Finding Balance

How do you find balance between being size positive and being a glutton?  Being a curvy girl that works out and doesn't diet and being a person who mindlessly eats way more calories than is healthy are not the same thing.  I find my middle and my thighs getting fatter over the years despite my weekly calorie burn increasing with more mileage and more classes.  

I follow a lot of amazing people on social media.  Plus size athletes that are killing it.  But as I listen to their podcasts and read their blogs I recognize that I'm not where they are.  I want to be.  I am sometimes perceived to be.  I want to be the best version of me.  And I know that I'm not right now.  

Counting calories and not eating whatever you want sucks.  But eating the amount of sugar and sodium that I do in a day is only going to lead to health problems down the road.  I have been blessed with health problems from my genes that are beyond my control.  I don't want to make things worse.

So what's the solution?  I like the idea of days where I can splurge and days when I have more control.  Dr. Ian from the Biggest Loser had a book a few years back called the 3-1-2-1 diet.  This program told you to be good for 3 days and then have a cheat day and then 2 more good days followed by a cheat day.  This is a realistic goal that I can achieve.  

At the end of a lot of days I find myself sluggish and falling asleep on the couch because I have gorged myself.  Making healthy food choices will make me feel better.  Replacing some of those fatty and salty staples with fruits and veggies and healthy proteins will give me more energy.  

So with two more days of vacation before I go back to reality this probably isn't the best time to start something new.  But really there is never going to be a good time.  I find that I have the most clarity first thing in the morning.  I will try to go back to journaling when I first wake up.  Before I start taking care of everyone else, I need to take better care of myself.  

Here we go again.  

Keep Underestimating Me

I love it when people underestimate me.  I try not to be so sensitive about what other people think but it’s hard when these things happen over and over again.

Incident #1- I’m doing a half marathon out of town.  I’ve done 100+ races with more than 40 of them half’s.  Most of my travel gear is fitness or running apparel.  So inevitably at packet pickup people assume I’m running the 5k or 10k.  Even though there are clearly marked lines for each distance and I’m standing in line for the half marathon they assume I’m wrong.  Because I’m a curvy girl and don’t fit their image of what a runner looks like.  Forget the fact that there are runners of all ages, sizes and paces at every race.  Every once in a while I get a condescending “good for you”.  Eff them.  Don’t pat me on the head like I’ve achieved some great feat as a fat girl.  I trained for this.  I run/bike 20+ miles a week.  How dare you ruin a perfectly good day for me.  Worse than that is the person handing me my t-shirt was like “is this your first half?”  God I hate people.

Incident #2- I always take local fitness classes when I travel.  For people who travel a lot that haven’t discovered Class Pass it is awesome.  You can sign up for fitness classes at multiple gyms in the area for a monthly fee equal to your typical monthly gym fee.  Way cheaper than paying for a day pass and a lot more options. 

So I get to the studio early.  It’s just me and the instructor at first.  She was very nice to me.  We chat it up while we’re waiting for the rest of the class to arrive.  I tell her I’m in town for the race and she is clearly surprised.  She tells me to modify if I need to since my legs may be sore.  A couple songs into the class she says “wow, you’re really fit”.  I know she didn’t mean anything negative by it and that I should have taken it as a compliment.  But what sticks with me is that she decided I wasn’t fit when she looked at me.  That her first impression was that I wasn’t fit.  That no matter how many races I run or classes that I take people will always see me as unfit and I will constantly have to prove myself. 

No Will Power aka Mindless Eating

Yesterday I went to Dunkin to pick up a breakfast sandwich for dinner.  Not the healthiest post-workout meal but I had 30 minutes after teaching my class to get changed and get to an event.  Eating in my car and frequent visits to drive thru lanes are bad habits I know.

Well Dunkin had a deal where you could get 2 breakfast sandwiches for $5.  So almost 1/2 price.  When the cashier asked me if I wanted to get 2, of course I said yes.  Thinking about the money that I was saving and that I already had my post-workout meal ready for the next day when I would have a similar time crunch. 

