After hearing several stories about the Wii being designed to make people feel bad about themselves, I decided to try it for myself.

I started by creating my Mii (my avatar, it’s like playing paperdolls with WAY too many options).  Much time was taken on what type of eyebrows were most representative of me, and whether or not I wanted to wear sunglasses.  I tried to accurately represent my body type but, like so many misguided clothing designers, the Wii assumes that the shorter you are the thinner you must be, so I wasn’t able to get an accurate representation of my figure.  Disappointed by undaunted I moved on.

My Mii created, I started Wii’s assessment process.  It asked me for my height, the weight of my clothes, and my birthday.  It didn’t ask anything about bone structure, build, or workout habits.

In the “things I wish someone had told me category”, when you step on the balance board it makes a surprised “Oh!” sound.  Apparently it does that for people of any weight, but it could be a bit off-putting.

Then the fun really began.  It gave me a little lecture about posture, then looked at how good my posture is (almost perfectly as it turns out).

Then it weighed me in.  My Mii started to expand – ah, I thought, that looks much more like me.  I was quite pleased.

But then the bad thing happened.   It played some music that was as  ominous as simple digitized notes can be, and my Mii began to look very sad and concerned.  So now my body was right, but my happy chipper disposition was gone.  I looked depressed and worried.  That’s not like me.

My Body Mass Index (a calculation of weight and height – more about this later) popped up on the screen along with a scale of underweight to obese.  My marker shot up to the top of the obese category and a chipper voice said “That’s Obese!”

Then it told me that my real age was 45 (at which point my Mii bent over and held her back in pain) and that my BMI told it that my body was weaker than it should be.  Having just leg-pressed about a thousand pounds  a few days before, I was curious what the Mii thought I should be able to lift.  Plus I don’t have any back pain and I wanted to ask it why it thought I (and apparently 45 year old women everywhere) did.  Unfortunately  it doesn’t really respond to questions.

Now the kicker.  It told me that a healthy weight for me might be 119.5lbs.  Many of you know that during college I developed a little  issue with not eating and working out all the time.  I went to the hospital briefly and was diagnosed as an EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified).   I weighed 135lbs.  So I’m going to disagree with the Mii about my goal weight.

Once we got through that and played the actual games, they were fun and some of them were a at least a bit of a workout.  I had high hopes for the Wii because I’m a big advocate of people having fun ways to add movement to their lives if they choose.   My conclusion is that it would be fun if it didn’t come with all that shame piled on top.  I haven’t tested this but I’ve been told that if you don’t weigh in it constantly bugs you about it.

It’s not just big people either, a friend of mine told me that her son is underweight due to kidney problems and his Mii looks small and wimpy and makes him feel bad.

Here’s where Wii need to apply just a little bit of common sense.

First, BMI was meant to be used over extremely broad, statistically significant sample sizes.  It was not meant to be used on an individual basis due to it’s propensity for being grossly inaccurate in those cases.  Take me, for example.  I’m a healthy athlete but according to my BMI (which falls into Category 3:  Super Obese – which is as fat as you can get on the BMI chart), I should be pretty much be dead right no

You cannot tell someone’s health based on their height and weight.  You just can’t.  Wii need to stop being so lazy.

Even if my BMI was correct, representing me as  fat and depressed, and telling me that my body is weak and old is pretty much the crappiest motivation technique ever.

If you want to get healthier, I would suggest that the first step is to start appreciating the health that you have now – whatever that is.  If you’re reading this, you’re probably breathing so start there.  You don’t even ask it to, yet there your body is, breathing in and out just when you need it to.  Your eyes are probably blinking – there’s your body again, supporting your ability to see through healthy eyes.  Start appreciating the little things.  Can you walk or wheel yourself across the room?  Pat yourself on the back, thank your body for that.  Stop focusing on the things that you have been taught aren’t good enough, or pretty enough or whatever enough.  Refuse to buy into a culture of body hate.  Love yourself, then make choices.  If you haven’t already, find foods that you and your body both like, find ways to move that make you and your body health.  Start loving your body right now and you’ll be healthier, mentally and physically, right now.

