My Body, Reframed

IT TOOK a lot of hard work and focused choices. But here you are -- perhaps weeks or months into your fitness program -- and you're beginning to see and feel some real results. You're looking leaner and more fit. Your clothes are fitting looser. You're feeling lighter, standing taller, moving faster on your feet. Hey, you're seeing a whole new person when you look in the mirror!

And then, something strange happens. Suddenly, perhaps subtly, you find yourself making choices you used to make, resuscitating less-than-healthy behaviors you thought you'd given up. Bit by bit, you start reclaiming that loose space in your clothing and retreating into the more familiar look and feel of your former, less-fit self.

It may seem as though we have a divided self, with one part of us willingly doing the work of getting in shape, and the other part of us busily deconstructing our progress while we're not looking.

When it comes to issues of body shape and body image ... we may find such [behaviors] particularly perplexing. Why on earth, we might wonder, would any part of us not want to be in the healthiest, most attractive body possible?

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THE ABOVE IS AN EXCERPT from the Experience Life article "Your Body, Reframed," and I can't tell you how close to home those words hit. Actually, I can -- or I can try to, anyway. But this entry may as well be entitled "Dear Diary," so if you're not in the mood for a bunch of naval gazing (dude, is that lint?), might want to skip this one. If you're still in, here goes....

Since developing chondromalacia and tendinosis in both knees five years ago, I've worked out in herky-jerky starts and stops, nervous about incurring a relapse. Over that time, my diet included rich foods in large quantities, and not surprisingly, my weight crept up a handful of pounds a year.

 I would recommit to getting in shape again, for rugby and for life, only to backslide just at the moment I'd start reaping rewards in terms of performance and appearance. Inevitably, something would derail me -- work, travel or a case of the sniffles -- but rather than regroup and get back on course, I'd abandon my health for months and again surrender to the Champagne and cheese gods.

BUT WHY? Didn't I want to be fit and healthy again, to feel comfortable in my clothes and confident about my body?

Well ... part of me did, anyway.

The problem, posits psychologist Michael Hall, PhD, cofounder of the International Association for Neuro-Semantics and coauthor of Personal Mastery (Crown House, 2000), is that we may hold two simultaneous -- and warring -- belief systems. And that we may not even be aware of what's lurking behind our self-sabotaging behavior.

He says we have to start by recognizing that some part of us is served -- or at least thinks it is served -- by our self-sabotaging actions. He goes on to explain:

The meanings we attach to our bodies, in particular, tend to be deeply personal, powerful and complex. We might have both very positive and very negative associations, for example, with the idea of an attention-getting figure. On the one hand, we may crave that kind of attention, and desire the benefits it confers. On the other, we might hold a deep-seated belief that people with attractive bodies are superficial, or we might dread the idea of being perceived and judged in relation to our appearance. Regardless of our conscious desires, we'll typically wind up acting out whatever meanings are most deeply held, or operating more actively, at any given time.

The challenge is that in many cases, we don't even realize we hold a negative meaning until some triggering aspect of a given experience presents itself. Or worse, we never recognize it at all, but we react to it just the same.

As long as the unconscious, negative associations carry more import and meaning than your conscious desire[s], they'll cause you to begin performing those meanings -- typically in ways that undermine your former, fitness-oriented behaviors.

I SUSPECT MY FEARS and negative associations have slightly less to do with the fuss surrounding a fine-looking figure and more to do with the answer to the question, What if I do my best and it isn't good enough?

Pre-knee injuries, I trained very hard, very consistently. Too consistently -- I believe the term is "overtraining." (I'm no math whiz, but turns out More + More does not always equal More, in terms of results.)

After I'd rested and rehabbed, part of me terrified I wouldn't be capable of the things I used to be able to do, let alone get to take a stab at going beyond that. And if you don't try, you can't fail, right? Hence my self-sabotaging behavior.

BUT FINALLY, IN MAY OF THIS YEAR, three people unknowingly gave me the kick in the pants I needed to realize what I was doing and once again begin the hard work of supporting, rather than sabotaging, myself.

1. My editor in chief, Pilar Gerasimo. While chatting before a planning meeting a few months ago, Pilar relayed an enlightening conversation she'd had with her training buddy (her 17-year old neice, Xanthi) while going for a run the day before. It had been a couple weeks since they'd hit the trail together, and Xanthi made a comment about how nice it was to revive their routine. Pilar responded with, "Yeah, it's been way too long -- I've really let myself go to pot lately."

Almost as soon as these words had left her mouth, she said, it struck her how, lately, she'd been letting this sort of unconstructive and unhelpful self-criticism slip out more often. She had this moment where she was like, "Wait -- is that how I talk about myself now?!"

The interaction with her niece and the introspection that followed prompted her to get clearer about her intent (she wanted to enjoy her workouts and also to create a enjoyable, inspiring environment for her niece, who had just started running the year before). It also made her think seriously about the destructive impact off-hand comments like this could have -- not just on her, but on whomever was in earshot. Pilar said she experienced a wake-up call that it was time to practice being more conscious about her internal scripts and more constructive in her self-assessments going forward.

