Results Above Average
Liz E. Smith
I’m standing in the middle of Victoria Park just off Commercial Drive, gripping a plastic bar in front of me as if I’ve got a hold on the handlebars of a bike. About three feet behind me, my personal trainer, Meghan Cooke, is attached to this bar by a long loop of rope—reins, really—and guess who’s the pony? One free low-carb protein shake to the lucky, lucky reader who guesses it’s me. “Okay,” Meghan commands. “Pull me around the park….”
In order to understand the unlikelihood of this situation, there are a few things you will need to know about me. I’m a writer. Sedentary. Solitary. I don’t sweat. And I certainly don’t pull other grown women around public places for fun. But, lo, there came a time, after years of sitting in front of my computer, that I couldn’t really feel my body any more, you know? And in those moments when I could feel my body, all I felt was pain. Crazy. Shooting. Pain. I called Meghan. Now here I am trotting about friskily like a horsie in the park.
How did this come to be?
I would like to say that the entire motivation for my recent pursuit of fitness rallies around the eradication of pain, but I think that would be stretching it a bit. Let’s face it…when you’re any kind of public person, eventually you’ve got to get up in front of people and speak. I think it’s safe to say there’s a fair amount of vanity wrapped up in public performance, so there are cosmetic considerations firmly in the queue…and I suppose mortality also has its place. In recent issues of Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens (also chronicling his personal athletic and cosmetic revolution) writes that, at a certain point, “All cosmetic questions…became eclipsed by the need to exist in the very first place.” I wonder, then, is my own recent obsession with physical fitness also about the fear of death? Hmmm. I’m a little young for that yet, I think. At 32, my motivation is centered more around the fear of Meghan Cooke. But it’s the same kind of fear you get when you’re standing in the line-up for The Zipper at a carnival. You’re pretty sure you don’t want to get on the thing and, when you finally do, it’s bad. Real bad. But afterwards you get to tell everybody who chickened out: dude, I just rode The Zipper. That’s worth the ride, isn’t it? Just answer yes. It’ll be easier on you. I’m learning that.
So, yeah…Pain, Vanity, (and now Competition, apparently) as well as a Healthy Fear of my Trainer, these are what keep me going. Although, by now, I can safely say that the pain I had originally has been replaced with a whole bunch of new pain, the kind you get from actually moving your body. Hurray! I’m enjoying my new pain so much, in fact, that over the next few months, I’m going to report monthly on my twice-weekly butt-kicking a la Meghan Cooke and let you know how I’m shaping up. Already, a co-worker has mentioned I “look athletic.” Miracle, or kindness? It’s hard to know. But it is interesting to note that, across the board, people I know are awfully supportive of the changes I’ve been making. My own mother-in-law encouraged me in the purchase of a gold lame bikini just last week. That’s the kind of change I’m talking about, people: black one-piece Speedo to gold lame.
So it’s time to get down to business. Like any renovator, I’ve got a plan in the works, and it’s going to be a tough one to follow. Science says that, if I follow this plan, I will have lost forty (you heard me) pounds by Christmas and my body mass index with be well within the ratio commonly agreed upon as “normal.” This plan will require that I let go of a few “habits” I’ve picked up along the way and will be exacerbated by the fact that, like many writers, I tend to travel more than your average Jill. So, while it will be relatively easy for me to get to a gym six days a week (you heard me) while I’m in town, it’s going to be tricky to maintain this pace while I’m away. Add to this it’s not much fun to hang out with a writer who’s not smoking or drinking and hasn’t has a mouthful of simple carbohydrates for seven months and I’m sure that I’m headed for a social crisis as well. Good times, friends. Good times.
Why am I doing this again?
I’d be lying if I said I don’t have serious doubts. It’s easy to get disheartened, especially on those days when you’re planning to see results—and then you don’t. Because, here’s the kicker, muscle weighs more than fat. You can eat right and work your ass off at the gym, and actually gain weight. Super! I’ll just take my place alongside the heavyweights at the gym then. That’ll be nice and feminine. Yikes. Occasionally, though, there are some seriously heartening developments that make fitness seem more than just the (shallow?) pursuit of a smaller dress-size. The other weekend I took my husband to the pool and discovered I can pull myself out of the deep end of the pool, over and over again as many times as I want. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? But, two months ago, I couldn’t do that…not even once. And, yesterday, I ran for five minutes without stopping. Which, in case you were wondering, is a pretty big deal for me. But an occasional bout of running isn’t exactly going to transform me into the lean, lithe, little nutcracker I hope to become. So how exactly, do I plan to attain these obscene and unlikely goals?
The first step is, of course, nutrition. When it comes to finding information about what I should and should not put in my mouth, I must admit I am especially blessed. My mom, a registered massage therapist and possibly the most active person I’ve ever known, has had type-one diabetes since she was thirteen. Sucks for her, but she’s a veritable fount of nutritional information. I don’t know what you know about diabetes, but I can tell you this: if you’re going to be an active person, let alone an active person with diabetes, you better know how to use your food as fuel. There are a number of names for the kinds of food decisions I’ll be making over the next few months. You may have heard of them as a low glycemic diet, a naturopathic diet, or even a clean diet. All of them share the same kind of principle. Simple carbohydrates like bread, potatoes, and rice, are out. Complex carbohydrates like leafy greens and vegetables are on the up. Every meal, and there should be many of them throughout the day, should consist of protein, fat, and carbohydrate. Not sure what’s in your food? Read the label. Thirsty? Drink water. Not long ago, Meghan encouraged me to keep a food diary. I discovered, although I make pretty good food decisions, I need to eat more and more frequently. Remember, I’m trying to loose fat and gain muscle. You’d think eating less would be the ticket. Not so. Losing weight is totally counter-intuitive. Eat more; lose more. And, once a week, Meghan even says I can eat pasta, which is totally butch. It’s called a carbo-load. Awesome.
Nutrition’s a toughie for me. Especially when it seems I’m often required to attend social events that are loaded with bad food and a lot of drinks. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice that omission, did you? That’s right. Libations are out. Completely. And that, my dear friends, is what I call a real loss—and the hardest decision for me to maintain. In those moments when I get weak, I have a vodka and soda. Alcohol is pretty much pure sugar, but vodka’s on the low end of the glycemic index. One or two isn’t going to kill me, but that’s it, man. So I better nurse it.
The second half of this story is about moving my body. And let’s face it, I don’t know intuitively how to exercise any more than I know intuitively how to knit a pair of arm-warmers. I mean, I just don’t know how. So my trainer is pretty much indispensable to me. It’s true, I am afraid when Meghan lopes across the gym with some sort of new torturous-looking device. But I have added an entire lexicon of gadgets, gismos, and maneuvers hitherto unknown to me (bosu ball? skull crusher?). None of them have killed me. I work with Meghan twice a week (the operative word being “work”) and try to hit the gym another four times before the week is through. I alternate between cardio and weight-training, and that’s pretty much it. I do what Meghan tells me, and I eat a lot more carrots. Which brings me back to the whole pony motif. These days I can’t help feeling like I’m really getting trained like an animal. There’s the same kind of trust going on here. Meghan says “squat.” I squat. Occasionally, I am resistant. But Meghan is firm enough to convince me to carry on. She tells me she’ll never ask me to do a thing I’m not ready to do, and I believe her. She tells me I can do this thing. So I’m doing it.
