What Running (And Failing At) A Race Taught Me

Pre-race, post-potty - the high point of my day.

The End: Shaking, incoherent, sobbing, vomiting and laying under all my blankets still in my sweat-soaked racing clothes: This was how my kids found mommy yesterday.

The Beginning: "Sure, give me some of your pills!" Famous. Last. Words.

That pretty much sums it up. But if you want all the gory details of my Worst Race Ever (swiftly followed by Very Important Life Lesson), read on:

The day dawned bright and beautiful and cold. Gym Buddies Allison, Megan and I met up all kitted out in our glittery skirts and painted hair. The drive in was easy, we quickly found a parking spot, we were plenty early for several potty breaks and I even got to meet Reader Jen at the starting line (which got awkward when Allison asked her if she wanted me to sign her bra. Jen replied, "Do people really ask you that?!" And I was like, "Um, NO. Just Allison!" I'm sorry Jen!). But even with everything going so swimmingly, I was still really anxious. Have to do my best, remember?

Allison and I after getting all prettied up.

It was my last long training run that did me in. My "fun" goal for the race was 1:30 for the ten miles - an easy 9 minute pace*. I knew I could do that. But then I had an awesome run outside. And then an even better one inside. I'd consistently paced at 8:40/mile. I didn't want to tell anyone for fear of jinxing myself but if I could shave that down to 8:30/mile that would be a personal record (PR) for me for this distance. Sure I'd have to run a hard race but I could do it! If I just had a little edge... Just, you know, something to give me a tiny push... Something like... a pill?

Seduced by the allure of a PR, I convinced one of the Gym Buddies who is into that sort of thing to give me a couple of caffeine pills. It's just caffeine, I reasoned. Sure I'm caffeine sensitive but it wasn't that much and my Gym Buddy uses them all the time and has had great results with them. I mean it's not like it was crack, right?

Might as well have been crack. Actually, crack would have been preferable.

I knew something was wrong about 20 minutes after I swallowed them. A strange fog came over my mind, my heart started pounding and I began to shake uncontrollably. Nausea rolled over me in waves. "Don't worry, you'll feel better once you start running," my friends reassured me. And for a few minutes I did. Then I realized something strange; I could no longer feel my limbs. You'd think this would be a bonus for an endurance race - hey, I'm flying! - but when I say I couldn't feel my limbs I mean I couldn't feel my body. It was the strangest feeling and not at all pleasant. I realized the downside to this when I tripped over a stick and caught it between my legs - it took me 10 feet to figure out why my legs weren't propelling me forward anymore. I also managed to tear off half my fingernail (Where? On what? Who knows??) and get a bruise on my thigh the size of a fist.

You remember the children's story The Red Shoes - little orphaned girl covets red dancing shoes, girl gets shoes and loves them more than anything else, the shoes become possessed and bind to her feet forcing her to dance until at last she convinces someone to chop off her feet. And then she dies! Charming little tale: deadly sin, demonic possession, punishment that way overshadows the crime - sure don't make fairytales like they used to! Well, I was now the girl in the red shoes. My legs only had one speed: sprint. So I ran the first three or four miles at a crazy pace and then it hit me. No, not another stick. The nausea that had been building now punched me in the stomach and I immediately knew I shouldn't have blogged about runners who poop their pants because I was pretty sure I was about to join their ranks. I stopped just long enough to blow chunks. Thankfully they came out of my mouth. (I never thought I'd be so grateful for barf!)

I have never, ever vomited during a race. Wanted to, yes. Done it, no. I walked a few paces and then my stupid possessed legs took off again. This became my strategy for the last 6 miles: sprint until I was 99% sure I was going to puke again and then walk. Sprint, heave, walk. Repeat. I'm pretty sure this particular strategy isn't covered in any of the major running manuals. Can't say I recommend it either. By mile 8 I just wanted to die. If I'd known the neighborhood at all, I would have ducked out of the race but I knew I had to make it to the finish line to find my friends and my ride home. So I continued to run the most schizophrenic race ever, alternately confusing and horrifying fellow runners and bystanders alike. Hey kids, don't do drugs!

The finish line is supposed to be a glorious moment where you sprint with your arms held high in the ecstasy of victory. I dragged over it after having walked most of the final mile, my possessed leg muscles twitching in protest. To be honest I don't remember much after that. I hugged Gym Buddy Dennis. Some man I didn't know gave me a picnic blanket to put over the two sweatshirts I was already wearing over my running clothes and I still couldn't stop shaking. I ate one bite of a salted nut roll only to throw it back up in my mouth. My legs were weak, I wanted to cry and my heart was beating so funny I was sure I'd just self-medicated myself into a heart attack. I kept a brave face on until I got home (at least I think I did, my friends would have to tell you how convincing I was) hoping that my husband would be home. He wasn't.

I burst into hysterical sobs, threw up again and eventually managed to drag myself into bed which is where my kids found me sometime later crying and hyperventilating. By the time my husband got up there I begged him to take me to the E.R. I was that sure I was dying. Instead he changed me into dry clothes, gave me a few sips of Sprite and put me back in bed where I spent the rest of the day. I couldn't eat a thing until this morning. Between sweat, tears and vomit I lost 3.5 pounds in 24 hours so while I missed my running best, I think I set a new PR in bodily fluid spewage.

To say I was bitterly disappointed in myself would be a massive understatement. I spent last night trying to decide which spot this event would take in my Top 10 List of Things I Most Regret. (Top 5, probably.) I spent most of this morning wishing for a do-over and calling myself every iteration of idiot I could muster. After avoiding it all day, I finally broke down and looked at my time on the race site. It wasn't great (1:37 - 9:40/mile) but you know what? It wasn't terrible. I finished. I cannot believe I finished at all. As far as mental toughness goes, this was by far the toughest race I have ever run. And yet I still did it.

Then I did something even better: I looked up the times for all of my friends that ran it. Since I'd puked up any last vestiges of pride and competitiveness, I was able to look at their times and just see their accomplishment. And it was a beautiful thing! I was so proud of them I started crying all over again but happy tears this time. Every person had to run their own race yesterday and they all did. Every single one finished. Megan got a PR in the half-marathon. Allison ran her first 10-miler and looked adorable doing it. Kandi & Ben finished within 1 second of each other (the couple that runs together, stays together!). Jeni ran her first 10-miler and hit her goal while her two young daughters cheered their hearts out for her. Other Megan #1 ran her first-ever half marathon and Other Megan #2 paced her step-for-step; they crossed together. Tom shaved 30 minutes off his last half time. Candice finished her first half marathon. Melissa and Julie and Greg and Other Megan #3 (seriously, we have that many Megans at the Y) and Jen and Other Allison all ran great runs.

In that moment I realized that if I can be proud of all of them - and I SO am! - then I can be proud of myself too. I may not be proud of what I did but I am proud of myself for finishing. And that is, after all, good enough.

What is your worst race story? Anyone else ever take a shortcut to help them only to have it massively backfire? What moment do you wish you could do over?

*I don't normally use actual numbers when I post because I know numbers are very triggering for some people and for the rest of us, well, comparisons are odious. My fast is your slow, my slow is your fast... whatever. But writing this out without the numbers ended up needing more calculus than I remember. My apologies if this made you nuts.

Post-race with our finisher's medals! Boy howdy did I earn this one.

Being Good Enough: How to Separate Who You Are From What You Do

The caption says "Not good enough for Beijing." Well there go my dreams of ever being a champion head lifter.

I'm nervous. Not nervous in a betrayed-by-my-bowels kind of way. Yet. (Which speaking of being betrayed by one's nethers, ESPN had the most fascinating article on explosive pooping while racing. Seriously, you must read it. It was in their Body Issue which I want to hate because it feels like using naked chicks to sell more copies a la the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is so tired and yet I love it. Think less bikinis on the beach and more biceps. Lots more muscles. The cover even features a paraplegic tennis player! Of course she's gorgeous and starkers except for a strategically placed tennis racket but how cool is it that they put a woman in a wheelchair on the cover? There's such a fine line between art and artifice.)

I'm nervous for my race on Saturday. You know, the one that I signed up to run "just for fun" and have managed to suck all the fun right out of. (Well, almost. Gym Buddies Allison, Megan and I are running in sparkly tutus - mine's purple! - and striped knee-high socks. Fun!) I'm worried that I'm not going to be good enough. What is good enough, you ask? No idea! Like Alice at the fork in the woods, I don't know what the end goal is. Of course Alice had the Cheshire cat mocking her and her angst. At least I'm feline free. And like Alice, I realized today that I need to decide now, before I take even one step in the race, what the end is going to be. That whatever I do is going to be good enough. Finishing will be good enough. Even if I don't run my 100% best race, I'll still be good enough.

