not for hours. My shoulders, lats, various core muscles and all the bits involved in a really good paddle stroke, are not very strong at the moment, so I can't do too much at one time. Plus young Jesse, who has a four-year-old's enthusiasm for doing everything the grownups do, has wanted to be in the boat all the time that I am in the boat. This has made paddling difficult, plus he gets cold more quickly than I. Also, there are winds and tides this close to the ocean that affect our ability to paddle easily. Finally, we have to drag the kayaks up and down a fairly steep bank to make sure that the tides and winds don't carry the boats away. Russ has kayaked too, as demonstrated at right.

Nevertheless. Paddling has happened. My arms are stronger. I have learned how to balance a boat with a four-year-old in it. I have a nasty sunburn on my secondary sexual characteristics. Tomorrow we have to leave, but I am resolved to paddle more once we get home. Paddling is fun.

Sux

2011-06-22T22:54:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Suckage is rampant and has been for a couple months now. I got bronchitis, got over it, then was crazy busy and started to feel some of the warning signs of Boo Boo Kitty Syndrome: fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, increased tingling in limbs. Did some resting.

Then I tweaked my knee, tweaked it again, then tweaked it so I could hardly walk. Then my back started to hurt again because my knee was all tweaked. Then I found an awesome chiropractor and he started to put the pieces back together. But the day after the first visit, I got sick. Again. Green sliminess throughout my tender nasal passages, down the throat, etc. Sore throat, laryngitis, pounding headaches. Couldn't move for 3 days. 8 days later, just getting back to "human." Chiro thinks maybe he set it off by, you know, "releasing things" and "unleashing an inflammatory response." Or it could just be the same bug that decimated half my office and made my mom sick for 10 days.

Been reading about CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue/Immune Dysfunction Syndrome - as it is more technically known in the US) and frequent infections. In my 2007-2008 bout with CFIDS/Boo Boo Kitty I never got a viral infection of any kind, other than feeling like I had a weird flu 95% of the time. Now I definitely feel better overall, but I've had at least four bouts of viral weirdness in the last 9 months. And (cue Twilight Zone music) nobody ever seems to catch the bug from me, no matter how unhygienic I become with my used Kleenex.

Some researchers speculate that CFIDS is caused by a viral infection (Human Herpes Virus 6, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, coxsackie virus*) or mycoplasmic infection that goes "underground" in the body with varying effects. I've definitely had EBV (mono) and I also had pleurodynia, which is caused by the coxsackie virus. Connection?

Sick of being sick, tired of being tired. Had the bright idea to get Safeway to deliver groceries instead of bugging Tim to go to the store for me. Now I have more fruits and veggies in stock again. Don't know if they help but they can't hurt.

It hasn't been all grim times and thorn bushes. Great, mellow trip up to Tahoe for Memorial Day; an afternoon on and around Lake Natoma; some other great times with family and friends. But no significant exercise, and a host of questions about what may or may not be simmering inside the ol' organism.

*Yes, I did say coxsackie. Deal with it.

Well, This Makes Me Feel Much Better!

2011-04-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how the convergence of great spring weather, the end of intensive grant deadlines, and the gradual drying up of chest mucus can restore one's natural joie de vivre. I hadn't been depressed exactly, but the joie de vivre had been hiding out in the garage or somewhere. And then this evening I came home from work and a little shopping jaunt to Target (a bunch of spring-y t-shirts and some white denim cropped jeans) to find a medium sized box on the coffee table. Closer examination revealed exotic stamps and distinctly foreign handwriting.

It was my book! My German book. So Kommen Sie in Schwung: Triathlon für Couchpotatoes. This title was the result of several transatlantic phone calls and a lot of frantic emails around the print deadline. I ended up really liking this. "So Kommen Sie in Schwung" means "Get into the Swing" or "get into the groove" or even "get going." And "Triathlon für Couchpotatoes" means, well, pretty much what you would think. I love that part. And, as you can see from the photo, Tim now has his first book cover!

Thanks so much, Nicole and Sportwelt Verlag for making this happen. A great lift and an inspiration to me to get my butt out the door on my half day off tomorrow.

Not Too Super, Again

2011-04-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

So... I was going along, doing my PT, my Superman exercises, and then I kind of tailed off with that. But I was starting to be able to ride a bike a little again, a couple miles here and there, which was nice. The water gradually receded from the bike path; the little green leaves came out on the trees.

Then I got really busy at work. I worked bits of a weekend here and there, longish hours most weeks. Volunteer stuff too. Deadlines, board meetings, committee meetings, and then a bit of socializing tucked in at the edges. A week ago last Friday, we turned in a particularly troublesome grant, I met with clients for the next grant in Daly City (Kome sushi buffet - quite an experience), drove back to Sactown, met up with family for dinner, went to see Master Class at Capital Stage, and said good night to all. On the way home, my throat started twinging in that "you're getting sick" way.

Eight days later, I calculate that I have hacked up over a liter of phlegm. I have an inhaler for the spasms in my bronchial bits and a cough medicine that gives me nightmares. Or maybe that's the episodes of Being Human I've been watching. No pneumonia, no fever. Just cough and mucus and lethargy. And the urge to compensate for the lethargy and ruined weekends by eating everything in sight.

This BFFC is feeling pretty derailed at the moment. But I am NOT giving up. Grrr.

Posing as Superman

2011-03-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

We are at grave risk of floating away here in northern California; storm after storm sweeping in from the Pacific has raised the river levels by 20 feet or more, and the flood control boffins have opened the Yolo Bypass, which spills water into a huge flood basin between Davis and Sacramento. Much of Discovery Park, which you may recall as the site of the Golden State Triathlon last October, and a key part of of my bike commute, is under 2-6 feet of water. This is also on purpose, part of the whole flood control thing. And so I am not yet commuting by bike, though my back is well enough to do so. I've hit the gym a couple times for exercise bike action, which is dull and uncomfortable, and managed a few brief walks between storms.

