A New Rules Anniversary
The first time I laid hands on the New Rules of Lifting for Women I ended up reading the book aloud, cover to cover, to my mother over two bottles of champagne. We spent the day drinking and learning about lifting. We whipped out the exercise mat and practiced wobbly planks. We critiqued our squat technique still holding our flutes. Incongruous, but auspicious, I would say.
Over the years I had logged a decent amount of time at the gym, but when I clipped in my spinning shoes or swished on the elliptical it was with the intent to tune out and sweat and de-stress, not to build a body. Sometimes, after a particularly indulgent few days eating quesadillas or macadamia nut pie, I might jog on the treadmill in penance, one calorie, two calorie, three calorie, four. Or, if I was feeling really creative, I would meander over to the weight rack and pick up a pair of ten pound dumbbells to do a round of flies and shoulder presses. Every once in a while, though, I would remember that I wanted more and sign up for an hour with a personal trainer, but inevitably, would walk away from those sessions with a slight stink of shame. "No, Mr. Trainer, I cannot do a single pushup."
At least with cardio I could count on finishing with a good spike of endorphins and a clear head. Spinning, stairclimbing, BodyPump, jogging, they all had the same effect-- I got sweaty and happy. And, my body stayed exactly the same.
Growing up I was lucky to have good health and fitness role models. (It was my mother, after all, who had brought me her copy of New Rules. I supplied the champagne; it was an excellent trade.) As a kid, I remember asking her to flex for my friends, but I don't remember her pumping iron and I don't know if even she could tell you how she got those biceps. We did have a decent home gym, which I ignored in favor of various fitness videos like The Firm. Fifteen years later I can still recall the white teeth, whittled waists, and colorful, perky sports bras of the women on those VHS tapes. My teenage self trotted and lunged alongside them for years, vaguely hoping to metamorphosize into the sleek women jumping around on the screen.
Meanwhile, my best friends, twins, were attacking heavy weights and getting lean and strong. Eventually, they both got certified as personal trainers, and one still competes in figure competitions. The first time I witnessed the full power of lifting was when I saw her prepare for her first show. I was in awe and, frankly, in shock at her transformation from fit girl to Body of Work, muscles sculpted into art, fat chiseled away to reveal graceful symmetry. The process and the end result were inspiring and intimidating. But, I still viewed lifting as part of a purely aesthetic process, even though a valuable one (after all, she was the only girl I knew who would rock a thong on the beach), not as a means toward health and overall fitness, which had always meant cardiovascular endurance and leanness, period. Mobility, strength, and power simply weren't part of the equation.
Like most Western women my idea of the "right" body was an amalgam of countless figures and silhouettes in the media. And, she was long and lean and slim, not sculpted. Muscles were acceptable, but they were discreet and sleek. And, we shouldn't have to work for it. Beauty and proportion should just spontaneously occur and be present for everyone's enjoyment. Clothes should skim delicately over unobtrusive bodies. But, as a teenager, my body became annoyingly obtrusive. I felt like I'd gone to sleep a tidy rose garden and woken up an overgrown jungle. I learned to not think about my body and for the most part could successfully ignore its reality until some stranger would make a comment, like a guy on an elevator, "so, how big are your boobs exactly?" Big, sir, thank you for noticing. Sweating it out at the gym was another way to zone out blissfully, the body forgotten.
Then, at 31, my mom brought New Rules on a visit and radically changed what fitness, health, and vitality meant to me. Like me, my mom was a gym dabbler and picked up the book thinking she could learn a few new moves. She started reading it and could tell it was a paradigm shift. At the end of our impromptu New Rules champagne party I was hoarse but my mind was wide open. I wanted to run to the gym tipsy and pick up a barbell. Luckily, I took a nap instead and started two days later.
That was two years ago. I've since completed New Rules for Women, Abs, Life, and am now midway through Hypertrophy 1 in Supercharged. Physically, I guess my body did transform, but I've taken those changes for granted, as we tend to do. Like most transformations, the process became more important than the end result. When we begin, we visualize our future selves and expect one day for that mental image to perfectly overlay the contours in the mirror. I can't remember but I probably had those perky women from The Firm still in mind. But, what happens when we're learning movement patterns and logging our workouts is that we're getting an education in our own bodies. Our muscle fibers break down under strain and come back just a little bit stronger and bigger over time, and we're becoming experts at ourselves. The discomfort of being a human in a changeable body is countered by the flush of pride at picking up a heavier weight. Shyness around the bar or intimidation in the gym's testosterone pit become distant memories, and we learn to own it, the place, the process, and our bodies. The forgotten body comes to life with our attention.
