Body Flux
Changing my exercise regimen yet again. I suppose at some point I have to recognize that part of the fun of exercising is mixing it up, making changes. Part of me would just like to do the same thing all the time, forever and ever, actually. I definitely have a facet of my personality that embraces habit to the nth degree. But I think it's important for me to see exercise as something that I enjoy for various reasons, something that I enjoy for the long-term effects (i.e. health), but also because of the intrinsic joy it can bring (i.e. the good feelings during a workout). Another facet of enjoying exercise can be the planning/listmaking/goalsetting/goal achieving involved.
My goal has never been to 'loose weight'. From the outset that just seemed like the wrong sort of goal to set; it buys into the various unhealthy attitudes about the body that I want to avoid. Which is not to say that the goals I do have (to feel healthier, to be healthier, to enjoy my body more, to feel more attractive--this is not an exhaustive list!) can't be tied to 'losing weight'--but they can't be directly tied to it, and, in some cases, may be antithetical to it (i.e. I want to gain muscle mass, and gaining mass tends to mean gaining weight!).
The Way Things Have Shaped Up
For the first 8 or 9 months of my exercise changes, while I resisted the goal of 'losing weight', I embraced some effects that aren't unrelated to losing weight. Mostly I loved that my waistline was getting smaller. More holes in the ol' belt, and that felt good. It felt good for other reasons--I can breathe more easily, I'm more comfortable sitting at a desk for extended periods (though I fidget more now, I think, as a kind of weird exercise) and the like. I also was obviously losing fat in various parts of my body. My arms were showing more definition, my face was losing some of its fullness, my shoulders look more taut. My legs, which have always been sort of the region of my body that I was most happy with, became even more muscular and showed even more definition. My chest was getting slightly more definition, too, and losing a bit of fat.
And then recently I recognized how much time I was spending exercising, and started to feel a little bit strange about it--there were other things I wanted to do. Part of this is finally seeing light at the end of the breakup tunnel: When I first started exercising, part of the whole thing was to give myself something healthy to do, to keep my body and mind more occupied, so that I didn't dwell on the sadness as much. Now that I'm less sad, my interests are multiplying again, and exercising must be factored in among them more than it had to be before. So I compromised, decided to cut down on cardio a bit, do a little bit less on the weights, but keep the number of times a week I did things the same. I wasn't sure what effect this would have, as my body is just in a general state of flux all the time these days, what with changes in mood, diet and exercise.
Part of the effect is that I ended up just doing less exercising. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily. But then, my appetite began to grow again. Exercising, for me, seems to be the best sort of appetite suppressant, and more than that, it focuses me on eating more healthy--I tend to crave better stuff when I'm exercising, presumably because my body needs that stuff more when it's getting worked. So, combine less exercise and more eating, and what do you get? It's a pretty easy equation--the changes in my body began to slow, and my waist actually grew a little bit.
But even these changes aren't that simple. The whole time, I've been building muscle mass--and part of that has been in my abdomen. At least part of the gain in my waist has to do with this, I think. I've reached a point now where losing fat off my belly doesn't mean that my torso will get smaller--it might stay the same or even get bigger. And it will take a looooong time for definition to show in my abdomen, if it does at all. Different people carry most of their fat in different places, and that's where I carry mine. In fact, there's a way in which it might actually be unhealthy for my belly to lose enough fat to show much definition--it might mean that the rest of my body has less fat than it needs to have. And what I'm after is mainly health, so it's something to keep in mind.
Changes in the Making
So I do want to balance the various things I want to do in life, but I've come to realize something that is sort of suprising to me. I like exercising. At first I thought that maybe I was just trying to fool myself--the days where I decide to walk my bike up the hill after exercising for an hour and a half seemed to be evidence that I don't really like exercising: If I did like it, wouldn't I just do it all the time, whenever I can? And of course that's silly, and I'm srtarting to understand that the walking up the hill time simply reflects that I'm not as healthy as I'd like to be, and also reflects that there are different times to do different things. It does not mean, and I'm trying to keep this in mind, that my 'default' is to not be active. I'm figuring out that I don't think I really have a default, or that it can be changed through effort.
And keeping all that in mind changes how I decide to weigh (pun intended) my various options as far as what I like to do with my day. That is, for the first time in my life, really, I recognize that, sometimes, I want to exercise just as much if not more than I want to, say, read a book. Exercise is a priority. More importantly, I want it to be a priority. Which isn't to say that it's always the top priority--it clearly isn't, and I don't want it to be. But it's up there. And that's new for me.
Either/Or, and Identity
The either/or fallacy always creeps in here, and I begin to think that if I become more athletic, that I have to become less, say, academic. And there's some truth in that, in a way--if I were to always exercise instead of reading (which is infinitely rhetorical, because that would never happen, then it may be the case that things shift that significantly. But that's either/or thinking, and it doesn't match up with reality very well. In fact, if I increase exercise a bit, I may actually end up doing more reading. This is because these aren't my only two options--and that exercising more might actually cut out some other options. I'm less likely to sit and watch a movie, for instance, when I've been more active. I'm more likely to read, or to play guitar, etc.
And the thing is: I can be both a thinker and athletic (to various degrees!). Why is it that I have to keep reminding myself of that? The nonexistent dichotomies have grown some deep roots, that's for sure.