I'm continuing my physical therapy, mostly. I have a sunny yellow exercise ball, upon which I'm supposed to do bridging, abdominal bracing exercises - a fancy name for crunches, really - and my favorite, the Superman. Poised on the yellow sun (not Krypton's red one), I balance my belly on the ball and my toes on the ground and stretch my arms out in front of me like, you know. That guy. The exercise part is staying stable while I bend my arms and bring my hands back down to my shoulders, kind of like a lat pull in a Superman position. I can do this for a long time. I'm supposed to squinch my buttocks together as hard as I can while I do this, but sometimes I forget because I'm having so much fun just balancing on the ball.

I'm not nearly as good at the abdominal bracing, which, as I noted, bears a suspicious resemblance to crunches. Bridging is pretty easy, but I have to keep my tail tucked way under as I do it, in spite of what Eight Steps to a Pain-Free Back says.

Oh, hey, the rain has stopped and the sky is brightening a bit. I'm going out for a walk.

[a bit later]

Oh my goodness, that air was fresh. Very, very fresh.

Un-weighting, Not Obsessing

2011-03-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. My back is pretty much back to where it was before the big episode of pain. That is, it hurts a bit and is stiff much of the time. I went to a pretty cool physical therapist at Kaiser who tested the strength and flexibility of my quads, hamstrings, butt, etc and showed me some good exercises. And I now have one of those giant exercise balls for the first time ever. I've used them at gyms and PT appointments, but now I have my very own. I'm supposed to do "Superman" exercises, which actually don't make me feel very super at all. These are to strengthen the butt, especially the left butt, which is an estimated 20% weaker than the right butt. Who knew? And I stretch my quads, especially the rectus femoris on the left side, and I take load off my lower back several times a day by leaning on a counter or table, or using the arms of a chair to un-weight the spine.

I had not one but two dear friends send me books on healing my back; so far it looks as though they directly contradict each other, but I'll see how it goes.

I notice that as I become more active again, my left knee is getting sore again. So far I've just been up to a couple of walks to and from the train station. Yesterday I push-mowed the lawn and that seemed to be enough for one day. Tuesday I have another PT appointment, so I'm going to check on what I can do to strengthen the knee too.

It's definitely a bumpy patch on the road to a Big Fat Fitness Comeback, but it has spurred me to start modifying my diet, my first serious attempt at this in a few years. I need to lighten the load on the spine and all the joints, since I don't ever want to go through 10 days like that again. I've logged back on to Weight Watchers, which has changed since I was last on it; I think for the better.

I am not going to make this a weight loss blog, except as it relates directly to the BFFC. I have had, in the past, a tendency to get very obsessive about food and weight loss when I've been working to drop pounds. I am very, very, serious about not obsessing this time. I'm not keeping a scale in the house, for example.

I will keep you posted more or less regularly on my transition from rehab back to training. I don't know how much I will be able to work the yoga into that, but obviously I will need to be diligent in some way about strengthening and stretching to keep all my bits in working order.

More soon, comrades!

Broken Pretzel

2011-02-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

I was getting ready to deliver a pretty euphoric post about the beneficial effects that yoga was having on my bod and, yes, even my mind. I had shifted my focus from going to class at the health club to doing video-guided classes at YogaToday.com. I wasn't getting any individual guidance at the club anyway, and doing yoga in the guest bedroom meant greater scheduling flexibility as well as greater freedom of attire. (No bra! yay!)

I had really started to feel the benefits of doing yoga two or three times a week. I could feel my core tightening up and my gait improving. My hips felt less tight, which I noticed every time I put on my socks. My downward dogs were easier, and I was even spending more time in the balancing poses without falling out.

On Weds 2/9 I did my usual bike commute and felt fine. On Thursday 2/10 I did my yoga. My low back felt slightly tight at the end so I did some extra stretching it at the end. Friday I thought I was getting a cold so I didn't ride. I curled up in a ball on the train home and read a children's book (the Magic Thief) until the ride was over. Late that evening I felt a twinge in the low back, in the sacroiliac joint, such as I have felt dozens of times before.

That night, I woke up a few times. As I turned over, the back hurt. Hmmm. The next morning, I was crying out in pain as I tried to brush my teeth. I could hardly move. I slipped on a convenient brown velour dress as pants were not going to be happening. Tim brought me some food, water, and Advil. I made my way downstairs and tried to sit down. Oh, no. I remained standing for the next four hours, pacing around slowly, taking deep breaths, trying to find some position that didn't hurt. Without success. I found some Tramodol from the last round of back pain, and once that took effect I was able to make it into the Big Poofy Chair and get it reclined.

It took me three hours to reach a doctor on the phone, partly because the phone people wrote my number down wrong. D'oh. Finally I got a prescription for pain meds and muscle relaxants, and Tim took off to get them.

I thought that this round of back distress would take the usual course - pain, then pain meds and muscle relaxants, then a few rounds of exercises and rapid progress to recovery. Not this time. On Monday I went for a tortuous round of doctor visits, an anti-inflammatory shot, and an x-ray by an inept technician (she forgot to close a key door or drawer or something so the machine wouldn't work). The anti-inflammatory shot had no effect whatsoever, and I was shouting and cussing every time I had to get in and out of the car.

I'm now on day 10 of this. It's a little better, but I still have to take a ton of meds to be able to walk around at all. I haven't been to the office for over a week, though I can work pretty well in the BPC. Getting ready to call the doc again.

Was it the yoga? Was it the bike? Was it a long-delayed sequela of the fender-bender of January 19th? Was it my curled up position on the train? Maybe all of the above. One of my friends wondered if I was "not listening to my body." Hard to say. Maybe not. I thought I had listened to it and it told me to do yoga. Maybe my body has multiple personality disorder.

