Lately, I’ve seen a lot of lists floating around the internet. Things like Three Rules for Life, Five Things to Stop Doing in the New Year, and 12 Things Happy People Do Differently. I started thinking about that last article and, since I have a terrible memory, decided to do some research on myself via my blog.
1. Express gratitude. I searched for the terms ‘thankful’ and ‘grateful’, both resulted in “No posts found”. Hm.
2. Cultivate optimism. Ditto, ‘optimism’ and ‘optimistic’. Yikes.
5. Nurture social relationships. Ever since I learned about the importance of appreciating my friends, I think I’ve done a good job of nurturing social relationships.
7. Learn to forgive. I simply don’t do this, especially with myself.
8. Increase flow experiences. The author describes this as “completely engaged in the activity that you’re doing”. I’m working on it.
9. Savor life’s joys. When I’m not clinically depressed, I can.
10. Commit to your goals. Yes. But I don’t set goals nearly enough.
11. Practice spirituality. No results for ‘spirituality’, but apparently I say ‘god’ in nearly every goddamn post. Usually within the word ‘goddammit’.
That is, I pretend that I’m not competitive when I can’t compete, which is, like, all the time at CrossFit. But I am, in my head, competitive. Sometimes.
Last week, we were supposed to find our new one-rep max for dead-lifts. No way I’m as strong as a couple of my girlfriends, but I hit 248 that day, and I was really proud of myself, first because it was a 35-lb. personal record, and second because my form was really good up through 243. Two forty-eight was ugly, but it still counts.
Usually for all matters CrossFit, I comment on the CrossFit Durham site or Facebook page, but that night, I posted on my own wall:
I feel like even my non-CrossFit friends should know that I dead-lifted 248 pounds tonight.
Status was Liked. Props were conveyed. Yay, me.
But one comment made me go into full-on Ivan Drago mode. It was from my cousin, who said:
Nice work! I did 200 lbs a couple months ago. Not sure what I am at now since I couldn’t go today.
This particular cousin is six months younger than me. We rarely, if ever, see each other these days because she lives on the other side of the country, but we grew up as summertime besties at Grandma‘s house.
And I was always ferociously jealous of her.
She was beautiful and vibrant. Flawless skin. Body that could stop traffic. She laughed at everything, all the time, including herself (something I’ve had to work very hard to learn). Her family went on cruises. Her clothes were just about the coolest, not that I could borrow any of them because I was always half again as large as she was. She grew up, got married, had two ridiculously cute children, and is now a total MILF who goes on Mexican vacations with her hot husband. Both of them do CrossFit out on the west coast.
Now, back up a second: a month ago, the Universe offered me a particularly jarring lesson about being jealous of people. A 40-year-old acquaintance who still got carded when buying beer and her husband who, in a friend’s words, was so handsome you could hardly look at him, well, he committed suicide, and now she gets to raise two kids, one of them with special needs, on her own.
So intellectually I realize that You Just Don’t Know About People, ergo You Shouldn’t Be Jealous, but when my cousin posted that comment, I just thought, “No. You get everything else. You don’t get this one.”
And I immediately started planning my next trip to the gym and my workout regimen because I was not—was not—going to let her dead-lift more than me.
The problem is that there’s no such thing as healthy competition in my disordered brain, and it went, in about six seconds, from “work on dead-lifts” to “eat paleo and lift every day and lose 50 pounds” to “shove Peanut M&Ms in face at kitchen counter”.
A little later, I realized that this competition (a) was decades-old, (b) lived entirely in the real estate of my crazy-ass brain, nowhere else, and (c) made me feel bad.
This is the part of the story where I tell you that this realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Changed my life’s paradigm. Set me free.
Would that it were. Nope. I’m still petty and shallow and jaundiced.
You still love CrossFit (though maybe a little less now that Coach Phil has moved on). The other day, I tied you to the 70-lb. kettlebell, a.k.a. the Yellow Submarine, a.k.a. Kristen’s Bitch, and you started dragging it around like, fun! sled-pulls!
That says 16 kg, but it's actually 32, a.k.a. 70.4 lbs.
(Alas, as of yesterday, you’re not allowed to go to the gym anymore. New policy: no dogs allowed. I haz a sad.)
