A book on exercise
for large women?
An exercise book with pictures of women with flesh on
their bones?
A book that says you can be active without waiting
until you're size 7?
What sort of heresy
is this?
We hope you are curious.
We are a couple of rabble-rousers who want to open your
mind to the idea that you have a right to play. This book
is about the joy of moving in many different forms, from
sports to dance. And while we think that everybody could
use more of a playout than a workout in their lives, we
are particularly fond of speaking out for large women.
We have watched ourselves
struggle with the fitness culture. How many times have we
started a diet, joined a health club, made a food chart,
bought a protein supplement? How many times have we
"blown" that diet, dropped out of the exercise
class, and let the food chart and the unused cans of
powder gather dust on the shelf? How many times can we
put ourselves through that cycle of optimism, fatigue,
and despair? We can answer that last question for
ourselves: We will not go through it anymore. We got
tired of it a long time ago, and we began to wonder: Why
does this effort, which everyone assumes should work, so
inevitably fail?
The answer is not simple.
Some people say it's lack of will-power. But that doesn't
fit with the evidence of our lives, which have been full
of accomplishments, hard decisions, and commitments we
have kept.
We decided to take a
closer look at the whole cycle from start to finish in
our own lives and in those of our friends. For most of us,
no matter what our size, the motivation to exercise
starts with the desire to lose weight. So we summon our
courage and try a class - and walk away in a state of
shock about how bad it felt, how painful the exercises
were, how rushed the pace, and how embarrassing the
experience of being the fattest person in the room. But
as we limp away, we half think we deserve such a
dismal experience for the sin of being fat. So we have
doubts about challenging the instructor or the exercise
club to serve us better. Instead, we just quietly drop
out of sight. It relieves the pain of being in the class
but leaves a residue of failure. We are unlikely to try that
again!
It is time to pay
attention to what does not work. The fitness industry,
which tells us we are loathsome and lazy but maybe if we
work real hard and punish ourselves they'll let us in the
club, does not work. Gritting our teeth, holding our
breath, and going for the burn does not work. Sweating it
out for some future image of ourselves as a size 7 does
not work.
So what works? Again, the
answer is not simple. If by "what works" we
mean "what helps people lose weight permanently,"
no one has come up with a satisfying answer. People can
and do lose weight, but they tend to put it back on.
Exercise does make bodies leaner, but it's not very
dramatic. The process is slow, the results are not the
stuff of "before" and "after"
pictures, and they last only as long as you keep
exercising.
What other purpose could
there be to exercising?
We have found that some
of the miseries we attributed to our weight were in fact
miseries of lives without movement, lives without play,
lives without deep breathing and zest. And lo and behold,
movement, play, deep breathing, and zest could be ours
right now!
Could physical activity
be an end in itself?
That is the question we
would like to pose to you, the question we invite you to
explore.
This is what Great Shape:
The First Fitness Guide For Large Women is about: putting
the play back into a workout. This book is for you if you:
-
have been turned
off by the standard approach to exercise
-
have felt afraid
to become more active, worrying that you'd be
hurt, embarrassed, or humiliated
-
have tried being
more active but dropped out because you became
bored or burned out
-
are involved in
one activity and want to branch out to others
-
are looking for
respect as a large woman living in a size 7 world
-
are simply
looking for more fun in your life
If you've been longing to
get a move on or have been wondering what it would feel
like to be in great shape, this is the book for you. See
below for ordering information.
To find buddies for physical activity in your area, go to
BodyPositive.com
"Find Each Other" bulletin board.
Our children are much
less active now too, however. While in the fifties our
mothers used to beg us to come in from playing outside
when it was dark, mothers now have to beg their kids to
turn off the television and go outside to play. It is
estimated that the average American teenager will have
spent more than twenty-two thousand hours in front of a
television by the time she graduates from high school. As
a nation we have become watchers, not doers, with the
remote control TV switch the symbol of our transformation
into couch potatoes.
Research by sport
sociologist Susan Greendorfer and others shows that adult
women who are active in sports received strong family
encouragement when they were young and physical activity
was a regular part of family interactions. While school
plays an important role in encouraging sports
participation for boys, this has not been found to be
true for girls. In other words, if our daughters are
going to be able to dance or belt a softball into the
outfield, as parents we must encourage their early
participation and not think the schools are taking care
of that task for us.
Children who are not
encouraged to dance or play physically demanding games
and sports never adequately learn skills of physical
coordination; their reflexes do not develop to their
fullest capacity, and their confidence in their body's
ability to bring them joy is not firmly established. If
they are ridiculed for being fat or for any lack of
innate ability, either by peers, teachers, or parents,
they will carry this scar with them, making participation
in adulthood even more difficult.
In childhood we are not
only at our highest level of physical energy but also at
our lowest level of physical fear, unless we have been
taught to be afraid. Young children are not usually
afraid of hurting or embarrassing themselves. They will
repeat the same action dozens of times in order to get it
right because they don't have adult inhibitions about
making mistakes and because repetition is often just
another word for playing. Children are open and ready to
try new challenges because risks seem like no big deal.
As we get older, and
particularly as adults, we become afraid of breaking a
leg, splitting our pants, looking foolish or clumsy, or
otherwise damaging our bodies or our dignity. Too often
we then decide on the "safe" course of not
trying at all. Therefore, the best favor you can do the
children in your life is to intervene early in sedentary
patterns and encourage them to experiment and challenge
themselves in dance, sports, and games that help them
learn to trust their bodies. Participating with them in
physically active family outings will benefit everyone.
And if they take physical education in school be sure
that their teachers understand you expect them to treat
your child with respect regardless of size or abilities.
There is nothing quite
like a childhood memory of exhilaration and
accomplishment to get an adult off the couch and back
into the world of physical play. If you never had a
chance to play sports and games as a child, however, now
is the time to begin. In the immortal words of a
California T-shirt: IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO
HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD
.........