When I can move again I'm going to have to find a super great chiropractor here in Sactown and get back to regular visits. I used to have an awesome spine and soft tissue guru in Cupertino, and she helped me with more injuries than I can shake a stick at. Clearly I need some help in that department now. Oh, yeah, and I should probably lose 50-75 pounds too.

Anyway, this is a very clear signal that I need to get very, very serious about building a better back.

Pretzel Logic

2011-02-01T18:55:00.000-08:00

I have long taken a dim view of New Year’s resolutions. Even before Shape Up with the Slow Fat Triathlete was described to me by my publisher as a “New Year, New You,” book (argh), I always felt that it was a tedious cliche to make January 1 the start date for some sort of self-improvement scheme. Yeah, sure the indulgence, stress, football viewing, and sloth of the Thanksgiving to New Year bingeathon are behind you, but isn’t it just more interesting to start your new project on St. David’s Day (March 1) or the summer solstice or Halloween? Well, ok, Halloween may not be a good day for resolve. But why not All Saints?

However. I reached New Year’s Day 2011 feeling more stiff, sore, tired, and old than a person my age would really want to feel. Granted, I had just flown 5623 miles to attend my uncle’s funeral in Wales, and I was sleeping in a strange bed and driving on the wrong side of the road. But still, it wasn’t right. When I got back, I resolved that I would endure 30 sessions of yoga by March 31. It may not sound like much, but for me, yoga is a massive ordeal. I really have to force myself to do it. Especially since I haven’t done any regular “practice” for about six years.

I’ve posted before about my preference for Not Doing Yoga. But then I found myself sweating profusely on a purple mat, listening to Sierra - yes, really - instructing me to press my pelvic bones into the earth. I just didn’t want my neck and lower back and knee to suck any more. I actively wanted them to suck less.

Yup, the process itself sucked. But, predictably, after only five sessions I could actually feel my balance improving, making it easier for me to get my shoes on in the morning. I could feel a little more flexibility in some areas. Yeah, I am still tottering like an octogenarian after any long drive, and my downward dog is a bit of an elderly Rottweiler, but I know it does me good. I know it does.

And then in the last 10 days, I lost my groove. I crashed my car while driving to see my folks. (“Welcome home from Wales, and oh, could you give me a ride?”) All people involved were fine; car wasn’t. I got a nasty runny cold. I had to deal with insurance and forms and new car shopping every spare moment. And when I finally got a new car, I had to drive 240 miles round trip to return my rental. Long story. But that drive convinced me that I’m back in Sierra’s class on Tuesday morning, pressing my pelvic bones into the earth. Even if the “earth” is the second floor of a monster health club.

It feels like twisted logic: staying in one place for an hour, standing, kneeling, and twisting is going to enable me to move better? But yeah, I think it is. Namas-freakin-te.

Hey, we made it to 2011, most of us.

P.S. If you can't or won't make it to the yoga studio/gym etc., try www.yogatoday.com - one free video class per week or a bunch of videos online for a super reasonable price.

Baby Got (Bad) Back

2010-12-13T22:29:00.000-08:00

Hey Kids,

A couple people have asked me about the ongoing bloggish silence - sorry about it all. There have been a number of seriously horrid grant deadlines, a fundraiser for Capital Stage, a bunch of rain and cold weather, and then this whole back thing. This is just not like any back thing I've had before - and I've had a number of back things. It's not the insane spasming of muscles and the inability to turn over in bed. It's just this kind of constant thing with occasional hot poker pain, sitting right in the spot where the sacrum meets the iliacus on the right side. (Not with my wife you don't!). I've managed some very short bike rides, some walks, but nothing that I would really term exercise, let alone training.

Anyhoo, I have a comp day tomorrow. I'm going to seek out massage and the advice of a dude reputed to be a very fine chiropractor here in Sacramento.

Sometime later this week, now that the five 264-page grant packages are safely submitted, I promise another chapter of the German adventures of Slow Fat Triathlete. There is a final title, and while I'm not out of my mind with delight about it, it's something I can live with.

"At Long Last Fit and Lean" - Part 2

2010-11-20T13:38:00.000-08:00

We're continuing to examine the possibilities for better translations of the title Slow Fat Triathlete into German than "Endlich Fit und Schlank" or "At Long Last Fit and Lean." I checked in with Germanist buddy Will and Comp Lit guru Anne, and after initial shock, they got down to thinking of possible candidates and analyzing the ins and outs of each. I found this to be endlessly informative and amusing, so here are some more gems from the email thread.

I offered, "Another phrase that was considered as an original title was The Imperfect Triathlete – maybe that would be easier for them to digest, as it were?"

Will: Sure, "imperfect" has potential. It does have a variety of possible German equivalents, and I'm guessing of the two plausible ones for this context, "imperfekt" would be preferred to "unvollkommen." The latter term is much more transparent to the average German and does seem to get used in some contexts implying acceptance (see linguee.de or linguee.com , my new favorite German reference site), but I would worry that "unvollkommen" can also go in the direction of "faulty" or "inadequate," a bit more connotation of "coming up short" than you want. It's just a question of whether the Latinate "imperfekt" sounds intimidatingly learned or is sufficiently naturalized now not to. Obviously you aren't the one who needs to decide this; I'm just wondering what they'd pick. "Triathlete" will presumably have to be gendered in German -- not "der Triathlet" but "die Triathletin" -- which is not ideal, but that's translation for you. Maybe you can tinker with alternatives using "triathlon" instead if you want to avoid this. It seems conceivable to me that some "headline-style" title could use "Triathlet" as a common-gender noun, like if your book were instead a different book that could be called "Triathlet wider Willen" (Triathlete malgre soi, willy-nilly triathlete), but actually I can't be sure whether they might want "Triathletin" even there. Hm. "Triathlet im Stubenhockerkoerper" : Triathlete in a Couch-Potato Body. Mit (some kind of ) Koerper zum Triathlon! We'll keep at it and see if we can find something.

Me: Oh, I love Triathlet im Stubenhockerkoerper! Can we do that? Or how about “Triathlon for Couch Potatoes”? Then they could even use the subtitle verbatim and it would work.

