Reread the warning before you begin.
Now, several blog followers have written to to say they appreciate my positive attitude and my candor about my journey. What people seem to really respond to is the evidence that it is possible for an average person, even late in life, to make permanent and substantial changes to improve their mental and physical health. I love these letters. They make my day.
However, a few people have also noted that as much as they want to improve their own health in a similar way, they don't think it would be possible given their complex lives and quantity of stress. In this post I want to delve into that issue in more depth, because it deserves thoughtful consideration.
ARE YOU IN A POSITION TO CHANGE?
First, I think we must consider just how serious and dire people's personal situations can be.
If you are living in circumstances where:
- your basic needs are barely being met or aren't at all
- you are in physical danger or living with ongoing fear (real or perceived)
- you have little or no social support
- you are coping with untreated medical conditions
I am sure somewhere out there there is a mother of five living in a refugee camp training for a marathon. Super human people exist. But I can't tell you where they find their strength, because I am not that strong. I admire them beyond belief and hope God has stashed in me a tiny speck of their courage and determination. I am nothing like those people. I like to think I'm a good time, maybe have a little skill at my job, try to be a good friend and whatnot, but I am not a hero.
So that begs the question: who is really going to be able to make substantial life changes and under what conditions, particularly if they are certain they are of average courage?
Maybe you aren't living as a sex slave or being held by a terrorist group, but what if you are caring for a very sick family member in your home, or raising a disabled child, or working four low-wage jobs, or being stalked by a crazy ex, or struggling with addiction? Sometimes what are dismissed as "first world problems" are very serious obstacles to making life changes.
If I am honest, I know I longed to change my path for years, made some attempts that failed and then felt like swamp sludge. The cycle of attempt-failure-shame was hard to stop. I kept thinking: here I am, a middle-class person with a job and many advantages, how come I can't pull myself together?
I was sure it was a mark of my fundamental laziness and poor character that I would do ten sit-ups during a commercial break and then slink into the kitchen for a pint of mint-chip. Now I look back and see all the things that were working against me at that time and feel a little amazed I even did the ten sit-ups.
THE MINIMUM FIVE FOR NORMAL HUMANS
In my own process of change, given that I know full well I am of average discipline and courage, I have concluded that the following five minimum conditions must be met for a person to have enough room to enact significant fitness and health changes:
- You have to have at least two people who care about you and are encouraging at every step, and at least one has to be a mentor or friend you talk to frequently (these people can live far away, but they can't be secretly, even subconsciously, trying to undermine you out of jealousy or because you threaten their own sense of the world)
- You cannot be living with someone who is maintaining the exact kind of unhealthy lifestyle you want to move away from (and by unhealthy lifestyle, I mean anything from having a constant negative attitude to being a sedentary, lethargic overeater)
- You can't be working three or more jobs, especially if you don't know what your schedule will be from week to week (though you can be going to school and working one job or two part time jobs)
- You have to be certain you will be able to pay the bills and keep a roof over your head (that does not mean you don't have debt)
- You can't be in an abusive relationship or fighting addiction or an under-treated medical condition (you can, however, be in a situation where you are caring for other people's very large needs, including the needs of children and those with health problems)
It helps if the supporters live close by, if you have a steady job with benefits, if you have a tiny crumb of self esteem and so on, but we can't have everything.
If you are dealing with abuse or addiction or a major health problem, I think you are probably going to need to draw on external resources (doctors, therapists, treatment) before you can start activating the internal ones needed to make the kinds of changes I'm talking about.
Bear in mind, these are just my observations. Don't assume if you don't have all five of these things in order you can't get there. But I think a lot of people need to chip away at the impediments one at a time until they have things in order before trying to make other bigger changes (* Again, see post script for more thoughts on this). If you don't address the problems listed above, I think you will probably find, as I did, that you are repeating the attempt-failure-shame cycle.
I ALMOST MEET THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS. NOW WHAT?
Guess what I'm not going to say? I am not going to say "take it one day at a time." I am not going to say "keep a smile on your face and be grateful for what you've got." I am not going to say "God gives you what he thinks you can handle." If you have seen it on a poster in a guidance counselor's office, I am not going to say it. Mantras can be helpful (see previous post), but platitudes are really annoying.
(Note: Much of what follows is discussed in earlier posts, but this is a cheap summary)
As far as I am concerned, the way you start is usually that the discomfort is building for a while and somewink wink) triggers in you a sudden yearning to change. For me it was the day my daughter saw my belly exposed and said: "Oh, mama, you don't have a belly button." I was so big, the kid could not see my belly button. That got to me way more than my blood work that showed I had pre-diabetes and high cholesterol.
particular incident or moment (or blog post...
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| Took this the same day as the belly button convo. I am pretty sure you do NOT want to see the belly button pic. |
MAD DASH
When this moment hits you, you must jump to your feet before your low self-esteem kicks in, put on your sturdiest shoes and go for a slog. Maybe it's not a jog exactly, but make it more than a walk. Try to go for 20 minutes. That's the amount of time that I've heard somewhere is what it takes to release enough endorphins to help elevate mood. If you hate running, and you probably will after that first run (let's call it a run), that doesn't much matter. You don't have to stick with running, but it's cheap and if you had to get your golf clubs and shoes on and get down to the country club at the moment the trigger came, lord knows you'd never make it, not if you are anything like me, anyway.
Announce your plans to yourself and your mentors. Wait to put it on Facebook until you've got a little momentum going.
