Making Michelle proud...an exercise adventure

“Ahh, Michelle is going to be so proud of me (I like to think Ms Bridges has a personal interest in my progress),’’ I thought as I pedalled off up our hill and out of the estate on Saturday morning.

My weekend plan didn’t exactly fit the Super Saturday session and rest day prescribed, but involved a 50-kilometre bike ride to a nearby farm stay, followed by a climb up a small volcanic plug on Sunday. The outing was to celebrate a month of birthdays – mine, my partner’s, and our good friends who are husband and wife.

The bike ride to the beautiful Henderson Park went fairly well, although it was horribly windy. I managed to burn off 1900 calories according to my Polar wrist gadget, no-one tried to run me off the road, and I survived the frequent stench of road kill.

Henderson Park is set amid beautiful grazing land interspersed with wetlands, birdlife and amazing volcanic plugs. The homestay is on the spring-fed Hedlow creek, allowing exploration of the area on canoes provided by the owners.

 

 

Henderson Park  - serenity, food and wine

 

 

We took a plastic table down to the creek and enjoyed a Hyacinth Bucket-like riparian repast. I must have burned off heaps more energy chewing through lunch – the food provided by my friend seemed never ending – prawn, cheeses, smoked salmon and so on. But I think I managed to not eat more than I had burnt off.

A quick reconnoitre and we had the canoes on the creek and set off against the wind and current. We could only find two paddles, so decided we could manage with one per canoe. My arms were already aching from my first session on the assisted dips machine at the gym the day before, so I initially relished the chance to work some soreness out of them. Although that soon wore thin, I didn’t want to admit to my paddling partner or our friends that I was in pain.

 

 

Funny, it doesn't look windy in this photo, but it was. Very.

 

The serenity of the creek with its overseeing windmills and eucalypts, the lowing of the cattle and sighting of an ambling echidna pushed aside the regular scream of  my arm and shoulder muscles.

We were pretty tuckered out by the time we got back to the cabin, and managed a ten-minute snooze. That ended with some good stomach muscle exercise, as I curled up in laughter when my man fell out of bed.

It turned cold. Luckily we had the campfire organised, and more good food, wine, scotch, port and birthday cake ensued.

I didn’t give Michelle a thought.

I awoke the next morning full of beans and after a mini-exploration of the property, decided I would ride my bicycle to the mountain we were going to climb. I knew it was only about 20 kilometres if I went back the way I had ridden in the day before.

My partner was going to drive home and pick up my son and some friends and meet me at the mount.

I set off and along the way was joined by my friend Lorraine, who lives nearby. We got to talking and, full of bravado, decided to take a slightly different route to the mountain.

It can’t be much further than the original way, we decided. Both roads ended fairly close to our destination.

We wended our way along Hedlow Creek, then cut alongside Lake Mary, a large wetland full of waterbirds.

Still in familiar territory, we bounced our way over the rough gravel road, splashed through some puddles, sang some songs and enjoyed our high spirits.

 

 

Lorraine and I while we were still dry.

 

As we diverged around a big puddle I sang – you take the high road and I’ll take the low road and I’ll get to the mountain before you…

Then we hit THE PUDDLE. Or more specifically, Lorraine went through it, the water suddenly got too deep, she tried unsuccessfully to get her cleats out of her pedals, and…down she went.

So while my shoes got wet (as I couldn’t make it through either), poor ‘Rainy had wet shoes, and wet cycling knix. It inspired new music from me …”I’m singing in Lorraine’’.

When we had wiped the tears of laughter from our eyes, and thanked the heavens Lorraine’s iphone was still dry, we soldiered on.

And on.

And on.

Every few kilometres Lorraine would say ‘the turnoff’s just up ahead, I’m sure of it.

The tenth time she said it, it was true. So then the mantra became ‘we come out onto the main road in a few minutes, I’m sure of it’

By now, we were wearing out. We’d been riding for two hours, and there was no end in sight.

Eventually we could see the mountain we were going to climb, although we weren’t too sure we’d have the legs for it.