Will: Triathlon fuer Stubenhocker!

Anne: wild applause!

But now Anne's brilliance takes center stage:
Anne: Maybe Jayne should have a few great options, just to make sure "endlich fit und schlank" is buried buried buried? I really, *really* like Triathlon fuer Stubenhocker. But if they say, refusing to see the humor: "but Frau Williams is inviting people OUTSIDE! They aren't really Stubenhockers anymore if they're triathletes!" Then . . . maybe something like "Triathlon: Komm, wie Du bist!" -- or something along those lines, getting the "in the body you have now" side of the equation across??

Sofa spuds are apparently a little different in Germany? But "Triathlon: Come As You Are!" is awesome.

Will: Yes, I do see Anne's points, absolutely, and had myself been worrying about Stubenhocker: Stube is "room," and on the small, stuffy side of "room" even. Hocken is to crouch or squat, with some of the same connotations of immobility and possessiveness as "squat." So it really does convey a hard-to-dislodge indoorness. I suppose at worst it cd suggest your book is a guide to watching triathlon on TV. Now, "Couch potato" does show up in German too. "Die Couch" is an old German word and needs no glossing for anyone, so the question is just how familiar this idiom is, and how the plural is formed -- very likely it'd be "fuer Couch Potatos," Dan Quayle notwithstanding. Komm wie du bist neatly sidesteps all of this, though!

So "Triathlon for Those Who Squat Immobile in Smallish, Stuffy Rooms" might actually not be the best title. Dang. Cause that was sounding pretty cool to me. But wait, there's more! (It's so awesome that Will is on leave this semester.)

Will: Okay, it turns out that "die Couchpotato" and "die Couch-potato" (Duden prescribes hyphenation, but the outcome of Swiss Orthographic Conference deliberations on this point was that the spelling should be changed to a single word without a hyphen -- yes, really!) are very common in the Internet and seem likely to be recognized by nearly all readers. Very strong association to TV watching, which I guess the English word has too? There also exists "die Sofakartoffel" (no one suggests that one should have a hyphen), which is attested all the way from bodybuilding bulletin boards on up to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Munich's main newspaper) and indeed Deutschlandradio (the most intellectual radio station in Germany, which makes the snootiest public radio in the US sound like pabulum) -- but despite this range, the number of hits for "Sofakartoffel" is much smaller, probably because Germans are powerless to stop their instinctive need to become cooler by using English words. The plural is definitely Couch(-)potatoes, sorry to have misled -- see Duden http://www.duden.de/definition/couch-potato . The verb for triathlon in German? "Triathlon machen" does seem to be in use, which has to be the best for you. (Beyond that it seems like "durchfuehren" comes up -- to "carry out" or "perform"; "versuchen" (to try) is not quite the same thing; "erleben" (to experience) is common but again not quite the same meaning.) I'm actually feeling a bit like I like "Komm, wie du bist" even better than all of these. Not you? The command-style version in German would probably be something like "Couch-potatoes: Auf zum Triathlon!" What this doesn't capture, what none of these capture, is the sense that Step 1 isn't going to be "spend two years dieting and going to the gym before undertaking step 2." The "body you have now" is missing...

Wow. This is serious business, yes? We haven't even gotten to the subtitle yet. Once again, Anne chimes in with a spate of creative oomph.

Anne: I notice they weren't even too excited about "triathlon" in the title. How about something like Wettlauf für Couchpotatos: Komm, wie du bist!
Couchpotatos in Bewegung: Komm, wie du bist!
Die unwahrscheinlichste Sportlerin: lache dich fit!
(Just trying to think slightly out of the box here.)

I had to use Google translate to figure these out, since my German is less than rudimentary. I would perhaps render them as:
Racing for Couch Potatoes: Come As You Are!
Couch Potatoes in Motion: Come As You Are!
The Unlikeliest Sportswoman: Laugh Yourself Fit!

Will: Ooh, I really like #2 and #3 here! "Unwahrscheinlich" is excellent.

I liked them too. And there will be more, but not today. Do I have awesome friends, or what?

At Long Last Fit and Lean! Or, Lost in Translation in Germany

2010-11-18T17:05:00.000-08:00

About two years ago, I had some correspondence with a woman in Germany who expressed interest in publishing Slow Fat Triathlete in German. She had been having some trouble getting in touch with the right people at Da Capo, so I put her in touch with someone and thought no more of it. So I was startled to receive the following email from my editor a couple of weeks:

"Jayne, please see below - ok by you? Thanks and hope all's well-- R

-----Original Message-----
From: TJ
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 8:02 AM
To: RS
Subject: RE: SLOW FAT TRIATHLETE by Jayne Williams

Hi Renee,
Could you check with the author to see if this title is alright? I think it makes sense and we usually encourage authors to trust the publisher that they have the best interest of the book in mind.

Thanks,
Jennifer
________________________________________
From: AF
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 6:38 AM
To: JS
Cc: IA
Subject: SLOW FAT TRIATHLETE by Jayne Williams

Dear Jennifer,
Further to my last email correspondence concerning this agreement of 05/08/2008 I am pleased to announce that the publisher finally confirmed publication of the German edition for January/February 2011. They would like to change the German title to:
ENDLICH FIT UND SCHLANK - SO ERREICHEN SIE IHR ZIEL which translates back into English as:
At Long Last Fit and Lean - This Is How You Reach Your Goal

A literal translation of the original could be misunderstood and could deter potential buyers. I agree. Please let me know whether I may give them the thumbs up for this title.

All best
Antonia
**********************************************************************************
Hmmm.... Really? At Long Last Fit and Lean???? This Is How You Reach Your Goal???
I think NOT. I mean, c'mon, man! Does the world need another diet and fitness book? Do the Germans? My instinct in all things writerly is to turn to my friends Will and Anne. Conveniently, Will is Chair of Modern Languages at Boston University and teaches courses on translation from German to English. Anne is the best writer I know and also speaks excellent German.

