What it means to “take the season off.”

The weather felt warm for January when I stepped off the bus; I thought I might go for a run. I wasn’t sure of my decision, since I hadn’t run since mid-November, but the swim season was over and I knew I had no homework.

When I stepped inside my house at 4:20, and spied the bag of Krispy Kreme crullers, I made a choice: running or donuts? I picked the donuts, and with it, an afternoon of sitting in a desk chair writing.

So what happened to the health nut—the girl who ran compulsively, drank green smoothies every morning, and Daniel-fasted to start the new year*?

*The 2011 new year, that is. I never mentioned the fast publicly—it was mostly for spiritual reasons, but, you know, there was the added benefit of losing a few pounds. I drank nothing but water and ate no meat, dairy, added sweeteners, leavened bread, and deep-fried foods for almost three weeks.

This is what happened: she stopped looking for validation in her body. Upon becoming capable of receiving love no matter what she looked like or thought she looked like, she loosened the restrictions and lightened the pressure. As evidence by my brother who doesn’t understand why I’m willing to drink a green smoothie for breakfast yet ask for a second slice of cake for dessert, she let up maybe a bit too much.

Even in my sophomore year I used track to try to control my body. After the season ended, a revelation came to me upon reading Geneen Roth’s book When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair:

I’m tired of fighting my body; wrestling with my weight, both mentally and physically. I’m tired of trying to eat in a way that manipulates my mind and body into “health.” There is a world of difference between forcing my mind and body into submission on the track and enduring hunger (which I both fear and enjoy); and loving my body, being kind to myself, and treating myself right. It’s not about tiring my body and mind; it’s about being mentally, emotionally, and physically sound.

Do you see why I I can’t do track this year?

I don’t have the right motivation. I don’t want to race people, be competitive, be fast, be first. I just want a sound mind and body.

Track is something like AP Calculus: It’s something I’m expected to do based on my past performances and achievements, but it appears to be more painful than it is enjoyable. One activity is a mental challenge, another is a physical challenge, and both involve frustration and stress. I know track and calculus require sacrifices, and the benefits don’t seem worth it now that I can’t find validation in my brains or my body.

In short, I’m taking the season off because I need to find a way to manage my exercise habits, body image, and weight in a balanced, sustainable way. I don’t want to 18-hour days involving both a track meet and a synthesis essay. I don’t want two solid months of six-days-a-week, two-hours-a-day exercise. It’s kind of ridiculous.

More than midway through the track season (April 1, 2011), I wrote about the stress:

I want to sleep. To go home, rest. Relax.

But my inner drive calls out, “You’re eating but not exercising.”
I say, “I don’t care. I want to eat… lots of chocolate.”
I hear, “You can’t do this forever. You need to balance pleasure and rest with work. Have fun, but work hard.”

Rest and sunshine: I got it 4 weeks later at the beach.

I want sunshine.
I don’t want track meets that make me feel slow and out of breath and butterflies. Pain. What’s the use of it?

“Push through the pain. It’s so temporary. This is fun; this is what you do; what you love. The blue skies and chirping birds and taste of spring in my lungs. Strong muscles and a certain pride.”

But this is not for the glory. There is no glory reserved for me in these races: for neither how I look nor how fast I am.

The only merit—my only redemption in poor races—lies in the fact that at least I am there.

I’m at that point where I think, “How can I survive two more years of this?”

Why would I do something that I have to “survive”? No, this spring, I want to make habits that I can maintain the rest of my life; habits that make me feel healthy in mind, body, and soul. It’s not that I want to lose weight; it’s that I want to focus on more important things than myself, achieved by doing my best to maintain balance.

To that end, my dream is to train for a sprint triathlon (750m swim – 20K bike – 5K run), but there are transportation and money issues involved when I try to extract my exercise habits from the demands of a school sport. We’ll see. For now, I’m just working on extracting my value and identity from the confines of my pathetic abilities, for my only dependable source of worth is my Heavenly Father.

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Headstands and Other Conundrums

National Geographic (November 2005)

I can do a headstand for 60 seconds. It’s like a plank, but vertical! I believe I was inspired by an Okinawan octogenarian on the cover of National Geographic. Perhaps I thought, If that man—five times my age—can do that yoga move, what’s my excuse for remaining right-side-up?