I took note of the numbers on the postboxes we were passing. 1690. That means its only 1.6 kilometres to the next main road, I asserted brightly. Deep down, I’m sure I knew it meant 16 kilometres.

When I received a text from my man to say they were at the mountain, I started to stress a little. I didn’t want him stuck there waiting for me, with THREE TEENAGE BOYS. Not a nice thing to do to a man on his 55^th birthday.

So we rushed on, in who knew what direction.

I tried to ring my partner, but my phone decided it was out of credit. My partner told me later  my phone had kept redialing him, and he would answer but only hear me chatting and laughing with Lorraine, and the slosh of my water pack. That’s where all my credit went.

Eventually he rang me, and asked “where are you?’’

HOW THE HELL WOULD I KNOW! I’d been waiting for him to ring so I could yell that line at him.

No, we weren’t lost, I assured him. I could see the mountain. We were only a few hundred metres from the main road. I could hear the traffic…

Four bumpy kilometres later, we found the bitumen and I flew along the smooth surface to the bottom of the mount.

It had been three and a half hours since I set out. Damn, I wanted some lunch.

And I couldn’t back out of climbing Mt Jim Crow. We do it every year, around my birthday. To prove that I still can.

So up I went. In my wet shoes. All the way. Then I came back down a little and redid the last bit with one of my son’s friends, who had vomited on the way up, but still wanted to get to the top.

I was glad I had kept my cycling knix on, under a pair of denim shorts. They provided good padding on the way down when my quads were too tired to hold me up and I bum-hopped over the scree.

 

 

Top of the mountain. That's the road below in the top left corner of the photo. 

 

Exhausted, I turned to my Polar wrist gadget to see how much energy I had burnt. I was empty, spent, and sure I had just burned off a year’s worth of calories.

1200. What! I guess the road was too bumpy and flat to get my heart rate up. And because I was already so tired I climbed the mountain too slowly.

Lucky I burned another million calories laughing, and a score fuming over how far it was.

Surely Michelle would be proud of me.

 

 

 

You're so vain

You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you, you're so vain
(come on, I know we all know the words to this one, sing along in your head)
 
You walked into the pump class, like you were walking down a catwalk,
your hair strategically tied behind your head,
your clothes they were Lorna Jane,
You had both eyes in the mirror as
you watched yourself dead lift
And all the girls dreamed that we'd have your six pack, we'd have your six pack...


Do you ever feel that this constant striving for bodily perfection is nothing but vanity? That if we have managed to claw our way from an "overweight" BMI to "normal", we should just sit back and relax?
I have tried to make 'be the best me I can be' my mantra, and so I am not going to rest at my mid-range normal BMI. Deep down I know I will never look the way I want, but damn it, I am going to get as close as I can.

The flipside of my personal "I want to be thin"  vanity coin is the "I don't care that I am fat'' movement which fights for  societal acceptance of obesity.
An example is the group of "fat femme'' women from Melbourne who got together and challenged society's lack of acceptance of their body size by forming a synchronized swim team,  reclaiming their local pool for bigger people.
They describe their stories in the documentary Aquaporko!. I haven't been lucky enough to see the film, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about the issues it raises.

The crux of Aquaporko is the need for self-acceptance and in their words, 'embracing body positivity''. And as my comments above hint at, that need doesn't necessarily disappear once you are no longer officially fat.

I think in order to have a healthy relationship with your body, you need to regularly push it to certain limits, so you know it will be there for you when you need it.
 How can you claim to be best buds with your butt if you have trouble heaving yourself out of bed? But if your butt is simply a motor to power you up a couple of flights of stairs without having a heart attack, maybe self-acceptance is deserved.
We all have to live with ourselves. Some may do this by embracing their obesity. I think both the thin and the fat have to uncouple how we look from how we feel about ourselves, and make how our body feels the defining factor. If it feels like it is strong and fit and can meet our daily demands plus a bit more, it doesn't matter what our size is or or how we look.
But don't take acceptance of your size as a get out-of-jail card for life-long health. If you are not nurturing your body with good food and sensible exercise, it will eventually come back to bite you.
These are just some thoughts I am tossing around and putting out there in the hope of starting a discussion. I shall explore it some more in a later post if we get a discussion going.

