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!

That's a good idea to leave something little on the plate, sera.

I am on holiday so no gym but did do a hilltop walk yesterday.

The hamstrings are feeling better thanks Sera . After a rest on Tuesday I was at the gym on Wednesday and went to a kickboxing class yesterday, which didn't leave me feeling as broken as it has done in the past, so progress has been made. And I'm starting to get a better idea of what I need to do to push myself at the gym. Actually enjoying being red-faced and sweaty by the end...

6 different homemade cakes would test the best of us - I think a 26 mile round trip on the bike will retrospectively earn you a bit of cake though! Plus the body pump, parkrun, karate etc. That's quite a schedule you've got going on.

I'm looking forward to taking dd1 to her first taekwondo class tomorrow. It's a family training session but apparently there are only a couple of other adults training, so I'm not sure how it's going to work, but it's mostly for dd rather than me anyway so hope she likes it.

DH is catching my exercise enthusiasm bug - when I went out to the kickboxing class last night he put the 30 day shred on after the dds were in bed. He said it was good, though Gillian's motivational chat about jeans shopping and swimsuit shopping didn't quite hit the target

Thanks for the link, it looks interesting.

Ahh yes... the days when we were 18 and could eat donuts and not gain a pound. Well, I know I just run every single day for 30 minutes. I am a high energy kind of guy. I also, for the last 5 years, been doing the Blood Type Diet by D.Adamo. For me, I lost weight fast just adhering to the "beneficial" list he provides of certain foods.

I know my wife isn't the skinniest women in the room, but I love her all the same. I am happy that feminists are looking at the healthy lifestyle part and not the skinny part... because you can be skinny and pretty sick in the body or mind.

Hello, hope it's ok to join in? I've been doing slimming world for a bit, lost nearly a stone, so two more to go to get me in the middle of a healthy weight range. I can already feel some of the benefits; my joints feel less sore. Been running sporadically since a half marathon in April, but have a 10k in a couple of weeks so shout pull my finger out a bit. Something I have been doing is keeping a bit of a diary; just bullet points about what I did and what I ate and why, what I was feeling when I ate it. Helping me to reflect on my feelings and find better ways of coping.
Thanks for the link Sera, will have a look after I've fed the small child.

Morning all! Welcome fem!

I had a though this morning, along the lines of Postino talking about how her mum has influenced her eating habits. I was thinking about posting my schedule of activities and thought "gosh, that makes it sound like I'm really sporty, the group is going to get the wrong impression about who I am". But them I thought, no, actually, I am sporty. But when I was growing up, I wasn't very good at the sports they made us do at school. Then my mum, for all that she was a PE teacher and did loads of sport herself, was only ever interested in racquet/ball sports, and I'm not very good at those. So as a child, I was the "academic" one while my brother was the "sporty" one. I was labelled useless, my mum refused to even try playing tennis or anything with me and made me go practice against the wall while she played my brother. And I've discussed cycling upthread.

It wasn't until I was nearly 30 that I took up running, and then discovered I was actually okay at it - I placed middle of the pack (men and women) in most races, got quite good at cycling, I am good at karate, I swam for my school team team at one point so could probably have taken that further.

So yes. I am sporty. It just took me a long time to find the activities I really enjoy and am okay at. But being told I was "useless" at sport my entire childhood has certainly left me with serious exercise-based imposter syndrome!

Well having done quite a bit of exercise at the weekend - plenty of hill walking and things, I've done fuck all this week. I also need to cut down on the sugars! I am going to do my first C25K run this weekend. See I've told you I am so now I'm going to have to do it!!

Can I also say I'm uncomfortable about the men on this thread telling us what they think we should be doing, what we should look like or what our motivations should be. We get enough of that in RL. This isn't about you or what you may think.

Yeah, I didn't appreciate that either scallops, but I'm hoping that now he's given us his gracious blessing he won't bother us again.

