8/27/2017 2 Comments Don't Be a Cherry PickerMy eyes widen as I scroll through the calendar, stopping on Saturday (or, as our gym likes to call it: Suffer Saturday). I read it once. Then again. Then once more before I am convinced that the trainer at our gym is either very angry with us, or incredibly confident in us. “With a partner: Run 1 mile 100 burpee box jumps 80 double unders 60 push press 40 hang power cleans 20 pull ups 40 hang power cleans 60 push press 80 double unders 100 burpee box jumps Run 1 mile.” “Are you doing the workout on Saturday?” my friend asks. “I don’t know. That looks rough and I’m awful at most of those movements.” “No you aren’t! Come do the work out! I’ll be your partner!” But I am...I’m a slow runner, double unders skyrocket my heart rate, and I can’t do more than 3-5 pull ups at a time (on a good day). This is a workout that will test me physically, mentally, and emotionally, and I do not want to do it. And that is exactly why I make myself do it. “Okay, I’ll be there.” I made a decision a while back that I would not “cherry pick” workouts, or skip certain workouts because I don’t particularly care for their content. You might be wondering why. After all, people don’t generally feel badly for picking particular books to read or movies to watch. A person’s preference in entertainment, however, is based on interest; choosing to skip particular workouts is, more often than not, rooted in fear. Although human beings are well acquainted with the concept of failure, it still tends to generate fear within us that is difficult to overcome. Our best defense mechanism in these circumstances is generally avoidance. But what does avoidance achieve? How many times did Thomas Edison try and fail before he successfully created the lightbulb? How many times did Muhammed Ali get a black eye or bloody nose before he started winning fights? To how many publishers did J.K. Rowling send manuscripts of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone before someone gave the story a chance? It is quite certain that all of the failures that humans experience are difficult to handle, some more so than others, but if we hope to become better at those things with which we struggle, we have to actually DO them. In the process, that might mean experiencing some failure, but the great thing about being a free-willed, free-thinking species is that we can choose to ignore failures, or even learn from them, and try again. This is something I’ve learned quite well in my CrossFit journey, specifically in my seemingly eternal pursuit to improve my pull-ups. It took me two and a half years to get my very first, incredibly ugly, kipping pull-up and three years to get a strict pull-up. A few weeks ago, we did a workout called “Jackie,” which includes a 1,000 meter row, 55 barbell thrusters, and 30 pull-ups. I was off of the rower in less than 4 minutes (a decent time), and did the thrusters unbroken, allowing me to approach the pull-up rig at around 5:56. I grabbed the black metal above me and did 5, dropped down and did 3 more. I huffed and puffed uncontrollably, partially from anxiety, and partially from being utterly winded. I jumped up and did 2 more, but failed my third rep. I cursed. My heart rate elevated even more. I tried again, and failed another rep. “Stop getting in your head!” my coach yelled from across the room. Back up on the rig for another 2 reps, then single pull-ups until rep 22. I failed again. Walking away from the rig, I threw my hands up and said, “I can’t do it!” The coach saw me breaking down emotionally. “Come on. You’ve got this. Do one at a time,” she said. “No! I can’t do this! I’m done.” “Crystal, you are going to finish this.” It took me over three and a half minutes to do thirty pull-ups, and when I finished, I sat down against the wall and cried. The next time that pull-ups were programmed for one of our workouts, my heart sank. I dreaded it. But I went. The only reason that I was able to do them, slow as they may have been, is because I never skip a workout with pull-ups in it. Sure, I struggled with those 30 pull-ups, physically, mentally, and emotionally, but 3 years ago I would have done those pull ups with the strongest assistance band available. If I had skipped all of the workouts with pull ups in them, I would still be using that band. You don’t exercise for the joy of leaving the gym a sweaty mess. You exercise to see progress, in whatever capacity that means for you. Achieving progress requires you to face your fears head on, knowing that you might fail in the process, but doing your damnedest not to. Will doing so sometimes end in tears? Yes, probably. But tears wipe away easily. Accept that those tears might come, embrace the fact that failure is possible, and use both of these mentalities to help you face the same fears again and again. Only then will you achieve the goals you set forth for yourself.