This weekend was so amazing.  My non-profit hosted a screening of America the Beautiful.  The film takes a powerful look at America’s obsession with beauty, and the filmmaker – Darryl Roberts – was impressive and inspiring and well-received by an audience of people for 15 to 65.

On Saturday I had the opportunity to be part of an amazing panel.  It included CJ Legare, the first plus-sized model ever signed to Elite Model Management, and the owner of Power Pinc; Darryl Robert – the filmmaker of America the Beautiful; Amanda Buller – licensed and registered Dietician for the University of Texas; Rozana Zaifer-Sims Psy.D and eating disorder expert, Alexis Jones founder of i am that girl, and top 3 finalist on Survivor;  and me.

I was so inspired by the message and story that each one of these people brought to the table, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend time with them.  The name of the panel was “Does Health at Every Size Work?”.  We had a lot of differences – age, gender, race, our stories, our speaking topics, our philosophies, and the audiences to whom we usually speak.  We didn’t even all have the same idea about Health at Every Size, but we could all get behind the idea that in order for people to be willing to take consistently good care of themselves, they probably have to like themselves first.

And it was bigger than that.  For that glorious couple of hours, we became a mutual admiration society – we had a dialog, we learned from- and were inspired by – each other, and I will say for myself that I came away much better for the experience.  We weren’t six speakers who felt like we had to keep it close to the vest because we’re “competing” for the same gigs and attention.  We weren’t activists looking for attention and a by-line.  We were people who want something so much that we are willing to transcend our differences, and the idea of competition,  and play on the same team

That’s where the power is. Not just in the field of self-esteem and body image, but everywhere.  When we start looking for common goals and  playing like we’re on the same team, then we can’t help but make the world better.  You couldn’t have a baseball team that was made up entirely of pitchers – you need different players for different jobs and it’s no different out in the world – we need all of our voices to be heard.

So, don’t just let your amazing light shine, look for opportunities to help others do the same and watch the magic happen.  You are an amazing being and you  never need to dim someone else’s light to make yours brighter, and I know that for sure.

If you want to make the world better, if you want to help people love themselves more, then I want to be on your team – just tell me how I can help and put me in coach!

Thank you CJ, Alexis, Darryl, Rozana, and Amanda – you all inspire me more than you will probably ever know!

I recently undertook  a decidedly unscientific experiment to catalog a sample of what messages I get about my body from the world around me in a 24 hour period.  Instead of posting specific examples (because I heard some ugly things that I’d rather not repeat), I’ve decided instead to group them by category.  I looked at the data and drew more than conclusions – I drew a new approach to my online personality and communications (more about that in a minute).

I chose a typical day – I went to the grocery store, I was on the internet for business and for personal surfing, I drove for a couple of hours with the radio on.  I was on Facebook and Livejournal.  I don’t watch regular TV (with commercials) so there is none of that.  I purposefully didn’t go to any websites that were specifically about weight or weight loss, any comments that I read were attached to news stories that had nothing to do with weight or weight loss (for example, unprovoked what I can only call  fat bashing abounded on articles about healthcare legislation that had nothing to do with weight).  I only included examples that stated things outright (so I did not include, for example, magazines with page after page of thin models, even though I think that sends a  pretty strong message that thin is the only body type that is beautiful). Examples are only counted in one category.

Here are the top-sheet results:

• Messages stating that it is impossible to be healthy at my weight:  217

• Messages stating that my weight makes me unattractive:  123

• Messages stating that I am lazy and don’t exercise/don’t exercise enough, lack will power, or am not “in control”:  311

• Messages stating that I need to reach a specific BMI to be healthy:  36

• Messages stating that I am a drain on the health care system:  116

• Messages stating that I have poor eating habits:  84

• Messages suggesting that I should be “repulsed by my weight” [used those words specifically]: 19

• Messages calling me a derisive name:  152

• Messages saying something positive about people with large bodies:  3

• Messages that specifically shouted down those 3 positive comments: 231 (these are included in the categories above so they are not added into the total below)

Let’s review:

• Total messages about my body:  1061

• Total negative messages:  1058

• Total positive messages:  3

• About 353 negative message for each positive message.