I'll be asking you how you got on with your run, so get yourself out there :)

It's true Sera, labelling like that of any sort can be really damaging. I love dancing now, and would have loved to learn when I was younger, but somehow it was decided it wasn't 'me', so it didn't happen. I'm still intending to take classes at some point, but paying out too much at the gym to add on extras elsewhere.

Also, so many people, girls in particular, get put off sport at school because of the horrors of PE and don't realise for years, if ever, that there are other ways of doing it that can actually be quite fun.

Namechange fail - that was me

I feel the same way about jsommer's 'helpful' contribution and was tempted to post the "a manly man has arrived to share his manly views" meme, but decided that ignoring him was the best was forward.

Jsommer has only been here since jeffreygate and only posted in FWR.

Clearly we are doing womanhood wrong if we are not gratified by a random Man's random opinion on attractiveness.

Buffy, you have more than enough on your plate at the moment without putting any additional pressure on yourself. I prescribe gentle dog walking for nothing other than getting out into the fresh air to clear your head. But please (and I like to think you are sensible enough that I don't need to tell you this anyway), only push yourself into doing any other exercise if you genuinely want to and believe it will help you feel better and cope with things, rather than being another "thing that needs going". Okay? This group is about achieving long-term health, both mental and physical.

Have you made it out with the dog Buffy? I hope it felt good if you did.

Today was a good day, I did my cycle and ate on plan. Friday is pizza night, we made homemade, and when I'm on plan I make mine with a cauliflower base, which is free on Slimming World, so with the cheese as a Healthy Extra, it's a lovely Friday treat that's totally on plan. But I tried a different recipe for the base tonight and it was a dismal failure - didn't hold together and looked like cous cous! I had to eat it with a knife and fork. Still tasty thought.

How is everyone else doing today?

Have you tried using a wrap (the weight watchers ones) as your base? It can be a healthy extra or is less syns than pizza base.

Haven't tried wraps no, surely they're too thin/small for pizza? Cauliflower base is very tasty, can be as big as you like and nice and thick too! Plus completely free on SW, you don't need to use any healthy extras. Cauliflower, low fat cottage cheese and egg. Job done! The recipe I usually use works a treat, tonight's cous-cous look-alike was an aberration.

I don't really know anything about Slimming World, except for their use of 'syns' - has the phrase Healthy Extras replaced them? Because that would be good. I always hated the way it sounded as if certain foods were 'sins'.

Glad your couscous pizza was still tasty at least - you could have invented a whole new dish!

When we do pizza these days I just make mine with a really thin base, though I've always prefered crispy pizzas rather than deep pan style.

DD liked taekwondo today, it was fun to be doing an activity with her instead of sitting in a dismal waiting area for an hour.

I'm going shopping for new bras tomorrow - a rather depressing aspect of losing weight. I wish you could ring-fence areas for weightloss, it's not fair that my already slightly rubbish boobs are diminished while there's still plenty to go at on my tummy and thighs...

Hmm, not a very feminist train of thought that really is it?

Sadly, feckity, SW still has 'syns', and I hate the phrase too. Healthy extras some in two types, A is mostly dairy (you get an allotted amount of full-fat milk products/cheese you can have in a day) and B is grains - bread, cereals etc. So all fruit, veg, lean means, pulses, low-fat dairy are completely free - you can eat as much as you want - you have to be a bit more careful with the calorie-dense stuff like cheese and bread. Then 'syns' are the not-so-healthy things like chocolate or wine you can have on top of that.

I had a really good day yesterday. I tried a new trick at my parkrun - a variation on run-walk. I set up my Runkeeper to notify me every 0.25km, then I ran 1 out of every 4 a bit faster than I was comfortable with. I got a really good time (for me!) and will definitely be trying it again.

Then later in the day we went to a beer fest, and I figured at some point everyone would want nibbles (probably crisps) so I took carrots and grapes to snack on instead. And I worked out how many drinks I could have with my 'syn' (urgh) allowance and stuck to it. Afterwards some friends came back to ours and brought chocolate but I found I didn't even want any. So, feeling very good. It's not so much about the actual things I do, but having my head in the right place that making these choices is easy. I just wish I knew what it was that caused the switch in my head to flip from one state of mind to the other, so that I knew how to flip it back when I find myself in 'inhale all of the chocolate' mode.

