Healthy living support thread for feminists

[SeraOfeliaFalfurrias]

In response to a few discussions we've had down the pub - there are some of us who are striving for better health through better diets and more exercise, but who struggle among the usual support groups where it's all about looking better rather than good health. And it certainly can be tricky as a feminist, walking that fine line between not conforming to beauty ideals through dieting and making sure you actually look after your body through a healthy lifestyle.

So here is a support thread for those of us who are trying to eat better and get more exercise.

Me, I could do with losing a bit over 2 stone to get back to a healthy weight. I had an ankle injury after running a marathon about 3 years back, and between not being able to exercise and the stress of my PhD (I'm a stress binge eater) I gained 3 stone and lost all my hard-earned fitness. I'm finally getting back on track, I've lost nearly a stone and am hitting the exercise hard again. The hardest bit has been getting back into running - while my ankle is better, my joints are really feeling the extra weight I'm carrying. It's also hard to do karate when your wobble gets in the way of you doing a good kick and you get out of breath when sparring. So I need to lose weight in order to enjoy my sports hobbies again. I'm taking it slowly, doing Slimming World but not religiously - I'm not in a hurry to lost the weight, but I also need to watch that I don't take it so slowly that it never happens!

Yesterday I ran 8km, which is really encouraging as I was still going strong at the end. Just a couple of months ago I was run/walking 5km and would have welcomed death at the end! So I feel like some kind of switch has been flipped and my body now "remembers" how to run. The down side is that both ankles are aching and stiff today.

My diet has been rather rubbish the last couple of weeks, including a few binges, and I put some pounds back on, but I'm in that good place mentally now and hopefully ready to focus on getting my body healthy again. I loved being lean and fit and athletic, and I'm not getting any younger (thoroughly middle-aged), so I feel like the window of opportunity for getting myself in a sustained state of good health without drastic measures being required is closing!

Exercise provably reduces your risk of dementia as well as a whole range of more physical ailments. Basically it ups your chances of being the sort of little old lady who people look at and say "she's such an inspiration - I hope I'm like that at her age".

My aspirations for old age are to play bingo and go on cruises. I suppose exercise could help me be fit enough to cruise.

Just looked at what classes I could fit around work/child rearing. It's only spin. If I go from nothing to spin I'll die, won't I?

Can I join please? I lost weight through dieting before, but I'm more interested in being healthy now. I'm starting c25k tomorrow and really need to cut down on alcohol. My stress levels have been through the roof over the past couple of weeks, and I think more exercise and less alcohol will help.

But if the 200 yards down the road to the bingo hall starts seeming a bit much then you're scuppered toast. It's not about running marathons in your seventies, it's about being able to catch a train to the next town to see a friend. And in your eighties it's about being able to get up from the floor if you fall.

Does anyone do anything other than running? Any team sports?

I've compete in powerlifting a few times, which I understand isn't the easiest thing for women to get into. I've been pleasantly surprised when I have competed the number of women there.

No team sports here - hard to commit post kids

Mountaineering herring? That sounds interesting.
I commented recently on another thread about what seemed to be a big surge in women road cycling. I've no stats to back it up but have personally seen more women on bikes in the last few years.

I really hate team sports. I'm properly uncoordinated at times, generally rubbish as sport so I much prefer to exercise alone.

Ooo count me in. I'm currently meant to be training for the EFFING Great North Run in a few weeks but children plus PhD and also a slught Netflix addiction and here I am a couple of weeks off with my longest weekly shuffle run tally less than 20 miles since I had my first DC. He is four and a half. I've not run for two weeks, before that it was two weeks then I did a couple of runs one week,but before that it was like 6 weeks. Basically II'm heading for a bit of a disaster....

May I suggest that a good way to improve fitness might be to join a walking group? There are Ramblers groups just about everywhere, with a variety of styles available (one lot told me that another section were a menace--"they won't come home until they've done over 20 miles") but maybe that would suit some people just fine. Possibly as you get into the more challenging stuff the males start to dominate, but my experience is that there's often a female majority, and they definitely don't get led around by the men. Maybe there's even room for a feminist Ramblers sub-section somewhere.

Signing in :)

If someone could shout PELVIC FLOOR at random moments on the thread, that'd be awesome.