If we extrapolate, I have been receiving:

• 7406 negative messages about my body each week

• 31,740 negative messages about my body each  month

• 386,170 negative messages about my body each year

Now it’s audience participation time…

Do you think that hearing 386,170 negative messages about my body makes me more likely to:

a.  appreciate my body in a way that makes me want to take good care of it

b.  become a silent monk living in the mountains with no technology

c.  hate myself and feel like a failure who doesn’t deserve to be treated well by myself or others

d.  b. and c., but not a.

If you answered d, you get the prize because in so many cases you would be correct.

Here’s the thing though, the answer for me is a.  Based on my BMI (and don’t get me started about why that is a crap measurement)  I am Type III – Super Obese.  I am as fat as you can get on the BMI scale.  I am also in perfect health (just had my cholesterol, blood pressure, glucose, etc. checked on two days ago).  I have an amazing, active life.  I workout about 25 hours a week, dance competitively, and love getting up in front of a crowd of people.  I appreciate my body and I treat it well.  I date.  I have friends.  So why am I so unaffected by these messages when I see so many people who are emotionally crippled by this onslaught of negativity?
I think the answer comes down to self-esteem.  Mine seems to be intrinsic – it comes from inside of me. I don’t look for outside approval to make me certain that I am a good person, worthy of love and success.  I see my self-esteem as precious and am committed that the self-righteous people who make assumptions and judge, and the  beauty/diet/plastic surgery/etc. industries can have my self-esteem when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

So, what is my new perspective?  In looking back at my own blog as well as  the comments that I leave on other blogs, new stories etc.,  I notice that I spend a lot of time addressing some of the 386,170 messages.  While I think that it’s important to expose what’s going on , I also feel that  a better use of a lot of my time from now on is adding to the 3 positive comments.  Showing that there is another option – that you can opt out of a culture where people make assumptions and judgments and try to make you feel bad about yourself so that they can feel superior (or at least better about themselves), or convince you that buying what they are selling will make you love yourself.  We are all intrinsically amazing – and we all deserve to love and cherish ourselves and our bodies and be respected by others – just as we are, right this second.

You may have heard that Lincoln University is requiring students whose BMI is over 30 to take a class called “Fitness for Life”.  I think that this is a cheap publicity stunt (see #5 below) and I have many, many problems with it.  Let’s just name a few:

1.  It forces students to undergo unnecessary examination and disclose personal health information to everyone in the University (since everyone can see who walks in and out of the class). I’m aware that people think that they can see who is obese and who isn’t, but you might be surprised. and no student should be required to undergo this type of unnecessary invasion of privacy.

2.  It makes broad assumptions that a population who engage in [what the University is  assuming are the] contributing behaviors to an outcome has no knowledge of  them.  It makes me wonder if students who get pregnant are required to take a class on sex education.  College is a time for students to seek knowledge, not have it forced upon them by the university fat police.

3. It places an unfair burden on certain students for a reason that has nothing to do with their ability to achieve the academic degree they seek.  And it’s not just the time spent taking the class – studying etc.  As I understand it, the students have to pay per credit hour taken (and this is not a cheap University) so it also places an unfair financial burden on those students.

4.  It’s unlikely to be successful.  We already know that 95% of dieters who choose to diet fail.  The rates of failure are even higher among people for whom dieting is imposed.  We know that BMI was never meant to be used on individuals, it was developed for use in populations large enough to be statistically significant.  Yet “experts” continue to assert that if we make people hate their bodies enough they’ll want to take better care of them, and that dieting works – never mind those 95% of people for whom it never has.

5. It’s just a publicity stunt.  I know this because if they are so concerned about this, they would require every student to take the class. Plenty of people gain weight later in life – if they truly believe that this class will help people have “Fitness for Life” then why wouldn’t they want every student to take it?

6.  It starts a dangerous precedent.  I’m not completely clear on what constitutes “passing” for this particular class and I couldn’t find anything through my research.  It doesn’t appear that students actually have to lose weight but that doesn’t preclude it.  Maybe someday actual weight loss will be required.  Maybe not at Lincoln, but some other University will decide that they want to be the first that doesn’t graduate a single obese person, or a single person who smokes, or a single  unwed mother.  When colleges get to start passing or failing people on arbitrary non-academic grounds, a dangerous box is opened.

