Today is measurement day. You would think, at this point, that I'd be used to it. I know it comes at the start of every month. I know what it entails. It's not like I don't step on the scale almost daily at home or have some sense of where I'm at.

Still, I get weird on measuring day. Because it's hard not to associate it with judgment. Have I succeeded or failed this month? It all comes down to the numbers.

Which is why I've asked Mat not to tell me. He jots the numbers down while I look away. We chat about life, work, nutrition, anything else to distract me as he wraps that measuring tape around my calves, my hips, my waist, willing it to be over quickly. I cringe as he measures my arms, silently thinking "dude, I'm sorry you have to touch my stretch marks; if only I could make it up to you." I get on the scale backwards as he figures out whether I've gone up or down, and he keeps a poker face so I can't tell if it's good news or bad. And then it's over, and we train. Until the beginning of the next month, when we have to do this little dance all over again.

What's the best way to measure success when it comes to health and fitness? I understand the need for a personal trainer to have some way to track client progress. He uses those numbers to plan a program for me, to gauge whether the program is working. It just took me awhile to figure out that *I* don't need to know the numbers. And that they don't tell the whole story about whether the plan was a success. They don't measure my worth as a person, or his as a trainer, or the exercise's for their effectiveness.

This has been a good month. A really good month, actually. After several weeks of terrible eating leading up to the holidays, feeling lethargic and bloated from all the sugar and baked goods and turkey with stuffing, I've gotten back to more consistent clean eating. I feel better, with more energy, despite being pulled in too many directions and lacking sleep. Blogging and writing has not only been therapeutic for me, the response has been positive and rewarding as well. I've had some lovely social engagements with friends, old and new. The three-week personal training program that I just finished has made a noticeable difference in my posture and shoulders, and I finally got to try the squat rack in the weight room. I've finally  been able to do the moving lateral push-up in Group Core this week that I kept messing up in the first week of the release. In other words, I've seen progression. It's been an overall good month.

So why would I risk undermining all of that just because the scale shows a number that I'm not happy with, or my waist hasn't changed by enough inches?

I'm writing this as a reminder to myself, because I don't always remember to believe it:
There are so many ways to measure success.
The numbers are not the best way.

I had avoided the climbing wall at camp for 15 years. In all the time I worked at Camp Wenonah, much of it full-time, year-round, I never tried to climb. It was one of the few areas of camp that was a “never” for me. And the trepidation and fear of failure that went with it needed to be overcome. Not a fear of heights. Not a fear of falling. A fear of fatness. Of being too fat to fit into the harness, and too fat for the ropes to hold, and too fat to be able to lift myself up.

So, on an alumni weekend in May 2013, I found myself standing at the base of the wall, nervously being harnessed in. I figured I was stronger, I was thinner, I was more flexible, and it was time.

I tried it. I made it.
And it was nothing like I expected it to be.

See, I'd watched campers and staff climb that thing for years. It looked easy enough. I thought it was about strength, in particular arm strength. I thought it was about speed and agility. As it turns out, climbing is a lot like the weight loss journey itself: it's about patience and persistence.

The first few steps are pretty easy. You're close to the ground. If you fall, you just start again. It's pretty safe and there's not a lot of fear. Yet! You try a few different ways, because you're just figuring out how it feels. The consequences of failing, or falling off, they're not so dire because you haven't invested a lot of time and energy yet, and you haven't progressed very far. You just put your foot on the ground and then you start again.

The further up you go, the more tired you get. The desire to just quit, or at least rest, kicks in. Especially when you're doing it in the spring at the peak of blackfly season! (Seriously. I was so bloody and bitten by the time I got back down because I couldn't exactly swat at them when I was clinging to the wall for dear life). It's quite a mental game, telling yourself to keep on going when you'd rather just rappel back down and go grab a cold beer.