So now I’ve doubled down on my bad decision.  I have followed up 2 calorie-scorching sessions with meals that most likely undo all my hard work.  When people say they can’t believe I’m not thin even though I work out so much I spout bullshit about metabolism and bad genes but the reality is I have terrible eating habits and no will power.

So fast forward to today.  I teach class and then eat my 2nd breakfast sandwich as I run into a meeting.  There are donut holes and fruit on the table.  I gorge myself on fruit and only eat 3 donut holes.  I eat a sensible salad for lunch. 

When I get home at the end of a long day I watch Netflix as I fold laundry.  I snack on some iced animal cookies mindlessly while I do this.  My husband makes dinner and sets a full plate in front of me that matches his.  I think for a moment that this is way too much food for me and that I should put some of it away for later.  Of course this is not what I do.  I clean my plate.  Even though halfway through I am satisfied and by the end I am struggling to finish the last couple bites. 

My husband is significantly taller than me.  There is no reason we should ever be eating the same portion sizes.  I workout a lot and he doesn’t. I often justify our twin eating because I burn more calories than him and need the extra fuel.  This is such bs.  We are both eating way too much food.  We are mindlessly eating and it is preventing both of us from losing weight. 

I don't really believe in New Year's Resolutions.  Every year I find myself trying to reinvent myself and every year I seem to manage to fail in this area.  

The Race Card.....Again

I keep finding myself in situations where I feel disrespected.  Taken for granted.  Dictated to.  Talked down to.  The only constant in these situation is that I am black and everyone else is white.  I'd like to think that this is just a coincidence but it happens too often for it to be.

Then I think that maybe it's me.  Maybe I'm on edge; waiting for someone to do or say something.  Maybe I am hypersensitive to it.  Maybe it keeps happening because I'm the problem.

I feel like I am distrusted to handle certain tasks.  Like my opinions aren't valued.  Like I'm talked down to like a child.  But I'm more educated than all of them.  That's the kicker.  They think less of me and treat me like a subordinate because I'm "new".  But I'm not really new.  I have just as much experience (often more) than they do but I'm new to them in this role. 

If I confront them I am always the angry black woman because I can't control my emotions.  But on a daily basis I feel mistreated.  I stew over these incidents obsessively.  I have heart palpitations.  I can't sleep.  When I'm in meetings I try so hard to act like everything is okay that I often stumble over my words and become the bumbling idiot they all seem to think I am.

By the end of the day my jaw hurts from clenching.  I don't even realize I'm doing it until the headache and neck pain sets in.  I have to sleep with a night guard or I have crippling migraines and stabbing pains in my jaw throughout the day. 

If I go somewhere else it won't be different.  At this point I know that.  That this misjudgment and bias will follow me everywhere.  I think that I'll just do a kick ass job and they'll have to notice and change their tune but they never do.  It never happens.  I feel proud of myself and then they kick me down. 

I think back to years ago when I was depressed and spent most of my time in the house alone.  When I wallowed in my solitude and didn't participate in life.  When I took working from to home to extremes and rarely went further than the end of my driveway.  Than I remember how I found myself again.  How I found myself through fitness and volunteering and then moved to positions of authority in both fields and started to feel fulfilled. 

But now I'm back in the same old rut I always find myself in.  I am filled with anxiety.  I am ready to quit everything and just go back to being a hermit.  But I know this isn't the right answer.  I just wish I knew what was. 

Holding On to Anger

I find myself having imaginary conversations with people whenever I am by myself.  Driving to a meeting, reading a book, etc.  Any quiet time becomes a time for me to replay an incident where I didn't react the way I wanted to or to predict an incident that I've made up so I can respond accordingly.  I don’t even realize that I’m doing it until I’m halfway through an episode.

There are so many incidents where I haven’t expressed myself or stood up for myself.  When I look back at them I think about what I should have said.  What I wanted to say.  I invent a situation in my head where I have a chance to put someone in their place.  Where I will have redemption for a wrong that must be righted. 