Filed under:Health and Philosophy
Changing my exercise regimen yet again. I suppose at some point I have to recognize that part of the fun of exercising is mixing it up, making changes. Part of me would just like to do the same thing all the time, forever and ever, actually. I definitely have a facet of my personality that embraces habit to the nth degree. But I think it's important for me to see exercise as something that I enjoy for various reasons, something that I enjoy for the long-term effects (i.e. health), but also because of the intrinsic joy it can bring (i.e. the good feelings during a workout). Another facet of enjoying exercise can be the planning/listmaking/goalsetting/goal achieving involved.
My goal has never been to 'loose weight'. From the outset that just seemed like the wrong sort of goal to set; it buys into the various unhealthy attitudes about the body that I want to avoid. Which is not to say that the goals I do have (to feel healthier, to be healthier, to enjoy my body more, to feel more attractive--this is not an exhaustive list!) can't be tied to 'losing weight'--but they can't be directly tied to it, and, in some cases, may be antithetical to it (i.e. I want to gain muscle mass, and gaining mass tends to mean gaining weight!).
The Way Things Have Shaped Up
For the first 8 or 9 months of my exercise changes, while I resisted the goal of 'losing weight', I embraced some effects that aren't unrelated to losing weight. Mostly I loved that my waistline was getting smaller. More holes in the ol' belt, and that felt good. It felt good for other reasons--I can breathe more easily, I'm more comfortable sitting at a desk for extended periods (though I fidget more now, I think, as a kind of weird exercise) and the like. I also was obviously losing fat in various parts of my body. My arms were showing more definition, my face was losing some of its fullness, my shoulders look more taut. My legs, which have always been sort of the region of my body that I was most happy with, became even more muscular and showed even more definition. My chest was getting slightly more definition, too, and losing a bit of fat.
And then recently I recognized how much time I was spending exercising, and started to feel a little bit strange about it--there were other things I wanted to do. Part of this is finally seeing light at the end of the breakup tunnel: When I first started exercising, part of the whole thing was to give myself something healthy to do, to keep my body and mind more occupied, so that I didn't dwell on the sadness as much. Now that I'm less sad, my interests are multiplying again, and exercising must be factored in among them more than it had to be before. So I compromised, decided to cut down on cardio a bit, do a little bit less on the weights, but keep the number of times a week I did things the same. I wasn't sure what effect this would have, as my body is just in a general state of flux all the time these days, what with changes in mood, diet and exercise.
Part of the effect is that I ended up just doing less exercising. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily. But then, my appetite began to grow again. Exercising, for me, seems to be the best sort of appetite suppressant, and more than that, it focuses me on eating more healthy--I tend to crave better stuff when I'm exercising, presumably because my body needs that stuff more when it's getting worked. So, combine less exercise and more eating, and what do you get? It's a pretty easy equation--the changes in my body began to slow, and my waist actually grew a little bit.
But even these changes aren't that simple. The whole time, I've been building muscle mass--and part of that has been in my abdomen. At least part of the gain in my waist has to do with this, I think. I've reached a point now where losing fat off my belly doesn't mean that my torso will get smaller--it might stay the same or even get bigger. And it will take a looooong time for definition to show in my abdomen, if it does at all. Different people carry most of their fat in different places, and that's where I carry mine. In fact, there's a way in which it might actually be unhealthy for my belly to lose enough fat to show much definition--it might mean that the rest of my body has less fat than it needs to have. And what I'm after is mainly health, so it's something to keep in mind.
Changes in the Making
So I do want to balance the various things I want to do in life, but I've come to realize something that is sort of suprising to me. I like exercising. At first I thought that maybe I was just trying to fool myself--the days where I decide to walk my bike up the hill after exercising for an hour and a half seemed to be evidence that I don't really like exercising: If I did like it, wouldn't I just do it all the time, whenever I can? And of course that's silly, and I'm srtarting to understand that the walking up the hill time simply reflects that I'm not as healthy as I'd like to be, and also reflects that there are different times to do different things. It does not mean, and I'm trying to keep this in mind, that my 'default' is to not be active. I'm figuring out that I don't think I really have a default, or that it can be changed through effort.
And keeping all that in mind changes how I decide to weigh (pun intended) my various options as far as what I like to do with my day. That is, for the first time in my life, really, I recognize that, sometimes, I want to exercise just as much if not more than I want to, say, read a book. Exercise is a priority. More importantly, I want it to be a priority. Which isn't to say that it's always the top priority--it clearly isn't, and I don't want it to be. But it's up there. And that's new for me.
Either/Or, and Identity
The either/or fallacy always creeps in here, and I begin to think that if I become more athletic, that I have to become less, say, academic. And there's some truth in that, in a way--if I were to always exercise instead of reading (which is infinitely rhetorical, because that would never happen, then it may be the case that things shift that significantly. But that's either/or thinking, and it doesn't match up with reality very well. In fact, if I increase exercise a bit, I may actually end up doing more reading. This is because these aren't my only two options--and that exercising more might actually cut out some other options. I'm less likely to sit and watch a movie, for instance, when I've been more active. I'm more likely to read, or to play guitar, etc.
And the thing is: I can be both a thinker and athletic (to various degrees!). Why is it that I have to keep reminding myself of that? The nonexistent dichotomies have grown some deep roots, that's for sure.
Filed under:Health and Philosophy
posted by Jeff Pollet at 9:38 AM
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