I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this before, but you have the same snacking protocol you’ve always had. That is, you have one little requirement. When we were at Cuttyhunk this summer, Margo gave you and Violet each a beef-basted bone. Violet went to town on hers, while you jogged repeatedly to one end of the porch and back. Margo finally said, “Redford! Eat your bone!” and I had to explain that you need something soft to lie on in order to eat snacks. She scoffed… but draped a beach towel on the planks, and you plopped down on it and started gnawing away.
As for the changes, there are two main ones. First, you weigh 82 pounds now, little man, and second, well, you’ve gotten a bit squirrelly. You get aggressive on the leash when we walk by other dogs, and even a visit to the dog park a few weeks ago ended badly, with you scaring the shit out of a shepherdy-mutt-dog. She was nervous, hovering, getting up in your business, but you most definitely over-reacted. It made me sad because I remember the days when you never met a dog you didn’t want to make out with. During all this time spent trying to let Violet recuperate from her surgeries, we haven’t been as social, and I think you’ve forgotten how to be with other dogs. And that makes me feel guilty and angry and frustrated.
But the other thing that has stayed the same is I love you like always. Madly and forever.
I didn’t vote today. Instead, I drove to Carrboro because I thought Oprah Winfrey might find me my soul mate. There’s a lot that’s stupid about that statement.
What happens is, I get an email from a friend mid-day that says the Oprah Winfrey Network is developing a dating show, and they’re accepting applications from 2:00 to 5:00 at this restaurant in Carrboro. I’ve been ruminating on the fact that I’m technically a spinster, and I don’t know, I’m thinking, “Nothing else has worked, so maybe I try a little reality television…?”
So I get there, and they hand me a 27-page form to fill out. Twenty-seven pages. And they tell me a producer will be putting together a little bit of footage. I start filling out the form, but the first page says “YOUR TOWN: CARRBORO” and asks for my address. And I’m thinking, my town is Bull City, y’all, so I shuffle over to the hostess and say, “Do I have to be a resident of Carrboro to do this?”
She says, “Hmm… I don’t know… Do you love Carrboro?”
And I go, “Sure.” But really I’m thinking, it’s aight. I mean, there’s some good restaurants and a gargantuan dog park I used to go to all the time when I worked in Chapel Hill, and it’s walkable. But it’s no Durham.
And as I keep filling out this tome, it becomes clear that this is just the audition for the town. Questions like, What makes your town unique? and Who is the town gossip? and Where do people go on dates in your town? The network wants to find a town in which to make love happen. They’ll accomplish this goal by shipping in various matchmakers and dispatching them amongst the participants.
The producer asks if I’m ready for my on-camera interview, and truth be told, at this point, I’m having some reservations about the whole deal. But I’d driven all the way over there and even applied mascara and lipstick on a Tuesday, in the middle of the afternoon, and OK, whatever.
What’s your type? I don’t really have a type, I say, but funny, smart, preferably stronger than me.
Have you tried online dating? Ahem. Yes. Yes I have.
What does love mean to you? It means fighting for each other and for the two of you as a couple. Platitudes platitudes.
What would you bring to a relationship? Blah stupid loyalty blah fun blah.
I drove away feeling perturbed and disappointed in myself and discouraged. So then I went to CrossFit and lifted heavy things over my head, and I felt better. PR on my push press: 110 pounds.
On my very first day of CrossFit fourteen months ago, Coach Dave handed me a piece of paper and said, “Read this before you come back.” It was an article about rhabdomyolysis, which is a condition caused when damaged muscle cells break down and enter the bloodstream. Sometimes CrossFitters work out too hard, and then they barf and get all where-am-I? And the puking and confusion can happen during any WOD, but if you have major muscle soreness and swelling (not the good kind, like “Damn, son, you’re all swoll after those presses”, but more like “Yikes, you might wanna ice that”) and your piss looks like sweet tea, you may have rhabdo.
So Saturday the WOD had a whole mess o’ sit-ups, and then I did some major core work with a hula hoop at the CrossFit Durham Halloween party. Short story even shorter, I posted on Facebook that I thought I had rhabdo in my abdos. My tummy was so hurty! Coughing was uncomfortable. Worse, I had a cold, not a bad one but a particularly sneezy variety, and every time I achoo-ed on Monday, a single tear would slide down my cheek from the abdominal pain. Laughing was agony.
Fine, I didn’t actually have rhabdo. My pee, I’m sure you’re happy to hear, looked like Country Time lemonade. The thing about the tear, also a lie. But I did fake-cry and whine. A lot. And laughing really did hurt bad.
