Sugar-Free February

I read another woman's blog this morning about a program in Australia called FebFast where you agree to give up one thing (alcohol, caffeine, technology, sugar...) for the month of February, and simultaneously fundraise for youth addiction programs.

I wish I could describe the fear I felt at the thought of giving up sugar for one month. I guess that's the sign of a true addict. I know sugar is the thing that makes me feel the absolute worst in my life, and it's also the thing I feel I have the least control over.

So I'm jumping in with both feet. I feel I need to follow through with this goal in order to restore my confidence in myself, and also kick-start some weight loss I'd like to accomplish before running season. If things go well, I may even get my kids in on the action (occasional after-dinner sweet treats have become a daily routine, unfortunately).

There's something about writing this down and knowing that people are going to be reading it (and quietly judging me if I fail ;-) that makes it a lot more serious. Maybe someone out there will be inspired to give up something they feel enslaved to also.

Best of luck, friends!

T

Be a Badass

While I was running this morning, I got to thinking about the history of women in running. Did you know that just 53 years ago, in 1961, the Amateur Athletic Union banned women from participating in all U.S. road races? This was in an era when women were expected to be feminine, calm, weak, slender, and submissive. Women were strongly discouraged from strenuous activity, being told that exercise and running would give them masculine physiques and cause reproductive problems (did you know running can make your uterus fall out?!). The longest sanctioned race available to women was 1.5 miles.

Can you imagine, in this day and age, being told you aren't allowed to do something because you are a woman? Luckily, most of us grew up knowing we could do anything we wanted, and we probably take that for granted most of the time. Of course we still face challenges in certain areas of life as a result of being women -- I changed my college major from Geography to Sociology because I felt so unwelcome in the football-player-dominated Geography Department -- but we know that we would never be actually prohibited from doing something we wanted to do.

Women who tried to enter marathons back in those days were actually told that women were  incapable of running such long distances. They had doctors backing them up with medical advice that distance running was detrimental to the health of women. Women who just wanted to run and participate in prestigious events like the Boston Marathon were politely, or impolitely, told they were not welcome.

Enter the badass. Roberta ("Bobbi") Gibb loved running and ran up to 40 miles per day in her normal life. When she attempted to register for the Boston Marathon, she was rejected. Instead of accepting that fate, she hid in some bushes at the start line in 1966 and ran the entire course unofficially, finishing in the top 1/3 of the field. Then she returned and ran again in 1967, where she was one of two women to finish (she finished an hour ahead of the other woman, Kathrine Switzer). In 1968, there were 5 women. In 1972, the race organizers finally created a women's division. For the 100th anniversary of the Boston Marathon in 1996, she was given three gold medals for winning the yet-to-be sanctioned women's division in 1966, 1967, and 1968, and her name was inscribed on the Marathon Memorial in Copley Square, along with all the other winners.

Kathrine Switzer got a race bib in 1967 by registering under the name KV Switzer. She lined up at the start with all the other runners, and started the race. When the race manager, Jock Semple, saw her running, he became enraged and actually assaulted her, trying to tear her race bib off. Her boyfriend came to the rescue and pushed Semple off the course. (Semple has since said he was fine with women running the course, but was angry because he felt he had been tricked by her.) Switzer became quite famous as the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon, but Roberta Gibb was actually the first a year earlier.

Regardless of the details, these two women were badasses. I can't even imagine the fear and uncertainty they faced when doing something so outrageous in that sexist climate. They faced being unwelcome, shouldered-out of the race, physically harmed, and even arrested. But they loved running, and felt it was unfair that they had to do it alone or in secret or just for "fun."

Running is so hard. It is a huge physical challenge. And these women had to not only prepare for the race physically, but also muster the courage to face these huge obstacles. When I'm at home preparing to go out and run, debating about how far I'll go, kind of feeling sad and dreading this really hard thing I'm about to do, I am going to remember these two women and the enormous challenges they faced, and overcame, just so they could run.

Why do I run? Because I can.

Resolution Time!

Even if you swear you're not going to make a New Year's Resolution this year, you know you have that secret little inkling of something you'd like to change about yourself or your life. But you also know the statistics of how frequently NY resolutions fail, and how gyms are full for January and February, but empty again by March.

We all start the New Year with hope and anticipation and excitement, but it quickly fades. Why? Why can't we set out to do something to improve our lives, and follow through with certainty?

I believe it's because we focus too much on the end result, and not enough on the process of what it will take to get there. Take a common resolution to lose weight: I want to lose 50 pounds this year. This is certainly an attainable goal, and a year is a reasonable amount of time in which to do it. But how will I get there? I won't wake up every morning and say, "I'm going to lose 50 pounds today!" There needs to be a process in place...a system...that I can follow on a daily basis to achieve my goal.

It would make much more sense to have the resolution be: I will exercise 4 times per week, eat a salad for lunch every day, stop eating dessert, and stop eating after 7pm. That is a tangible, recordable, easy to follow system that will almost certainly lead to the desired result.

What about quitting smoking? You're certainly not going to wake up one day and quit smoking--if that was as easy as it sounds, no one would smoke anymore. You need a process that will result in success. Something like smoking one less cigarette per day, until you aren't smoking at all.

I believe we are also far too ambitious with our goals. We suddenly think we have to ability to make enormous changes to our lives, and can't understand why we lose our motivation. My advice is to only commit to changes that you can maintain for the rest of your life. If you can't imagine eating salad for lunch every day for the rest of your life, don't make that one of your changes--instead, commit to incorporating vegetables into every meal, or eating salad for lunch at least 3 times per week.  The changes you make should be long term and sustainable, rather than short term and dramatic.

There is rarely a time that you will be "finished" and can return to your old habits. Think of the self-improvement process as a lifelong journey that you can enjoy. It is much better to take 3 years to lose the 50 pounds, but keep it off for the rest of your life through long-term lifestyle changes, than to lose the 50 pounds in 3 months, but gain it right back again when you can't maintain the extreme changes you had to make in order to do it.

Most importantly, don't become jaded and bitter about past failures. Previous results are not an indicator of future success. Think of your unsuccessful attempts to improve yourself as practice, and remember that you know so much more about yourself now than you did when you started. You need to be your own biggest cheerleader, and constantly tell yourself that you are capable of change and deserve to be as happy as possible.

Good luck, and Happy New Year!