I hate exercise. The majority of my early childhood was devoted to the memorization of multiplication tables, not the development of hand-eye coordination. Subsequently, I was a terrible athlete. The only B I got in middle school was in Physical Education. Other than a season’s worth of second string volleyball in 7th grade, I’ve never participated in an organized sport. (Not that it matters since Asian parents don’t consider “sports” real extracurricular activities, and yet the oboe is somehow a legitimate pursuit). So with sex as the single exception, I’m generally wary of physical activity. Even then, my idea of “girl on top” involves resting as much of my upper body weight as possible on my partner. Reverse cowgirl? Not even an option.
But although I’ve always tried to be as sedentary as possible my entire life, it wasn’t until college that I experienced the repercussions. All of high school, I managed to stay a skinny minnie with on-the-go meals, little sleep, and massive overachievement. I didn’t have time to eat, and I worked so hard that I was burning the few calories I consumed, despite the fact that all my food either came from a vending machine or a deep fryer. I was tired constantly, but I never made it a priority to improve my nutritional habits before I went off to college. When I started my freshman year, I suddenly had way more time and I put it to use eating, sleeping, and underachieving. That fall, I gained 20 pounds in four months. I went from 115 pounds to 135 pounds. I’m 5’ 2”. That translates to stretch marks.
I was pretty appalled by how quickly I outgrew my clothes. The situation was becoming dire when I finally hit my first gym. I don’t think I’ve ever been that terrified my entire life, and this was among my own sweaty classmates. My infrequent elliptical sessions were pretty pathetic, but by going back to California that summer, I managed to drop some weight eating my mother’s home cooking. A year later, I was hovering in the 128 to 130-pound range, approximately the size of my November freshman self. A reader put it best when she said: “You were in the same boat as many women - not traditionally overweight to start with, but still wanting to lose 10 pounds.” I signed up for a personal trainer at the university gym, who informed me that free weights were not, in fact, scary weapons. For the supposedly low price of $52/session, I felt competent at the gym for the first time.
Here is when I started losing weight in earnest. I went to Switzerland last January and spent a day hiking two and a half hours uphill in the snow. It was the most physically demanding experience of my life (though not at all a big deal to the two friends who did this with me), and I was rather proud of myself for completing the climb up Europe’s longest sled run. A month later, I met Patrick, who introduced me to concepts like walks and the park. Between the Alps and Boston Common, it was the most contact I’d ever had with nature. As we got serious, Patrick began to suggest that I join him on his daily runs. After months of me laughing him off, he bought me a pair of ASICS. How could I say no?
Six months later, I was 12 pounds slimmer, and today, I weigh approximately what I did when I sprang to my maximum possible height at 13. How did I do it and continue to eat cupcakes? It was surprisingly simple in retrospect, but in execution, it was damn hard. Here are some tips to make your fitness journey a little easier than mine:
MOVE
Tough it out. I went from running maybe 50 miles my entire life (most of it in P.E. classes) to running four miles four times a week. It was horrible. Side aches, nausea, panting, you name it, I felt it. Of all physical activities, running is my least favorite, probably because it’s the most effective at burning calories. But because I told Patrick that I’d be open-minded about it, I didn’t give up immediately. It took about three weeks before running stopped being something I dreaded. Once I got used to it, I found being outside relaxing and the running energizing. My sentiments changed from hate to tolerance over the span of two months, and I still hover back and forth depending on the temperature out. But though my running regimen has degenerated to less than once a week this winter, I now only dread running because it’s cold, not because I’m bad at it. I intend on hitting the Charles again come spring (um, any day now).
Count calories (but not like that). If you can’t stomach the idea of running consecutive miles, try doing it with calories in mind. Though I don’t advocate calorie-counting when it comes to food, I find it highly motivating in exercise. Use a program (like Traineo or FitDay) to calculate how much energy a person of your height and weight uses during runs at various speeds. Knowing that I just burned off lunch is better than any runner’s high.
Feel badass. For some people, that means contorting their bodies into the shape of a pretzel. For petite gals, self-defense classes may do the trick. When I started lifting weights, I had a lot of fun, in part because it was something that previously intimidated me. Lifting also allows you to recognize improvement very clearly as you move up to heavier weights. The goal with a fitness plan should always be progress toward becoming more fit, not more skinny/pretty/buff/etc. As unlikely as it may sound, you WILL feel damn proud of yourself when you demand more out of your body than you ever have before.
