My darlings, I have had a fantastic run in this space. You all have given me an amazing, laugh-filled five years. I am thankful to you all. Still, I know that the road is winding for me and the destination uncertain. I think it’s important for me to focus on the journey.
Y con eso les digo “adiós, mis queridos.”
Fin
I am slightly ashamed to admit that I read the Daily Mail on a fairly regular basis. I am further ashamed to admit that I often read the Femail section of the site. I like British hats and I am kind of obsessed with the Duchess of Cambridge’s coat dresses. Today when I visited, I saw this bullshittery from Samantha Brick on the front page of the section:
Figure 1: From here.
Of course that was sufficient to troll me into clicking. I suspect that was, of course, the point given that what followed is so absurd that I can’t believe it’s a serious piece of writing. But, knowing that some will fail to see this as the farce it surely must be, this part particularly frightens me:
Chocolate, cakes, sweets and any other calorie-rich, fat-laden ‘foods’ are banned in my home.
For three decades, self-denial has been my best friend. And one of my biggest incentives is that I know men prefer slim women.
I have only ever dated men who kept a strict eye on my figure. My partners are not only boyfriends but weight-loss coaches.
My first love continually reminded me that one can never be too rich or too thin, and my husband of five years frequently tells me that if I put on weight he will divorce me.
In the workplace, male bosses will always give the top job to a woman who looks fit and in control, rather than one who looks like a bulging sack in danger of imminent cardiac arrest.
I have some insight here, as I was overweight until I was 14 years old. Bitter experience taught me that the world pays no attention to dumpy girls.
It makes me so, so sad in my soul that we women continue to tie our appearance and self-worth to what we think men will find attractive. I think that maintaining a healthy weight is important. It’s good for our hearts and brains and joints. But, the opposite extreme of the spectrum also exists. Here, Samantha Brick describes her diet tactics:
I fainted with hunger on one occasion – a minor hitch, eclipsed by the fact that I was being asked out on lots of dates.
At college I invented the Polo diet. Eating a pack of mints for breakfast and another for lunch, I could make each one last hours….
I am 5ft 11in and slimmed down to a size 8. One of my lecturers was so worried she pulled me aside to voice her concern. I put her intervention down to jealousy, as she was a size 16.
The Polo diet paid off: I could wear whatever I wanted and looked fantastic. I stopped only after a stern lecture from my dentist about the damage I was doing to my teeth.
My 20s were dominated by dieting, and I managed to stay a steady size 8/10. If I put on a pound or two, I simply skipped a meal. I actually enjoyed – and still do – the hunger pangs. I see them as a reminder that I am not pigging out on pizzas and fast food.
I even chose holidays according to the indigenous diet. India was a favourite because I lost weight on meagre vegetarian servings.
To avoid culinary temptation, I even made a point of renting a house without a kitchen. Of course, constantly denying myself food was not and is not easy, but it has always brought enough rewards to make it worthwhile…I’d have a large black coffee for breakfast, so strong the caffeine would make me tremble. For lunch I’d eat a bagel with the bread inside scooped out and replaced with salad. Evening meals were either sushi or egg-white omelettes…
Like my female French in-laws, I follow an extreme low-calorie diet four times a year – one each season. I lose at least half-a-stone each time, though the side-effects mean that I don’t have the mental or physical fortitude to work.
Having lived my life on the chunkier and normal weight portions of the spectrum, I know that the times I have been heavy have almost always been related to some internal discontent. Sadness about something, or anxiety. I suspect that Samantha Brick’s extreme diet tactics stem from the same sort of thing. Her inner turmoil manifests itself in her control over her weight.
But what angers me about this piece is that I am certain that some young women will read it and take it to heart. They’ll hear the message that their self-worth is gauged by whether they have “never been without a boyfriend” and think that living on a diet of after dinner mints is the only way to achieve it. That they’ll won’t consider whether there is actually value in spending parts of your life alone and independent, discovering who you are and what makes you happy before you partner up for the long haul. And in terms of her partner, Brick writes:
My self-control has slipped, on occasion, and I have found myself putting on weight. When I married my French husband, Pascal, in 2008, I wasn’t at my thinnest. I suffered a bout of depression after losing my television company the previous year, and had gone up to a size 14.
Luckily for me, there is no better weight-loss incentive than a Frenchman. Pascal would not tolerate a fat wife and has told me that if I put on weight, our marriage is over. What more motivation do I need?
A man who would divorce you for gaining weight certainly can’t be a source of real happiness. And why is Samantha Brick so afraid to be without a man?
Samantha Brick ends her article with this sentence:
The world admonished Kate Moss for claiming that ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ but I’d go further. As I see it, there is nothing in life that signifies failure better than fat.
I’d go even further than that. Nothing signifies self-loathing and discontent like the type of life Samantha Brick is advocating.
Even though it is dreary and rainy and miserable outside my window right now…
Figure 1: The view from my bed as I type this post. Blah.
…I have decided that spring has sprung, my darlings. I am in need of some festively floral footwear and found these while sipping my coffee this morning.
Figure 2: Bandolino’s Tortolla Wedge. $54.95 at DSW.