I'm so pleased you and DD enjoyed taekwondo, feckity. I'm a great fan of martial arts, and I love that DD1 does karate with me. She won 'student of the day' yesterday, I shed a small tear of pride!

But yes, nature is cruel in that we women often lose weight from our bust before anywhere else!

Hi, I've been following this. My fitness has plummeted since having kids (6 months with a wheelchair, then 6 months essentially lying down with dc2), and turns out I'm not just crap at sport but actually have disabilities, which is sort of validating, but still precludes group exercise as"all abilities welcome" classes usually aren't. Also both DP and I find it hard to go out and do the exercise we'd like to as he doesn't get home from work until around 8 or later (unavoidable as has to speak to people in other countries at 7), and the kids need to be got to bed and all.

I can only do running or swimming, neither are compatible with kids, though finally the nearby pool has been rebuilt and a creche opening so will try a weekly swim in the day. Usually I'm too shattered to do anything other than bed after dinner. DP and I have both found we eat to try to perk ourselves up when exhausted, which is all the time. The dcs are 6 and 3, plus dn is with us a lot, so starting to get a bit more sleep which I hope will lead to me doing less mindless eating! And planning more, so that I don't end up desperate for a snack and only really fatty/sugary things that I don't even like being available.

I hate the word 'syn' BUT it has given me a better understanding of how much of things like chocolate are a normal size portion as part of a balanced diet.

Hi NotCitrus. Goodness, healthy living is tricky enough without having to factor in a disability - that must be very hard work. I think you and DH need come to an agreement regarding your comfort eating - easier said than done but it will be so much harder to move on from if you're not working as a team. Does he want to cut down on that and try to be more healthy?

Using a crèche to go swimming is a great idea. I used to put DD2 in the gym crèche when DD1 was at preschool and go to a bootcamp class - one of my leanest and fittest periods was when DD2 was tiny! I do my running early in the morning before the rest of the family are up, and on Saturday mornings. Does your DH leave for work at an hour that would allow you to do that? I know when you're tired and sleep-deprived it seems a crazy idea to sacrifice the little sleep you get for exercise. But it only needs to be half an hour earlier, and the exercise will increase you energy levels. Sorry if I'm trying to suggest obvious things you'd already thought of!

Thanks sera and Buffy - we've come through a lot in the last year so have got down to a pattern for work so I don't need to work in the evenings, but this could get scuppered again by eg jury service again or dn having lots of medical/school appts (hopefully his teacher this year will have a brain cell as well as clue about SN...)

I used to put ds in the creche and swim at least weekly but then when dd was born they didn't allow under-1s, which scuppered getting strength back while on mat leave. So really looking forward to September! I've never managed more than 4 runs before injury, and have even managed to injure myself in physio-run exercise/Pilates classes in hospitals, which is a shame as they were good but won't let me back. Just as well school is 1 1/2 miles away and there is no alternative to walking (driving would take twice as long).

It's very tricky getting a balance between the energy hit that exercise creates, versusthe days of chronic pain that it causes, even without injuring myself. If I was able to do all the physio exercises I'm prescribed, that would take up about 2 hours a day, but I also have lists of when to not do them, so in practice it's about 20 min a day and just about keeps me able to walk to school and station and back. Dd is now out of a buggy so that's going to be interesting come Sept (she can run much faster than me).

Not being able to cook much is my main frustration, but thankfully finances have improved recently (dd gets free hours at nursery, etc) so in planning for winter I know I can order in COOK meals (ready meals, only good, and include healthy ranges) and have been stocking the freezer.

Must remember to take more porridge oats to work, for when I need sustenance and otherwise end up with choices of flapjacks, buns with way too much icing, and generally zillions of calories that I won't actually enjoy!

Glad the dog walk was good Buffy and hope you feel less jellied soon.

I find myself strangely tempted to try this. A runner friend of mine is recruiting via Facebook....