I had some great people at the bottom, belaying and coaching. They wouldn't let me give up. Not only did they encourage me, they offered suggestions. They had a better view of the whole wall, they could see where I needed to go, and where the holds were. When I was right up against the wall, I couldn't see everything. All I could see was what was right in front of me. You can't climb alone for safety reasons, obviously, but it started to dawn on me: you can't climb alone, period, because you can't take this kind of journey all by yourself. It doesn't work. You need support along the way. You need people to guide you, to hold the rope and help catch you if you fall, and who can take a step back and see the bigger picture in a way that you can't. You also need people who know how to give positive encouragement. They never barked orders. They never got impatient or frustrated with me, even though they were getting eaten by blackflies, too. My team just stayed calm and practical, talking me through the options for each next step. They wanted me to succeed, and they were phenomenal cheerleaders.

With climbing, there is no right path. The goal is to get to the top. It really doesn't matter how you get there. And you make use of whatever you possibly can. So, at one point, I was near the edge. In my head I thought "you can only use the holds that are screwed on to the wall." A wise voice from below called up, "use whatever you can put your hands on!" Like, uh, the giant post holding the whole wall up, and the bolt sticking out of it? Yeah. On a mountain or rock face, there's definitely no clear path. If you can put your hand or foot on it for leverage, you do it. Why wouldn't I do the same on this journey? Use every resource you can, whether it's conventional or not.

Inch by inch, I made my way to the top. It was super slow. There were points that I found myself in a relatively comfortable position, on holds that had enough space for my feet to rest, and for my hands to grip without my fingers wanting to fall off. I kept looking around. The next step was just barely out of reach, seeming impossible. It was hard to let go of the comfortable spot I was at, to make the very uncomfortable and risky move to reach for the next hold. But that's why I was stuck. Until I tried, until I reached and grasped, I wasn't going to move forward. It took me a few tries. I fell off. Had I not been harnessed in and held on with a rope, I'd have actually fallen to the ground. But I just fell off the wall, floated mid-air for a second, and grabbed back on. It's okay to try and fail, because without taking that risk, you can't move. Literally. You may have to try more than once.

Because of the time of year, camp had just opened. No school groups had come through yet, and I was the first one on the wall. I think that the holds had only been set up the day before. Some of them weren't tightened, so when I went to grab them, they turned, making them even harder to use. I found myself getting mad at whoever had set up the wall. I needed someone to blame. I think I did that a lot when it came to my weight. When I was on the wall, though, it didn't really matter who was to blame for the situation I was in; I was IN that situation. Blaming anyone else just wasn't going to help me move on. I had to let it go and focus on what I was going to do, what I could do with what was right in front of me. I had to take the responsibility for getting myself up the wall, regardless of who had placed the holds where.

When I finally made it to the top, I'll be honest: it was anti-climactic. I was like, "okay ... I made it ... now what?" I touched the top, posed for a picture, and then rapelled back down so that we could get on to the next activity. (Mini golf, where - incidentally - I got a hole in one!). Reaching the goal felt okay, but what felt much better was the climb itself. What felt great, in retrospect, was what I went through to get there and what I learned along the way.

I thought that climbing the wall at camp would be about getting to the top and celebrating. That it would be about feeling pride in finally trying something new. It was, but what has stuck with me for much longer is the humbling metaphor for the weight loss journey. It's a constant climb. You can't do it alone. There is no right path to get to the top. You may get eaten alive along the way. But the only way to get there is one step at a time, taking a few risks along the way, with patience and persistence.

I can almost see it.
That dream I'm dreaming, but
There's a voice inside my head saying
You'll never reach it
Every step I'm takin'
Every move I make
Feels lost with no direction,
My faith is shakin'
But I, I gotta keep tryin'
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waitin' on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down, but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it, but
These are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most, yeah
Just gotta keep goin',
And I, I gotta be strong
Just keep pushing on, 'cause

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waitin' on the other side

It's the climb

 

Today is Bell Media's "Let's Talk" campaign, about mental illness. Every year that they do this I feel uneasy, like I should be talking, like I should have been sharing, like pretending that I'm not one of the people affected has made me a fraud. Despite campaigns like this, with all the articles and confessions that will be written about why it's okay not to be okay, talking about mental illness of any kind still comes with so much shame (for me) that the burden of keeping it hidden seems worth carrying. Well, seemed worth it.