Big Brother

Big Brother is the latest novel by Lionel Schriver, and it explores our responsibility to our overweight family members.

Now, if you are doing the Michelle Bridges 12WBT, you have probably already owned up to a weight problem, or are working to better your fitness and be the best person you can be.

But what do we do about those we love, who are in that state of denial, or are unable to take the first step towards a healthy life.

In the novel, Pandora, a mildly overweight businesswoman, sees her brother for the first time in four years. He is now several times the person he once was. On the scale from morbidly to mortally obese, he is sliding rapidly towards the dead end.

What do you do when your brother comes to visit and he can’t fit in any of your chairs, or worse, breaks the one he does sit in? When your grocery bill suddenly triples and food keeps disappearing from the pantry?

How do you deal with the “elephant in the room’’ when the metaphorical elephant is someone you love dearly, but he doesn’t want to do anything about the problem? Without giving away too much of the plot, the story centres on Pandora’s ability/inability to help him.

In Schriver’s case, the story is partly autobiographic, as her own brother died of respiratory failure at about 181 kilograms, after battling addictions including food.

The story will strike a chord with anyone who has a family member who is unhealthy and large, or who has had their own family ‘intervention’  or interference in their own health.

It opens up many issues about our responsibilities as individuals and as a society.

Should our government tax unhealthy foods, or not serve junk food to people obviously overweight? Can we force our big brothers to become the little brothers they once were?

So what do you think? Do you wish someone in your family had sat you down and forced you to think about your weight? Or do you resent it when everyone else gets asked if they want seconds for dessert, but you mysteriously are missed out?

I feel what it boils down to is that if we each took responsibility for our own health, our family and society would be spared the burden of the heart-wrenching decisions Pandora faces in Big Brother.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

And read the book, it’s a beauty.

Let's have a fat chat

 

 

 

Chewing the fat: “An information conversation, idle chit-chat’’.

 

 

The word fat has so many negative connotations, yet it gets thrown around with gay abandon (much like the word gay).

For example, the word seems to naturally pair with the word ugly – fat and ugly, fat arse, fat mamma.

If you are reading this, you probably have a sorry relationship with the word and its many, sorry uses.

That is because you are one of Michelle Bridges’ 12WBT participants, and have followed a link to get to my post.

I thought I would create a blog where we can explore what being fat means, and where we can, indeed, chew the fat, have a chat, and hopefully a light-hearted laugh.

To start the ball rolling I have reproduced some quotes about being fat,

 

“Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but they can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake.”
- Anonymous

 

“It’s okay to be fat. So you’re fat. Just be fat and shut up about it.”
- Roseanne Barr

“Brain cells come and brain cells go but fat cells live forever!”
- Anonymous

“Thin people are beautiful but fat people are adorable!”
- Jackie Gleason


“There’s a lot more to life than how fat or thin you are.”
- Kirstie Alley

 

“When we lose twenty pounds…we may be losing the best twenty pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty.”
- Woody Allen

 

“If nature had intended for our skeletons to be visible it would have put them on the outside of our bodies.”
- Elmer Rice

 

“I was really tired of words like ‘plus size’, ‘round’ and ‘large’. I thought, ‘come on we’re fat’.”
- Kirstie Alley

 

 

Please, tell me, what words you use to avoid saying the words “I’m fat’’. Or words that other people have used?

 

 

Here are some examples - plump, stout, overweight, large, chubby, portly, flabby, paunchy, potbellied, beer-bellied, meaty, of ample proportions, heavyset; obese, corpulent, fleshy, gross; plus-sized, big-boned, tubby, roly-poly, well-upholstered, beefy, porky, blubbery, chunky, pudgy.

Here are some times when it's great to be called fat...
 

 

 

...when it's a part of your name, and you're busy having  a PHAT  time (PHAT = Pretty Hot and Tempting, street talk)

...when you're a FAT TIRE, and build for speed

 

...and when you're a fat cat - the type that's rolling in the dough, not the type that eats all your leftovers.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.