This is difficult for me to believe because I'm so used to defining myself by what I do. At times this has worked well for me. Like when I got straight A's in school then I was Charlotte the Smart Girl. It cuts both ways though. I remember the first time I decided that I was Charlotte the Bad Person because of something I'd done.

"Charlotte?" My high school teacher frowned at the note, "You're to go to the office. The police want to talk to you." Yeah he actually read it out loud. There were some gasps, lots of snickers. Nothing says fun like getting pulled out of 3rd period by the police! By the time I got to the office I was shaking head to toe. I was having visions of being an unwitting drug mule like Brokedown Palace and I'm nowhere near as cute as Claire Danes in prison clothes. Does the U.S. deport underage non-cute unknown-package acceptors?

Someone handed me the phone. "Charlotte? This is Detective Johnson from the Police Department. Do you know a Nathaniel X?"

My mouth went dry and I knew this phone call had been a long time coming. "Yes," I squeaked. Nathaniel and I worked together at the local university and even now it's hard for me to describe our relationship without putting unsure quotation marks around each descriptor. We were "friends", certainly. For awhile "best" friends even. We were together all the time. Despite our ten-year age difference, I had a massive school-girl crush on him. He might have had one on me too. To this day I don't know whether he really loved me, just thought he loved me or was only pretending to love me in order to manipulate me. He was the first boy to tell me he loved me. He was the first boy to tell me I was sexy. He was also as crazy as a guy's night out with Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, Michael Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. And unfortunately his brand of crazy manifested as pervert. Which meshed perfectly with my brand of crazy - insecure.

I became his confidant for things that no fifteen-year-old should know. Every conversation with him would start "You can never tell anyone this. Do you promise me? You're the only person I trust." I was too young to know that anytime anyone says this, that telling anyone and everyone is exactly what you should do. So I kept his secrets. And became a erstwhile victim of some of them. The more he told me, the less I wanted to know and the more I believed him when he said I was a part of all this.

The police, apparently, agreed. "Do you know where Sara is?"

"Isn't she in school?" I whispered.

"No, I'm afraid Sara's gone missing." The detective added, "And her parents think you might know where she is." Sara was one of my oldest friends and even though we'd grown apart since the advent of high school - she was cool, I was not - when Nathaniel had asked me for her number I gave it to him. Do not misunderstand the magnitude of this. I knew what he was. I pimped out the girl with whom I still had the "friends" half of a "friends forever" heart necklace.

I burst into hysterical tears, sobbing mascara streaks all over the secretary's shoulder. I didn't know where she was and that was the truth. But what I did know was that she was alternately intrigued by and afraid of Nathaniel and his overwhelming advances. Much like myself, I suppose. And now Sara was gone. Plucked, so they told me, right off the street when she went to take care of a vacationing neighbor's pet. Would she have gone willingly with Nathaniel? Perhaps. Would he have taken her if she hadn't? Did he? I didn't ask why he hadn't taken me.

"Can you contact Nathaniel?"

I could. I had his private pager number. I had his e-mail. I knew the chat rooms to find him in. I knew he would answer if I called him. And so the sting was set with me as the bait. Even then I was conflicted. Torn between wanting to warn him, an impulse that baffles me today, and wanting him caught as soon as possible. It dragged on for weeks as I printed out copies of every cryptic e-mail, had short stilted phone conversations with an officer listening on the other line and typed in chat rooms with a cop taking notes next to me. I only talked to Sara once and she told me she was fine and to leave her alone before he took the phone from her and hung it up. I cried as I listened to the dial tone for 10 minutes.

If this were TV, this would be the climactic moment where I jump in and do something terribly risky and yet heroic like drive out to the deserted barn and unchain my friend while fighting him off with a horse whip and my razor wit. Instead... nothing happened. Eventually Sara showed back up at home. Except she wasn't really Sara anymore. I didn't see her smile or laugh for a long time. In fact I didn't see much of her period. Nathaniel, on the other hand, was more in than out of my life for the next several years. Sara had refused to talk to the police, refused to press any charges and the information from me was not enough to convict so he was free to do as he wished. What is a girl to do after she's participated in a police sting that ends messily with the perpetrator still in her life and the cops totally out of it?

I internalized it. I made it my All My Fault because that was the only thing I had control over. I ended up tearily apologizing to Sara for not protecting her (which only earned me a glassy stare) and then tearily apologizing to him for the betrayal (which got me this). And with every word I knew: Charlotte was Bad. I created this terrible thing and therefore I must be terrible. The worst effect of this was how perfectly it set me up for the next man to abuse me, for the horrific spectacle of the Very Bad Boyfriend.

Charlotte back then had no intrinsic self worth, I was only a sum of my actions. And as extreme as this sounds, it's a belief that much of our society reinforces today. People are made and taken apart for what they do in their jobs, in sports, with their bodies. You are only as good as your next big accomplishment and only as far away from bad as your next big failure. And nothing is ever good enough.

But I refuse this black and white interpretation. I am not fifteen anymore. There has got to be a line between who I am and what I can do. I just need to take a deep breath so I can find it. Because in the end, this fear of failure is permission not to try. And I'm better than that.

There is great power in good enough.

There are some posts that I really agonize about posting and this is one of them. (And yes, some of them do remain unpublished.) I may regret writing this but I'm putting it out there in the hope that perhaps you can tell me how you figured out how to separate who you are from what you do. How do you get over that paralyzing fear that you will never be good enough? How do you stop feeling like you always have to one-up yourself? And was anyone else totally fascinated by that ESPN race-pooping article??

Meditations On a Wall Sit [Oh my burning quads]

Diana Vishneva, ballerina

Plank. Push-ups. Wall sits. This week, one of the trainers at my Y has been doing fitness challenges every day. It's nothing more sophisticated than a marker board, an "official" timer and a mat on the floor down by the front doors. Winners get no finisher's medal, no t-shirt, not even an "I'm SomeBUNNY Special" sticker like my preschooler - just bragging rights. And considering I workout at the Y conveniently located between two large nursing homes, I probably ought to keep any bragging to a self-effacing minimum. ("I can hold plank for four minutes!" "Yeah, well I served in both 'Nam and Korea, hiking 20 miles a day before you were even born. And I got jungle rot on every body part south of the Mason-Dixon." Nothing says fun like old person TMI.) Despite the lack of any reasonable incentives, I am still drawn to these challenges like body builders to chest waxing.

Why? Well, for one reason the word "challenge" is like the smell of freshly baked bread to me. I simply cannot walk by with it wafting in the air and not try a little. I've been that way my whole life. I'm as competitive as the Kardashian sisters extensions are long. But today whilst holding my wall sit I had a lot of time (3 minutes and 6 seconds to be exact, Gym Buddy Megan and I tied for first place*) to think about exactly why that is. See, I was already sore from grueling workouts over the past few days, had just completed a boot camp class that included wall sits (note to self: do challenges before regularly scheduled workout) and I had already taken first place on the previous two challenges so why put myself through the agony of toilet-sore quads?

Because I have to be good at everything.

Oh, I don't mean GOODgood at everything. I'm never going to win the Boston Marathon nor go to the Olympics in powerlifting nor will I study yoga under the most esteemed yogi in India while meditating in crow pose for 3 hours a day. I won't even kid myself that I'm the best at my Y. I mean that I want to be able to hold my own at everything (and after having 5 kids, I include my own urine in that). I want to be able to run fast and lift heavy. I want to be able to bend like Gumby and box like Laila. I also want to be well read and a decent computer programmer. I want to play the piano well enough to feel comfortable doing it in public (rather than dropping my head and mumbling something about "Uh, I used to" when friends ask who plays, like I do now.) I want to be a respected teacher. I want to be a successful author. Oh, and, I want to be a fun, efficient, beautiful, creative, spiritual mother who will be beloved by my progeny for decades after I'm dead. You know, just little things.

The problem with wanting to be good at everything? For one thing, it doesn't make me feel happy. After the initial high wears off, I realize I have to keep doing bigger/more things to get the next hit. The second problem? It is also impossible. Some things naturally preclude other things. For instance you don't generally see people who are speedy endurance runners that can also lift really heavy and being super flexible can be an invitation to injury in some sports. And believe me when I say the author and mom goals conflict on a regular basis.

I'm not saying it's wrong to have goals or even to want to be good at many things. The issue is that not every goal can be in the number 1 spot. You have to prioritize. Prioritize. I hate that word. See, whenever something new gets added to my to-do list, where a reasonable person would drop something of lesser importance I will insist loudly that I can do it all without dropping any balls. And then do you know what inevitably happens? I drop some balls. Or I manage to get everything done but not done well. Or, worst case scenario, my day explodes, nothing gets done right and other people have to step in to fix the mess I've created for myself. This last situation happens more than I'd like to admit. I've discovered that If I'm unwilling to prioritize my goals, life will do it for me and it won't be the order I would have picked.