7.  This class will not present new information.  The diet industry is a 40 BILLION dollar a year enterprise and a massive marketing machine.  Plus these students have already been through high school health curriculum, and are unlikely to have lived under a rock prior to coming to Lincoln, so one doubts that they somehow missed the propaganda about obesity.

8.  The public is paying for it.  While it is considered a Private University, Lincoln is in a special category of Pennsylvania Universities known as “state-related”.  This means that it receives public funds but remains under independent control and is exempt from Pennsylvania’s open records laws. Meaning the people of Pennsylvania are funding this with their tax dollars, but  have no say in this or any other program at Lincoln.

Of course, in theory students may choose whether or not to go to Lincoln.  In my research I’ve found that the program has existed since 2006, and that this year’s seniors will be the first to be affected so it sounds like it is possible that this year’s seniors were aware of the program before they enrolled.  However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have a choice – since many parents make that decision for their children.  Plus, as a historically African American University, Lincoln is a legacy college and  many of the students who go there are part of a legacy line and  face tremendous pressure to attend.

Every student deserves an education free from harassment, persecution, and torment.  Lincoln University is choosing to create an environment of bullying, shame, and humiliation all for the sake of a cheap publicity stunt.  Shame on them.

I’ve been anemic several times in my life.  I noticed that I was having the symptoms so I told my acupuncturist.  My acupuncturist requested that I get a blood panel confirming and, like an idiot, I went to my doctor.  They told me to step on the scale and I said “No thank you” which always gets us off to a rockin’ start.  The nurse opened my folder and her eyes went wide (I assume that my previous doctor had made notes about the cholesterol test debacle (which you can read about in my blog post “A Tale of Two Cholesterol Tests”). Regardless, whatever she read shook her so much that she forgot to take my blood pressure.  She left, the doctor entered and that’s where the fun starts.

Doctor:  What seems to be the problem?

Me:  I think I’m anemic, I’m having the following symptoms….

Doctor:  At your weight, it’s diabetes.  Lose 50 pounds and come back.

Me:  (remaining calm) I’m happy to entertain that as a possibility, but I’m going to want a blood test to confirm.

Doctor:  (handing me a diet and exercise sheet) It’s really not necessary, no matter what is wrong with you, you’ll feel a lot better if you lose 50 pounds.

Me:  Be that as it may, I’m going to insist on a blood test.  It’s not like I’m asking you to pay for it.  Also, this exercise sheet says that I should start by walking 10 minutes a day.  I currently work out about 20 hours a week so should I stop all that and substitute a brisk walk?  It would certainly save me a lot of time, but I doubt it would have the intended results.

Doctor:  (sighing heavily and looking at me as if I’m a definitely a liar) Fine, I’ll do the test.

I wait, he comes back.

Doctor:  Your glucose is 72.

Me:  Isn’t that basically perfect?

Doctor:  Yes, but you probably still have diabetes, we just need to test you at different times.

Me:  (now beginning to lose patience) In the meantime, could we perhaps do a test for, oh – I don’t know…anemia?

Doctor:  I suppose.

I wait, he comes back

Doctor:  Well, you have anemia.

Me:  (positively dripping with sarcasm)  That’s so WEIRD, that what I thought I had!

Now, out of curiosity, if I had followed your diet and exercise sheet as you requested and managed to lose the two pounds per week that you want me to lose, unlike the 95% of people who fail, it would have taken be 25 weeks.  What would have happened if I had dieted while my anemia went untreated for 25 weeks?  And since you seemed to be stumped with that one, let me ask you another… How many other people have you done this too?  How any people have become sick or died at your hand because you looked at them and diagnosed them as “fat”?

Doctor:  I think we would have noticed if things didn’t improve once you had lost 25lbs.

Me:  Really?  I doubt it.  It seems to me that you pulled 50 pounds out of your ass, since you don’t have my weight or height.  So I doubt that 25 pounds would have been a magic number that made you pay attention to my actual symptoms.  Also, you didn’t answer my question, what would have happened?