How did I end up here.  So knotted up with anger and regret that I can’t think.  I am conscious of it now and stop myself but before I know it I am back in that same place.  At the end of a drive I find my jaw hurts.  My shoulders are sore.  I often have a headache.  When I’m driving I am so tense because I’m going through all this shit in my head.  I can’t keep going like this. 

I have to break myself of this habit.  It is toxic.  Holding in all this anger and getting so worked up about things that have already happened or that I’m imagining happening in some fictional situation is not good for me.  I don’t want to be angry.  I don’t want to hold things in.  My blood pressure is high.  I am overweight.  I’m begging for a heart attack or stroke one day if I don’t fix this.

But You Speak So Well

Whenever I am with a large group of black people, particularly women, I feel more judged than at any other time in my life.  I feel excluded.  No matter what the setting, there are some black women who seem so intent on preserving their clique that they push other black people away.  I have experienced this the most in professional and fitness groups.

If I had a dollar for every time some white person said to me "Good for you" when they find out I have a technical career or "You speak so well" when they meet me in person after only speaking to me on the phone or via e-mail and not realizing that I'm black.  I know that other black professionals experience this.  I find comfort in having this confirmed in online forums.  I am not the only one who struggles to exist in a atmosphere that is still very much predominantly male and white.  I am not the only one who has been asked to make coffee or copies when someone comes into the office and assumes that I must be a secretary. 

But when I meet my black peers in person I feel the exact same discomfort that I do from my white peers at work.  I want to be supportive of these organizations because they need to exist but, whenever I attend any events in person, I find the hypocrisy difficult to stomach.  At least if I never meet them in person I don't have to deal with the reality that these people don't really have my back.  That they don't get me or care about me.  That the occasional "troll-like' posts that exist in these forums online are more prevalent in person. 

I have found that a lot of other black people have experienced the same thing and now boycott these events.  I have made more black friends through mainstream organizations than through the black-centric ones.  I don't know what this means in the current racial and political climate but it seems like now more than ever we should be supporting each other rather than tearing each other down. 

Rinse and Repeat

You have a terrible day.  Everything that can go wrong does.  And all of it could have been avoided if you prepared better.  If you balanced your time.  If after 40 years on earth you had gained time management skills.  So you tell yourself, this is my rock bottom.  I will never let this happen again.  I will get my sh%t together and not ever have another day like this again.  

And you will be better….for a little while.  Maybe a day, hell maybe a whole month.  But in the end, if you don’t make any big changes you will fall into the same old patterns.  Sure you’ll dodge a couple bullets.  You’ll pull an all-nighter to prepare for your presentation. Your class will get cancelled because of bad weather, giving you another week to prepare.  But it will catch up to you eventually.  It always does.  

At that point you’ll have that same conversation with yourself.  You’ll say never again but you’ll remember that you’ve said this before.  You are angry at yourself. You can’t believe that it’s gotten this bad again.  So you feel sorry for yourself for a day and you start again tomorrow.  Hoping that this time is the last time and you’ve truly learned your lesson.    

Moderation is a Dirty Word

I’m not sure why it is so difficult for me to do anything in moderation.  I complain that people say I have a bottomless pit for a stomach.  That I always clean my plate and everyone else’s plate.  This has basically been my claim to fame amongst family and friends since I was a little kid.  I get offended by this and then proceed to do exactly what they said I would do.  Sometimes the food doesn’t even taste good and I’m thinking that I only have a few bites to go through to get to the end.  Maybe I don’t want to offend someone if they’ve prepared a meal, or I don’t want to waste food that I’ve paid for.  Or I like the attention, even though it’s negative.  I don’t know.  Either way, my waistline isn’t getting any smaller and no matter how many miles I run in a week, the 1000 extra calories that go to 2^nd helpings and dessert aren’t helping. 

Traveling While Black

I frequently find myself in some of the trendiest/most expensive restaurants in a city when I travel for work.  The beauty of having a job that makes you travel is the blank check that comes along with it.  All of my expenses are covered by my job so I tend to live it up.

