Working Out Your Work Out

"Thigh gap" is one of the most nauseating phrases in the English language. Say it a few times. Think about it. It's enough to make your skin crawl.

This physical "feature" is the new fad goal for every girl who wants to be thin and, thereby, socially accepted as beautiful. It's a farce, a scam, a fool's errand of a goal, which has been exposed as such by countless doctors, personal trainers, and random bloggers. It is a fact that no matter how low the needle on the scale gets, my earlobes will be attached to my jawline by a bit of flesh and my thighs will touch when I stand. In spite of its scientific implausibility, it maintains popularity because it belongs to a genus that women cannot do without: a reason to work out.

Throughout the entirety of history, there has been some physical feature that has been prized above all others. It has varied, to be sure, sometimes swinging from one thing to its polar opposite. At times, we coveted small waists. At others, small hips. Porcelain skin was celebrated as a sign of opulence, but now everyone strives to be some shade of gold or bronze. For a long period of time, all the ladies of high society were fat. Now we need to be lean and fit and lithe.

So here's my take away: working out should not be connected to a personal appearance goal.

Let me explain before you all toss back your heads and howl your angry dissent.

I'll make this personal.

I am plagued by the same self-image issues that follow all other women through their lives. There are parts of my body that I don't like. I have striven to work out in a way that would "fix" me. Flatten the stomach, firm up the arms, etc.

I've walked, I've run. I've done Zumba, free weights, and swimming. I always had some concrete goal, some mental image of myself, and I imagined that if I pushed myself hard enough, if I was disciplined enough, I would somehow become perfectly beautiful to myself and everyone else.

I never got there. Everyone has a personal brick wall into which they slam. Mine is chronic pain, persistent migraines, hypermobile joints and... well, generally, weighty health problems. I never accomplished any of my fitness goals because two days, two weeks, or two months into my exercise regiment, I would buckle physically. Some malady would derail me. I would be side-lined for days, weeks, or months while my body recovered from whatever ailment had overwhelmed me.

I think this would have frustrated me if I had the determination to cling to my goals, but I wasn't that persistent. I gave up. It was simple and easy. When you have to come to a full stop at the first milestone of your marathon, you walk away. There isn't any point to trying to finish that marathon because that long of a stretch is downright impossible.

So marathons are impossible for me. I will not be a triathlete, I will not be a super-fit superwoman. That is physically impossible for me to accomplish with the anatomy I have been given. So why try at all? I can't become perfectly sculpted. I have failed every time I give myself a fitness goal.

So I've gotten rid of the fitness goal.

You've read that correctly. I have no fitness goals. I don't have a distance or time goal for running. I don't have a magazine clipping hanging on my mirror that features some celebrity looking perfectly thin and perfectly fit. I have abolished all of my fitness goals.

I don't exercise so I can be something. I exercise because I can exercise. Every morning when I wake up, I take a personal pain inventory. Head to toe, I mentally check off each body part and register how much pain it is radiating. If I can, I put on my running clothes, slip on my shoes, and head out for a jog or brisk walk.

I have no extreme goals. It's moderate - extremely moderate - exercise. I don't push myself to exhaustion. I don't try to go farther and faster than I did yesterday. I just go.

As my feet pound the pavement, I fight the urge to go faster and harder. I force myself to slow down from a sprint. Listening to my footfalls, I am tempted to be frustrated with how slow and heavy they seem. I need to remember and be thankful that today, I'm on my feet and they are moving.

When I am tempted to be frustrated by my mile time, I concentrate on being grateful that today, I can go a mile.

When I want to hate my arm flab, I concentrate on being grateful that today, my arms can move and lift some weight.

When I feel my heart pounding and my lungs burning, I concentrate on being grateful that today, my lungs are working.

I cannot workout to achieve a physical goal. I cannot workout to become something. But I can work out.

Today, I can walk, I can run, I can move without tremendous amounts of pain. I may not be able to tomorrow. But that's ok. I can today.

If the exercise itself is the goal, you won't frustrate yourself into depression. You won't be encouraging a tendency to judge your body without mercy.