Maybe not you, Mide

Outs, hi! How long is that Run?

Funny thing about cycling - when I was a young teen in South Africa, my dad and brother both competed very seriously in road cycling. My brother even competed at national level. I would have loved to join in and did a bit of training on my own, on my dad's old bike, but I was dismissed out of hand when I asked about competing too because of course, I was just a girl. There were women who competed, and even one or two girls, but they were considered a bit of a joke. I just accepted that that was the way things were, and I was happy enough on the sidelines ogling all the young men in tight lycra shorts. Then my dad ran off with his secretary a year or two later and the whole family obsession with cycling was forgotten anyway.

Many years later, while living in Israel, I decided to have a go at triathlons, already being a keen (if rather slow) runner, and being South African, a pretty good swimmer. I cycled to work each day, did a few training rides which I took seriously but I never pushed myself particularly hard. I did my first triathlon on a kid's mountain bike, loved it and bought a road bike - a cheap entry level model but I loved her anyway.

In my second triathlon, the first on my road bike, I came second in my age group (30-35), which astounded me. And you know how I, the mediocre swimmer and very slow runner achieved this? I was the fastest woman cyclist overall in any age group. I beat most of the men.

So it turned out I kick ass at cycling, and if my fucking sexist father and the cycling club my dad and brother belonged to had bothered with girls, I could probably have achieved some pretty impressive stuff, back in the day.

Sadly, shortly after I discovered triathlons we moved to the UK. When we first got here I still trained a bit with a triathlon club (I brought my bike with me, and carried it through the airports in a bag I made), but once we left London for rural Surrey a few months later, I gave up swimming and serious cycling. I hate pool swimming (in Israel I had trained in the sea) and the roads in the UK, especially rural ones, are just death traps for cyclists - I was too scared to go on long rides any more. Plus I was pregnant with DD1.

So now I commute by bike on a Friday, and I still love cycling for pleasure, but I'm not remotely serious about it. The roads here still worry me too much for pack cycling or really long training rides. It's better where I live now, far more cycle tracks and far more bike-friendly so my Friday commute (13 miles each way) by bike is an absolute pleasure. But you couldn't train seriously on those tracks.

I like to think there's an alternative reality where I'm an Olympic cyclist.

Oh Sera, that's sad that you got left out. You might like Victoria Pendleton's biography. There's a woman with a serious case of imposter syndrome.

Not a bad idea, Yonic. I love a good inspirational woman's biography. Have any of you read Just a Little Run Around the World? Ah, Rosie Swale Pope - there's a woman who seriously kicks ass!

Thankyou for starting this thread OP. I lost 10 stone over 18 months between 2002 and 2004.
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In 2005 i gave up smoking. In 2006 my DH had a heart attack and i slowly started to regain 4 stone.

Ive lost that regain over the past two years at a steady rate of a pound to a pound and a half a fortnight....its taken me two years to lose the 4 stone i regained. Im fairly happy........except when i read on here (other boards not this one) that ppl should aim to be lean and not look flabby. Well i am carrying loose skin despite excersising so i cant help that. Doctors have told me it can only be changed by surgery.

The first time i lost the weight quickly and developed gallstones It was hell and i had to have my gall bladder removed after ten months of excrutiating pain where i seriously considered suicide. I find the attitudes that we must lose weight at a rate of knots very harmful and as in my case it can have serious medical consequences. In 2002 there wasnt much information available on links between fast weight loss and gallstones so it just didnt occur to me. Now there is lots of information available on this link. my case was so bad i couldnt eat solids.

And formerly obese ppl like myself will never be "lean" because the damage has already been done. I am off my old heartburn meds though because i dont suffer with that anymore.

I walk everywhere and i do mean EVERYWHERE.

My 10 stone loss i went from a 46G bra size to a 34F

In the last two years from a 38K to a 34HH.

Walking was the only thing i could do because a. i used to work ten hour night shifts the first time and i would not have been able to find a 46G sports bra anyway.

Two years ago i couldnt find a 38K sports bra unless i wanted to pay shitloads to an expensive company e.g. Ample Bosom.

I suspect my back size has got even smaller though that can make it hard to find one too. A lot of places assume you a bigger on the back and smaller on the front.

Sorry I meant there is lots of information available on the internet.