To be honest, the process was not all roses and barbells. In fact, after completing the Abs program, I briefly broke up with lifting. One day I woke up and said, "screw this" and didn't pick up a weight for a few months. Like a lot of breakups, tension had been building silently and then it came down to one little argument. For awhile, my body had been feeling off kilter and my gym time less productive. And, then, I hurt my damn pinky.
If we don't listen to the body, it will find a way to get what it wants, especially if what it wants is rest and fuel. The self-sabotage can take the form of illness, fatigue, or even a throbbing pinky. It worked. It got my attention, and I rested, I fueled, and I atrophied. But, thankfully, long after my finger had healed, I decided to give it another go with an even greater understanding of what my body needs and how to listen to it. Of course, it was more than just my pinky. Looking back, I think I had become too healthy if that's possible.
New Rules was a grand experiment and the results were good and encouraged me to try more experiments. I felt freaking awesome, but could I feel even better? In previous stages I had offset healthy weekdays with restaurant-filled, wine-soaked weekends, so I decided to tighten things up. For a time I gave up alcohol (no more reading and champagne parties), tried a pretty strict paleo diet, and cooked most of my meals at home with whole foods. The Abs program simply demanded more calories than I was taking in and more rest than I was getting. And, then, in my bright new haze of uber-health, doubts began to creep in. I began to think, maybe this isn't natural? The old, worn-out idea that bodies should be easily slim, rather than deliberately sculpted, drifted back. I started forgetting the rules.
Plus, a steaming pile of negative feedback had grown just a bit too high, and I finally stepped in it. For every compliment I heard ("you look great!") there was a counter-compliment to deflate it ("whoa, watch out, your calves are enormous!"). Of course we should never let other people's opinions push us off the path we've forged for ourselves, but when we're already feeling weak and vulnerable, one jab can knock us off course. All of a sudden it just seemed like too much effort, and status quo started sounding really good. Maybe skinny fat isn't so bad after all! And, a little junk in the trunk never hurt anyone!
Because, to be perfectly honest, I was simultaneously happy and disappointed in my progress. I had certainly enjoyed the journey, feeling like a badass swinging snatches, learning about proper form and anatomy, and even discovering imbalances and weaknesses. But, I was still measuring and assessing the physical self. A trip to the BodPod body fat test told me I had lost ten pounds of fat and gained five pounds of muscle, but in clothes I looked pretty much the same (except for my shrinking boobs, as several people helpfully pointed out). The fact that I was finally comfortable throwing on a bikini for the first time since, well, since before I had boobs was lost on me. I started thinking about the effort put in (a lot) versus aesthetic results (it's still my same damn, fallible body). Being healthy and fit and committing wholeheartedly to a lifting program hadn't made me immune to bad moods, negative self-talk, or fatigue. And, plus, my jeans were still tight. It just didn't seem worth it. So, I broke up with lifting, ignored my body, and my boobs came back, my butt reappeared, and my arms got skinny again. And, just like puberty, it felt like it happened over night. When watched, my body was like a proper, well-behaved child, but as soon as I turned my back, she dove straight into the dirt, getting messy and real. My health kick had kicked my ass and now the ass was back with a vengeance.
But, in that reversion, I did find homeostatis and rest and the things that had been feeling wonky stabilized. I read somewhere that when women first embark on a lifting program their periods often become shorter or longer. A change to our hormonal cycle has huge effects. As soon as I stopped lifting, loosened up my diet, and reintroduced wine, my cycle went back to its regular 28 days, whereas during the Abs program it had swung from 35 to 20 days. I've read a few women online declaring happily, "since cutting carbs, my periods have completely disappeared!" or "My periods are so short now!" Periods don't just vanish without a trace. In fact, there's usually hell to pay later.