In the midst of my fitness frenzies, I wasn't ever happy with my body. I don't suppose I ever will be completely happy with it. But I think it's time we disassociate exercise and body image. I don't think any amount of exercise will ever make me 100% happy with what I see reflected in the mirror. If I were to make a perfect body the goal of my exercise, I'd be setting myself up to achieve perfect failure.

But the frustrations of self-image don't have to be the frustrations of exercising. Exercising is something you should do because you deserve it. Don't exercise so you can deserve that new dress or that piece of chocolate. Exercise because your body is a gift. You can move, stretch, and push yourself because you are a beautiful and wonderful creature. Don't make yourself move, stretch, and push in an effort to become beautiful or wonderful.

Stop the mental games. Exercise should not be a punishment that yields the reward of a toned body. Make it simple, make it easy, make it a joy. Lace up those sneakers and hit the pavement. Don't do it to become beautiful. Do it because you are beautiful.

Abolish that form of self-punishment that you call exercise.

Adopt exercise as an exercise of gratitude.

Redefining Feminism

Invisible lines have caused me a lot of problems in my life.

I don't know where they are. I tend to be overly confident in my understanding of them. Consequently, I stumble across and land on my face into the quagmire of the "other side" of the line with frightening frequency.

We walk along a lot of lines in our lives. We have to "toe them," but sometimes we "cross them" to serve a bigger purpose. One line, in particular, has been on my mind a lot recently. What is the line of feminine feminism? I guess, more accurately, the question would be where is the line? What is feminism, even? Not what it has been, but what it should be.

I consider myself a traditionalist. I have traditional values, traditional expectations, and believe in traditional gender roles. I considered myself - until very recently - to be about as far from a feminist as was humanly possible.

But something has changed. I like to think that I am a feminist, with the proper understanding of that word.

Feminism isn't about demeaning men.

Feminism isn't about burning our bras as we yell passionately about our rights.

Feminism isn't about turning women into men.

Feminism came about because it is enormously insulting and demeaning to have a patient refer to you as "your girl" to the doctor. Because hearing that makes you go, "excuse me??? I am nobody's girl."

Feminism came about because it is entirely unfair to be told, "Oh, it's okay, I expect you to make mistakes. You are a woman."

Feminism isn't about making women into these perfect beings who can do no wrong. It's about giving them the respect that is demanded by their human dignity. If I make a mistake, it's not because I'm a woman. It's because I'm human.

True femininity does not consist of skirt wearing, elegant jewelry, and a distaste for getting your hands dirty. 

True feminism does not consist in angry rants and belittling men.

We need to redefine femininity and feminism. We need to retake them and make them real virtues.

Women: don't be ditzes. Don't be angry.

Be strong. Be compassionate. Be intelligent. Be gentle. Be selfless.

Don't attach your self-worth to an ideology that makes you less than you are, traditionalist or feminist. Don't look at the people on the other side of the line between femininity and feminism and condemn them. The truth of the matter is, there shouldn't be a line. No one should have to deny a whole aspect of their personhood. There is nothing unfeminine about independence. There is no reason to be ashamed of gentleness.

Why must we draw lines where there are none? We must redefine those words; we must change expectations.

We must be feminine, feminist women. 


 

Public Service Announcement | For Men, From Me

Dear Men and Undereducated Women,

There is a misconception about women and their hormonal cycle, namely, that there exists one week in a month that is a time fraught with hormones. We are expected to be slightly crazed and unreasonable during this time because of a sudden influx of extreme chemicals.

Now, this might be true to a certain extent. There is a time of the month that is distinctive. There are certain tell-tale signs: depression, crying, crankiness, etc. But let me tell you, it's the tip of a hormonal iceberg. It is, simply, a time of the month. See this picture?

Yeah. So that's the month long picture. Our bodies are always a hormonal circus. Yay! We have all of these different chemicals racing through our bodies at different times in different amounts and different ratios. It can make us happy, sad, angry, loving, suspicious, or just downright bonkers on any given day. There is a chemical reason for almost every emotion, but I don't expect any of you men to keep track of these things in that much detail. I simply mean to alert you to the fact that hormones are a constant source of inspiration for females.

So don't belittle us to being abnormal at one point in the month. We are delicately balanced creatures who ought to always be handled with gentleness and sincerity all the time. Every day is a new, exciting, hormonal adventure. It's the physical roller-coaster that never ends.

End of announcement.