Binge eating disorder. Let's talk.

Eating disorders are mental illnesses. They just happen to manifest themselves physically, sometimes for the whole world to see, but the root is totally mental. I knew a lot about the two big ones: anorexia and bulimia. But, when I was a kid developing unhealthy relationships with food, when I was a teen ballooning out of control, when I was a young adult giving up on life because I couldn't get my weight under control, I didn't know that there were others. Binge Eating Disorder only became an official classification and diagnosis in the DSM-5 in 2013. We only started hearing about it as a possible disorder which stood on its own when it was appended in the DSM-IV as "requiring further study" in 2000.

Before that? Before it had a name, people like me just thought we were weak. Were told we were weak. That it was a lack of willpower. That laziness and overindulgence were at the root of obesity. That it was some kind of moral failing and if I just tried harder, if i just found the right diet, then I would lose the weight.

But I knew. I knew that something wasn't normal with the way I ate. I have been reading and researching eating disorders for years, and started to come across the term "binge eating" as its own category, but it was clear that it was not a legitimate Eating Disorder. I started to use the phrase "disordered eating" to try and explain what I was doing.

And what I was doing was bingeing. Hiding food, to eat in secret. Eating well past the point of being full and being unable to stop, sometimes not even realizing what I was doing. Hardly tasting the food, certainly not enjoying it after the first few mouthfuls. In a trance-like state, I often found myself driving, arguing with myself in my head about NOT making that turn into the drive-thru, having had no conscious intention of eating anything at all, and then coming back to myself to realize that I was surrounded by enough food to feed a small family. Eating disorders are very much about control. With binge eating, it is about the loss of control.

Giving something a name gives it legitimacy. And it has given me power. When there's a name, when it's a real thing, when it's been studied and acknowledged, there's usually a treatment that comes with it. There are strategies to try that have a chance of working, because they are specific to your disorder. You realize that there must be enough other people who are like you for them to create a category and classification. You're not as alone or as messed-up as you thought you were. And with THAT realization, comes hope.

Each day is different. Some are better, some are struggles. I have to choose recovery over and over.
But I have three things I didn't have years ago:

1. I have resources and tools, because
2. I have a name for my disorder, and because of that
3. I have hope.

And I have these things because braver people than I am decided to start the conversation, and talk.

Today did not turn out at all the way I had planned. Kind of like life.

I got a text this morning, saying a friend needed a ride to the clinic. Medicine ball to the face. (Fitness is not for the faint-hearted, y'all; gotta stay focused!). So I picked her up, took her to the clinic, all nonchalant and thinking "ah, nose looks okay, it'll just be an hour or two, no big deal, I was probably only gonna blog or read, anyway." Until the doctor gets a concerned look on her face and says, "I'm going to send you to the hospital." Like, the emergency room? Gulp.

A few hours, CT scan and x-rays later, my friend is home with a mild concussion and a good story. She got lucky. Sitting in a hospital, you realize just how quickly life can change. This only threw off one day for me. For her, it may throw off her week, but she'll be fine. For many people, life changes in an instant and never changes back. It's easy to take things for granted until that happens to you, or to someone you love.

I took health and fitness for granted, for too long. It's part of the reason I make it a priority now. Not only am I trying to catch up, to make up for all the lost time that I wasted and to get myself to some arbitrary physical goal, I am also trying to do the most with what I have right now. I appreciate what my body can do, and I no longer take for granted that I will always be able to do it. I'm fully aware that I'm one knee injury away from being unable to exercise the way I do, to compensate for some imbalances in my eating. (That's my diplomatic way of saying I still indulge too often in ice cream and chocolate). If my knee pops out again, guaranteed the weight will go back on.