You'll often read "progress is not linear". This is especially true for women. Nothing is linear for those of us with ovaries. Every month progesterone and estrogen and testosterone glide up and down in a complicated, sometimes happy, sometimes fraught, dance. Its steps are tightly prescribed and if we shake things up too much, with too few calories or not enough rest, the entire dance can fall apart and hormones end up on the floor in a tangled heap. The dance might not be linear, but luckily, we can count on it being cyclical, and we have the perfect mechanism to check to see if our systems are well regulated and we're getting the right amount of exercise, rest, sleep, and nutrients. Since I've come back to lifting, my cycle is still its normal 28 days. I can count on my regular ups and downs. Because, now, I make sure that I eat heartily, rest deeply, and pay attention to what my body is asking for, even if it's asking in a whisper. In the past I would push myself to get to the gym even when exhausted, because I knew I would feel good afterward, and it usually worked. Inevitably, those endorphins would flow and adrenaline would pump, but there was a cost. I also make sure to get a little gluttonous and wanton every once in awhile, to take my eye off the child and let it run wild. After all, champagne and lifting are not wholly incompatible.
Breaking up and reuniting with lifting reinforced the magic of muscles, because even though they had lost some shape in those months, I could still do 10 pushups (whereas I couldn't do a single one when I began New Rules). My muscle did have memory, and it was happy to be back. It took just a couple months to be back to my previous level of strength. Now I can knock out 20 feet-elevated pushups, but I'm still working on that elusive first pull-up though. In the break I realized how I missed my strength. I missed my body moving confidently through space, aware of its existence. And, most of all I missed the feeling in the gym, paying attention to form, being in my body, making sure I've got a neutral spine, a properly rotated pelvis, that I'm breathing diaphragmatically, and then picking up and putting down heavy weight. I'm sweating like on the treadmill, and my mind is clear, but now I'm present. Like Lou says, you have to be very, very present with a big heavy bar on your shoulders.
New Rules challenged and changed my relationship with my body and gave me an education in the self. It's a noble endeavor, getting to know our bodies and learning how to take care of them. In the search for fitness, as defined by strength, mobility, health and power, our expectations of ourselves shift. We realize that we're not our younger selves or a projected ideal. Measurements become less important than attitudes. The internal state takes precedent over changing contours. We learn to love the body as it is, a garden, gently tended with iron.
Over the years I had logged a decent amount of time at the gym, but when I clipped in my spinning shoes or swished on the elliptical it was with the intent to tune out and sweat and de-stress, not to build a body. Sometimes, after a particularly indulgent few days eating quesadillas or macadamia nut pie, I might jog on the treadmill in penance, one calorie, two calorie, three calorie, four. Or, if I was feeling really creative, I would meander over to the weight rack and pick up a pair of ten pound dumbbells to do a round of flies and shoulder presses. Every once in a while, though, I would remember that I wanted more and sign up for an hour with a personal trainer, but inevitably, would walk away from those sessions with a slight stink of shame. "No, Mr. Trainer, I cannot do a single pushup."
At least with cardio I could count on finishing with a good spike of endorphins and a clear head. Spinning, stairclimbing, BodyPump, jogging, they all had the same effect-- I got sweaty and happy. And, my body stayed exactly the same.
Growing up I was lucky to have good health and fitness role models. (It was my mother, after all, who had brought me her copy of New Rules. I supplied the champagne; it was an excellent trade.) As a kid, I remember asking her to flex for my friends, but I don't remember her pumping iron and I don't know if even she could tell you how she got those biceps. We did have a decent home gym, which I ignored in favor of various fitness videos like The Firm. Fifteen years later I can still recall the white teeth, whittled waists, and colorful, perky sports bras of the women on those VHS tapes. My teenage self trotted and lunged alongside them for years, vaguely hoping to metamorphosize into the sleek women jumping around on the screen.
Meanwhile, my best friends, twins, were attacking heavy weights and getting lean and strong. Eventually, they both got certified as personal trainers, and one still competes in figure competitions. The first time I witnessed the full power of lifting was when I saw her prepare for her first show. I was in awe and, frankly, in shock at her transformation from fit girl to Body of Work, muscles sculpted into art, fat chiseled away to reveal graceful symmetry. The process and the end result were inspiring and intimidating. But, I still viewed lifting as part of a purely aesthetic process, even though a valuable one (after all, she was the only girl I knew who would rock a thong on the beach), not as a means toward health and overall fitness, which had always meant cardiovascular endurance and leanness, period. Mobility, strength, and power simply weren't part of the equation.