Make a financial investment. At least in this case, you’re in control of whether it pays off. I personally think it helps to spend money on a fitness goal because you’ll be more motivated to follow through, although this might only apply to broke writers like me. In the six or so months when I was actively losing weight, I purchased long underwear ($80), workout gear ($60), and running shoes ($100) and registered for a marathon ($90). It was a lot more money than I ever thought I’d spend on an activity I despise, but I definitely felt obligated to get off my ass (even if I never ended up running the marathon). I also figured these initial costs will also pay off in the long-run, since most are one-time, multi-use purchases, unlike the personal trainer from my junior year. Unless you too live in an unfortunate place like Boston, you probably won’t need expensive winter running gear, but you could commit to a series of pilates lessons, get a gym membership, or even just buy new workout clothes.
EAT
Have three meals a day no matter how much it doesn’t fit your schedule. You’re not going to feel like working out if your energy levels plummet throughout the day. If you’re never hungry in the morning like me, get in the habit of juicing. (That being said, juice is not a substitute for all solid food intake.) My routine breakfast costs $0.50 to Odwalla’s $2, not including juicer. Sometimes, when I wake up too late for breakfast, I make up for it at night with a bowl of cereal after dinner. Those aren’t midnight munchies; that’s your stomach asking for its third meal. Appease your appetite accordingly with a nutritious option instead of junk food.
Cut down on take-out, frozen meals, and processed food (especially artificial drinks). Cereal is my only processed snack, and I even now bake my own cupcakes. Once you stop purchasing and eating vacuum-sealed crap, you’ll never be able to go back to it, because it’ll taste so much worse than real food. When you hit the grocery store, skip the aisles where you know there’ll be temptation. If you don’t think you have the willpower to resist, a budget-friendly alternative to grocery stores is farmer’s markets (I live a 20 minute walk from Haymarket by the North End) which don’t carry processed foods at all. If you don’t buy it, you won’t have it on hand come midnight. (CHOOSE THE CEREAL INSTEAD!)
Learn to cook, even if your only appliance is a microwave. Besides the lower cost, the benefit to preparing your own food is that you can control how much fat goes inside. This even goes for juice (which is better made fresh) because supermarket cartons contain all kinds of added sugar. In cooking, I use tricks like substituting applesauce for fats in baking, being sparse with sugar in dressings, and halving the oil in recipes. If your schedule doesn’t allow for regular cooking, try making several days’ worth of meals on one Sunday evening, or hit Trader Joe’s for frozen meals that are healthy, low-budget, and tasty. Steamers and sandwich presses are also great for preparing food quickly.
Have a cupcake. Three courses (an appetizer, entrée, and dessert) are mandatory on my dinners out. When I was in Austria for two weeks this January, I was eating five courses a night after skiing six hours all day. For me, allowing myself to satisfy my appetite is the reward for treating my body well. There’s no point in working out and eating healthy all week, if you can’t ever indulge during the weekend. At the same time, this only works if three-course meals are the exception, not the norm. The key is to practice moderation not during dinner, but in the frequency of dinners.
DRINK
If your liver’s like mine, it needs a break. The majority of my freshman year weight gain was in the form of vodka. Despite the abundant dining hall food and constant study breaks, the biggest influence on my eating habits was not the availability of food 24/7 but the presence of alcohol at social functions. Think about it: a shot of vodka (the least caloric and sugary of all alcoholic options) is still 100 calories. At my lushiest, I was consuming an extra 400-600 calories a night on two or three nights a week. And what was I getting out of all of it? Um, depression and hangovers.
I essentially stopped drinking a year ago, save for the occasional glass of celebratory champagne. If you’re really serious about losing weight and willing to make the lifestyle change, I suggest you drastically cut down on alcoholic intake or eliminate it altogether. For me, it wasn’t much of a sacrifice since none of my friends are particularly devoted to getting wasted. But if you can’t imagine a life of sober interactions and regret-less mornings, then at least consider replacing booze with other judgment-clouding substances. And no, I’m not talking about cocaine, no matter what you’ve heard about its appetite-suppressing abilities.