You really never know what is going to happen, and unfortunately fitness and healthy living are not guarantees that you'll always STAY healthy. Accidents happen. Illnesses are diagnosed. Life changes. My dad is one of the most active people I know. Always has been. But he's the one in the family who has had brain surgery (twice), radiation (twice), and skin cancer removed from his nose (twice). My sister had a terrifying spinal injury from a rock half her size falling directly on her head while climbing. The number of people I know who have MS diagnoses is now in the double digits. Let's not even get in to whether there's anyone left out there who hasn't been affected in some way by cancer. Health is not something we can blithely assume we'll always have. I now feel like it is my responsibility and obligation to do as much as I can, while I can, because physical health is more of a privilege than I ever appreciated.

I used to think about the fact that so many fit and healthy people got sick and injured, and think "so what's the point? Why even bother?" Glass half-empty, much? The point that I missed - aside from the enjoyment they got from their activities, and the daily benefits to feeling good - was that their healthy habits and their physical fitness helped them to cope, helped them to recover, and helped them to continue living life.

Take my dad, for example. It was actually a wipe-out in a ski race and the CT scan he had because of it that they found the pituitary tumor before he had any symptoms. It was caught early enough that when he had a bad headache, they took it seriously and were prepared for emergency brain surgery, and he avoided a lot of the potential risks that would have come had the doctors not known it existed. If he hadn't been skiing, being active, it might not have been caught. My sister was belaying some kids climbing a rock face when part of the rock wall dislodged, so it would be easy to say that it was being active that put her in harm's way. But it was also her physical conditioning that helped her to regain her strength as quickly as she did, and it was her competitive athlete's drive and desire to move again that kept her motivated until she was almost back to her full capacity. I am always talking about strength, about feeling strong. Exercise has given me that, and it's something to tap into when life throws you a curveball. Or a medicine ball in the face.

This day did not turn out at all the way I had planned.
If it had, I'd probably be complaining about feeling stressed, tired, doing too much work, or generally throwing a pity party.

Instead, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for the ability to pursue health and fitness in the way that I want, to have the freedom to say "I can make the time to work out," and to be living relatively pain-free. I'm grateful for the reminder to do all that I can, while I can, because I don't know when things are going to change and that "can" may become "can't."

It was a humbling reminder, that life does not usually turn out at all the way we had planned.

While my weight loss has been the result of a lot of small things all working together, there is one change I have made which has had the single biggest impact:

I stopped drinking my calories.

It doesn't matter what kind of binge I'm on, or how "bad" the food in front of me is, I still chase it with water. I am now in the habit of choosing water and not drinking pop of any kind. This is a capital B "Big Deal." I should have owned shares in Coca-Cola and Pepsi, I bought so many cases of pop. (Uh, "soda" for our American friends). I'd go through phases of just diet pop, fooling myself into believing that zero calories meant it was not a problem, and totally ignoring the chemicals of the various sugar substitutes. There is some debate about whether diet pop helps in weight loss or not, but the evidence seems to point more towards no (that it can increase weight gain). My head knew how bad it was. I just didn't care. I hated water, and drank pop. Period.

Then I'd get out of the diet pop phase and switch back to the regular, full-strength, high-fructose corn syrup drug of choice. I switched back and forth every few months. It might have been for taste. It might have been for the energy boost I needed to get through a three-hour lecture in university. It might have been because I'd get to a point where the aspartame in the diet pop left me thirstier and with a weird tingly sensation in my mouth. Sadly, my Spidey senses weren't tingling loud enough and I just kept drinking it.

I didn't go cold turkey when I made the switch. Like with exercise, which I baby-stepped my way into, I weaned myself off of caloric beverages slowly. Starting with replacing the regular pop with diet. Adding at least some water each day. This was around the time that Tropicana came out with the diet orange and apple juices, so I replaced my fruit juices with those. Once I got myself off of pop, I would still drink juice (note: not "fruit drink" which is basically flavoured water and sugar, but "real juice" from concentrate or supposedly freshly squeezed like Tropicana). I drank skim milk, and played with replacing that with almond or soy milk. Basically, I tried to watch the sugar that was in the beverages I was consuming, but what I realized as I tracked and counted calories was that my real vice was food. Texture. Taste. Smell. I got none of the enjoyment from beverages that I got from food, even healthy ones, making drinks easier to slowly eliminate from my diet.