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5/6/2017 3 Comments Grieving the GainOn any given day in 2009, I might have experienced the grieving process anew and in full. An interesting thought: 365 days of grief. Ironically, this grieving process was not in reaction to loss, but to gain. Day by day, I watched myself gain more weight, and day by day, I grieved for that extra pound. I began my day with denial, as you might expect. “I’m not fat, I’m voluptuous.” “Big is beautiful! I’ve got a rack and an ass. Skinny girls get jealous of that.” “My meals are healthy! I’m making progress. Rice is good for me.” “I think my pants feel a little looser today.” The anger was mostly directed at myself. After gorging myself with a lunch (usually consisting of a sandwich with some sort of fat-filled deli meat, cheese, and white bread, along with a poorly measured “serving” of rice, a can of Dr. Pepper, and some sort of chocolate), I generally took one of my regimented bathroom breaks. The mirror was cruel. “God, you’re such a cow.” “What a worthless human being--you should be ashamed of what you just consumed.” “Better hope you can fit comfortably in that bathroom stall today; your ass isn’t getting any smaller after that meal.” There’s a reason that bargaining comes next in this process. How could I continue my day with that mentality? I needed to justify my actions if I hoped to make it through the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the bargaining stage is where I spent most of my time. It was comfortable for me to bargain. I am generally quite good at debating, and doing so with myself just felt natural. “Your eating habits don’t affect your weight-you’ve tried to change your diet before and didn’t lose a single pound.” “You have to eat to have energy for the day.” “You are hypoglycemic! If you don’t eat, you’ll pass out!” Then the depression sunk in, and paired with it, self-deprecating thoughts that, if revealed to a mental health professional, would set their red flags at full mast. (I won’t detail those, as I’ve done in the previous sections. It is counterproductive.) Of course acceptance was the final, and most confusing, part of this process. When grieving due to a loss, acceptance can really only be defined in a singular way: acquiescing to the circumstances, realizing that nothing can be done to change said circumstances, and moving on. However, if we can first accept that the grieving process is applicable to situations outside of loss, situations over which we actually have some control, we must also recognize that what it means to accept something can shift. Now, acceptance can mean taking ownership of the situation. Now, acceptance can mean realizing that the past, though it cannot be changed, does not determine the future. Now, we can choose to change the negative paradigms that have caused us to be in this situation of grief in the first place. What a freeing realization! We have control. We can affect change. Unfortunately, this realization in and of itself is not enough. As senseless as it sounds, sometimes bridging the gap between realization and reality is the hardest task that a person can undertake. The fact of the matter is that humans are more often than not inclined to choose the more traditional path of acceptance, and I am included amongst those who do so. However, acquiescing lends itself to repeating bad behaviors. At the end of each day in 2009, I went to bed accepting that it was my fate to be overweight and unhealthy. Nothing that I did could change that. This, in turn, allowed me to repeat this grieving process over and over and over again. Think about it: I knew that choosing this form of acceptance lead to further grieving. I chose to be unhappy with myself every single day. Even after realizing that I had the control to follow a different path of acceptance. Why? It was easier. It took less time. It was cheaper. It was less stressful. I had no confidence. There were a million reasons. Singularity of vision leads to oppression in terms of government and politics, but also in terms of our own personal goals, especially if we are aware of visions that can lead us to improve ourselves. The moment that I realized that my continuum of grief about my weight was self-inflicted, I could not stand to abide by that traditional definition of acceptance any longer. I created the grief within myself. So, too, could I end it. And end it I did. It doesn’t really matter how much weight I lost or how or why. What I want people to understand is that grieving about an unhealthy lifestyle only begets more grief. Yes, you must reach acceptance to overcome grief, but not acceptance as we traditionally define it. Understand your circumstances, realize that they must change, and take the appropriate actions to make it happen. |
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August 2017
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