Here's some of what I got back from Will:
***********************************************************************************************
Holy Crap! What idiocy.(...)

Back to why this is a hard query to answer: it does seem possible that the effectiveness of "slow fat triathlete" as a title really does depend on all sorts of cultural particulars that won't transfer to Germany. Some forms of Anglophone irony, and self-ironizing stances, are not so readily perceived by Germans, in my experience; and while "slow fat triathlete" isn't exactly irony, the Germans' failure to understand this title seems to me a related point somehow. There's also a cultural earnestness to the whole topic of "Wellness" (yes, that's a German word) in Germany that may be working against you here (since doubtless the German publisher means to have you shelved in the "Wellness" section) and a slightly different relation to fat and fatness -- German cheeses are still promoted in supermarket PA announcements by how very high their fat content is, for example, and obesity is thought of there as a typically American problem. At the same time there is a giant industry of healthy foods and health regimes, and doubtless dozens of prior books titled "'Endlich fit und schlank" have sold very well. I'd expect that the culture of races and tri clubs is noticeably different in Germany too; don't Germans have a much sharper sense of whether or not they belong to an organization than Americans do? I always feel like there's much less room there to drop in and out or just show up at events without further commitment, though maybe it's changed in the world of sport. Anyway it's all very complicated and I am certainly not one who understands it all."

One solution for the title might be for you to find or adapt a phrase from your book or marketing blurbs that is straightforward, that really means what you believe -- the subtitle, e.g., would be great except that it's too long and translated imperatives can stumble over the du/Sie problem -- and we or they could try to translate that, whatever it is. (Incidentally, it seems awkward that you are 4-5 e-mails removed from the people who are trying to decide on the German title -- no chance you could get into some more direct discussion with them or their representative?) Or if straightforwardness is disappointing, find something snappy/funny but whose snappiness seems likelier to be exportable than "SFT" is. Letting go completely of the English title is a good first step -- Germanizations of English film and book titles very frequently lack any connection at all to the original titles, and you have to start from zero. It's an interesting challenge. But it's extremely hard for us to solve without knowing a lot more than we do about German body culture, self-improvement culture, humor, images of athletes, book sales in this sector, etc. etc. The fact that we can't know even a fraction of what we need to know makes me think the best way might be something that is a little more straightforward and less witty than you would usually like to be but at least represents your book accurately.

Or Anne can just come up with a zingy German title that slices clean through these Gordian deliberations!

love,
Will

PS The "Ihr Ziel" in the Awful Title's subtitle is, as you remember, the formal "Sie" form for "your goal." The tone of your book is so much about friendly informality that on me the "Sie" grates almost as much as the main title. There are many books addressing readers as "du," humor books especially, and I'd hope yours will be one of them. But this really is so contextual that we may not have much sway (if, e.g., Wellness or Fitness books are 100% "Sie" by convention).

PPS I'll be teaching my German translation workshop again next year and I'll have to use this as an example for discussion. Too rich.
*******************************************************************************************
I am starting to realize that this post is going to have to be continued, as it was quite a long dialogue. However, I found it so amusing and interesting that I really want to share the whole flow of it with y'all. So stay tuned for Anne's zingy suggestions and further discussions of what a couch potato is in German.

Express Lane to Happiness: Disc Golf and Disney

2010-10-30T11:32:00.001-07:00

Things have been nutty on the day job front for the last few weeks, made nuttier by my previously scheduled weekends at Sea Ranch for Tim's birthday trip and then to beautiful La Habra, Orange County, CA. The reasons for this latter trip were (1) to hang out with my wonderful friends Indigo and Mike and (2) to participate in the Lady LaMa (La Mirada) Pro-Am disc golf tournament, which would represent my fourth and fifth rounds of disc golf ever as well as my first ever disc golf tournament and first ever scored rounds. These two reasons were inextricably linked since Indigo is the founder and director of the two-year-old Lady LaMa and Michael is its most loyal volunteer. Indigo got tired of playing in tournaments with only one or two other women and playing rounds with guys whose girlfriends walked the course with them but didn't play. So she founded the Lady LaMa, and I was a tee sponsor in its inaugural year.

This year, since I had played three rounds of disc golf, I considered myself qualified to fly down and participate, so I did. Indigo picked me up at the airport with adrenaline oozing from every pore as Manoush the printer had failed to print this year's tee signs or player handbooks at tee-time minus 18 hours, and Manoush-closing-time minus 3 hours. Stress was in the air. But fortunately, Manoush pulled it together and we were able to spend the evening folding handbooks, stuffing prize packs, and packing the cars, rather than printing signs.

The one downside of staying with the tournament director was that we were off to La Mirada park at 6:45 or so for a 9 am tee-off. It was overcast and drizzling, and I had not really prepared for moisture in the air. But when I got a look at my player pack, sunshine lit up my world. Wow - a handmade shot counter made of pretty beads; two golf towels, a custom-embroidered visor, mini discs (shot markers), mini carabiners, little LED lights for your zipper pull - it was SwagTastic! I grabbed my entire cache of discs (2) and went to practice my putting into the 18th hole basket.

In the first round, pros played together, but players from Rec, Intermediate, and Advanced levels were mixed up on the cards so the more experienced golfers could introduce the novices to tournament rules. Kari was the Yoda on our card; Stephanie and I were both in our first tournaments, though Stephanie clearly had a lot more rounds under her belt than I. And she had a caddy and a moving gallery (her dude and her dad).

It was a shotgun start, and we were teeing off on the 18th hole, so we made our way down there in plenty of time. Fortunately it was really close to the tournament tent since that was where I had placed my discs and forgotten them. D'oh. As the whistle sounded for the start, I was running up the hill to look for my discs. Mike said I got the Bonehead of the Day award. He meant it in a good way, I'm sure.