In addition, there are a ton of benefits to drinking water. We all know this. It is not in the knowing, it's in the doing. But by replacing my caloric and sugary beverages with water, I was also reaping the benefits of hydration. Win-win. Well, except for the raised eyebrows at work with the path I was wearing thin between my desk and the bathroom! Seriously. Water consumption + girl bladders = peeing all.the.time.

So, yeah. I pretty much only drink water or clear tea (ie: no milk or sugar). I'm not a coffee drinker, or I'd include black coffee too. There are loads of reported benefits to drinking coffee, but only the real stuff (and sans sucre, mes amis). Lattes, frappucinos, all the variations that taste good enough that even I would drink them? They're not really coffee. Think of them as warm milkshakes. Tasty, sure. But you're still drinking your calories and they're not what studies are talking about when they say that there are health benefits.

This article on the Health Hazards of Sitting came out this week. It basically states what is already well-known, and even acknowledges that most of us feel guilty if we sit for too long. The info graphic describes exactly why. While there's an element of scare tactics being used, as is often the case with fitness and health (ie: "we're all gonna DIE!"), all you have to do is sit at a desk for much of the day to know that these things are true. I get the chance to move around a fair bit, and I really notice it on those days where I'm sitting in front of a computer for longer lengths of time.

(My strategy is to keep filling my water bottle in the staff room, forcing me out of my chair, up and down stairs, and begins the cycle of bathroom break, refill water, bathroom, staffroom, etc.).

Exercising releases endorphins. They make you feel good.

I know this, theoretically. I mean, the science backs it up. But until you can actually feel it, until you know the rush, or know what it's like to come in grumpy and leave feeling better, it is a hard concept to grasp. "People actually ENJOY this? Yeah, right."

It didn't take me that long to form the habit of exercising regularly. A few weeks into swimming, and the habit was there. It took me much, much, much longer to enjoy it. And it took me nearly two years before I could actually say that I understood what people meant by "endorphins." It's not like taking a drug, where you start to feel the effect right away. Have a headache? Take a Tylenol and half an hour later, it's gone. It's not always, for me, so immediate when it comes to working out.

More often than not, lately, I do feel noticeably better after exercise. Even if it's just that I have more energy. I come in tired, lethargic, not exactly having a bad day, just feeling run down. Once I get through the activity, I have more bounce in my step. I feel like I can keep going. On days when I come in grumpy, sad, or royally pissed off, I'm usually a better person to be around after I've gotten sweaty. Of course, I usually forget about this beforehand. It's easy to talk yourself out of a workout because of how you feel at the moment, because you have to put faith in the fact that you will only feel better AFTER you do the thing you really don't want to do.

I was reminded of the power of exercise, yesterday. Got a text from a friend having a bad day, who just needed to vent and get some advice. Unfortunately, it came at a time when I couldn't respond immediately. By the time I did get back to them, the answer was "it's okay. I did my workout. And I worked it out in my head." Whether you feel a rush of endorphins at the end or not, exercise can often act as therapy because it gives you time to think, to focus. There can be a meditative aspect, whether you're in a pool, alone with your thoughts, or whether you're punching your aggression out, or whether you're on a bike riding like a bat out of hell, or whether you're doing yoga and quite literally meditating. Exercise helps to clear your mind.

So, whether it's in response to feeling crappy, or whether you're just following a routine, try to do something active. Trust in the process, get through it, and you will feel better - whether it's because of the mental break you've given yourself to think things through, or it's the chemicals being released that change your body's chemistry. Trust that it will work. The hardest part is forcing yourself to start, to get all the way through it, and to repeat - over and over and over - until you get to the point where you know that it's going to work.

Because being healthy and balanced is more than just being strong or lean or not-sick. It's about feeling good.

Our parents are our first and main role models. For little boys, their father teaches them what it means to be masculine, how to act like a man, and how to treat women. For little girls, their daddies show them how they deserve to be treated, and how to interact with the opposite gender.