Doctor:  I guess you could have technically died…

Me:  I’m leaving, and I’m not paying for this.

Doctor:  Of course.

What about you?  Do you have doctor stories – good, bad, funny, interesting?  Please feel free to put them in the comments below.

THIS POST IS ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE GETTING A BIKINI WAX.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

One of the things that I want to do with this blog is try things that I hear other fat women say are scary to them or with which they’ve had bad experiences.  Getting a bikini wax falls into both categories.

First I did my research.  Some of the friends I asked about this said that they had pain for several DAYS afterward.  That did not sound fun.  I found  European Wax Center.  Apparently the pain is because strip waxing rips off your skin (yikes!) and this place claimed to have a special wax that adheres to hair but not skin, thus affording their clients the opportunity to keep skin that is, I assume, fairly precious to them. I decided to give it a shot.

They have an awesome deal wherein the first appointment is free for simple services or really cheap for more expensive ones.  I opted for the Brazillian (hey, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it) complete with the “butt strip”.  I set my appointment (I wish I had set it for a week earlier, but that’s a different story entirely).

I pull into the parking lot at one of their centers in Austin.  This one happens to be in the Arbor Center near Anderson Mill.  It’s a strip center so I drive around a bit until I find it.  I park my car and realize that there is a family outside – mother, father, three young boys, even a freaking dog.  Just hanging out on the railing outside the center.  I wait in my car a few minutes under the guise of finishing the song I am listening to, and then realize that I’m going to be late for my appointment and that I’m going to have to march straight through that Normal Rockwell moment if I want to have the hair ripped off my cooch today.

So off I go.  I go through the family – the kids don’t notice but the adults fall silent and I can see in the glass panes of the building that their eyes are following me.  I check in with an extremely pleasant receptionist who tells me to have a seat.  I am greatly comforted when a woman who appears to be in her seventies and weighs a bit more than I walks in and says “I’m here for my Brazilian.”  Awesome!  I am already totally in love with this woman.  She and I have the start of a lively conversation (during which she says “I can’t believe that some women at 73 just let themselves go.  Like I want my hoohaa to look like steel wool.  No thank you, you have to have standards.”). I’m about to ask if  I can adopt her as a third Grandmother when Amelia comes to get me for my appointment.

We walk down a nicely decorated hallway into a small room with a massage table. Amelia asks if it’s my first time and I say yes.  She explains the process and then tells me to go ahead and strip below the waist and lie down on the table.  Then she turns around to prepare the wax.  I stand there like an idiot for about 30 seconds, then I faze in to the fact that she is not going to leave.  So I take off my pants and panties, and standing there naked from the waist I proceed to fold my pants and hide my panties inside them.  Let’s be clear, my vulva is out there for the world to see, but I have to hide my pink striped panties for modesty’s sake.  Uh huh.  I realize that it is possible that something in my brain is just a little broken.

I lie on the table and she has me put my feet heel to heel, turning my thighs out for easier access.  She does a cleaning step, then puts powder on (which she said would help with irritation).  Then she starts applying the wax.

I give myself the same little self-talk speech I used when I got my tattoo – “this will only last for a short time, it will be totally worth it” etc. On a pain scale of 1-10 I am prepared for a 9 or 10.  In reality it is mostly only a 2-3.  Some parts were a bit more sensitive but it never really gets above a 5.

Then she looks at me very pleasantly and says in her most chipper voice “Time for the butt strip!”  She has me turn on my side and hold my cheeks open.  Again, a little awkward, not that painful.

As far as the fat chick experience goes, nobody even looked at me twice. I have heard women say that they had to pull their stomaches up in order to afford access to the top of the pubic area.  That wasn’t the case with me, but had she asked I’m sure it would have just seemed like a matter of course (very much like “ok, I’ll just need you to hold your cheeks open for me”).

All in all it was a great experience and I would recommend them.  You can find them at www.waxcenter.com.

I’m part of an internet dating experiment.  That lead me to have a date on Friday night.

We had read and commented on each other’s profiles, had exchanged a number of e-mails and decided to meet.  He opened doors, offered me his hand, paid for the date etc.  (While I don’t need/require this behavior but I like it sometimes.)  During the date he (not I) kept making reference to future dates and things we would do etc.  The date was three hours of really nice conversation.  That was Friday.