Monday’s WOD involved double-unders, box jumps, and kettlebell swings. I tried to protect my stomach muscles as much as possible. In fact, I was so concerned with my abs that I didn’t notice until partway through the workout that my shins felt like they were snapping in two. I know you’re supposed to land like a feather between double-unders and on the box, but alas, I’m a Fat CrossFitter, and I land about as light as locomotive. Every impact felt like my legs might break off mid-calf.
Last night at the gym, my buddy Jack asked, “How’s the abdo?”
I giggled—Ooo! Ow!—and then whined, “So bad! And I have shin splints too!”
“You have abdo and shindo,” he replied. I chortled. Ouch!
“That sounds like a martial art,” I said.
“You have a black belt in abdo shindo. You should list that under your Activities on Facebook,” he said.
And at that point, I laughed and laughed, and I’m pretty sure I really have rhabdo now.
Wow. Context. Context is everything, isn’t it? See, because if you know me, you knew that my “Guidelines for Dealing with Fat CrossFitters” post wasn’t about not wanting people to cheer for me during WODs; it wasn’t about other people at all—certainly not about guidelines for dealing with fat CrossFitters. It was about my ridiculous insecurities.
So, some of you are asking yourselves, why did she title it such? Why did she frame it that way? Well, here’s a rewrite of that post:
Times I Get Insecure at CrossFit
1. When I’m running because I’m slow.
2. When I’m last during WODs.
3. When pictures of me working out get posted online.
4. When people lie and say I look skinny.
There is absolutely nothing funny or provocative about that version. Many of you told me you found the first draft funny, and it was definitely provocative. How do I know?
Here's a normal traffic pattern to my blog.
I usually get about 80 visits on days that I post, 30 or so on days I don’t.
Here's the one from last week.
Yep. One thousand, five hundred eighty visits.
More than 1,400 of those visits were referred by the CrossFit mainsite, who linked to my post on Thursday. And hey, yay! Of course I want people to read my stuff. But really? It was posted with another link, one published by an actual CrossFit franchise, with the question:
“These are two blogposts with strong opinions… Do you take a strong stance in your posts? Or do you try to stay neutral and not risk offending members or potential members?”
OK, valid question for somebody running a CrossFit gym, but for my blog? What the hell do I care about staying neutral? And besides, what stance? I was not actually arguing that these are policies that CrossFit gyms should adopt. Even when I post about CrossFit, my blog is not about CrossFit; it’s about me. “Guidelines for Dealing with Fat CrossFitters” was not about CrossFit; it was about me.
Some of you are going, “Hmph!, that’s kind of narcissistic of you,” and you’re 100% right. (But if you’re one of those people who got offended or angered by the post, guess what: you made the post about you… Hmph!, that’s kind of narcissistic of you. Ha ha!) One of these days I’ll learn how to write about other things, but right now I’m, as they say, writing what I know.
Anyway, do I wish that no one could ever see me run? Yes, I do. But I know people cheer because they want to be supportive.
Am I embarrassed when three people are watching within a five-foot radius as I finish the WOD? Yes, I am. But I get that they believe they’re being motivational.
Do I hate it when people post photos on Facebook and it turns out I look less like Annie Sakamoto and more like
Jiminy Glick?
Sure. But I know how to cyber-scream at them until they delete the most embarrassing ones. (I did that to Coach Dave just the other day: “What the HELL, Dave? Do you WANT me to have low self-esteem?” And he’s a shweetie and took them down.)
Do I wish people would not comment on whatever their perception of my weight is? Mos def. But I get it; our society says it’s OK to do that.
Despite all that, do I love CrossFit, in particular my CrossFit and the athletes and coaches there? Damn right.
The most remarkable thing about this whole deal is how little my feelings have gotten hurt. Ninety-nine percent of the people who condemned the post and me, they don’t know me, so big deal. The only hurty spot was that one of my coaches fell into the condemnation category, but I just had to readjust my perception of our relationship. A person I’m very close to called me early in the week and the first thing she said was, “Whoa. [That coach] really doesn’t get you, does she?” And I had to admit, no, she didn’t. Not in this case. But that’s OK. She’s still an incredible coach and a totally fun gal to hang out with. She gets me other times. We’re still friends. It’s not all about people getting me. It’s not even about me.
Except on this blog, where it is.
It’s all about me.
