Weight Lifting as an Act of Rebellion

I lift weights at the gym.

Not just the feather-lite girly pink ones either. I'm not afraid to lift heavy.

In the beginning, weight training was just a way to round out my fitness regimen. I vaguely remember reading an article in a magazine about bone density, loss of muscle, women's health, blah, blah, blah. I don't remember the specifics. I know it was enough to make me pick up my first dumb bell even though I had no idea what to do with it. Plus, my husband was dragging me to the gym against my will (Not really. But he needed an accountability partner, and while I didn't need to lose weight, I wanted to be supportive and encouraging and all that stuff spouses are supposed to be).

But now for me, weight training is more. It has become an act of rebellion.

There aren't many women that hang out in the free weights section of the gym. Most of them are too busy with the cardio equipment or the Zumba classes. Their preoccupation with long sessions of calorie-burning cardio ties up most of their gym time. It's part of their endless pursuit of the holy grail otherwise known as the tiny waistline.  When couples enter the gym, they experience a type of divorce - the men head straight to the weights and the women to the treadmills.  It's a little sad to witness, actually.

Lifting weights builds muscle. Women want to be small. In fact the smaller the better. The message is screamed at us from every direction.

Weigh less. Eat less. Wear less. And, by inference, Be less.

The implied standards of beauty that parade across our television screens and grocery store magazine racks have resulted in an ideal body image so skewed and unattainable that women often fall victim to unhealthy fad diets and dangerous eating disorders in their pursuit of 'perfection'. Eat less. Weigh less at any cost. That is the pervading message for women.

And with those slender bodies comes the message to flaunt them. Higher hem lines, lower necklines, sheer see-through fabrics. Wear less. Flaunt your feminine sexuality because that's where your value lies. It's not in your brain or your ideas or your talents, but in your body and how much it arouses male desire.

Perhaps it's a remnant of old-fashioned thinking that women are delicate and fragile that shapes the images of beauty so prevalent in the media. Stick figure models with their Auschwitz-chic protruding collarbones and hipbones grace fashion runways and magazine covers. They look like they might blow away in a stiff breeze, like their limbs might snap at the slightest of touches. And when the models and celebrities don't look that way naturally, there's Photoshop to make sure that we still see them as ultra thin and frail.

Breakable and dainty. That seems to be the gold standard of feminine perfection. Tiny. Frail. Weak.

There is no muscle on the body of Society's approved version of womanhood. Just slender arms that need help opening jar lids and bodies that are so light they can be swooped up in masculine arms and carried away.  To them, vulnerability, not strength, is the true face of femininity.

NO.

I refuse to play this game. I won't follow Society's rules. I don't want to try to squeeze myself into the narrow and unhealthy definition of beauty that is more limiting and constricting than a Victorian corset.

To hell with less. I want to be more.

I want to think more. Feel more. Do more. Be more.

Yes, weight training builds muscle (although not the giant man muscles like so many women believe. That takes a certain cocktail of hormones, a cocktail most women can't achieve without injectable help), but I don't want to be a tiny delicate butterfly. I don't want to be seen as frail and fragile. I want to be strong. I want to be confident and capable. I don't ever want to fit the image of helpless and weak, of the damsel in distress who needs big strong muscles to save me. I want to be strong enough to save myself if I need saving.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote last week in his Time column, "Perhaps the muscular, athletic woman symbolizes physical and mental self-sufficiency, which threatens the cozy ideal of beauty as soft, fragile, and weak."

Yes. Perhaps it does. And that's why you'll find me pumping iron three times a week at my local gym. It's an act of rebellion against the limiting ideals that a consumer-driven society wants us pursuing.

Ladies, jump down off of that treadmill, throw down your salad fork and join me in a revolution. Smash down the snug and comfortable ideals of beauty.

Be strong. Be capable. Be more.

If you need me, I'll be over here in the free weights section. Because you can't bench press your body weight with Barbie doll arms.