Like most Western women my idea of the "right" body was an amalgam of countless figures and silhouettes in the media. And, she was long and lean and slim, not sculpted. Muscles were acceptable, but they were discreet and sleek. And, we shouldn't have to work for it. Beauty and proportion should just spontaneously occur and be present for everyone's enjoyment. Clothes should skim delicately over unobtrusive bodies. But, as a teenager, my body became annoyingly obtrusive. I felt like I'd gone to sleep a tidy rose garden and woken up an overgrown jungle. I learned to not think about my body and for the most part could successfully ignore its reality until some stranger would make a comment, like a guy on an elevator, "so, how big are your boobs exactly?" Big, sir, thank you for noticing. Sweating it out at the gym was another way to zone out blissfully, the body forgotten.
Then, at 31, my mom brought New Rules on a visit and radically changed what fitness, health, and vitality meant to me. Like me, my mom was a gym dabbler and picked up the book thinking she could learn a few new moves. She started reading it and could tell it was a paradigm shift. At the end of our impromptu New Rules champagne party I was hoarse but my mind was wide open. I wanted to run to the gym tipsy and pick up a barbell. Luckily, I took a nap instead and started two days later.
That was two years ago. I've since completed New Rules for Women, Abs, Life, and am now midway through Hypertrophy 1 in Supercharged. Physically, I guess my body did transform, but I've taken those changes for granted, as we tend to do. Like most transformations, the process became more important than the end result. When we begin, we visualize our future selves and expect one day for that mental image to perfectly overlay the contours in the mirror. I can't remember but I probably had those perky women from The Firm still in mind. But, what happens when we're learning movement patterns and logging our workouts is that we're getting an education in our own bodies. Our muscle fibers break down under strain and come back just a little bit stronger and bigger over time, and we're becoming experts at ourselves. The discomfort of being a human in a changeable body is countered by the flush of pride at picking up a heavier weight. Shyness around the bar or intimidation in the gym's testosterone pit become distant memories, and we learn to own it, the place, the process, and our bodies. The forgotten body comes to life with our attention.
To be honest, the process was not all roses and barbells. In fact, after completing the Abs program, I briefly broke up with lifting. One day I woke up and said, "screw this" and didn't pick up a weight for a few months. Like a lot of breakups, tension had been building silently and then it came down to one little argument. For awhile, my body had been feeling off kilter and my gym time less productive. And, then, I hurt my damn pinky.
If we don't listen to the body, it will find a way to get what it wants, especially if what it wants is rest and fuel. The self-sabotage can take the form of illness, fatigue, or even a throbbing pinky. It worked. It got my attention, and I rested, I fueled, and I atrophied. But, thankfully, long after my finger had healed, I decided to give it another go with an even greater understanding of what my body needs and how to listen to it. Of course, it was more than just my pinky. Looking back, I think I had become too healthy if that's possible.
New Rules was a grand experiment and the results were good and encouraged me to try more experiments. I felt freaking awesome, but could I feel even better? In previous stages I had offset healthy weekdays with restaurant-filled, wine-soaked weekends, so I decided to tighten things up. For a time I gave up alcohol (no more reading and champagne parties), tried a pretty strict paleo diet, and cooked most of my meals at home with whole foods. The Abs program simply demanded more calories than I was taking in and more rest than I was getting. And, then, in my bright new haze of uber-health, doubts began to creep in. I began to think, maybe this isn't natural? The old, worn-out idea that bodies should be easily slim, rather than deliberately sculpted, drifted back. I started forgetting the rules.
Plus, a steaming pile of negative feedback had grown just a bit too high, and I finally stepped in it. For every compliment I heard ("you look great!") there was a counter-compliment to deflate it ("whoa, watch out, your calves are enormous!"). Of course we should never let other people's opinions push us off the path we've forged for ourselves, but when we're already feeling weak and vulnerable, one jab can knock us off course. All of a sudden it just seemed like too much effort, and status quo started sounding really good. Maybe skinny fat isn't so bad after all! And, a little junk in the trunk never hurt anyone!