[ADDENDUM: The coach’s totally valid points are (1) I don’t get her either because, while I see how someone might not like the post, I’m still confused about how a person could have been offended by it (we’re going to talk about it), and (2) when I tell stories about myself that involve other people—even when they’re not named—the blog becomes not just about me, but about them too. I didn’t think about it that way.]
First, I never said I don’t want to be cheered for. I get that that’s what some people are reading, but it ain’t what I wrote. Don’t believe me? Reread the post. I didn’t say it. In fact, I stated exactly how I wanted to be encouraged.
Second, please read all the other comments before you decide to add your two cents. Getting some repeat business up in there.
Third, if this is your first time to the blog, I suggest you not read this post in isolation. If you want to read about why I love CrossFit, read this, this, this, or this. If you want to get my sense of humor, read this. If you want to understand my particular brand of crazy, read this or this. If you want to know why I’m fat, even though I CrossFit, read this. If you want to read how my dog is an awesome (non-fat) CrossFitter, read this. If you want to read a story about farts (totally unrelated to CrossFit), read this.
[UPDATE: Read the post. Not the commentary in your head about the post. The actual post. Then read this. THEN, if you still feel like it, go ahead and comment. Some o’ yous are saying that I’m saying shit that I’m not actually saying.]
I am a fat CrossFitter. And I love it. Not the being fat. The CrossFitting. I love that I can clean and jerk 113 pounds and deadlift 213. I love that when I started, I was doing black-band (a.k.a. Johnny Jump-up) pull-ups, and now I use the blue. I love that I do nothing but bona fide push-ups. I love that I can hold a handstand against a wall for over a minute and a freestanding one for a couple seconds. I love CrossFit.
And I love you, my coaches and fellow athletes. Probably 94% of the reason I go is because I get to hang out with y’all.
But there’s some etiquette that I think is lacking in the community in general. It’s OK—don’t blame yourself—you didn’t know. I didn’t know not to drop an empty bar until somebody told me.
So here are some suggestions. And I think I speak for many fat CrossFitters.
1. RUNNING
See how I’m running half as fast as everybody else? Yeah, that’s actually my dead sprint. You’re thinking, “No…that can’t possibly…” Yep. It’s true. I’m pushing myself as hard as I possibly can.
Coaches, have some technical critique? Good. Say it. Keep it brief. Make it simple. And don’t give me more than one to think about. Just one. Remember, I’m about to die here.
Fellow athletes, think you need to cheer me on? If you really need to for you, go ahead. But if you don’t, that means I can pretend that nobody sees exactly how slow I am.
2. WODs
Notice how everybody’s finished with the WOD, and I still have an entire round left? At this point, in case you were wondering, I’m terribly, terribly embarrassed. As many times as this has happened, and it’s a lot, I still feel like hiding under a pile of ab-mats.
Do you feel like you need to run with me? Do kettlebell swings with me? Count for me? That’s so sweet. You don’t. Do you feel the urge to do solidarity burpees until I call time? That might accomplish the opposite of what you were intending. On top of my shame, you’ve just piled jealousy (fantastic—look how much fitter she is than I am) and/or guilt (oh shit, dude’s gonna have to do over two hundred burpees).
And imagine you decide to swing a kettlebell with me, the coach chooses that moment to watch and give pointers, and a third party is just staring and cheering. Three people studying my slow ass. That’s a good combo to make me spiral into a Cyclone of Despair.
Here’s what you do. You sit or stand far away. Across the gym. You pretend to talk to someone else. Once, just once, you look over and yell, “You got it, [fat CrossFitter]!” which makes you feel supportive and me watched, but not too much.
3. PHOTOS
Those photos you took of me working out? Restrain yourself from uploading them to Facebook. I’ll write my name and shitty time on the board. I’ll fess up to a measly 2-pound PR in the comments on your website. But despite all evidence to the contrary, I like to maintain a fantasy that I’m a badass when I work out. Your public photos show me how delusional I am and the internet exactly how many chins I have.
4. COMMENTS
Comment on my push press PR. Chat me up about my good back squat form. But please don’t tell me I’m looking skinny. We both know that’s a lie, so it just makes things awkward.
That’s it. Follow these guidelines, and fat CrossFitters everywhere will think you’re a sensitive, supportive, all-around-awesome person.
Interesting things happen when it’s nighttime. To wit: my friends and I threw a prom of sorts on Saturday night. It was nominally a birthday party for me (36) and Anna (three-oh!) but, as I said in the invitation, mostly an excuse for us to get dressed up in fancy clothes and sway to the musical stylings of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Of course, we also told people they could wear pajama pants if they wanted to.