And I never stopped doing headstands. (My mom says I’m addicted!) Although I do practice them a lot, there is an underlying reason.

When I can’t bear to think about the junk food I ate that day or the exercise I didn’t get that week, I do a headstand.  When I’m upside-down, that’s all I am. That is to say, I’m not worried, critical, frustrated, confused—I just doing something different and unexpected. It’s classic escapism.

Another reason—and this one I hesitate to acknowledge—it’s something I couldn’t do when I weighed 20 pounds less. Most of my freshman year, track performance, appearance, and perfect physical health were my idols. (Incidentally, doctors in Japan are paid when their clients are healthy, rather than sick, according to Derek Sivers.) But even when I was so “healthy,” I could not turn myself upside-down or do any kind of yoga in general.

In fact, all of my recent efforts and successes, like learning to drive or founding Bracelets for Education, hold for me the additional gleam of this thought: could I do this when I ate healthier or ran more? Of course, that logic wouldn’t win an argument, because those accomplishments have nothing to do with physical ability. On the other hand, I set my best times in my sophomore cross-country season (fall ‘10), and I wasn’t spending much time preparing very healthy food and I wasn’t killing myself in practice every day. My 5K times were faster than the spring, when I had been doing those things, and I felt very rewarded for “staying relaxed,” as I called it.

I didn’t PR in my sophomore spring track season, but that season was spent building relationships and enjoying myself—it was like the opposite end of the spectrum of effort. There was about one or two weeks when I realized I needed to step up my game, and then I had my old coach in my head, shouting “mental toughness” every other mile. But it wasn’t awful because I didn’t feel that my worth depended upon my performance—no, I tried my best because it was my duty as a student athlete.

So now it’s just me in my room doing headstands, trying to care for my body and battling the voices in my head telling me I don’t look right. Who cares? I’ve got life to live.

“The reason to engage in exercise … is not because you are not good enough the way you are. If you exercise for [this] reason, your desire will last for a week, a month, maybe even a year. And then you will rebel. No one can tolerate being told they are not good enough for very long… In the end, moving your body is not about flat stomachs or thin thighs; it is about being … lucky enough to have arms and legs that can surge with energy, be warmed by the sun, and slice through wind and water.” (When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair by Geneen Roth, p. 161-168)

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The Struggle

This poem, written for English class, is the lyrical expression of this. It’s about my 2010 season of spring track, one year later.

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My eyes are searing critics of my reflection
As I stand in a high school bathroom.
This image is my identity, my spirit, my god.

Look at that face—a façade.
A mouth curves into a smile for the mirror;
My skin is a canvas, daily repainted to hide flaws.

I twist my deadweight of hair
Into a ponytail, out of my eyes,
That burden of endless washing and brushing.

Hot pink shorts reveal tanned, strong legs,
Built by countless miles and hours under an unforgiving sun:
A body molded by pain and sacrifice.

Anchoring me to the floor,
Worn-out running shoes hide my feet:
My tired, worn-out feet.

This is my routine now.
I will run until my body is numb;
Until I’ve released all my effort into the asphalt and earth.

Food and running fills my dreams and nightmares.
A quest for acceptance fuels my dreams and nightmares.
To ease the pain, chocolate and adrenaline are my drugs.

I’m standing there, staring, and
Guilt and unease ties my stomach in knots:
Can I survive my self-inflicted religion? Is this the day I break?

At the starting line I will commence
The race, the climax, the glory
Of this struggle…

And yet, the other girls always push past me.
Their lungs are sturdier and their wills are keener and
Their bodies are slimmer.

I can’t compare.
I will be just a name, a race time, a number on a scale—
And it won’t be enough.

Deep inside, I know the reward of my striving and hiding
Is fleeting and selfish and wrong.
I can’t earn love; I can’t win by conforming to an ideal.

I should heed my grandmother’s reminder
To a child in a flowing pink dress:
“Pretty is as pretty does.”

I should rediscover the truth owed
To a child of a living God,
Whose love exceeds that which I deserve.