It doesn't help that the media reinforces this attitude with headlines screaming "Get The Hottest Bod on the Beach in 2 Weeks!" (buy a private beach?) or "Throw a Holiday Party Your Guests Will Never Forget!" (my guests never forget my parties - food poisoning will do that to a person) or "Get Richer Than Your Wildest Dreams!" (this one should be easy - my wildest dream is to have clean carpets and doors that sit plumb on their hinges) or even "Live Your Best Life!" (sorry, Oprah - you know I love you like creme brulee).**

It's enough to make a girl want to stop trying all together. And that is the real problem with always wanting to be able to do everything. Black-and-white thinking leads to black-and-white solutions. When you fail - as we inevitably all will - it doesn't become a learning experience but rather an indictment of our character. I can't tell you how many times I've stomped my feet and said "If I can't do it perfect then I'm not even going to try." (Ahem, tennis.)

Thankfully old age has mellowed me a bit on this. Teaching teenagers will strip anyone of their pretensions. Children are uniquely humbling. As is this website: trying a new workout every month pretty much means I get really good at nothing. So can a perfectionsitic, black-and-white thinker let go of some of her competitiveness? My sore quads sure hope so.

Are you competitive? Can you not walk away from a challenge either? How do you prioritize your time?

* I just heard that Gym Buddy Jeni came later in the day and busted our record! Way to go, girl!!
** That may be my record for the longest run-on sentence ever! I win again!!

Where is the Line Between Your Weight and Yourself?

Girl Disappearing by Curly Tops

Perfectly round. A circular platform encircled by a raised bar. Like a stage! The kind that lights up underneath and lifts the performer above the crowd as mist billows beneath! And indeed I am being watched. But there is no applause and I am given no chance for a monologue. Perhaps, I think - silently, to myself - it reminds me less of a stage and more of a teleportation device. Closing my eyes I wait for a beam of light to descend and obliterate the particles of my mortal shell, to reduce me, no more no less, to the same matter that permeates the universe. No light comes. My atoms stay rigidly arranged, the faulty DNA that is Broken Me still intact, still informing.

I wish it were anything but what it actually is: a scale.

The brushed steel platform on which I stand, obediently thinking defiant thoughts, does not look like any scale I am used to. Certainly it doesn't resemble either of the torture devices to which I have arranged my bathroom, and my life, around. (Two: one to check the other. Accuracy is paramount.) This is an industrial scale, large enough to weigh an elephant but stark enough to weigh an anorectic. Even if she is too weak to hold herself up and must lean on the circular rail for support. But not comfort. No scale has ever been comforting. The very idea of weighing and measuring a human being is not so they can be loved but so they can be compared.

I know quite well what I am being compared to. The problem is that I don't know how I measure up. The digital display that shows the all-important numbers is across the room. Across the room! And turned away so only the nutritionist can read it. Upon first entering the eating disorder clinic, I had protested vehemently at this weighing ritual. "But I'm at a healthy weight!" And then, "But I'm not anorexic! I'm here for compulsive exercise and orthorexia!" Then finally, "My shoes (large wedged heels) and my coat (thick for winter) are so heavy!" All of these things were quite true.

"It doesn't matter. This is just to get a baseline. All patients are weighed at every appointment. Please step on the scale."

"But I'm not even trying to lose weight!!" My final plea. This, incidentally, was not true.

The nutritionist didn't blink. "We can't continue until you are weighed."

There was a standoff. I held out for a half hour, picking my nails, studying the pastel 80's artwork, staring blatantly at my nutritionist - a woman so thin that she must always get asked if she has an eating disorder, if she is a size 0, if she has any tips . Of course these things are filtered through the madness of my illness. I can't see anyone in any other light except fat or thin, evil or righteous, rebellious or obedient.

The thing that breaks me is knowing my babysitter can't stay past an hour. White as a sheet, I step on the scale. The silence that had started at our inauspicious beginning continues to blanket the room. I make not a peep as my worth blinks in black and white. She makes not a sound as she writes it down on my chart, her face inscrutable. Surely, I think, she had never seen someone weigh as much as I do. Surely, I think, she is horrified. Surely she thinks I'm faking sickness. It makes me feel so angry and impotent and worthless that the only thing I can think to say when we finally sit down in proper chairs - as if one of us hadn't just subjected the other to an invasive and dehumanizing ritual - in her office is, "My shoes have solid rubber heels, they probably weigh two pounds each."

She nods, unsmiling, "I'll make a note of that on your chart." And she does. Although I do not know whether she notes it under my weight or under the "disordered fixations of patient" column. I reassure myself with the thought that next time I will wear tiny sandals and take my coat off in the waiting room, no matter the fact that it is winter. No matter the fact that I am always, always freezing. Next time, I vow, that number will be less.

"Excuse me," my lips stretch and I show my teeth in what I hope is a smile, "but I didn't catch the number. What was it?"

"I already told you, the number doesn't matter. It's just a baseline for our charts. Something to see if the intervention is working." Her bony chest, visible through her v-neck sweater, rises and falls as she sighs.

Intervention. I bristle at the word. Bristle at the thought that something as intensely personal, as intrinsic to my corporeal self, as my weight is kept from me. It's mine! I want to scream. It's all I have left! I don't want to add.

"Now, since it took so long getting started," she pauses and I stare right back into her hollow-cheeked face, "I won't be able to finish all of the intake questions. But I'd like you to take this and read it before our meeting next week." She slides a bound booklet across the desk to me. It has a clip-art picture of a fruit bowl on the cover. Nutritional Guidelines the title reads. It is tacky and I hate it without opening it.

But then I remember Pam, my beloved therapist, the one who insisted that I go to this meeting, do this intake, finish this outpatient program. I can't face her next week and report yet another week of no progress. Flipping open the booklet, the first page tells me to eat a protein, a grain and a fat at every meal. The nutritionist leans over to point out more clip-art pictures illustrating each of these categories. As if I don't already know every macronutrient, every calorie, every gram, every vitamin, every category that a food could possibly be compartmentalized into by heart. Did you know an apple is a fruit?

My sickness does not make me stupid.

The nutritionist thinks it does. She hands me a list and asks me to circle which foods I will eat. Scanning the everlong list - is every food in the world really on there? Because I am an adventurous eater. At least, I used to be - I draw a heavy X through them all. This will be faster: I scrawl on the bottom "salad, berries, nuts, steel-cut oats and non-starchy vegetables."

"This is what you will eat?"

A lump forms in my throat as I realize that several days ago I struck oatmeal off the list. Grains are bad for you, our primal ancestors didn't eat them, our systems haven't evolved to digest them without inflammation. See? I had to take them off. It was the right thing to do.

"Charlotte?"

I'm not aware that I'm not saying any of this out loud. What I know is this: I am crying. And my babysitter can't stay any longer.

"I'm sorry, I have to go now." I stumble over my too-tall, too-heavy shoes. (How could I have ever thought these made my legs look thinner? Clearly I am huge and no shoes are going to hide that.)

"All right, I'll see you next week?"

"Sure." By the waiting room I have chewed my lip raw. Mothers don't have the luxury of eating disorders. By the elevator I have dried the tears. I can't go back to my children with red rimmed eyes. With problems. With heavy shoes. By the front doors I have recovered myself. I toss the booklet in the garbage can under the cigarette sandbox.

I don't come back.

I prefer my small-scale scales. The ones that don't have the power to transport me to another world. The ones that won't take me apart piece by piece, demanding my faith that it will put me back together in the end.

* Note: I wanted to end the essay here. But I worry that some of you will think that this is my contemporary state of mind. And it isn't. This incident happened several years ago and I have made amazing progress with my disordered eating. The reason I write about this today is to try and describe what it felt like for me. Why the scale still holds such prominence in my life. And because today, for the first time since my baby's birth, I weigh the weight that I did that day (of course the first thing I did when I got home and paid the babysitter was to run upstairs and weigh myself, shoes, coat and everything). Before you worry - do realize that my weight today, totally naked, is what I weighed then fully (overly) clothed. It isn't truly the same but seeing that number brought back this memory. It seemed important to write it down.

Do you have a weight that holds particular importance for you? A number that brings back a particular memory, good or bad? Edited to add: I ask this not to have you fixate on an arbitrary number but to encourage you to challenge the beliefs that you hold about yourself and your weight. You are so much more than a number.

Can Exercise Hurt Your Breast Milk? [A Study in Mother Guilt]

A mother's love - they say that nothing is more powerful. (At least if you believe Harry Potter, which of course I do. I'm a sucker for green eyes.) So if this is true then I know the second most powerful force on the planet: A mother's guilt.