He e-mailed Saturday  to say that he had a great time and looked forward to  seeing me again, but he e-mailed after I had gone to a friend’s birthday party so I didn’t get back to him.  Then he called yesterday to ask me to go on a walk and hang out.  I got that message about an hour after he left it so I called him back.

We talked for about an hour and a half just about hobbies and stuff and he kept bringing up going on other dates.  We set a time for a next date.  That’s when he paused and then this happened (this is an abbreviation of the conversation hitting the high points).

Before you read the conversation, you should know that my profile says the following:

“I’m an active, fat, athlete.  I suppose I could say I’m voluptuous or pleasantly plump or whatever people say but I think euphemisms tend to give a sense of discomfort and I’m very comfortable and happy with myself and my body just as I am.  I also know that my look isn’t attractive to everyone and I think that’s fine, I’m just not the woman for you.”

At the end of the profile I have a list, the title of which says:  “If any of the following are true, you should look elsewhere.  No hard feelings!

#5 is:  If you aren’t attracted to bigger women.

Just in case literacy is not someone’s strong point I also included picture of me hanging out, you know…being fat.

So here is the conversation:

Him:  Um, size is a problem for me when it comes to lust.
Me:  How so?
Him:  I just can’t see ever wanting to tear your clothes off and throw you down.
Me:  Well, I’m not willing to date someone who wouldn’t want to tear my clothes off and throw me down so that doesn’t work for me
Him:  I guess we’ll just have to hang out with me cursing the fact that you are…. we could do healthy stuff like go for  walks until you lose weight…(long pause) are you happy with your body?
Me:  Yes I’m very happy with my body.
Him:  You don’t look healthy.  I don’t think your knees and back will hold out
Me:  I hear that a lot from people who aren’t educated about health.
Him:  You’re a great person…CURSE YOU FATE!  We can still be friends.
Me:  I already have plenty of friends, and honestly, I put this in my profile several times specifically to avoid having to have this conversation.  I’m really looking to date so I don’t want to hang out with you.
Him:  I guess I understand…sorry if this stung.”

FTW?  First of all, could I have been more damn clear in my profile?  Second, we talked about my dance and training schedule (I exercise about 20 hours per week), if that has me at this size I don’t think taking walks is going to be my path to thinness.   Third, why are you cursing fate?  This is your body issue that you choose to hang onto.  I’m totally ok with your choosing the issue but could you at least own it?

Most of all, it’s not that the rejection stung – as I already freaking mentioned in my profile I’m aware that not everyone is attracted to bigger people and I get that.  What I don’t get is why the frick he went out with me in the first place when my profile clearly demonstrates that I’m Fatty McFatterson, Mayor of Fatville, and he knows that he is only attracted to thin women.

If there were a Darwin award for dating, this guy would win it.

I went to Efficient Exercise.  It was, hands down, the best workout I’ve ever had.  It’s a 30 minute workout that uses a number of protocols including eccentric only, super slow motion, and body weight  to give strength, cardio and flexibility benefits.

I arrived and met my trainer – Mark Rogers.  One of the coolest things about this is that it’s a one on one situation so I was the only one in the gym.   As I explained in my previous post about this, I had mentioned in my e-mail that my goals are strength, stamina, and flexibility and that I didn’t want to discuss weight loss and he was very respectful of that.

He explained the  efficient exercise theories, we talked about my goals and my workout schedule.  Then he asked the fateful question “Do you want me to go easy on you for this first time or do you want me to hurt you?”.  My stupid jock side took over and I said “Hurt me”.  That was dumb.

I laid down on what I can only describe as a massive contraption.  I put my feet up on a platform.  This was an eccentric only exercise so we easily pushed the bar up.  Then he pulled the bar and a bunch of weight toward me while I tried to push it away as hard as I could.  The more my legs bent (and therefore the weaker I was) the slower he pulled and the more difficult it was.  My legs were BURNING UP.  We did similar exercises with military press and pull downs.  My upper body is definitely not as strong as I would like it to be.  We set a goal for me to be able to do a full pull-up.  I was ready to say thanks and go home.