I played a surprisingly decent first round. Some early drives were kind of feeble, and I wasn't putting quite as well as I had in my purely recreational rounds, but I thought that was to be expected. My feet got soaked early on from the wet grass, but high tech socks minimized the discomfort. Indigo had set up snack stations at two spots on the course, staffed by Mike's entire extended family, who were everywhere, all day. Indi's sister Chris took hundreds of photos. I fell down on one muddy hillside, and stepped into a hidden pothole at one point, tweaking my knee, but at least I managed not to fall off the tee at any of the holes, despite the wet conditions

On the plus side, I made one glorious shot which was seen by about three groups and even applauded! So goes disc golf. Fall in the mud, make a killer shot, doink a putt off the basket.

Lunch (fetched and served by the ubiquitous Hole family) was tasty, and I needed some time to rest up and dry my feet off. A dry pair of SmartWool socks and a bunch of paper towels improved the foot situation considerably. I was super thirsty and downed several sodas, including a couple of cokes. This did not help my second round. Nor did anything else.

I had never played two rounds in a day before and was totally unprepared for how physically and mentally demanding it was. Plus the back course was a lot, a lot harder than the lake course. All kinds of crazy out of bounds, like baseball fields, parking lots, the street, and areas "beyond" an undulating gutter.

The 6th hole was particularly demanding, surrounded by imaginary water and the aforementioned undulating out of bounds area. Our entire group misunderstood it and then misplayed it, meanwhile backing up like four groups behind us. It was the least fun part of my embryonic disc golf career.

It got a little better after that, especially with the afternoon snack stations, Gatorade, candy, granola bars, and cookies. But along the road from holes about 10 to 13, we had to avoid the road, parking lots, trees, and all kinds of hazards. So I shot like an 88 for the second 18. And I was exhausted. My tweaked knee hurt, my feet and back hurt, my toenails hurt, my arm hurt. I just wanted to lie down. While Indigo and Mike and other people who knew what they were doing tabulated the scores and figured out the prizes (8 deep!), we had a Ring of Fire. The idea was that everyone got in a circle about 30 feet away from a basket and all threw for it at once when the signal was given. Get in in the basket, win a prize. Very fun, but I didn't win.

That evening, the Giants beat the Phillies to earn a trip to the World Series, which was VERY COOL!!!!, and I took a bunch of Advil. But I still had to use the bunk bed slat above me to turn over all night. (Indi got the bunk beds for her nephews; she is not *yet* running a hostel for itinerant disc golfers.)

I almost bailed on the planned trip to Disneyland the next day, seeing as how I could hardly walk, but skip Disneyland? I couldn't see it. We took the Express Lane to the giant parking garage that guards the Magic Kingdom and then the weird tram over to the main gate. It was Halloween in Mouseland, so there were fake pumpkins and Nightmare Before Christmas stuff everywhere. And there were ecstatic Giants fans everywhere too - more than I could imagined would show their colors in SoCal, even if it was Halloween.

I looked enviously at the elderly and disabled in their motorized scooter thingies, and at the little kids in strollers. It hurt to walk, it hurt to move, and my knee was killing me. But I stuck it out and had an awesome time despite the pain.

It's three weeks on and my knee is still messed up a little, but as soon as it gets good again, I'll go play a little winter golf. Need to do better than 11th at Lady LaMa III.

Train Easy, Race Hard

2010-10-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

Golden State Triathlon
.5 mile swim, 15 mile bike, 3 mile run
10/10/10

"Train hard, race easy," is a maxim I've heard many times relative to triathlon and endurance sports, though I never agreed with it. Even when I was training intensively, doing intervals and other workouts scientifically designed to make an athletic silk purse out of my lumpy-sow's-ear self, I always put myself out on the ragged edge of what I was willing to endure in a race and suffered accordingly. Race reports from 2002-2004 at www.slowfattriathlete.com, will bear out this assertion. Now that I'm training in a much more relaxed and less structured way, essentially avoiding running at all costs, the suffering quotient involved in a race does change qualitatively, but quantitatively I think it's about the same.

I was marginally more prepared to do the Golden State Tri than I had been for Luna Bar, if only because I had already done Luna Bar and Golden State would be mercifully shorter and flatter. I had even ventured out the weekend before Golden State and done my first 3-way training brick in probably six years. A brisk couple hundred yards in the river, a 3.5 mile spin along the path, and probably .8 miles of jog/walking. Not dramatic, but pleasant training.

The location of Golden State was a huge plus for me, as for the first time I could easily bike to the start of a race. An easy 2.25 miles put me right in transition and served as a good little limbering up session. I went to pick up my packet, griped at the staff on learning that they had already run out of XL and XXL race shirts, set up my transition area, got body marked by a young woman with very neat body-marking writing (we both agreed that in general, dudes are way sloppier at the body-marking), and went to look at the swim exit. I had been curious about this as all I could ever remember seeing on the right bank of the river were steep sandy bluffs. Sure enough, the swim exit was essentially a crawl up the bluff, "aided" by some temporary wooden steps that looked like they would be slick little death slabs when wet. Hmmm...

I grabbed a gel for before the swim and walked up and over the Jibboom Bridge, which I normally cross on my bike on my Mon-Wed-Fri commute to the train station. The super sprint was starting, and I joined the crowds watching the swimmers and checking out the buoys for our race. Over at the beach, tri-ers were staring to warm up in the chilly water, which had actually taken my breath away during my little brick the other day. I was enthusiastically greeted by Julie, a reader and SVTC member whom I knew only from Facebook, so that was fun. This time I eased into the water more gradually than is my wont. Someone swam out toward the flock of 30 or 40 Canada geese which were swimming around right by the start buoy, thoughtfully pre-fouling the water for us, and frightened them off. I struck out for a warmup swim, which, truth be told, is probably one of my favorite parts of a race. Just hanging out in the water, swimming easily, dolphin kicking to stretch the back, joking with my fellow racers, looking around at the trees and the sun and the water - what could be finer?