Whether they hand it to you as you exit the hospital, a neat little package of the shame you carry for sending your precious infant to the nursery to spend his first night on the planet alone amongst the bright lights and loud noises or whether you don't discover the little box hidden like a pipe bomb under the baby seat that you realize you've installed incorrectly and yet have been using it to tote your fragile baby around for months, it is an inevitability. It hits you like a knife to the stomach twisting your innards as your mind races to all the what-could-haves and thank-God-it-didn'ts as you repeat the Happiest Baby on the Block like so many nursery rhyme Hail Marys in an effort to prevent the worst by imagining all incarnations of it. Once the guilt has finished consuming you from the gut upward in its fiendish flames, it settles in quietly, rock-like, deep inside your person. Some mothers carry their neutron-star guilt in their stomachs perpetually churning with acid, others in their heads in the migraine spot right behind their eyes, but I, I carry mine in my heart. With every beat of my own I can feel the pulse, like an echo, of the hearts of each of my children. From their utmost beginning their hearts have beat inside me - how could I not still be swayed by their rhythm?

I shall tell you all the facts. There aren't many, it won't take long. Indeed, on the grand scale of parental mistakes this one is perhaps minor. But it is the thing that it represents that so wounds me: my ability to hurt my children even while doing my best to protect them. But I am ahead of myself.

Anyone who has had a baby, seen a baby, read about a baby or just happens to have breasts will know what a contentious topic breast feeding is. Breast is best! The zeal imbued into this cannot be overstated. It's healthier for both mom and baby - it is a magic elixir that prevents health problems now and in the future! Plus, it's free. And yet, knowing this as all of us breast-endowed women (and most men too, I'd wager) do, how is that the vast majority do not breast feed? Or if they do, they don't do it for long?

I'll tell you why. It's hard. It may be a natural process but it sure doesn't come naturally. At least it didn't for me. Nobody told me how much it would hurt - like rug burns with the scabs getting ripped off every 2-3 hours around the clock - until the baby's suckling finally turned my nipples into pencil erasers. Nobody told me of the yeast infections passed back and forth like some insane game of hot potato but where the winner gets their mouth painted purple with gentian violet. Nobody told me of the stage where infants turn piranha and, literally, bite the one that feeds them. Nobody warned me of the nursing strikes, the engorgement, the clogged ducts, the cumbersome nursing bras, the mastitis, the banning of all medicine except worthless Tylenol, the double pump milking machine that is so similar to the ones they use on cows that you can't help but moo, the spontaneous public let downs at the mere thought of my baby's cry. (On an airplane, wetting a stranger's head no less! The only thing that could have made that flight more perfect was if my last name were Joad.)

I don't tell you this to discourage you from ever nursing but rather, having been through all of this multiple times, to explain to you why nursing means so much to me. I have fought so hard to do this simplest of things. To be the mother who can feed her baby.

But now for the facts I promised you. The Jelly Bean was born hale and hearty at 8 1/2 pounds, by far my smallest baby but fairly large as babies in general go. She took to nursing right away and at first all seemed to go well. She was back up to her birth weight by two weeks, just as expected. She pooped and peed like a champ. But along about 3 months, something changed. She stopped gaining weight. The doctor wasn't overly concerned. "Bring her back in a month for another weigh-in." I did. But at that check-up and every check-up that has followed, her weight percentile has continued to drop. Eventually the doctor suggested a lactation consultant who in turn suggested a number things of which I all tried. While she still didn't gain any weight, I comforted myself that she was meeting all of her milestones and seemed happy and healthy in every other measurable way.

And then she weaned herself. Or perhaps my milk gave out. I think the problem might have started with my breasts. I began to notice her fussing when it came time to nurse and despite her frantic sucking, the milk would not let down. Eventually she stopped trying to suck all together, straight-arming me and crying whenever I laid her down to nurse. I, always stubborn, refused to let the nursing go. I went for days trying to keep feeding her only to continue to be rejected. Finally, after a particularly teary session on both our parts, I gave up and made her a bottle of formula. She didn't like that either. At my wit's end, I called the beleaguered pediatrician again who said I either had to get her nurse again or to take the formula and it had to be done now. My milk was finished. I enticed her to drink the bottle by adding a sprinkling of Strawberry Quik powder to it (desperate times call for artificially flavored measures!).

I am happy to say that Jelly Bean loves her formula now (and we no longer have to spike it with Quik to get her to drink it). I am also happy to report that in the few weeks she's been on formula her weight bounced up to the appropriate percentile quite quickly. All's well that ends well. Right?

Those are the facts. Now for the questions. Was my milk compromised because of my obsession with losing the baby weight? Was her failure to gain weight due to my early and intense return to exercise? Or because of my very restrictive diet? It was during those middle months of my being a no-wheat, no-dairy calorie-counting vegetarian that she lost the most ground. Was my tumble into sane eating too late? The question that haunts me: Did I sacrifice my daughter's health on the altar of my own vanity?

My guilt may be misplaced. There are other explanations, other narratives I could tell for this story. (At the very least, the process of weaning has called down a hellstorm of hormones that alone could account for my angst.) And yet the guilt gnaws at me. I carry their very lives in my hands - how could it not?

If you're a mom - how did nursing go for you? Were you able to nurse and exercise with no problems? If you aren't a mom, what do you have irrational guilt about? Or are you one of those rare women (whom I envy) that is impervious to guilt?

The Art of Saying No

"No." Jelly Bean, 9 months old, said her very first word a few days ago! It was very clear (and very much a product of having three older brothers who like to scream that word incessantly) - said in the context of me taking away the graham cracker she was powdering the floor with. You do not get between that girl and her food. She was still her pleasant adorable self but a steely look came into her eye as she said it again, this time with more force. "NO." And then she spitup blueberries down the front of her clean dress.

I could learn a few things from Little Sister. And not just how to barf with class. I'm terrible at saying no. It's the curse of the people pleaser - if someone deigns to ask you to do something for them, you say yes and thank them for the privilege. If I were perfect at this, I would be sainted by now and Mother Theresa and I would be swapping tips over whatever it is people drink in heaven. As you should know by now though, I am a case study of Imperfect.

My problem is that I often say "yes" when I know I should say "no" and then passive-aggressively take it out on the asker. Consider my ex-boyfriend Julian. He wanted to get married. I wanted to be 19 and unencumbered. So when the time came to move him into the "ex" category, did I just (wo)man up and tell him no, I would not marry him? Of course not! I made up an elaborate lie about how my dad (I'm sorry dad!) had gotten cancer (I'm sorry cancer sufferers!) and I had to drop out of school to go home to Chicago (I'm sorry Windy City!) to care for him. I even managed to eke out a few tears as I explained why our love could never be.

The lie worked brilliantly for about a week. Until he called to ask my roommate for a forwarding address to which he could send a card and she said, "Charlotte's right here. Why don't you ask her yourself?" and handed me the phone. Um, awkward. Talk about the worst way ever to break up with someone. A simple no would have been better all around.

Fortunately I'm thirteen years past that atrocity and can laugh about it now. (Hopefully he's somewhere laughing about it too and not throwing darts at my face.) But I still have a ridiculously hard time saying no. So you will be very proud of me when I tell you that I got an e-mail to try out a super duper cool new fitness gadget that tracks your calories and energy expended and sleep patterns and everything... and I turned it down. While it made me sad to turn my back on a cutting edge fitness gadget, I knew in my heart of hearts that using it would undo all the hard work I've done these past few months. I've finally broken that cycle of tracking every bit of food in and every drop of sweat out. And I can't go back to that again and keep my sanity.

I said no.

It didn't feel good. I'm one of those chronic second-guessers. When I'm bored waiting in lines, for fun I'll go over all my past mistakes and try out different scenarios until I find one that would have been better or until my number at the pharmacy comes up. And so the second after I sent the e-mail I panicked. What if it turns out to be the next IT thing and I missed the boat? What if all the other cool bloggers try it out and rave about it and I look lame and out of touch? What if it would have given me the body of my dreams??

But then today I felt good about it. Because saying no to this one thing is actually saying yes to taking care of myself. Yes to listening to and trusting my body. Yes to eating ice cream, sometimes. Yes to skipping a workout, sometimes.

Possibly related to the Yes: This morning I stepped on the scale and it was up two pounds. Instead of my usual closet-crying and day of mourning routine, I looked in the mirror and thought, "It's wrong. I feel awesome. I look great!"

Do you have a hard time saying no too? What do you say no to in order to say yes to your health? Anyone else ever broke up with an ex in a really cruel way?

I Eat Everything!

Okay, so there's one thing I wouldn't eat. Any food that requires a c-section to eat is off my list.

