Battling Bad Body Image

Ugh, body image. This used to be a real problem for me every. single. day. I know that lots of other people struggle with it, so I thought I would share my experience with the blogosphere…

A couple of years ago I was at a low point when it comes to health/fitness/body image. I weighed more than I had in a very long time (long time=8 years). This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but you know that Bruno Mars song "Just the way You Are"? Well, back then every time I heard it I would cry, and definitely not in a good way. I did not feel beautiful or amazing and I wanted to feel that way so stinking badly.

Here's the thing: in my head, I knew that I was not overweight,  I really never have been. However, the number of times I have looked in the mirror and called myself fat are countless. I've been trying to figure out where it started, and I really don't know.  While I tend to always have a goal weight in mind, I got to a point where wanted to simply feel good about myself no matter how much I weighed, so I decided to make a conscience effort to work on it. 

I decided then to start working on the way I see myself. I had no reason to be feeling badly other than my own weak mind (i.e. no one had said anything negative to/about me and my husband would always tell me how beautiful I am, I had just kept telling myself I wasn't good enough and I really believed it).

I did some googling to find some articles on body image and found some great advice/thoughts:

When you Look in the Mirror, do you Like What you See?

Is your body image positive or negative? If your answer is negative, you are not alone. Women in the U.S. are under pressure to measure up to a certain social and cultural ideal of beauty, which can lead to poor body image. Women are constantly bombarded with "Barbie Doll-like" images. By presenting an ideal that is so difficult to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and profits. It's no accident that youth is increasingly promoted, along with thinness, as an essential criterion of beauty. The message we're hearing is either "all women need to lose weight" or that the natural aging process is a "disastrous" fate.

Learning to Love What You See in the Mirror

We all want to look our best, but a healthy body is not always linked to appearance. In fact, healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes! Changing your body image means changing the way you think about your body. At the same time, healthy lifestyle choices are also key to improving body image.

•   Healthy eating can promote healthy skin and hair, along with strong bones.

•   Regular exercise has been shown to boost self-esteem, self-image, and energy levels.

•   Plenty of rest is key to stress management.

A few other ideas I found about improving self body image:

•   Most of us judge each of our body parts individually -- my thighs are too fat, my breasts too droopy, my lips too thick. Try experiencing your body as a whole, rather than as separate parts that need improvement.


•   Notice how much time you spend worrying about your looks instead of being aware of what is going on inside of you or around you. Try practicing mindfulness, a technique used in meditation and yoga.


•   Give up the media for a week. Forego reading magazines (especially fashion magazines!), watching television, or surfing the Internet. When you get the urge to click the remote control, go for a walk or invite a friend over for tea and conversation. At the end of the week, notice if you feel differently about yourself.


•   Kill your inner supermodel. If you have an image of perfection in your head to which you’re constantly comparing yourself, get rid of it. You think your nose is too big? Compared to whose? You consider your stretch marks “flaws”? Where is it written that our bodies should be free of lines or marks or scars? Such bodies do not exist in real life.

I spent a few months focusing on changing my attitude.  I actually didn't want to work out when I first started trying to improve my body image, because I really wanted to be okay with the present tense me no matter what shape I was in (does that make sense?). So I waited about a month, until I started to feel the effects of my efforts, before starting to run again.

It worked!

It was a total mental thing. I just started looking in the mirror and telling myself that I was good enough and that I am beautiful.  Whenever I had the temptation to pinch my side fat, I would tell myself a loud and resounding no!  Then I would look myself up and down in the mirror and point out to myself the things that I do like about my body.  I would think about that inner supermodel, and then I would consciously push her from my mind.  I couldn't tell you exactly when it started to sink in, but eventually it did and nowadays I feel great! Not to say that my body image is perfect.  I still go through cycles of losing and then gaining and then losing weight, but I am so much happier with myself. 

Adventures in Crossfit

There's a new trend in the athletic world.  It's called crossfit... you may have heard of it.  I've been considering joining a crossfit gym for a while now, but it's just so blasted expensive that I couldn't justify it (usually about $150/month).  I can barely justify my $10/month membership to Crunch, but I keep it for those few and far between rainy days.  Well a couple weeks back, Crossfit2.0 - which just happens to be right down the street from me - ran a groupon for a 10 class package at $39.  I figured that if I was going to jump on this bandwagon, now would be the perfect time.

Now, before attending a regular crossfit class, they require that you attend 3 of the "fundamentals" classes so as to help you avoid injuring yourself by using the wrong form or what not.  Enter Wednesday... my first crossfit (albeit "fundamentals') class.  Pretty much the whole class was spent mastering the form of the various squats performed in crossfit.

If you check out this video you can get an idea of what we were doing.

In addition to form for your basic squat, we also went over how to squat while holding a bar at chest level and above your head (using only a long piece of pvc pipe in place of an actual bar).  Doesn't sound too bad, right?  Well, I didn't count, but I'm pretty sure that we did a million squats.  It might've been closer to a billion, I'm not totally sure.  My legs were j.e.l.l.o.

The best part is that the next morning when I went for an easy run, I could not pick up my legs!  I'm not even exaggerating on this... I had to laugh at myself the whole 2.5 miles because no matter how hard I tried, my knees would not get higher than maybe 2 inches from normal.  The whole run was basically accomplished by using my calves.  My time was a full minute/mile slower than usual.

I still have 9 more classes left on my groupon, so I will keep you apprised of how those ones go as well.  Should be interesting.