Unfortunately, I am not always treated nicely in these trendy, expensive places.  Depending on where I am traveling, I am often the only black person or the only single person in a restaurant.  I know that some people hold a bias against black diners because they believe that black people don't tip well.  Now let me say, I definitely know black people that live up to the stereotype but I also know a lot of white people who are bad tippers. 

I've also been told that black women are finicky diners who complain about their food and try to get things for free.  If my food is bad I might complain but if the service is crappy I might just suck it up to get the night over with.  But these biases put me in a terrible situation. If I receive bad service I shouldn't leave a big tip but if I don't leave a big tip it just feeds into their bias and makes them treat the next person even worse.

Tonight I dined alone at a trendy restaurant in a major city.  I saw people who arrived after me get served before me.  My drink order never came so I had to ask the person who brought my food to check on my drink.  My waiter never checked on me after he took my order.  I'm pretty sure I was overcharged for my dinner but it took so long to get the bill (and remember it's not my money) that I didn't want to risk sending it back. 

Not that it should matter but I was dressed in my work clothes.  A nice blouse and slacks.  My wedding ring is kind of big and I carry a designer purse.  If you were going to stereotype someone as cheap it wouldn't be me.  That's all I'm saying.

So what did I do?  I left a big tip and walked out feeling discriminated against.  I will mention the bad service on my Yelp review but the food was good and the spot was trendy so that won't keep people away.  If I mentioned to management that I felt their waiters discriminated against some diners they wouldn't believe it.  This is a very diverse big city with an equally diverse clientele.  But I was there tonight and I know what I experienced. 

Fix My Reality TV Please

I have always had a weakness for reality TV.  I have happily binge watched from the first season of the Real World through the Biggest Loser and any home improvement show.  Over the years a lot of shows have lost their spark and fallen off my radar but they are usually replaced with another show that grabs my attention.  Two of my favorite guilty pleasure shows are on their way out.  I have no power over them, but talking about how I would fix them makes me feel better. 

The Voice  

Part I- The Auditions
Keep the blind audition concept.  Show more videos of people who don't get selected for the show.  Cut back on the banter and make sure every audition for people who make the show is seen in full on the TV broadcast. 

After a team is half full, that person is no longer able to choose people.  They will sit through the full performance and assign that person a score.  Once all of the auditions are done, the coaches will call back their highest scorers and fill their teams.  Initially, this will favor the judges who still have room on their teams since it will remove part of the competition.  Eventually they will all be half full and will have to listen to full auditions before filling their teams.  People who audition late but have great voices should have an equal chance of making the show.

Part II- The Battle Rounds
Each singer will be given a score on their performance.  The highest scores will move on and the 2 lowest scores will have a sing off for the final spot.  The team designations are irrelevant.  If one team has 2 of the best voices they should both remain in the competition.  Mediocre singers are allowed to flourish under the current format.  The judges do not get to know the scores of their fellow judges, only cumulative score of all of their votes. 

I'm fine with the way the rest of the show goes as far as these earlier parts are fixed.

Married at First Sight

The first season of this show was fantastic.  Every season since, the show has been a little worse.  This season is probably my last season watching.  Pleas fix this show.  It is a great concept and must see TV when it works.

During the first season, the viewer was introduced to a number of singles looking for their matches.  You knew some of them were going to be picked for the show but you weren't sure who was matched up with who.  As  you watched the experts interview these people, you started to put together couples in your head.  You were shocked when they revealed which singles would be matched.


At this point you are emotionally invested in the show.  You feel like you have insight into each of the singles and can't wait to see if these matches work or not.  In later seasons, they have removed this part of the show.  You only meet the singles that they have picked and they tell you ahead of time who is paired up.

I'm assuming the initial process is the same.  The experts do extensive screening of the applicants to make sure they are making good matches.  None of the couples have stayed together expect for 2/3 couples from the first season.  I think this is because FYI knows it has a hit on it's hands and doesn't need to put the work they used to put in to get people to watch.