At that moment, I realized what my own script had become. I'd become an "I'm fat" girl. The ultra-annoying kind whom I used to beg to oh-for-gods-sake-just-shut-up. Any time the topic of rugby came up in conversation, I would, unbidden, announce how completely and utterly unfit I was. As if bringing it up on my own terms might excuse any discrepancies people saw between past and current abilities. It would also, I must have been secretly hoping, protect me from potential criticism from coaches, because hey, I already knew I was out of shape.

But as soon as I got wise to my self-defense mechanism, it immediately became a lot less satisfying to use it. Instead, I started to realize it would probably be less work to actually get fit than continue to say I wanted to get fit and then try to explain why I wasn't doing much about it. That, my friends, was getting to be exhausting.

And you know what? So freakin' what if it's not good enough this time around. I've already got tales for the grandkids about what it's like to play in Hong Kong Stadium. Time to loosen my grip on that fear.

2. Eckhardt Tolle. During the same period of time, I'd been reading his book, A New Earth -- until I lost it, that is, where did I put that thing? -- and there was this part that essentially said, "You are not your body." Highly possible I'm butchering the message, but from what I remember, it was on the importance of not attaching our identity to our physical bodies.

I had such an intense, visceral NO reaction to that idea that it shocked me a little. Of course, I don't think I only amount to my body, but I realized how much of my happiness and confidence was tied into my fitness level. It occurred to me that I'd so detached my identity from my body that I wasn't feeling energized to do the things I professed to care about. And I wanted my identity -- in the form of my body -- back.

Which is not to say I have to be in perfect physical condition in order to look onward and outward, but I do think I have to be actively taking care of myself to commit myself fully to other people and projects.

3. Pink. Yes, the artist. I read an article called "Hot Pink" in the May issue of Allure (hey, I was at the salon), in which Pink describes how she gains weight really evenly, saying it can sneak up on her if she's not paying attention. A few years ago, she says she didn't recognize herself in a photograph -- she was all of (gasp!) 150 pounds -- so she went and practiced kickboxing in the mountains somewhere for a month to get back in shape. (Access the full article through www.accessmylibrary.com, you know you want to.)

Aside from the miraculous celebrity weight-loss solution, I tend to be the same way, and don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about that.

But just as gradually as the weight creeps on, I start to dress frumpier, carry myself lower to the ground and become disconnected from my body. And then -- wham! -- I finally realize I'm in a fitness pickle when I watch game tape, see a photo of myself or struggle into (or not) a pair of go-to pants (cliched but true).

Up to that point, I'd always eschewed the scale and scoffed at the idea of regular weigh-ins. That kind of thing was, I snobbily opined, more for the fitness-for-aesthetics crowd. Except ... I wasn't playing very good rugby, in part because of the extra poundage. It wasn't even that much actual weight, but my lean-mass-to-fat ratio had changed quite a bit. I also felt tired and anxious. I developed gallstones and had to have my gall bladder removed (R.I.P., Gary). My face broke out in a rash (while this may seem like a random thing to attribute to a little extra weight, some of the stuff I'm reading about fat being metabolically active makes me think otherwise).

All that, and I am a total liar: I care about aesthetics, too. I'm a presentation-oriented Leo, for the love of Pete! So considering all of that, it might have done me some good to monitor the situation on the scale more closely.

While it's not for everyone, I started weighing myself more often, just to see what was going on from day to day. I bought a food and fitness journal, which I eventually began using to track meals and workouts. I took measurements for the first time in my life. I rigged up a few fitness tests (pull-ups, pushups, sit-ups, broad jump, the 40-meter dash and a shuttle run) so I'd have benchmarks down the road.

It felt awful at first, but I also started to have a little more faith in the future, because frankly, it was finally, thankfully, too painful not to change.

TURNS OUT I was on the right track. Back to "Your Body, Reframed":

Whether you've self-sabotaged your fitness efforts in the past, or just want to guard against it happening in the future, your first step toward dismantling patterns of destructive mental processing is to learn to recognize them when they are happening.

To that end, make regular mental and emotional check-ins a part of your fitness plan. If you notice you're feeling weird, uncomfortable or disoriented in your body, or if you identify that you're engaging in a behavior that seems contrary to your chosen goals, get quiet for a moment. Go inward and ask yourself: What's going on? What feelings or assumptions are operating now, and how do they support or oppose my most conscious priorities?

Hall refers to this moment of mindfulness as a "choice point" -- a time when you can elect to either elevate your chosen frames and meanings, or let them be overridden by less conscious choices.

Since the middle of May, I've been working out four to six times a week. I'm having fun playing rugby again because -- not surprisingly -- it's a more enjoyable game when you're fit. I've gone from being able to do two pull-ups to being able to do 10. I've lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 to 14 pounds of goo. I see muscles again. I'm positively vibrating with energy. I feel present and accounted for in my life. In other words, I feel like myself again.

The self-saboteur is still there. I'm pretty sure she always will be, but I don't hear from her quite as often these days. The difference now -- I hope -- is that the me I'd rather be is working harder, happily and consciously, to make choices that build the kind of fitness framework I'll need to support myself over a lifetime.
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If you haven't nodded off yet, and you're in the mood to share, I'd love to hear about your fitness epiphanies in the comments....

[photo credit: tomkidron]