KNOW
The prerequisite to any fitness plan is having realistic expectations. Society’s obsession with the ideal female body type has done considerable damage to the psyches of young women. I strongly discourage anyone from striving for perfection because as I’ve said before, what society expects of you is certainly not attainable. You can learn that the hard way by getting discouraged when you don’t see the results you want, or you can train with the goal of improvement in mind. Despite all my unathleticism (or perhaps, because of it), I became incredibly motivated when the strenuous intial runs turned into easy six-mile jogs. I didn’t actually lose visible weight until a good eight weeks into my effort, but because I was juding my progress on more than my appearance, I felt like I had every reason to be proud of myself.
Accept your body for what it is. In some ways, I’m incredibly glad I gained 20 pounds my freshman year. I’d been uncomfortable with my body up until college, and it took the weight gain for me to realize that I wasn’t any less desirable, interesting, or smart just because I was heavier. When I first met Patrick, I was really comfortable in my own skin, and though I felt great when I lost weight, the emphasis was always on learning to do a joint activity (like running) together. I think that’s the only reason I was successful. In the past, losing weight was like being bipolar because I thought of my body as something I wanted to change, not something I wanted to improve. For weeks at a time, my mood would be completely dependent on the scale. By making it about the miles, not the pounds, getting fit actually felt empowering.
You’re not on a healthy diet if you have to describe it using the word “never”. Abstinence and deprivation just aren’t good ideas, with sex or with diets. Don’t make sacrifices that will substantially affect your quality of life. The reason why many diets fail is because their unreasonable restrictions can’t be sustained over the long-term. Even if you do succeed, at what cost? I sure as hell wouldn’t be happy with a cupcake-free existence even if I were skinny. As with my three-course dinners, I don’t feel badly or consider it “cheating” if I decide to have a carton of ice cream on a weeknight. But because ice cream isn’t on some blacklist of things I’m not allowed to have, I don’t intensely crave it often anyway. (After all, I can just order it for dessert on my next meal out.) Nothing should be forbidden, not only because it’s unrealstic, but because it also discourages you if you break your own rules.
Guilt and shame are counter-productive. As I’ve admitted before, I used to have incredibly unhealthy attitudes about food and struggled with bulimia during my early adolescence. Attaching feelings of guilt to something doesn’t shame you into not eating it. If you want it bad enough, you’ll eat it anyway. But chances are, if you’ve been on a diet of nutritious, natural foods, you’ll find your much-coveted snack pretty gross when you actually eat it. The key is not to starve yourself as punishment, but to know better for next time.
Love your body no matter what happens. After gaining and losing 20 pounds over three and a half years, I’ve also gained and lost half a cup size. I was initially disappointed when this happened, but I’ve since come to terms with my rack being as modest as my stature. The truth is that few women can “have it all” in terms of the perfect body and many women simply can’t maintain size-2 bodies unless they consume 1,000 calories a day for the rest of their lives. Why should anyone have to severely restrict their diet (or pump their boobs full of silicone) just to look a certain way? What you see as flaws may very well be what others envy. One woman’s “fat” is another woman’s curves. Rather than thinking in terms of imperfections, focus on getting to know and love your body through exercise.
Lastly, stop thinking of fitness regimens as temporary. If you make room for indulgences and start snacking healthily (fruit is seriously underrated), then what starts off as a “diet” can easily become part of your normal lifestyle. After months of not touching chips, fast food, or cocktails, I have no desire to consume any of those things anymore, but I still make myself cupcakes every week so I don’t feel deprived. As for exercise, it very much became something I was looking forward to. I still hate running sometimes, but I consider six miles a fair trade for dessert since I know it’s the only reason I can eat whatever I want and not gain weight. If I knew how to swim and had access to a pool, however, I’d probably hit the water every day whether or not I planned on dessert. Ideally, you find a physical activity you can see yourself sticking with for a long time, or at the very least, are willing to tolerate.
This was a tad more motivational than originally intended, but I really wish someone had told me all these things when I was a freshman or sophomore. I’m living proof that even the biggest gym-a-phobe can reform. If I can do it, then it should be a piece of (cup)cake for you. Good luck!