For those of you who are not familiar with crossfit, the video below gives a pretty good representation of it:

Soda: Is it Really that Bad?

I have a problem in the form of a little green can.  It's called Diet Mt. Dew and I am so hooked on it it's ridiculous. 

I never used to drink soda. But then I got married and dear husband asked me buy a fridge pack of diet coke while at the grocery store, so I did.  One morning while getting ready for work I was feeling extremely sluggish so I decided to one of those little devils to help pick me up.  Instantly I was hooked.  I eventually got sick of the heavy caramel flavor of colas and discovered a new love, the Dew.  I have made numerous attempts to cut my dependance on it, but never with much luck.  

After doing some serious researching, I have finally found the motivation to cut it out once and for all.

The biggest motivator for me (at the moment) is the knowledge that this stuff is bad for the bones.  Not bad-to-the-bone, but bad for the bones!

There is a little room for debate on this, but here's the thing:  I get stress fractures in my feet all.the.time.  Seriously.  And I haven't done anything to cause a break except run at a moderate pace.

According to livestrong.com: 

"A main ingredient in soda is phosphoric acid. Whether calorie and caffeine filled or not, it is used as a flavoring agent. It causes increased acidity in the blood, which your body then attempts to regulate by drawing out calcium... as three diet sodas a week can lead to significant bone loss in women."

I am going to quit drinking soda to save my bones!

Excessive consumption of soda  (especially Mt. Dew) is dehydration due to the caffeine content.  Dehydration can lead to muscle cramps... and I get the gnarliest foot cramps on a regular basis.  They knock me out for a good 10 minutes and reduce me to tears.  I would really love to not have this problem any more.

An article I found on the Utah Running Blog states:

"Another chemical found in soda is caffeine. Although caffeine can be a performance enhancer when used properly, it is also a well-know diuretic and leads to water loss. If you are trying to lean up you need water. Have you seen a steak dry out to be a piece of beef jerky? Simply muscle is made up of water and if you aren’t getting enough water you will not build muscle. People that drink soda in place of water are missing out on the benefits of a well hydrated body. Hydrated body tissues perform and function better. Soda pop gives you very little water and often requires more water to process the chemicals in it. Another thing to consider with soda consumption is the dehydration. Soda drinkers often consume pop in lou of water, combined this fact with a soda containing a diuretic (caffeine) then the individual is in a constant state of dehydration. One of the many symptoms of dehydration is impaired ability to think clearly. I don’t know about you, but I want to think clearly during my training and in a running race or triathlon. Soda pop simply does not help you."

I am going to quit drinking soda to stay hydrated!

Another reason to quit drinking this devilish juice is, well... baby making endeavors.  I want to have a baby and after 4 years of trying, some serious steps need to be taken to achieve that dream.  According to Baby Center, caffeine up your risk of miscarriage and makes it harder to become pregnant. An article from ScienceDaily explains that:

"caffeine stops the actions of specialised pacemaker cells in the wall of the tubes. These cells coordinate tube contractions so that when they are inhibited, eggs can't move down the tubes. In fact these muscle contractions play a bigger role than the beating cilia in moving the egg towards the womb."

Another article on BabyZone had this to say:

"What we found is that women who consume high amounts of caffeine daily take longer, on average, to get pregnant than women with low or no consumption... They had nearly three times the risk of not being able to conceive after one year of trying."

I am going to quit drinking soda so I can make babies!

Bottom line is this: It's time.  

I am slowly but surely cutting down.  I was drinking up to 8 cans of Mt.Dew a day, I am now down to only 2!  In fact, today I have only had 1, and I think that I may be able to forego numero dos.

My goal is to be done completely by October 1st.

Do you drink soda?  Trying to quit?  Don't care?  Let me know!

Quotes pulled from:

http://blog.utahrunning.com/sodapop-carbonation-affect-performance/

http://www.livestrong.com/article/201638-why-not-drink-diet-soda/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110523121142.htm

http://www.babyzone.com/getting-pregnant/how-to-get-pregnant/caffeine-and-fertility_67115

Balancing Patience with Enthusiasm

I tend to injure myself quite a bit while training for races, and I have come to the conclusion that the #1 leading factor that leads to my injuries is a lack of patience.  I get so exited about the progress that I have made that I figure I can handle way more than what is on my training schedule and skip ahead.  Bad idea.  It's happened so many times I can't even remember how many.

Does anyone else have this problem?  I know there must be others.

I find myself at this cross roads once again.  I am 3 weeks into my training for the Silver Strand Half Marathon and I am getting anxious to do more, but I must be patient!  Every book, blog, training site I have ever read about running says the same thing:  do not increase your mileage by more than 10% each week.

Runners World hit the nail on head in their article about the patience in training:

"For runners, the biggest enemy is often their own energy and enthusiasm. You're feeling great, so you figure that you can handle more training... so you plunge excitedly into the training. Great--except for one thing. Your body doesn't share in your enthusiasm. It follows one simple, unchanging principle: gradual adaptation to stress."

Gradual being the key word here.

Another site I found has a different approach from the 10% rule.  Suggesting a slow increase in mileage for 3 weeks, then decreasing mileage in the fourth week to where you were at week one.

Anyone ever tried this method?

There are lots of sites/people that would argue the 10% rule is crap, but coming from someone who is constantly starting and stopping then starting again, all because of injury... I would recommend it.  Especially for novice runners.

So, I am promising myself that I will be patient.  I will be determined, I will do it, but I will be patient!