But wait, there’s more.

We moved on to cables.  That probably calls to mind images of something really helpful and secure.  Those images would be wrong.  The cables are  metal handles attached to ropes attached to a metal frame.  I tilted my body out at about a 55 degree angle with the floor and did push-ups into my own hands,  then flipped and did pull-ups.  If you are now picturing something that looks death-defying then you’ve got it about right.  I was able to do them though and it’s actually really cool – it’s almost like a carnival ride – if they made you do push-ups at the carnival.

Then, we started the most evil exercises ever.

He told me to lay on the ground on my back which, at my current level of exhaustion, sounded like a fabulous idea.  That’s about when things went downhill.  He had me put my feet in free hanging slings.  I had to bridge my hips and pull my feet in and out 15 times.  That was not fun. I  thought about mentioning that I had only actually agreed to the laying down part but I didn’t want to whine (or vomit…) so I just tried to concentrate on breathing (and not vomiting).  He  made me flip over, do a plank (with my feet still in the slings) and pull my feet in and out 15 times.  At some point during those reps I wondered if I could fake my own death to get out of doing anymore.  I had to rest a couple of times but I did all 15 reps.

Finally, he said that I should pike my body up (so that my butt was up over my shoulders and my body was in a reverse V). I laughed.  Out loud.  Now, I do this move in pilates all the time but not after someone has just  tried to kill be with a 20 minute workout.  I explained to him that I didn’t think it was physically possible but that I was willing to try.  I did one that was respectable, 9 that were patheti-sad and then I just couldn’t do anymore.  He reached out his hand and I realized that he actually expected me to GET UP off the floor.  Obviously just a bad idea,  what could he be thinking?  I wanted to be proud and get up on my own, then I looked down and observed that my legs were actually shaking.   So I let him take my hand and thanked all the gods that he was a power lifter.   I got to my feet in a manner much less graceful than befits a dancer and barely made it to my car.

It. Was. Awesome. I asked him how I had done (I have a need to be above average at everything – it’s a personality flaw) and he graciously said that I had done well.  I was a little sore the rest of that day.   I was  SORE on Wednesday (sore enough that I had friends doing things for me so that I could sit) and am still just a little sore today. I noticed flexibility gains immediately and am now only about an inch away from doing my splits.  This is the biggest flexibility gain I’ve ever seen in this short of a time (I was about 3 inches away before the workout).  I’m going back Tuesday. I immediately called my oldest friend and told him to do it and now he is hooked as well.

If you are in Austin you can check them out in real life at  www.efficientexercise.com.  The first workout is free!  I highly recommend Mark Rogers, you can tell him that Ragen sent you and he’ll be extra nice (or extra mean).

In a continuing effort to create a world chock full ‘o people who love and appreciate their bodies, my dance company has created the Body Positive Newsletter.  It contains happy news news, profiles of people in the body positive movement, and other cool stuff that comes along.

Subscribing is super easy, just go to www.budurl.com/bpdmail and sign up.  (If you decide it’s not for you, it’s just as easy to unsubscribe).

We are all super excited about this so if you wanted to repost this to your journal, tweet it, facebook it, or tell your friends about it, that would be totally and completely awesome.

Have an awesome Body Positive Day!

So, I recently heard about “efficient exercise” from a friend of mine.  The idea is that you work out twice a week for 30 minutes.  I don’t want to get too into the claims now since I haven’t had a session yet.  I did go to the website for the gym my friend referred me to in Austin (www.efficientexercise.com) and filled out their form for a free workout and “physical examination”.  I didn’t know what that meant so in the box that said “How can we help you” I typed:

“I was referred by D…K….  I am a competive dancer and athlete. I am intrigued by your concept and I’d like to give it a try.  The closest location to me is Rosedale. I am a fat athlete and my goals are improving strength, stamina and flexibility, not weight loss.  I will require being paired with a trainer who is happy to work with me in that way.  (For instance, we won’t be discussing weight loss in my sessions and I am not interested in being weighed or body fat tested at any point.)  As long as that works for you I will look forward to hearing back from you and am jazzed about giving this a try!”

Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how it goes!