This can be either a good thing or not. It depends a lot on the father.

This father wrote his daughter a letter that is so poignant and perfect that I cried the first time I read it. It's a message more little girls need to hear, and it's a message I hope new fathers will take to heart. Guys, you have your work cut out for you if you have a daughter. She's going to be bombarded with messages from a very early age, messages that you can't control, telling her to be ashamed of her body, how she'll never be good enough, giving her unrealistic role models to live up to, and teaching her that her worth lies primarily in her beauty. A lot of work is being done by women to fight those messages. But when the men get involved in the fight, when they stand up and say "it does not have to be this way" it carries a deeper impact. When it's your father who conveys the message - positive or negative - it's so much easier to believe. That is a LOT of power.

I hope this guy's daughter understands how lucky she is:

Previously, on "My Gut Tells Me: the Quest to Vanquish the Belly," I wrote about what sparked the weight loss and wellness journey, and the first leg of the adventure in the pool. It was near the end of 2012 that I got out of the pool and onto dry land. I joined the YMCA instead of any of the other options, big fitness chains or small independent gyms, simply because the facilities had pools and I thought, "okay, if nothing else, you can still swim. But, now, if you miss a lane swim, you don't have an excuse to do NOTHING, you have options to walk the track or use a stationary bike."

I knew absolutely nothing when I began. Like, I was nervous about even getting on a treadmill because I didn't know how to turn it on and make it go. Something as simple as that can feel like a hurdle too high to get over. So I signed up for the free consultations, just to get an orientation. But that appointment wasn't for at least a week, and I needed to be able to do something in the meantime. There were loads of options for spin classes, almost daily. I figured that I could ride a bike that wasn't going anywhere, and at least an instructor could show me how to set up and use the equipment. That, she did. And for the first week, I only used stationary bikes and the pool. Hey, at least it was a start.

When I joined, I assumed that I would mostly do my own thing, and take the occasional class. I watched some of the classes and thought, "meh, not for me. Looks too hard." It was in doing the consultations with a Y staff, to orient me to the different areas of use, and come up with a basic plan of what I could do when I went in, that she challenged me to try some classes. She suggested options that were low impact, and gave me just enough encouragement to think, "yeah, I should really try this." What I discovered was that it was easier for me to motivate myself to get my butt into the gym when there was a firm start time. And when someone was leading me in what to do. I didn't have to think about it for myself.

Tuesday night spin classes became my staple, the first anchor point for a routine. I will forever be grateful for the instructor because she made it fun, welcoming, and a community. I hadn't expected that aspect of it. It was a positive enough experience that I decided to try other classes. After all, I had joined the Y so that I could get variety, and not just do the same thing over and over as I had been doing with swimming. One of the classes that intrigued me - and fit into my schedule - was just called "Strength." It was led by a young guy, who clearly had a devoted following in that class. Someone told me he was also a personal trainer, but I thought little of it.

See, when I joined I was adamant that I would never pay anything beyond the basic monthly fee. I thought "on principle, I will never pay extra than what I'm already paying for!" I just used the facility and took the classes. There were posters and ads around for various small group programs that were interesting, but I didn't pay much attention to the one called Biggest Loser. Not only was I unwilling to shell out more money, I was also trying to focus on exercise and strength, not just on weight loss. Everything I knew about the TV show put me off, and I assumed that something called Biggest Loser would of course be along the same lines.

Until, that is, the guy teaching that strength class started to promote the Biggest Loser to the participants and I realized what it really was. The instructor was Mat, a personal trainer putting together a small group challenge, which would have some weight loss components to it, and nutrition tracking, but would mostly be leading us in targeted exercise. It was exactly what I needed, and on top of that, I had some sense of what I was getting with the instructor. Mat had really impressed me with his teaching style and knowledge. So, I signed up for Biggest Loser.