GO TO STAPLES FOR SUPPLIES
I am a hugely visual person, so while those minimum number of endorphins from the first run were still
sort of working, I went to Staples for poster board and post-it notes and started making these big old wall calendars that I planned to use to track my progress. I like the smell of Elmers glue, I like colored markers (particularly the turquoise and amber shades), and I like crafts projects. So I accidentally rewarded my own running efforts with the chance to sit around and glue stuff to poster board and then stick it to the wall like a first grader. In fact, I let my first grader help out.
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Here are the first year's worth of posters. I have all of
the second and part of the third year on this wall too.
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ASK WHOOPIE FOR HELP
I put the boards in a place where I had to see them all the time. I made six months worth of calendar, which seemed outrageous, but I figured what the f**k. I printed out and glued on pictures of my favorite celebrity role models and gave them little speech bubbles that said things like "Go for a run, Holly! It will make you funnier!" That was Whoopie Goldberg talking. I also had Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Oprah, the Indigo Girls, my best friend Kathy and a bunch of others on there. It may not be Whoopie for you, but you need voices of support.
PHOTOGRAPH YOUR BELLY BUTTON
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| Whoopi helped |
For those early runs I set myself the task of slogging two miles. It seemed like a marathon, but also like a minimum distance that a human should be able to go, even if they were the size of an orca. I was running 13 minute miles so it was hard to pretend I couldn't carve 26 minutes plus time for a shower out of my day for this.
I wore baggy clothes, was sure people were staring and laughing at me, and ran faster when I saw trees up ahead so I could hide in heavily wooded areas. It was also hot out. It was July. So the shade was nice. During each run I sweated the amount an entire NBA all stars team does during a full season.
DO SOMETHING CRAZY
Every day I wrote on my wall calendar the number of miles I had run. I took two days off per week. When I ran 3 in stead of 2 miles for the first time --and nearly fainted from exhaustion-- I put a huge smiley sticker on my board. It's surprising how childish things like stickers can help. I had a tiny scrap of momentum behind me.
After a week, feeling slightly almost a tiny bit proud of myself, I decided to cut out sugar and carbs but not limit anything else in my entire diet. Please let me be clear: this is not a miracle diet. In fact, this is a diet that may not get anyone anywhere. Low carb could be just be a fad. Basically any calorie reduction is something and for me lots of protein seemed to help me not dive for the Ben & Jerry's.
My craziest maneuver came at the suggestion of two friends. I signed up for a half marathon that was two months away. I needed a goal. I liked being able to justify my need to take a tiny scrap of time for myself to run by telling people I was training for a half marathon. At work I heard people accidentally mentioned to others that I was training for a marathon (rather than a half marathon). I did not correct them.
Bit by bit the momentum built up. I liked how I felt. I faltered a bit here and there. I kept going. I added stuff when I felt like it. But it wouldn't have made much progress if those five requirements I mentioned hadn't been satisfied.
In particular I would have failed if I hadn't had support from my wife, if my daughter hadn't cheered for my belly button, if my friend Kathy hadn't sent me that pair of socks, if my friend Maria hadn't invited me to workout with her, if Ruth Bader Ginsberg hadn't told me she could run faster than me while carrying a lace doily on her head...It was a team effort.
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| Hey Girl! You know you want to run with me. |
CAN YOU DO IT?
I don't know what your situation is, but if you are dealing with problems that are vaguely, sort of, almost manageable, you can do it. I did, and I'm nothing special. I didn't say you'd have to get up at 5am or take a spin class or get a fancy pair of shoes. Maybe at some point on the journey that will seem reasonable, but first run for 26 minutes. That's enough. That's Facebook time. And then send me an email and let me know what you are up to so I can cheer for you. Then I'll send you some socks and if you live in a 500 mile radius I'll come meet you for a slog. Sound like a deal?
Yes, I think you can do it.
______________________
*POST SCRIPT
Last year I had a student in one of my English classes who told me she was going to write her end of term research paper on how the obesity problem in the United States was the responsibility of individuals. They had made themselves fat, she told me, and they were the only ones who could do anything about it.
She was a black woman in her late 30's and identified herself as obese. I asked her a bit about her own experiences. She told me she lived in downtown Trenton. She had no car and the only grocery options she could walk to were Muncheez, 7-11, WaWa, fast food and a Dominican bodega. She was a Navy veteran and mother of three and she was caring for her mother-in-law who had lost one leg to diabetes. They lived on the third floor of a housing building and there was no elevator. Her family did not qualify for food stamps. That's right. She didn't meet the requirements from food stamps based on some aspect of her status as a veteran. There were no parks that were safe for her children to go to in their neighborhood.
As she went on, I thought she was going to see that personal agency might play only a small part in her own situation and potentially the obesity epidemic as a whole. Instead she concluded by saying: "I know I am fat. I know I put shit in my mouth that I shouldn't. I am just lazy."
I told her she needed to do the research to see if her position was supported by current research into the field of obesity. I felt hopeful that she would be thorough and would be persuaded out of her original view.
She eventually accepted, almost as if it upset her to do so, that the preponderance of data suggested institutional problems played a larger role than personal agency in cases such as her own. I realized as I was grading her paper, however, that the whole thing must have been a let down for her. If the problem was mainly she lived in a system that was set up so she'd fail, then her desire to have better health by mustering up a bit more resilience was almost certainly hopeless.
I regret that I let her write that paper and hope she just put what she learned out of her head. I should have encouraged her to research sustainable agriculture or something. I see my students arrive every day with the American Dream tattooed on their hearts, and it is soul crushing to realize how few of them will be able to overcome all that is conspiring against their success.
Still, I do see successes, and this student did land a job at a medical office. She credited the unit I did with the class on resume writing and job interviews with helping her get hired. She was really happy she'd have regular hours so she could sit with her son after dinner and help him with his homework. She wasn't talking to me about her weight anymore.
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