The show feels very hollow at times with forced activities to meet the script of the show.  Oh you are all going on your second honey moon this week.  Oh we're going to have dinner with a best friend and have them tell us our faults.  Of course this is all going to take place in the same episode.  These activities are so clearly forced and unnatural. 

Each episode is about 50% new material and 50% re-hashing the same issue over and over again to create drama and suspense where there really is none.  You know they have hours of footage of the couples.  Why not share more of that with the viewer instead of the mindless drivel that we are fed?

At the moment there don't seem to be any new shows in the wings that are going to satisfy my reality TV needs.  I hope things get better soon!  Netfilx is helping but it's just not the same. 

Another day, another video

It is hard to know how to feel these days.  Watching OJ: Made in America in the midst of the weekly videos of police brutality towards brown people and an unapologetically racist candidate for president makes me want to stay in bed forever and pull the covers over my head.

The OJ miniseries reminds me of where I was when all of this happened.  I was in college.  I remember being shocked and outraged when I saw the Rodney King video.  I remember thinking in my ignorance that surely these police officers would go to prison.  Police were there to protect you.  They were the people you were supposed to run to in a crisis.  These cops in the video weren't real policeman.  They were anomalies.  They would be punished and all would be right in the world. 

Well of course that's not what happened.  How blissful I was in my ignorance.  Now 2 decades later I can't count the number of times I've seen similar videos of police brutality.  I don't even hope for a trial or guilty verdict any more.  Not only has it become commonplace for police officers to kill black people, but it is also okay if you're just a citizen.  You don't even have to be a cop.  You see a black person.  Make an assumption about that person.  Even if that person is minding their own business and poses no threat to you at all.  You can kill him.  No one will care.  No one will notice.

What if all these videos were of white people being beaten and murdered?  Every time I hear a story about an innocent person being mistaken for a criminal I don't need to hear the race of the person.  I know it is only on the news because that person is dead and likely unarmed and black.

My hope is that eventually such a heinous crime will be caught on video that people will be shocked into action.  I don't know what will be worse than police severing a man's spine or shooting an unarmed man 20 times on his wedding day but I know it will come.  That the end of slavery, desegregation of schools, etc.  all came eventually.  Eventually cops will think twice before killing someone because they know that they will be punished for their crime and go to jail if they are wrong.  

I am so sick of hearing the daily justifications for these actions.  Oh, it's okay that they killed this innocent person because he has a criminal record.  No, he wasn't breaking the law when they shot him but the mere existence of a shady background makes it okay.  Or maybe they were breaking the law.  Maybe they have a warrant for their arrest.  No they didn't have a gun and weren't threatening the police in any way but they might have.  See we killed a bad person.  Eventually this person would have done something so we were doing a public service.

Not that this brutality is new.  It's just that in this age of social media and everyone having a camera in their pocket that they are caught on tape and made public.  People who think there is a sudden surge in police brutality are naive.  The brutality has been going on forever and will likely continue to go on.  It's just harder to ignore now. 

Every time I pass a police officer I have irrational fears of being pulled over for speeding and then being pulled out of my car and being beaten.  If I walk into a store and there are police there I worry that I might look suspicious.  That my big purse will make them think I'm carrying a weapon. That if I talk too loudly or get too close to them they will accuse me of something.  But them I worry that if they don't notice me and I suddenly sneak up on them by walking around a corner they may be surprised by the sudden appearance of a black face and draw their weapons.

I know that these fears are irrational but that doesn't stop me from having them.  I can't imagine that any of the innocent people who have been killed thought they were about to die. 

So yes, OJ was obviously guilty.  The evidence should have been more than enough to put him away for those murders.  But he got off.  He beat the system.  He was a black man who committed a crime and wasn't punished for it.  It feels like a victory in the face of all of the cops who killed black people and got away with it.  I can understand why so many people wanted to believe that OJ was innocent. 

I'm happy that in the end karma came around and he ended up going to jail.  Sure, it wasn't for murder but it still feels like justice.  I can only hope that one day karma will come around for the rest of us too.    Until then I won't make the mistake of running towards police for help.  I will take my chances with whoever is chasing me instead.