But eventually the horn sounded and we thrashed off upstream. The current, which seemed gentle, almost imperceptible, during warmup, felt a lot stronger when I was trying to swim upstream for a long time. The race organizers had set it up so that 2/3 of the swim was upstream and only 1/3 downstream, which was less than ideal, but there we were. At least navigation was easy. Pretty much upstream, between the center sets of bridge pillars, turn around the buoy, head downstream, and look for the orange buoy by the "stairs." I stood up, looked at the stairs, which I now perceived were severely slanted toward the water and covered with mud, and decided discretion would be by far the better part of valor here. I used my hands and my feet to crawl to the top of the stairs, and promptly slipped in the mud where the stairs ended. I didn't fall though, and managed to remain upright all the way to the top of the little gully in the bluff. One down, two to go.

I decided to take my time in transition and found a curb to sit on. I had found my perfect race socks: kind of broken in, the elastic not too grippy, and I had remembered to fold them down for easy slipping onto the foot. I had even remembered an extra water bottle to rinse the mud off and a pack towel to dry off. Like I said, taking my time.

This tri was unusual in my experience in that (a) bike riding was legal in transition and (b) drafting was legal throughout the bike leg. I was excited about this as I've always been a fairly adept bike handler for an amateur and I was looking forward to catching an easy ride. However, I knew that I'd have to catch someone first. This proved to be easier said than done, as the road quickly slanted up and over the drainage canal. I ride over this bridge 3x/week on my way home from the train. It seemed both easier and harder - I was propelled upwards by adrenaline and yet I was still pretty pooped from the hard swim. The drag along Garden Highway to Northgate was ever so slightly uphill, so I puttered along for quite a while, being passed by packs of sleek carbon-fibered greyhounds, not-so-sleek packs, and individuals on beach cruisers. Well, maybe not quite. But definitely folks on mountain bikes. Then it was down Northgate (off the levee, downhill), a quick U-turn and back up Northgate and onto the levee, and back toward the park. This went much faster. A couple of quick turns, down the levee, around a block, and back up the levee, and back over the canal bridge and into the park. Phew. Lap 1 of 3. My breathing felt good but my quads felt pretty tired for a flat course. Those levees are more troublesome than you think.

On the second lap I managed to catch up with a gal with an older bike and toe clips - she was buzzin' along though at about 17.5 mph. I held her wheel for a while, then offered to take the lead, but with the speed it took me to overhaul her, I lost her. Then we swooped down around the office buildings, back up the levee, and so forth. On lap three, the two of us picked up a third woman. I drafted off her for a while, then she pulled in behind the two of us and it started to feel like a bike race. Or it would have if my companions had any experience in a paceline. Still fun though. It felt good to be going fast-ish on a bike again.

What with all that fun and the up and down onto the levee and off again, my legs were pretty blown when I hit T2. Still, only 3 miles on a path I knew well and knew to be actually flat, not just "flat." I stumbled out of transition and onto the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail, AKA the American River Bike Trail. A bunch of runners were already coming in, a familiar experience to me as I listened to the cheers for the happy finishers. I tried to settle into a rhythm of 50 steps jog, 50 steps walk and get my breathing into a regular, sustainable rate. The weather was warm but not hot, and I took Gatorade at the first aid station just for the heck of it. I had managed my nutrition pretty well this time. I had yogurt before leaving the house, some Accelerade and water on the bike, and a gel during the bike as well. Even though this was a "sprint," I was still figuring it would take me around 2.5 hours to complete so nutrition was definitely a consideration.

A slow run is not much to write about. I cheered on some of my fellow slow runners, upped my rhythm to 100 steps jog, 60 walk, then back down to 60-60. I stretched my back a few times, but it was basically fine, nowhere near the cramping and pain I had at Luna Bar. Julie passed me about a mile from the finish; we hooted. The aid station appeared again, which I figured was just under a mile to go. As usual, that last mile seemed pretty long, and I couldn't hear the sounds of the finish until I rounded the last bend of the path and the finish arch was almost right in front of me. It was beautiful. I ran as best I could, gave a little fist pump as I crossed the line, and settled in to look for fluids and then the Elk Grove Tri Club, who had invited me to their post-race do. Kathy Lewis and her gang proved to be a very friendly bunch with some of the most amazing snacks I have ever eaten. (Can I get the recipe for those pumpkin-cheesecake-bar things? Wow.)

So that was the last tri of my rather short multi-sport season. San Ramon Aquathlon, Luna Bar, and now Golden State. I really feel a lot more like a triathlete now than I did after Luna Bar. I found myself checking the calendar to see if there were any other local races I could do and looking up bike rides and other events. I'm scheduled to go down to Monterey in November and do a 5k with the Chico gals. But my next sporting event is the Lady LaMa Pro-Am disc golf tourney in La Mirada on October 23. Tournament Director Indigo Brude is still accepting registrations.

Other off-season plans - work on the running, I think, without straining the joints too much. Do some strength and flexibility training at the gym. Get in the pool just to remember how it works, and keep bike commuting into the winter this year, even if it takes spending the money on waterproof clothing and a bag for my laptop.

Another cool thing - almost no soreness or fatigue either the next day or the day after. That, my friends, is huge.

Fall Behind - Early October Update

2010-10-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, the virus alluded to in the last post didn't develop into anything really lingering. I was dizzy and loopy for several days longer than I thought was meet, right, and salutary, but eventually my ears cleared up and I started to feel like a real person again. My bike commutes on Monday and Wednesday felt good, even though it was scary hot. I managed an easy swim in the middle of the week. On Thursday afternoon I was all psyched up for an open water swim at Nimbus Flat, a nice little beachy area behind Nimbus Dam on the American River, after a meeting in nearby Fair Oaks. I looked up how to get there, packed my swim cap, goggles, flip flops, extra towel - but no swimsuit. So that was a "D'oh!" By the time I had fought my way back through traffic to where my suit resides (in the laundry room at home), I was completely exhausted and unmotivated to venture back to the pool.