Dining with me is an experience. And often it's not one conducive to gastronomic pleasure. I've admitted in the past to a multitude of eating sins including, but not limited to, looking up calorie counts on my phone during the meal, saying said calorie counts aloud, driving a waitress to the brink of madness with the complexity of my special order and then refusing to eat more than one bite of said meal when it was brought to me. I've sat hungry through beautiful Easter banquets. And then chewed and spit a bag of sugar free jelly beans in the parking lot of the convenience store where I bought them. I've self-righteously turned down homemade, once-in-a-lifetime English Trifle. And then cried as I made myself run an extra mile the next day for "insurance" against future once-in-a-lifetime English Trifles. My disordered eating started at twelve and had become so ingrained over the years that I honestly had no hope of ever eating like a normal person (those exist, right?).

And then Geneen Roth happened.

The past few months have been nothing short of a miracle. I blogged about my budding confidence in the program and in myself a few weeks ago and it has only gotten better since then. I know that I risk ruining all my new-found success in writing it on the Internet but I'm going to go out on a limb and just say it: I Eat Everything!

I came to an important realization about a month ago, as I sat one day at lunch eating my carefully prepared food in an undistracting environment and listening to my body's hunger cues. (For those of you uninitiated into the Geneen Roth school of food guidelines, the thought process goes something like this: "How full am I? If I'm a four or less I should eat. If I'm a 6 or more I should stop. Am I a five? What does that mean? Now that I've eaten a few more bites, I might be a five and a half. Or perhaps a five and three-quarters. If I burp soundly can I subtract a few points? Does water count? Since when did hunger require calculus?!") I realized that much of my eating behavior is driven by fear. I'll avoid eating when I'm hungry because I'm afraid that I'll eat the whole world, that I'll be so hungry I'll never stop or because I'm afraid admitting hunger is a sign of weakness or because what I'm really hungry for I won't allow myself to eat. I'll eat when I'm not hungry because I'm afraid that there won't be food I will allow myself to eat wherever I'm going later or because it tastes so good I'm afraid there won't be more or because I'm eating something I'm not "supposed" to eat and I'm afraid I'll never get to eat it again or because somebody made me something special.

Most of my mental energy has been devoted to dispelling those totally irrational fears. And the key to unlocking my fear has been - are you ready for the Awwww Moment? - to be gentle with myself. I talk to myself as if I were speaking to one of my beloved children. (Which at the moment is only 3 of them - the 3-year-old is driving me nuts. Kidding. Mostly.) When I feel panicky about getting hungry, I kindly tell myself, "It's okay to eat. Everyone gets hungry. Feeding your body is not failure, it's nurturing." When I feel scared that I'll be hungry later, I tell myself, "I'll take care of you. You can eat if you need to. I will find you some food." It sounds so simple (or crazy - I am very chatty with myself apparently) but it has been so healing for me.

And one of the biggest things that I tell myself is that I eat everything. For so many many years I've had an immense number of food rules. I was vegetarian*. Then vegan. Then a gluten- and soy-free vegan. At various points in my life I've eschewed carbs, dairy, protein, the entire nightshade family (don't ask), sugar, grains, anything white and many other foods too numerous to detail. Heck, I had so many restrictions they made a television show about it! I've driven friends, family and waitstaff crazy with my insane food restrictions. There was always something I didn't eat. Not anymore. Now I eat everything.

It's been a weird transition, I'm not going to lie. One of Geneen Roth's guidelines is to eat what your body wants. (Note: this is not the same as eating what your mind wants. Your mind will tell you it wants to eat an entire bag of Reese's peanut butter cups. But your body knows it will feel sick if you do that. Sometimes your body really does want a peanut butter cup but often your body wants a salad or some meat or an apple. Misunderstanding this distinction was one of the major reasons Intuitive Eating didn't work for me the first time I tried it.) I was afraid that I'd so messed up my body's signals that it wouldn't tell me what it wanted to eat (or that it would seek revenge for all I'd put it through and tell me it wanted nothing but Rocky Mountain Oysters) but I think it is safe to say after 3 months of doing this that my body definitely does let me know what it needs. And I don't panic about eating whatever that is because I know that I will only eat when I'm hungry (usually) and that I can stop eating when I'm full. And my body tells me when it is hungry and when it is full!

And it works. It's amazing to me that something so simple actually works! For two months I maintained my weight within a half a pound - a feat so astounding that I'm still in awe at my body's ability to regulate itself so well. And then this last month I've lost 2.5 pounds. Without doing anything major or scary. Without crying in my closet. Without mentally screaming vitriol at myself. Without punishing myself with more food restrictions. Without doing anything at all, really.

What is even more amazing is that since my weight has become so stable, a lot of my desire to over-exercise is diminishing. It used to be that I'd gain two or three pounds in a day, panic, and then do a really punishing workout the next day, lose two or three pounds, celebrate, eat salted popcorn and then go back up the weight roller coaster the next day. I was constantly in the mindset of needing to "earn my food." If I didn't, for some reason, get a workout in then I didn't eat. But being gentle with myself and allowing myself to eat when I'm hungry - regardless of if I've exercised or not - has made all the difference.

I'm not perfect. While my food issues are slowly but very surely fading to the background, I'm still tied to my scale. I still look in the mirror and wish fervently I were ten pounds thinner. I still am drawn to diet books like a Kardashian sister to the letter K. But for the first time I'm really hopeful that I can conquer those things too.

I ate linguine with cream sauce. I can do anything.

Do you ever make decisions about food based on fear? Are you good at differentiating what your body wants versus what your mind wants?

*I am not saying that all people who are vegan or vegetarian or whatever are practicing disordered eating. Just that in my case it was.

How Thin is Too Thin?

Photo Credit

Our society is warped. Twisted. A veritable fun-house of fat and thin mirrors when it comes to body image. One on hand we have Kim Kardashian, queen of curves, compelled to exclaim in an interview, "I look a lot bigger on TV. When I meet people, the first thing they say is, 'Wow, you're so much smaller than I thought'. I look about 15 lbs heavier. I'm only 115 lbs, and everyone thinks I'm like 130 or 140. It's bizarre. I'm a US size 2!"

On the other hand we have Kai Hibbard, a finalist on Season 3 of The Biggest Loser, interviewing about how the show gave her an eating disorder to the point where she was eating 1,000 calories while working out 5-8 hours a day. Says Kai about the consequences of her experience, "It gave me a really fun eating disorder that I battle every day, and it also messed up my mental body image because the lighter I got during that T.V. show, the more I hated my body. And I tell you what, at 144 and at 262 and at 280, I had never hated my body before that show."

Kim Kardashian and Kai Hibbard I am not (and not just because my name doesn't start with K) but I really sympathize with their feelings about being on TV and dealing with the resultant body image woes.

I've gotten a lot of interesting feedback from my 20/20 piece but one of the most common comments I've got is some incarnation of "But you never looked that skinny." The implication of course is that I wasn't skinny enough to have an eating disorder. I first encountered this during my pre-interview process with Fox News. The producer kept asking me for my "skinniest skinniest pics, the ones that show the most bones." I knew what they wanted. They wanted to see a 64-lb walking skeleton with a nasogastric tube and furry arms. Because that's good television. From the very beginning I told them I never got that thin but sent them some pictures from that time period. They weren't satisfied and kept phoning, texting and e-mailing me for better pics all the way until I'd boarded my airplane. If I were more technically savvy it would have driven me to Photoshop, I swear.

The Skinny Pics Debacle Take 2 happened after the 20/20 interview taped, but before it aired. The producer for the segment e-mailed me many times asking for better shots with the implication being skinnier shots. But it wasn't limited to just TV people with their characteristic penchant for extremism. My own family joined the chorus. In an e-mail to my uncle about the piece, my father wrote, " I saw her frequently through the whole time period in question and yes, she was slim, but she was healthy, energetic, and happy (as far as I could see), and so I was never worried. I admit freely that she cares about food in ways I don’t, but hey, different strokes for different folks."

I love my dad dearly and consider him a great friend as well as a great father but his seeming dismissal of my illness stung. Friends and acquaintances jumped on the bandwagon as well - some by comparing me to the super-skinny Johnny of the 20/20 piece and others by comparing me to popular TV or movie stars. "Well, you were thin but not like Angelina Jolie thin. And she doesn't have an eating disorder." To my crazy mind all of these comments came out sounding like "You weren't thin enough as a normal girl and you certainly weren't skinny enough as an anorexic/orthorexic. Even when you're bad you're not good enough!" How skinny would I have to get before people thought I was actually sick?

Here's the thing: I had a BMI of 17. According the World Health Organization anything under 18.5 is considered unhealthy. But in a world where Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham subsist at about a 16, I do look kind of porky. And it wasn't just low weight. I lose my period when my BMI dips below 19 - a fact I've discovered on several occasions in my post-pubescent life. Amenorrhea is indicative of such poor nutrition that the body feels like it cannot support a baby. I had low iron, whacked-out electrolytes, vitamin deficiencies, a suppressed thyroid, heart arrhythmias and hair loss. But worst of all was the mental damage. I was depressed, neurotic and withdrawn.