In the planning phase, we tried to come up with a suitable venue. We weren’t sure how many people would show up. I didn’t trust my mansion to hold the crowd so we asked the owner of CrossFit Durham if we could have it there and, being the coolest ever, he said yes.
Do you remember going to your elementary school at night, like when your mom had a PTA meeting or something? Remember how weird it seemed? The light was different, no lines of second-graders waiting to put their germy cheeks against the water fountain spigot. You’d pick up a pencil, and it just wouldn’t seem like the same implement as it did between 8:00 and 2:30. That’s a little how it was being at CFD without the overheads on, without the grunting.
Four of us had spent an hour hanging up glittery stars and white Christmas lights on the pull-up bars. Anna had had the presence of mind to bring floor lamps, so we could turn off the fluorescents, thank god. Lindsay made an awesome polaroid frame (see pic below). And that was it! We were ready for prom.
Now only 20 people came—I don’t know if folks were scared off by the prom theme or what—but those of us who were there had a ridiculously fun time. The equipment we use for WODs? Suddenly it all became props in our prom farce.
That’s not how you hold a sledgehammer; I just wanted to make sure my corsage was visible.(Something jokey jokey joke. Pull-up bar while wearing a push-up bra. Nope. I don’t have it.)
That big open space we use to do burpees? Well, that was the dancefloor.
I lasted 57 minutes in the heels before I took them off. That’s 37 minutes longer than I promised.
Anyway, IT WAS SO FUN.
All because it was nighttime in the gym.
Of course, last night, I woke up because my foot was all sting-y. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom to look at the sore spot. The underside of my ring toe was cut, right where the toe meets the foot. I washed it, slathered it in Neosporin, stuck a band-aid on it, and crawled back in bed.
But just as the elementary school library looks like a labyrinth after 7:00pm, ideas take different shape in the nighttime. I started spinning tales in my head. See, my friend M had a blister about this time last year, and maybe it was the State Fair and maybe it was the gym, but somehow that tiny foot wound sent her to the hospital with a staph infection. In the nighttime, with me in my bed, it seemed not only plausible that that would happen to me but an absolute done deal.
But nighttime doesn’t stop there. In the few months after her hospital stay, M’s house got robbed, and she got breast cancer. (Talk about all-time worst years, right?) So there I am last night, in the fetal position, certain that I’m going to lose everything I own and need a double mastectomy. Stupid nighttime.
This morning, after my coffee, I soaked my foot in salty water and applied more antiseptic cream, and I sit here pretty sure that I won’t be coming home to a pillaged house after my chemo treatment in a few months.
But I’m still worried I’m headed for the ER in a day or two.
Thrice in my life, I have fainted. Long about the third time, the cause/effect relationship was easy to identify. Here it is.
If I am:
standing
on a moving train
in the morning
without having eaten breakfast
I will faint.
Weirdest thing. I get all woozy. My vision narrows to nothing. And then I find myself supine on the train floor with a bunch of startled passengers wondering if I’m preggers or ODing. Or my sister does her best to carry me off the T, but I manage to get my shoe caught between the train and the platform and fall onto the marble floor.
Anyway, point is, it’s a formula; these circumstances lead to my faintage. Now I can avoid the situation by, say, eating breakfast or taking a cab. (Or moving somewhere with a really poor public transportation system therefore having to drive to work. Ah, done.)
I just wish it were easier for me to delineate other cause/effect relationships.
Like, for example, the one that led to my epic fucking temper tantrum at the gym tonight.
Is it that if I:
spend two days untagging myself from Fight Gone Bad photos on Facebook because I am just goddamn enormous,
eat two pieces of sheet cake at my principal’s goodbye luncheon,
take a two-hour nap,
watch all the other females in class do some semblance of handstand push-ups while I still struggle with the hands-on-floor/knees-on-box/ass-in-the-air variety,
and finally, not be able to do any double-unders during the WOD (seriously, after getting 32 in a row last week, tonight I was getting two or one or none),
then I will have a big ol’ crying fit and storm out of the gym without saying goodbye to anyone?
Is that the formula?
Did I figure it out?
‘Cause if that’s it, maybe I can circumvent the Grand Tanty by drinking a cup of coffee or not eating Harris Teeter bakery products.
Or maybe I’ll just send out an invitation next time: Come to Amy’s Low Self-Esteem Day at CrossFit Durham!!