Friday I managed a nice 12 mile bike ride, mostly for the purpose of getting my butt reacquainted with the saddle and my arms and shoulders accustomed to the handlebars. My legs felt quite strong, at least strong enough to be getting on with. So things were looking up for me. I planned a harder swim for yesterday, and then a bike-run brick workout for this morning.

But yesterday morning I was sitting in the Big Poofy Chair updating my Facebook and my Twitter feed and all those things that social networking junkies do, when suddenly I got dizzy for no apparent reason. Moving around made it worse, bending over made it significantly worse. I was flummoxed. What was going on? This went on for a couple of hours. Finally I asked Dr. Google what might be the matter, and Dr. G. informed me that I was probably having a migraine aura. Yay! As a recent inductee to the Association of Unhappy Migraineurs, I am not yet totally up to speed on all the ways that my migraines can manifest themselves. I've only had four or five, and each one has been different. The only reason I thought to ask Dr. Google about migraines at all is that after my last one, I felt dizzy for about three days.

Eventually the headache hit, but it wasn't bad at all - one advantage of my particular brand of migraine - and then the involuntary two-hour nap. So that was that day.

Now it's Sunday. I've woken up with a nasty headache, worse than the one that was part of the migraine, and my attitude is pretty nasty as a result. However. I have some optimism that I'll feel better later. And when I do, I'll go over to Discovery Park, swim in the river where next week's tri will take place, do a short bike ride, and follow it up with a little run/walk. I'm determined to do next week's race, even if it's just the super sprint, since I pushed back Tim's birthday weekend at Sea Ranch to accommodate my "racing" schedule.

This week I'll get my back stretched out and rolled out on the foam roller, maybe even roll my ITB and glutes while I'm at it. I'll work on getting a little speed into my swim. Then I'll go out next Sunday and have some fun. Fun, dammit! I'm gonna have some fun, hear me?

Sore Feet, Tasty Frites

2010-09-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This post is not about training or triathlon. But it's all I have to write about at the moment.

On the Sunday of Labor Day weekend I flew to London, where I met my aunt, Cynthia, and embarked on a brief but satisfying adventure in Belgium. We took the 7:30 a.m. Eurostar train through the Chunnel, which was a little anticlimactic since it's just like, well, a tunnel, except long. It'd be more fun if they put up little graphics for you in the tunnel showing you where you are. Still, it was super fast (2 hours from St. Pancras to Brussels) and comfortable.

In Brussels, we parked our bags and took a couple of hours to cruise around before continuing to Bruges. We navigated the grotty Metro station adjacent to the Brussels-Zuid train station and hopped off at the Bourse, around the corner from the Grand Place/Grote Markt. Coming into this square off a narrow side street is like running into the living room on Christmas morning to see that Santa has been exceedingly generous. One of the loveliest things I've seen in any city anywhere. We ambled through town in the general direction of the canal district, and found a tasty lunch at La Villette, where I had creamy waterzooi stew and a crazy sour gueuze lambic beer.

The Hotel Jan Brito in Bruges was insanely charming - a renovated 16th century house with classic steep gables and a profusion of exposed oak beams. Our strange little suite under the steep roof delighted us the whole time we were there. And the breakfasts. Oh. My.

Bruges is Disneyland for grownups. Every street is gorgeous; every building is historic, every third shop is a chocolatier, and everyone seems really quite happy to be interacting with the mobs of tourists from all over the world. Generally I shun tourist traps, but Bruges is so amiable and beautiful that I just didn't care. We wandered over the cobbles until our feet throbbed with pain. We took a boat tour of the canals and shuffled through the churches and museums. We ate pastries and/or frites for lunch. The two carts in the Markt that sell fries in the shadow of the belfry do a roaring trade, and with good reason. Belgians invented fries, and they have perfected them. And they eat them with mayonnaise and a variety of other sauces. They serve them with almost everything. Mussels, particularly. After four days in Belgium, I fear for the mussel population of the North Sea.

On our last full day, I worked up my courage to climb the belfry, or Belfort. I'm not afraid of heights much, or even narrow spiral staircases. I just knew the 366 steps were going to hurt and that I was going to sweat buckets in the clammy Flemish air. They did, and I did. And when I got to the top, the tower chamber was being renovated so you could only get views in two directions. It was still incredibly cool though. Cynthia waited below, watching the people and the horse-drawn carriages and the pigeons. She really detests heights and narrow staircases.

The trip from Bruges to Wales was a pretty long haul. Eleven hours that went like this: taxi, train, train, long walk, Tube, long walk, bus, car. Somewhere in the long walks through London with the bags, I felt my knee twinge, which it continued to do for the rest of the trip. I blame the Belfort.

The Welsh part of the trip was designed to be extremely low key, and it was even lower-key than I had planned. Lots of lounging about and watching sports on Sky with my uncle, and drinking tea with Cynthia, my Uncle Brian, my cousin Emma, other more distant cousins, neighbors, etc. There were a few errands and a couple of touristy things like traveling to Cardiff Bay and having ice cream sundae's at Verdi's Cafe near Swansea. Even so, I was quite exhausted by the end of my 8 days there.

Got sick immediately after getting off the plane, which raised the specter of Boo-Boo Kitty. My last trip to the UK in 2007 was followed immediately by a flu-y feeling that sparked the whole round of fatigue, pain and weirdness. However, five days after my return, I am feeling only mildly dizzy, tired, and queasy, so I'm less freaked out than I was a couple of days ago.

Two weeks from tomorrow I'm scheduled to do the Golden State Triathlon, down the street from my house. I'll have to work up to an actual workout before I get a sense of whether I can do it or not. Most of my walking was the slow touristy kind, except for the Belfort and one ramble through the hills. No swimming, no cycling. And now another virus on top of August's virus. Hmmm...

I'll keep you posted.