It's true that I didn't break any bones, lose teeth or end up in the hospital with a tube up my nose - a fact for which I am deeply grateful. But I did hurt. It's just most of the hurt was emotional. And that's the wound I'm still working on healing.

At my thinnest - and most fragile mentally - I got tons of compliments. Everywhere I went people commented on my physique. One woman at the gym even told me I had "the perfect body" (as if there is such a thing). I loved how I looked in clothes, even while I was secretly horrified at how I looked naked - since I lose weight in my upper body first, my chest looked like a xylophone while my legs still kept their fatty bits. My therapist maintains that the compliments came because of my increased self confidence - and she may be right - but I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we are conditioned to appreciate only extremely thin women.

A lot of women with eating disorders look "normal" to us.

My dirty little not-so-secret is that I would love to be that weight again, ribs and all. But I can't do it and remain healthy. Some women probably can weigh what I did and keep their periods and their sanity. Not me. Not my body. And so I choose to maintain a weight higher than what is comfortable for me and waffle back and forth between self -hatred and -love because I know where the alternative leads and I can't pay that price anymore. Even if that makes me look 15 pounds too fat on camera.

What about you - does the weight you personally like yourself best at correspond with the weight other people think you look good at? Have you, like Kai, ever felt worse about yourself at a lower weight?

Kicking the Scale Habit: What Does That Number Mean to You?

I don't know what is more disturbing - that Satan is on this woman's "to do" list or that the company advises you to mix deviled ham with peanut butter.

Eat when you're hungry. Stop when you're satiated. It sounds so simple. So why can't I do it?!? Then again Lindsay Lohan can't stay away from the booze even with that attractive SCRAM bracelet accessorizing every designer outfit so I suppose I'm not the only one that has difficulty with following basic instructions.

This past week has found me tantruming like a 3-year-old (terrible twos? Hardly. Three is much much worse. Trust me.) every time I have to eat. When I first started trying to follow Geneen Roth's food guidelines in earnest, I thought the "eat without distractions" rule would be my Bunker Hill. That guideline is cake compared to eating when I'm hungry. It turns out that Ms. Roth was right - when you eat with nothing but your own thoughts for company you learn a lot. Like, for instance, that I eat for every reason under the sun except hunger.

What does "hungry" feel like, anyhow? I honestly think I don't even know anymore. I've spent so many years ignoring it, disguising it, punishing it, focusing on it and otherwise being compulsive about it that my hunger is about as recognizable as Pamela Anderson pre-plastic surgery. After 13 days of literal navel gazing, I am getting better at recognizing the physical cues of growling stomach, saliva, light-headedness and grouchiness. But I don't trust them yet. Pavlov's dogs might as well live in my intestines, my body is so trained around food.

It's the mental cues to eat that are really tripping me up though. I didn't think that I was an emotional eater - being angry or depressed generally makes me not want to eat - but eating certainly makes me emotional. For me eating is not about sustenance. Food makes me righteous. (Spinach!) Or evil. (Mayo!) Disciplined. (Hot sauce!) Or weak. (Cheese!) Educated. (Whole grains!) Or stupid. (Whole grains!) Or schizophrenic. (Whole grains!) That's a lot of pressure to put on a sandwich, and it's not even a pannini. So you will understand that with all that background noise going on, it might be difficult to hear the "I'm full" message.

(Side note: When I was about 12, I came across a diet book for teenagers that was written in '70's. In it, the author advises teens to do as she does and listen for "a little bell" that will ring when you've had enough to eat. I've been waiting my whole life for that stupid bell to ring. It never has.)

What I have discovered is that I eat when I'm anxious. And when I'm tired. And especially when I'm feeling overwhelmed and avoidant. Hunger? Who needs hunger when I have a baby that cried - nay, screamed - the entire 1.5 hour car trip home and a bag of fruit snacks? I suppose I should be grateful as she kept me from falling asleep at the wheel. Of course it's her fault I was driving on 5 hours of sleep in the first place. I digress.

Fear. This is what it really boils down to for me: I'm afraid to feel hungry. I'm afraid that if I don't eat, I'll starve. I'm afraid that if I do eat, I'll eat everything in sight and never stop. And I'm afraid to trust Geneen Roth. She tells me that my body will let me know when and what and how to eat. This would be the same body that I have treated as an enemy, a thing to be conquered, mastered, and controlled my entire life. We're not exactly on great terms, my body and I. And now I'm supposed to trust it? What if my body decides it wants to be 500 pounds? She says I need to be okay with the possibility of gaining weight. I'm not.

This ambivalence has led me to not fully commit to the program. Yes I'm doing my best to follow the guidelines (although some days are better than others with that - especially the sitting down to eat part) but I'm not committed to trusting myself. Which is why I'm still weighing myself every day. Lots of you (lots and lots and lots of you) told me when I first started this Experiment that I need to ditch the scale. I haven't. Yet. I still have so much of myself tied up in that number. I hate to admit this but that number has the ability to absolutely wreck my day or make me feel awesome.

My only solace in this is that I'm not alone. Gym Buddy Jeni recently sent me this insightful e-mail:
"I also don't know what true hunger or satiety feels like. As a "dieter", we are trained to never let yourself get hungry because that's when you'll binge, right? And usually that is true, but it's been so long since I've allowed myself to be hungry. I think I've grown fearful of hunger. Like if I'm hungry that means I don't have enough and I don't want to be without food or something. When I was a kid we didn't have much money and we CERTAINLY didn't have money for non essential food items. So we would pig out on gross things like a block of cheese (like the BIG block of cheese), or syrup, or peanut butter from the jar, or chocolate sauce. Being hungry was the worst feeling as a kid and so now I think I have this subconcious fear that hunger=not having enough in your life, not just in my fridge. Does that make sense? I get very uncomfortable when I am hungry...and nervous. Like I have to eat right this SECOND! And, really, will I die if I don't eat my protein bar NOW...no. So I am struggling with that. And also with satiety like you said. Huh? You mean I can eat until I'm satisified and not until I'm stuffed!? But I secretly like the stuffed feeling. It means I've had all I can have AND its like a secret punishment too. For food weirdos like me, the after-binge feelings (guilt, shame, disgust) are actually things I crave sometimes because I WANT to feel that way about myself still. Is that just too effed up or what!? It's like I still sometimes feel like I am not "worthy" so even though I don't "binge" like I used to we all have those moments where you eat too much of whatever your eating and that feeling of fullness is so gross and yet so sought after. It's making me really reflect on what my body NEEDS! What does it need? I'm trying to filter what my BODY needs versus what my BRAIN needs when I am eating."

I should add: I think all of this is progress. It has to get worse before it can get better, right?

Anyone else afraid of their hunger? Do I really have to sledgehammer my scale for this Experiment to work? Really?? Do you weigh yourself every day too or have you managed to make the leap to no numbers (as explained by the delightful Mizfit)? If you do weigh yourself, are you able to think of the numbers as just "information" rather than a judgment? Would you eat deviled ham with peanut butter??

Why Do You Exercise?

Mostly I exercise so I can make faces like this. Gets me my own treadmill any time of day.

Librarians love me. Having cultivated a lifelong belief that everyone knows how to run my life better than I do, one of my favorite activities is begging people more knowledgeable than I am to tell me what to do. Which is how the venerable MizFit found herself on the receiving end of an emotional e-mail asking her why it is so hard for me to take a rest from exercise. She, not wanting another life to run in addition to her own, returned my question with a question asking me "First, why do you exercise?"

It hadn't even occurred to me to consider that I'd be doing it for any other reason than the obvious: to get healthy. Or that people might exercise for reasons different than mine. So then, list lover that I am, I set out to enumerate my reasons for exercising. I surprised myself. (Not unlike that time I drank a full bottle of water and then realized I was wearing tights, a leotard, bike shorts, a skirt AND suspenders. And my competition was in 5 minutes. If you're really nice to me, one day I will post the pic.)

Why I Exercise
The short, brutally honest answer: Working out is the only time I truly feel good about myself.

Low self-esteem duly noted and need for continuing therapy acknowledged, I'm moving on to the more nuanced answer.

1. It makes me feel safer. After being sexually assaulted and the ensuing court case, I went on a mission to get stronger, tougher and look as least victim-like as is possible for a girl of my proportions. I think it works. After beefing up my bi's with pull-ups and taking up kick boxing, instead of repeat nightmares of the assault now I have repeat fantasies of head strikes and throat crushing. And in a parking lot the other night, when a man jumped in the passenger side of my door my first instinct was to scream an obscenity and throw my book at him. (Note to all of my now-panicked family and friends: it was a total accident. There were two dark colored Honda Accords parked side by side and it was quite dark. I scared the little green apples out of him. And his wife - sitting in the almost identical car next to me - was laughing so hard she almost fell out of her car. There was much apologizing and no harm done on either side.)