© Alisha Newton
English II
April 2011

…to Freedom

A Disease of the Affluent: My Story

Most of us Americans are fortunate enough to have access to cutting edge medicine and abundant health education, but as humans we cannot escape the fragility of our health. We are masters of the pill and knife and the picture of good hygiene, yet our society seems to create diseases—heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity; addictions and depression. The causes of the latter are in many ways harder to quench. This is my brush with the afflictions of the affluent.

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From the beginning of last school year (2009-‘10; my freshman year of high school) till the end, I lost 15 pounds, a result of a holistic nightmare. My weight fluctuated in accordance with holiday and off-season binges until about February when spring track began. Most of the weight I lost between February and May.

This was my daily routine: throughout the spring, I took Health/PE, so for three-week periods, I would be active for an hour and a half during the time right before lunch, running a mile or two perhaps, doing drills and stretches, or playing badminton or ping-pong. At 1 o’clock I would eat lunch, made of plant-based products with the occasional cheese on a salad.

Then, at 3:30, I would change clothes and go to track practice. We would run 2 miles every day as a warm-up, and then do whatever workout Coach had for us. At the end, filled with endorphins, we jogged our 1-mile cool-down. I recorded every workout: in the outdoor track season, from February 22 to May 5, I ran 333.3 kilometers (207 miles) in PE, track practice, and on my own.

Track practice was always painful and usually intense—not only for body but also for my inner being. To run requires one’s whole body and some mental willpower, but it took my whole spirit along with it.

Every day I was nervous for practice. I was afraid every day that it would be the one day I couldn’t finish. The scariest thing I have ever done is walk up to the starting line at a meet, and I did it nearly every week. I let it be scary. In the real world, what does 800 meters mean? Nothing, if it’s torture to a person. Running, and my body, absolutely filled my life in those days.

I would eat dinner with the rest of family when we ate as such, but I would only eat the vegetables of the meal, or take some part and change it, adding vegetarian protein and healthier grains when I remembered. Actually, at the peak of the season, I was actually eating totally separate meals than the family—different time, different food. When I think about this 7 months later, all I can remember is eating a massaged kale salad with pear and nuts, out on the deck alone. My schedule, revolving around track and “proper athletic nutrition,” conflicted with their schedules, which revolved around baseball games and evening activities. Only until track ended did I begin to eat all of the dinner that my mom would make, exempting red meat.

I usually found myself hungry after dinner, inexplicably so. I would keep returning to the kitchen throughout the evening, finding an apple or a bar or dried fruit—easy to grab and run down the hall with. Lots of times, in February and March, I would eat junk or candy, filled with more preservatives, dyes, and unmentionable oils than I would ever touch during the rest of the day. I was probably not eating sufficient calories or protein during the day, and it kicked in when I finally began to slow down, at night.

Apparently after an intense workout, your metabolism burns hot for a long time, so dinner and breakfast would have been quickly absorbed. I ate a larger breakfast than lunch, and by lunchtime when my metabolism was a little slower I didn’t eat much. (Even if it wasn’t a small lunch, I had just come from PE anyway!)

It was by a curious cycle that I gradually lost weight, and it was not worth it at all. I wasn’t trying to “lose weight”—I was trying to be good and acceptable at track and life. Somehow I believed that to be completely physically healthy and fit was the only way to be successful.

It was excruciating to my spirit, to constantly be making, eating, thinking about food—food that I loved, food that I hated because of what it did for and to me. A web made up of my body, food, and running dominated my life for a couple months.

During spring break I hated myself and my body more intensely than at any other time, and so in the beginning of April I vowed not to touch anything with added sugar, and I even shied away from natural sugars like maple syrup and raisins. I remember at one point, on a Friday night, eating a ginger chew with 20 calories and feeling very indulgent—the only added-sugar thing I had eaten in several weeks.

Other foods I didn’t touch for long periods of time: milk, bread, white rice. I pictured the homogenized particles of milk damaging my body and the “nutritionally deficient,” empty calories of white rice. After reading Thrive, I even despised 12-grain bread for being too processed. I bought into the raw ideas, even if not out loud or even consciously.

I had a problem. I binged and I restricted, both extremes overlapping each other frequently. (Irony: in trying to be healthy, I put my body under a lot of stress with the intense exercise and irregular—either too much or not enough—amounts of food to digest.) At the end of April, the burden of guilt outweighed the shame, and I confessed all of my mess.