In the first 8-week round of Biggest Loser, I ended up having a few one-on-one sessions because sometimes the other participants didn't show up. I got a sense of the different kinds of exercise I could do, and how to get better. Those progressions translated into the other classes I took. Part of that challenge was to attend a Y class that we hadn't done before, which is how I became introduced to TRX. It was a positive period of growth, and the ending of that course coincided with me hitting the 100 lbs mark. Even though I won that round and knew much, much more than I had when I started in January, I didn't feel finished and I missed the social aspect of working closely with other people who had similar goals, so I signed up for the second round in the Spring.

Small group training had been forecast to be a fitness trend in 2013 and for me, it turned out to be true. However, after 16 weeks of it, I assumed I was done and would go back to handling things on my own. I now had tools, confidence to join and try classes, and a few friendly faces to meet up with or work out with. And then Mat sucked me back in by offering an Outdoor Fitness Challenge in the summer.

I wasn't initially sure about tire flipping, carrying sand bags, or running obstacle courses. I couldn't even imagine what one would do with a fire hose, and when he talked about "battle ropes" I had to Google it to figure out what he meant! But I was a camp girl at heart, and I wanted to be outdoors, so that appeal alone was enough to hook me. That, and curiosity. I wanted to know if I could actually DO it. (At some point I will write more about the experience itself, because it was a pretty big turning point and an awesome summer of strength).

By the time Fall rolled around, I knew I was going to take the next step to personal training. When I had won the first round of Biggest Loser, I got some sessions with Mat as prizes. Genius marketing strategy, that. Because I was hooked, and even though I didn't sign up right away, it planted the seed in my head. Plant the seed in spring, and harvest the crop in the fall. He got himself a client.

That brings us pretty much to the present day. 2013 was all about getting stronger, and it was mostly through small group training, led by a personal trainer, who I then began working with one on one. At some point I'll wax poetic about what makes him great (just to see if he's still reading), and translate my own experience into some tips for friends who are thinking about getting a trainer. I'll talk about the social impact that the YMCA has had for me, what they like to call "your Y story." About how volunteering and getting involved is part of the next step in the fitness journey, because it's actually impossible to do it in a bubble, all on your own.

If you've read this far, you'll see that the overriding theme has been to TRY. I made so many assumptions about what I would, could, or should do. Yet, each period of growth came when I decided to try something new, whether I was challenged or invited by someone else or whether the choice came from me. I tried.

Ultimately, health and fitness is all about progression. You don't go from fat to fit in one jump. I started very small, formed the habit of consistency, added some variety, changed eating along the way, and just. kept. going. I'm not sure I would have kept it up to the same extent had it not been for finding a fitness coach. Meeting Mat was serendipity. He got me to try. Over and over.

He's also the one who introduced me to P!nk's song which became my anthem for the first half of the year.
One guess as to what the song was.

Yep.
"Try"

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea (2013)

Shea is back with his unique sense of humour and illustrations. Everybody knows that unicorns are magical creatures who poop rainbows and glitter. And goats? Don't. So when Unicorn comes to town, Goat is decidedly put out by all the ways that he feels Unicorn one-ups him. All he sees is how much better Unicorn is than HIM, meaning everyone else will like him better as well.  

Until, that is, Unicorn starts to notice that Goats have some pretty cool features. The ability to make goat-cheese? Yes, please! Cloven hooves? Check out those bad boys! Soon, Goat is feeling pretty proud of himself, and Unicorn is the one who's down.

You see where this is going?

It's not a book about body image, per se. It's just a great story for kids - and fun adults! - about learning to accept all the parts of yourself and to see how great they are. Whether anyone else has them, or not. Or, perhaps, BECAUSE they are unique features. Everybody has their strong points, and if it's something you can't change, like cloven hooves or a pointy horn, then you might as well make the most of it. Celebrating differences instead of comparing and competing is the essence of a positive body outlook.

With whimsical and colourful illustrations, and a text that just begs to be read out loud with vigor, this is not only a story about self-acceptance, it's about accepting others as well. Goat and Unicorn discover that they are stronger working together than when competing against each other. "With your magic and my awesome-ness, we'd make an unstoppable team!"

You know, we can't all be unicorns.
Which is a good thing, because even as a kid, I was always partial to goats.