2. It makes me feel saner. I am a girl of very intense emotions. (*gasp* No!) I have a lot of both anxiety and exuberance and I use my workouts as a way to temper them. Cheaper than therapy!

3. It makes me feel like a better mom. Mothering does not come naturally to me. I don't know why. Many things in life that I wish I were really good at (hip hop dancing, rock climbing, bread baking, toe painting) do not come naturally to me. But one thing I can do is set a healthy example for my kids and show them how make eating right and exercising a priority. Hopefully I won't go too far the other way and teach them how to be compulsive but that's another worry for another day.

4. It makes me happy. I get a huge kick out of my experiments. I love to get really sweaty. I love the camaraderie of doing something really difficult with a bunch of other people and everyone coming out stronger for it. Plus, in the winter, I swear I get SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and exercise ameliorates mild depression.

5. My gym has free child care. If that isn't reason enough to work out, I don't know what is!

And of course mixed in to all that is a smidgen of post-anorexia "must work out to have permission to eat" nonsense. But thankfully those voices are getting quieter these days.

The Surprise Ending
I didn't even notice, until MizFit pointed it out to me (not only is she a darned good personal trainer but she's a stellar therapist as well), that everything on my list has to do with mental reasons. Not one item in my top five has to do with looking smokin' in a bikini or even anything particularly physical (not that I would mind being a hot mama!). All of which might explain my proclivities for over exercising. After a certain point, if you are working out to look good you reach a point of diminishing returns. A less-is-more approach makes sense. You want to do the least amount of work to get the result you desire. But when you depend on exercise for psychological reasons then less-is-more only feels like crazy. The trick for me is to find other outlets that meet those needs that don't wear my body down so much.

I'm thinking synchronized treadmill dancing. You think the gym buddies would be up for it?


You? So tell me, why do you work out? Do you work out mainly for physical reasons or for emotional/mental ones? Anyone else convinced that everyone else knows them better than they know themselves?

Models Falling From the Sky: Thin is Not the New Black

Suicide is in the air. Kazakh model Ruslana Korshunova dove to her death from her New York balcony. Canadian model Hayley Kohle leapt to a similar fate from a balcony in Milan. On the same day as Kohle, model Randy Johnston died of a drug overdose. Columbian model Lina Marulinda also chose a free fall from a balcony. But there are other ways to die in the air besides jumping. Models Lucy Gordon, Daul Kim and Ambrose Olsen all recently hanged themselves, Olsen just last month. And of course, the inimitable designer Alexander McQueen ended his fashion juggernaut along with himself by hanging last February. Death is not yet in the ground. Just a few days ago model Noemie Lenoir was found in a forest, nearly succumbed to an intentional drug overdose. Mercifully she is recovering. [Source]

These deaths should not have happened.

By all accounts each of these young models and McQueen were at the height of their careers. Not only were they young and impossibly beautiful in a world that values nothing more but they had also achieved a degree of success in a highly competitive, fickle field. Why they would want to end their lives is a personal and, most likely, unanswerable question. And yet if anyone would have a reason to live, you'd think it would be these who were living the very definition of the dream.

Tragically many people every year choose to end their own lives and so I am not sure if this recent spate of model suicides (that looks funny every time I type that, as if they are modelling the proper way to die - setting the fashion to the very end) is disproportionate to that of the general population. But I do know this: if you ever needed proof that being thin and beautiful is not the secret to happiness than this is it.

Most of us can say when confronted with such an obvious example that of course being skinny, young and hot doesn't automatically make you happy- Pamela Anderson alone should be cautionary tale enough - and yet we are sold this exact message in hundreds of insidious ways every day. Many of us buy into it. I buy into it. It's so pervasive that I'm amazed whenever I run into a woman who doesn't believe it. I want to grab her buy the shoulders and ask her where she gets her incredible self confidence, why she hasn't been been beaten down by the relentless message that she isn't enough, but she could be if she just lost weight/erased wrinkles/got bigger boobs/lightened her hair/got a better wardrobe/colored her eyes/toned her tummy (in 10 days! See page 54!)

There isn't anything wrong with trying to be beautiful, to be healthy, to be your best self. And yet this drive to improve - or "addiction to fixing" oneself as one astute e-mailer put it - is a problem when it engenders self hatred. How is anything beautiful supposed to come out of hate? Ironically this tactic of self-hate is often one of the first weapons we employ, turning self improvement into self warfare. It does work. Sort of. You can hate yourself thin. I've done it before. But then you are just thin and unhappy, like so many falling models.

We live in an era where a diet - a diet! - is unironically called "Live Your Best Life." (You can even buy your "Best Life" at your local grocery store, just look for the little green labels on your favorite brands! It doesn't say but I'm assuming if you collect enough of the Best Label boxtops and mail them to Oprah then your Best Life will arrive by mail 4-6 weeks later.) Where losing weight is the fastest way to gain instant celebrity, or if you are already a celebrity to get a magazine cover. Where despite the highest unemployment rate in recent history, cosmetic sales and plastic surgery are increasing at an unprecedented rate. An era where models rain from the sky.

It's sheer craziness. It's jumping-off-a-balcony madness. I know all this and yet, deep down, I still believe if I could just lose these last 10 pounds I'd be happy. But thanks in no small part to you all, I think I'm finally willing to give that belief up. It feels scary to me. For one, I've believed this as long as I can remember. I may have outgrown Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy but I still cling with child-like devotion to the Beauty Bunny. And also, I'm convinced that this perpetual war with myself, this intense hatred, is the only thing between me and weighing 1,000 pounds and being housebound for the rest of my life. I'm afraid that if I give up fighting then I'll lose everything. But I think that too is a myth. By fighting myself how can I do anything but lose? The key to my freedom is to give up the fight. Can I trust my body that it wants to be healthy? I hope I can. Because nobody should be falling; we should be flying.

Anyone else buy into the myth that thinness equates to happiness? Anyone else addicted to fixing themselves? Anybody else convinced that fighting yourself is the only thing keeping you from oblivion? Anybody totally sick of reading about this still?? (Anyone? Bueller? Bueller??)

Inside a Residential Eating Disorder Facility

The first thing you notice about The Anna Westin House in rural Minnesota, named for one of the saddest stories in eating disorder lore, is that you don't notice it at all. Two light brick townhouses joined at the kitchen, it blends seamlessly in with the surrounding upper middle class neighborhood. From the green and white porch chairs to the single car in the driveway, nothing sets it apart. There is nothing to tell you that this is where girls who are actively courting death come to live. For many it is their last grab at life.

Passing the unobtrusive shrubbery, I step through the door to find myself standing in an open great room. This is how it must be for the girls who live here, I think. No transition. One moment you are in your own life and then you walk through a door and everything's changed. This is a house of rules, you see.

Rule number one: You cannot come and go as you please. Nor can your friends and family. A soft-spoken older woman, the house matron, smiles and asks me to sign in. I do so, the only person on the fresh sheet. My friend Emily, whom I have come to see, stands awkwardly in front of me, hugging a thick sweatshirt around her despite the moderate 74 degrees the thermostat is set to.

Rule number two: There is a time for everything. And I have come at the end of Seminar Time, just before Visiting Time. As the guest speaker for the evening talks about being "recovered" - a word that causes almost unanimous eye rolling; one girl tells me that her highest hope is to be "recovering" for the rest of her life - I glance around the homey living room. The walls are painted in Model Home colors accented with tasteful furnishings and wall hangings. Flowing uninterrupted from the living room, the kitchen carries on the same post-modern Pottery Barn feeling. The most prominent decoration in the kitchen however is a wall-size antique looking chalkboard. White lines split it into a calendar of sorts. I squint and realize I'm looking at a menu complete with chore assignments. Tonight's dinner was apparently seafood salad with lemon bars for dessert although it smells like spaghetti.

Nobody seems to think it strange that the dominant feature of the first room you see in a house for eating disordered girls is a wall-sized menu. Daily Special: Anxiety on a plate.

"I didn't know how much food they were going to make me eat," Emily says plaintively, her knees tucked up under her chin. We're now sitting outside, on the porch, to let Emily warm up. As she readjusts, I notice how much thinner she is even though I just saw her 2 days ago. Her eyes narrow as she notices the gum in my mouth. "If you have gum, you have to give me a piece."

I hem and haw. Rule number three: Caffeine and gum are specifically banned at the beginning of the program and thereafter meted out on an earned basis only. It makes sense as anorexics typically abuse both. (How does one abuse gum? When you use it to occupy your mouth so you don't eat.) I look down at Emily's cute shoes. "Don't you think your first day is a little early to be breaking the rules? I mean, if you're going to be here you should try and be committed..."

"Oh, I'm committed all right," she says wryly and after a pause we both giggle.