I don’t want to hear any bitching and complaining about the lab or safety or other such bullshittery from you lot this morning. These shoes are not meant for the lab. These shoes are meant for frolicking about in the gorgeous, sunny, warm weather!!!!!!!!!!!
You know. As soon as it stops raining.
Also, these shoes make me think of Pascale Lane for some reason.
Having gotten a run in today and having been a generally healthy eater, I have earned myself an evening of indulgence. Lincoln on DVD, gingersnaps, and white violet drinking chocolate. Gloriousness.
My heart can barely handle Gidget as Mary Todd Lincoln.
I just finished a 5K run, chasing Little Isis on his bike. For those who may not follow me on Twitter, I usually post about my runs using the hashtag #rundouchery and my bike rides with the hashtag #bikedouchery. It makes me really happy that there are now other scientists and science-minded folks that use the hashtags to brag about their workouts. Still, about once every couple of months someone pipes in to ask “Um, why is running [or biking] douchey?”
I thought I would give a bit of history for why I started the hashtags, and maybe encourage some participation from those of you not yet using it.
When I started the hashtag about a year ago I had come to the realization that I had gained about 50 lbs. I’ve written before (Somewhere around here. You all are better at digging in my archives than I am) about the ongoing struggles I’ve had with my weight and how healthy eating and exercise helped me to lose 80 lbs and keep it off for quite a bit. Well, after some struggles getting pregnant and having staph, I gained 20 lbs of it back. Then I finally got pregnant and gained another 20 lbs. Then I had Tiny Diva and, in my overwhelmedness with mothering two children, I gained 10 lbs more. Soon enough, I was firmly in plus sized territory. I can’t disparage anyone for how they look, or their size, but I can tell you that this amount of weight was not healthy for me. My knees hurt and I was short of breath when doing small things.
I knew what I needed to get back to, but it was so hard for me to imagine how I was going to fit fitness into my schedule. I also have the sort of mentality where it is hard for me to be motivated to eat a healthy diet without activity. They seem to be mutually reinforcing. I eat well so that activity feels better and when I feel better I am more motivated to eat well. Still, having the two kids made it so, so, so hard.
The thing is, as an exercise physiologist, I work with athletes. Not casual gym goers. Athletes. These are the sort of folks who train for things and win races. Like me, they have families and I got to thinking about how their lifestyle was different from mine. The biggest difference was that they made their fitness a priority. I was trying to fit it into the nooks and crannies my children left me at the end of the day. Work and children and families are funny little fuckers though. If you let them, they will expand and fill every crevasse of your day and leave you with nothing. Nothing, I tell you.
But some of my colleagues were making fitness and family work for them and I am a believer in learning from others’ examples. We know around my workplace not to look for one of my colleagues between 11 and 2. We know not to schedule meetings during that time. That’s the time that he uses to swim or run when he’s not in clinics. He also rides his bike to and from work every day, ~10 miles each way. I asked him one time how he managed to get everything done when he is spending so much time working out and he looked at me with a puzzled look, as if to say “I just do.”
That attitude boggled my mind and, I will confess, I had always considered those types of athletes to be a little douchey about their fitness. But, I realized that beyond all the gear and inappropriate spandex, these folks were really putting their fitness and well-being first. So, I endeavored to become a little douchey about fitness and thought that I might try to emulate my colleague and bike to work. I also live ~10 miles from work.
I hadn’t ridden a bike in >20 years, but it seemed like a hilarious thing to try. I can’t tell you in retrospect what made me choose biking other than getting back to running at my size was near impossible. I had put on enough weight that I had developed plantar fasciitis in my left foot. I went to Trek because it seemed like the douchiest of the places. I hesitantly rode several bikes around their parking lot, but ultimately bought the middle of the line bike because I was overwhelmed and exhausted and it was within my budget.
A friend helped me plot a map to get to work. The first time I rode to work I did so with my hands clenched so hard on the handle bars, my hands hurt. I also didn’t realize that you were supposed to downshift up a hill and upshift down a hill, doing it backwards, it took me ~2 hours to get to work. At work one of my colleagues chuckled at my cycling mistake, set me straight, and it took me only 45 minutes to get home. I thought I was a stone cold bad ass when I got home that day. That was the day #bikedouchery was born.
Realizing that my bike and car commute took the same amount of time, it was pretty easy to commit to a bike commute while the weather was >40 degrees. As the season moved on I moved into padded shorts and bought proper bike shoes and my douchiness has only escalated exponentially. By the time winter came, I had lost 25lbs and running came much more easily. I ran over the winter to keep my fitness up. Last weekend my friend and I ran 12 miles through a river, through mud, and over ice. We were douchey as hell about it.
Figure 1: That’s me on the trail.
I’ve now lost a little more than 40 of the pounds I gained and I can only credit it to having committed to all of this instead of trying to fit it in. I think my real life friends are tired of hearing about my exploits, and that I can’t go out because I have a date with a run, but that’s now how I roll. The funniest part was that I took my bike down this week for the season and, when I tried to ride it, I realized that it doesn’t feel right any more. It’s fit for a person who is a lot more person. That means a trip to the bike store to get refit and, perhaps, an opportunity to add more spandex to my life.
Douchey as hell.