The Face of Obesity

I know it's April Fool's Day (which is why I have insulated myself from the masses of prank-playing humanity by hiding here...in the dark...under my bed), but this is no joke.  This is the face of obesity, although most guys probably aren't looking at her face...

The face of obesity, Anita Albrecht

Last week, professional body builder, Anita Albrecht, was told by a NHS (National Health Service in England, although it might just stand for "Not Horribly Smart") nurse that she was "eating too much" and needed to lose weight.  The nurse also recommended a 1000 calorie diet (What is that?  Like one graham cracker a day?  Sheesh.) as well as more exercise...and since Ms. Albrecht undoubtedly spends as much time in the gym as your average full-time office worker spends in the office...she might be losing some sleep if she plans to cram in any more.

Seriously...if Anita Albrecht is overweight, we all might as well just throw in the towel.

The nurse based her recommendations on the Body Mass Index (BMI) which uses math to measure assumed amounts of body fat based on an individual's height and weight.  (Just one more reason to hate math, people!)  By comparing nothing more than Albrecht's height and weight, she falls on the scale at a whopping 29% body fat, which categorizes her as borderline obese.

But I have to wonder if the NHS nurse looked up from her clipboard at all.  Did she even glance at Anita Albrecht during the course of the examination?  Or was she too absorbed in protocol and meaningless averages and sweeping generalizations?  Because certainly no person with decent eyesight could look at Anita Albrecht and think, "She's a little chunky...She might need to spend a little time in the gym...You know walk around the block a few times...and maybe go on a terribly unhealthy starvation diet...because, 'Moooooo'!"

See, BMI doesn't really work all too well for athletes and body builders, because their bodies tend to be more muscular than the average Joe (or Jane).  Muscle is denser than fat, so more muscle equals more weight.  Since amounts of fat and muscle aren't differentiated in the equation, it can become problematic.

"When I tried to explain to her about my body composition she wasn't interested at all," Albrecht complained.  Probably too interested in her clipboard full of statistics to listen to logic.  After all, she had a whole conveyor belt of other patients to push through the system that day.

According to Albrecht, the nurse told her, "You are obviously eating too much."  You know what they say about assumptions...  Actually examining the patient, and possibly asking a question or two, might have helped the nurse realize she wasn't talking to a midnight binge eater here.  But, I'm no medical professional, so I could be wrong.

Albrecht admits that she left the appointment feeling "belittled and insulted".  That's pretty much the standard reaction that women have when they are called "fat"...whether they actually are fat or not.

Because women are overly concerned with being thin.  They are programmed both blatantly and subliminally through "beauty" magazines and photo-shopped celebrities and anorexic fashion models that being thin is the ultimate goal.  The lower the number on the scale, the better.

But that digital number on the bathroom scale is no indicator of health.  A lower number doesn't necessarily equal better health.  One can be remarkably thin (like runway model thin...does their weight even register on your standard bathroom scale?) and dangerously unhealthy.  Consider modeling agencies who do their recruiting at eating disorder clinics.  (There is obviously something sinister and macabre about the fashion industry's obsession with Auschwitz chic.)  Body weight is just one very small (and often insignificant) factor in determining someone's overall health.  We can't boil health down to one single relatively basic mathematical computation, especially when it so blatantly fails a healthy fit individual like Anita Albrecht.   Because health is a complex and constantly changing concept.  And it's as individual as...well, an individual.

There are components to health like strength, flexibility, endurance and cardiovascular health that can't be measured in pounds and inches.  And then there's being disease-free and mentally stable and emotionally mature.  Also can't determine that with a BMI scale.

So look up from your charts and figures and math equations, health care professionals.  And look up from your bathroom scales, ladies.  Health is so much more than what you weigh.

You are so much more than what you weigh.

Just toss out the damned scale.  It would save us all a whole bunch of heartache and self-esteem and tears and medical misunderstandings laced with dangerous recommendations and misinformation.