We move on to discuss other things, mostly light-hearted gossipy banter, and my hour passes quickly. The flash in her eyes returns as I sigh and stand. Don't go. She doesn't say it but I can see it in her eyes. She is scared. And alone. And so so tiny. Her fragility overwhelms me. I am loathe to leave her like this.

"Here," I whisper, holding out the pack of gum. "You can have one piece." She takes two, pocketing one and chewing the other. I silently curse myself for not remembering to spit out my gum before coming. For not being strong enough to resist her anorexia-fueled manipulations.

We join the rest of the girls out in front of the house. They are watching a Midwestern thunder storm roll in with all its fury - a row of upturned faces searching for funnel clouds. I notice they are all wearing sweatshirts and pants to ward off the chill of a perfect summer night. I feel fat. A small swell of panic rises in my throat as I look down at my adult-sized jeans completing the row of childish denim. I am not immune. Rule number four: Do not talk about body size. Not yours. Not theirs. Not Angelina Jolie's. I swallow my fear.

An attractive young man sans shirt jogs by. I smile and comment, "Well you guys certainly have nice scenery!" The girls glance briefly at him, confusion playing across their faces.

"What I wouldn't give to run," Emily sighs.

"No cardio until you earn it back," a brunette says curtly and then adds, "You'd better hide that gum too." Emily nods, the shirtless man remembered only in the context of lost exercise.

I don't know how to end this. It seems too abrupt to just toss a casual wave over my shoulder as I head down the driveway, as I would at another friend's house. I know it will get easier after future visits but for now it is awkward. Stepping lightly, I hug Emily - so careful, she is so breakable - but she doesn't hug me back.

"What?" I say urgently. "Are you going to be okay?" What a stupid question.

She shrugs and chews at her nails. "Just something you said..."

"What??" I demand. "What did I say?"

"It's nothing," she turns away, trying to draw me back in.

I won't be played this time. "You'll be fine. Really. I'm proud of you for doing this. I know you can do this."

My resolution affects her. She stands straighter. "Can I?"

"Yes. You are a survivor." I don't add that it's her last chance. Her parents have said if she fails this round of therapy - her third in so many years - then she can't come home again. Meaningless threat? Tough love? Parents simply unable to watch their daughter kill herself by inches as they watch? I don't know.

Emily's eyes cloud over and she chews her lip as if she too is considering her alternatives. Or lack thereof.

I walk away to my car and drive into the night, keenly aware of my freedom. Keenly aware of how very little separates us.

Have you ever had a friend or loved one with an eating disorder? How did you support them? How did it change your relationship?

This post sound familiar? It originally ran in August 2008. Copyrighted by Charlotte Hilton Andersen and The Great Fitness Experiment. Not to be used or republished without permission.

Who Would I Be If I Weren't Broken?

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I'm broken. In so many ways: PTSD from my sexual assault (is that weird that I claim it as "my" sexual assault?), anxiety, OCD, depression, SAD and even extreme PMS. Oh and don't forget to add every permutation of eating disorders known to mankind; I've been anorexic, exercise-purging bulimic/compulsive overexerciser, orthorexic, ED-NOS. I'm a veritable alphabet soup of crazy. (Somewhere people with real problems are laughing. And then craving soup.) But it isn't enough for me to do crazy things. If I just acted crazy then that would be fixable. No, for my whole life I have felt intrinsically flawed. Deeply broken. My very essence a divine mistake.

This, as you can imagine, made for some very poor decisions. (But great dinner party conversations! Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I thought doing acrobatics hanging 70 feet over a canyon with no safety net was a good idea? No??) In all honesty, that's why I stayed with my Very Bad Boyfriend as long as I did. I thought I didn't deserve better. Thankfully other people, like my mom who threatened to send me to another country to get me away from him, did. This belief in my innate wrongness has also informed my general outlook on life. How do I trust a God who screwed up so badly making me? I mean, this is the same Guy who created sea cucumbers after all. Obviously He has a sense of humor - hey, who pooped in the ocean again?! - but how could I follow Him and help other people when I can't even fix myself?

I know I'm getting deep here but I want you to understand how very seriously I have taken my brokenness. It's generally the first thing I tell people about me. "Hi, I'm Charlotte! Lovely to meet you! Oh and by the way I'm crazy."

Years ago, when I first started this blog - and I had like 2 readers which to this day amazes me considering I was still posting under my Goth persona (seriously, I know) with a terrible white-text-on-black-background site to match - Andrew, who has long since disappeared into the Internet ether, left me a very thought provoking comment on a post I wrote about metabolic testing. Essentially he wrote, "Why would I want to mess with my metabolism? It's not broken." He advocated a style of eating and working out that hinged primarily on listening to oneself - trusting your body to tell you when it needs to eat and when it needs to exercise and when it needs to rest. He's not the first person to tell me this but my response has always been the same: "I can't trust myself! I'm BROKEN!" And then, because I wear my deficiencies like a name tag, "duh."

The thing is, it's not true.

So why would I hold so tightly onto a belief that lacerated me every day with its cruelty? This weekend I read - nay, devoured - Geneeen Roth's new book Women, Food and God (recommended to me by about 100 of you astute folks). In it, she tells an anecdote of a woman who exclaims that she is afraid people won't love her anymore if she's healed from her emotional issues. The woman uses compulsive overeating as a way to stay broken. She didn't want to make others feel diminished in her presence, despite the fact that one's successes do not take away from another's. Despite the fact that any time a single person is truly great it lifts all of humanity.

It had never occurred to me before to consider that my self-flagellating belief served a vital purpose in my life. It saved me from failing. From not living up to my potential. See, if I'm broken then I have no potential so anything good I do is just gravy.

Who would I be if I weren't so busy being broken all the time?

Would I be the mom who forgets one of her children for 2 hours? (True story: I forgot son #3 at his preschool a few weeks ago. I finished volunteering as Reading Mom in son #2's classroom, took Jelly Bean and went home. I put her down for a nap, took a shower and got some work done. Never once did it occur to me that the house was so peaceful because I was short one child. I didn't realize my error until his teacher called to ask me when I planned on coming to get him. What kind of mother does that? Not a good one, I tell you.) Or, would I discover that I have it in me to be a good mom? A great mom, even? If I weren't so obsessed over my food issues and control issues and issue-y issues, would I have the mental space to come up with creative crafts and polish my floors and make egg rolls (son #1's favorite food) from scratch? Perhaps not. Mothering has never come naturally or easily to me - nor has egg roll rolling - but maybe God could take this unnatural mother and make up for her deficiencies. If I let Him. My brokenness is really faithlessness.

Would I be the friend who automatically sees another's need and takes action to fill it? The other day I was at a friend's house for a birthday party and after all the kids in attendance inhaled the cake like so many tiny vultures, another guest quietly got out the broom and swept up the crumbs before all those little feet could track green frosting onto the white carpet. It was so simple and yet it hadn't even occurred to me to do it. Perhaps if I hadn't been so busy avoiding the cake and all the other party food, I would have looked outside myself and found the crumbs and then the broom and then the dustpan. Naturally. My brokenness is really selfishness.

Would I be the writer who has the courage to pursue the craft that I love, to tell editors that I'm really good and then prove it to them? Would I be the wife who not only packs the lunch but thinks to put a love note in it too? Would I be the body who knows when too much exercise is too much, who knows what it needs to eat and when? Without any person, diet or book telling me? Would I be the soul who takes time to meditate and and pray and be still and breathe when all I want to do is run from one manufactured crisis to the next? (I'm good in a crisis, by golly!) My brokenness is really fear.

I'm afraid of trying and not being good enough.

Sitting with Jelly Bean today after nursing and changing her, I realized something that felt important. To her I am not just enough, I'm everything. I'm food. I'm safety. I'm rest. I'm shelter. I'm entertainment. I'm love. And if I can be that for her, I owe it to myself - and to the God who made me, the God who "don't make no junk" - to be that for me. I need to stop pretending to be broken - I am no more flawed than any other human - and get to work. It starts with learning how to trust myself, to know that my body will want what is best for it. It starts with learning how to forgive myself for all the mistakes that I do make without resorting to making it a spiritual failing. These things are hard; I'm not good at trusting or forgiving. Especially not when it comes to myself. But, like several of you have told me, sometimes you have to fake it till you make it. It starts with faith.

Who would you be if you were not broken? Anyone else feel that being broken is an intrinsic part of their personality? Anyone else ever forgotten a child somewhere???

Addendum: It seems that a few readers have interpreted this post to mean that I'm not okay with me - or others - making mistakes, being broken. Truly that is not what I meant. What I wished to have said that didn't come through very clear is that it's okay to make mistakes, to be broken - everyone is broken in their own way - but that I was wrong to make my brokenness a global aspect of my personality. Sometimes I do good things, sometimes I make mistakes but, as a human being, I am not broken.