Because, to be perfectly honest, I was simultaneously happy and disappointed in my progress. I had certainly enjoyed the journey, feeling like a badass swinging snatches, learning about proper form and anatomy, and even discovering imbalances and weaknesses. But, I was still measuring and assessing the physical self. A trip to the BodPod body fat test told me I had lost ten pounds of fat and gained five pounds of muscle, but in clothes I looked pretty much the same (except for my shrinking boobs, as several people helpfully pointed out). The fact that I was finally comfortable throwing on a bikini for the first time since, well, since before I had boobs was lost on me. I started thinking about the effort put in (a lot) versus aesthetic results (it's still my same damn, fallible body). Being healthy and fit and committing wholeheartedly to a lifting program hadn't made me immune to bad moods, negative self-talk, or fatigue. And, plus, my jeans were still tight. It just didn't seem worth it. So, I broke up with lifting, ignored my body, and my boobs came back, my butt reappeared, and my arms got skinny again. And, just like puberty, it felt like it happened over night. When watched, my body was like a proper, well-behaved child, but as soon as I turned my back, she dove straight into the dirt, getting messy and real. My health kick had kicked my ass and now the ass was back with a vengeance.
But, in that reversion, I did find homeostatis and rest and the things that had been feeling wonky stabilized. I read somewhere that when women first embark on a lifting program their periods often become shorter or longer. A change to our hormonal cycle has huge effects. As soon as I stopped lifting, loosened up my diet, and reintroduced wine, my cycle went back to its regular 28 days, whereas during the Abs program it had swung from 35 to 20 days. I've read a few women online declaring happily, "since cutting carbs, my periods have completely disappeared!" or "My periods are so short now!" Periods don't just vanish without a trace. In fact, there's usually hell to pay later.
You'll often read "progress is not linear". This is especially true for women. Nothing is linear for those of us with ovaries. Every month progesterone and estrogen and testosterone glide up and down in a complicated, sometimes happy, sometimes fraught, dance. Its steps are tightly prescribed and if we shake things up too much, with too few calories or not enough rest, the entire dance can fall apart and hormones end up on the floor in a tangled heap. The dance might not be linear, but luckily, we can count on it being cyclical, and we have the perfect mechanism to check to see if our systems are well regulated and we're getting the right amount of exercise, rest, sleep, and nutrients. Since I've come back to lifting, my cycle is still its normal 28 days. I can count on my regular ups and downs. Because, now, I make sure that I eat heartily, rest deeply, and pay attention to what my body is asking for, even if it's asking in a whisper. In the past I would push myself to get to the gym even when exhausted, because I knew I would feel good afterward, and it usually worked. Inevitably, those endorphins would flow and adrenaline would pump, but there was a cost. I also make sure to get a little gluttonous and wanton every once in awhile, to take my eye off the child and let it run wild. After all, champagne and lifting are not wholly incompatible.
Breaking up and reuniting with lifting reinforced the magic of muscles, because even though they had lost some shape in those months, I could still do 10 pushups (whereas I couldn't do a single one when I began New Rules). My muscle did have memory, and it was happy to be back. It took just a couple months to be back to my previous level of strength. Now I can knock out 20 feet-elevated pushups, but I'm still working on that elusive first pull-up though. In the break I realized how I missed my strength. I missed my body moving confidently through space, aware of its existence. And, most of all I missed the feeling in the gym, paying attention to form, being in my body, making sure I've got a neutral spine, a properly rotated pelvis, that I'm breathing diaphragmatically, and then picking up and putting down heavy weight. I'm sweating like on the treadmill, and my mind is clear, but now I'm present. Like Lou says, you have to be very, very present with a big heavy bar on your shoulders.
New Rules challenged and changed my relationship with my body and gave me an education in the self. It's a noble endeavor, getting to know our bodies and learning how to take care of them. In the search for fitness, as defined by strength, mobility, health and power, our expectations of ourselves shift. We realize that we're not our younger selves or a projected ideal. Measurements become less important than attitudes. The internal state takes precedent over changing contours. We learn to love the body as it is, a garden, gently tended with iron.