First, it was terrifying and I felt like everything was upside-down. But as I received wisdom and guidance from people who loved me, I grew in truth and began to break my habits. I spent hours reading relevant books. I realized the importance of honesty. I cut 10 inches off my hair, and I felt like a new person.

One day after school, I rode my bike to a nearby horse pasture, and as I lay in the grass under the late afternoon sun, I thought about my identity, what it meant to be alive, and the new truth I wielded. There were continual breakthroughs. I felt more fragile—even ethereal—than I ever have before or since this time. (The opposite of this is the emotional state of binge eating: to feel out of control and repulsive.)

I let God back into my life—before anything else, I found truth and acceptance in Him: “as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved…” (Colossians 3:12). I am being completely transparent about all of this to prove that God can transform and heal a broken life.

These days I’m not terrified of any one food, especially after what I had to live on this summer. I am not hyper-conscious of what I’m eating, its nutrition stats and what it will do to me. I don’t obsess about whether I am fat or not—it doesn’t define me.

This fall I ran cross-country and I wasn’t psycho about performance and peak health and all that—I enjoyed myself and the team. And you know what? I was faster than ever, inadvertently disproving the myth lie in my head that I have to be a size 0 to be good at running.

I would say that I was also healthier than ever, because health is a balance of multiple areas: mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical. How ironic, then, that I defined health in my mind as a solely physical state, because it is perhaps the least important. Each area affects the other, and they all need to be maintained.

Before: Mental, Emotional, Spiritual—F; Physical—A
After: Mental, Emotional, Spiritual; Physical—B

Right now I am on the swim team and really enjoying it. One year ago I wouldn’t have been able to face my body in 1 square yard of fabric every morning, but now I don’t care. I look fine, I feel strong, and I love being in the water—not to mention, my overall eating habits are “normal” 90% of the time. This is a direct result of purpose, acceptance, satisfaction, safety, and companionship.

I wouldn’t trade the good memories of last season and the precious bond with my teammates, but the battle in my head was something I never want to live through again. So I am determined that track this spring will not be a time sink that debases my focus and self-worth in the process. (And it is not a given that I return to the track—I arrived at this decision after much thought.)

I don’t want this to be a pity party for me (although that’s what perhaps kept me going with the writing). I really needed to get this out there, so I can keep moving on. This is partly what the blog has done for me.

Click for my 2010 resolutions. (It was like predicting the future.)

So, here’s to 2011—a new year. Anything can happen.

Academic Pressure

fellow achievers

Yesterday evening, my high school celebrated its’ students’ achievements with Awards Night. Graduating seniors were highlighted, but my friends and I were there to receive our “letters” and “bars”—signifying high grades last semester.

I received a letter. Consecutive high grades will be recognized with a bar to be pinned on.

A couple months ago, seeing the few dozen seniors poised and beautiful, and hearing their scholarships and achievements announced—it would have been bad for me. Some underclassmen come away inspired; I come away feeling burdened by expectation.

If you saw my visual journal, you’ll know of my conscious anxiety and subconscious drive in this area.

It doesn’t come from any one source—not my parents; not my friends; not teachers; not the school. If anything, it comes from my head. But I simply feel the weight of the world—I feel that I am expected to be the best.

According to guidance counselors (who, incidentally, care not for the student but for the school’s reputation), it’s not enough to be the best academically—you must also take active roles in clubs and play sports consistently. Everything is centered around being well-rounded “Renaissance men.”

I’ve tried, certainly. My freshman year of high school is almost over, and to most, I  probably seem like the model student: I’m president of the Beta Club, and I go to every Key Club event. I ran cross-country in the fall, and track in the winter and the spring—which of course means I’m in SASS club (Student Athletes Standing Strong) as well. I have the highest GPA of my class—I’m getting the award for that next week.

These accomplishments are driven in part simply by my personality, but also by a subconscious fear of failure. But they don’t satisfy. And you know why? I am not meant to impress the world. That’s what has slowly been realized in my life. Failure in the world’s eyes means nothing—should mean nothing—to me.

I wanted to meet the world’s standards of successful. Sometimes these standards intersect God’s, but they are never the same or with the same motives. I wanted to get a great scholarship to college, impress people, have a purposeful career, leave my mark on the world. I wanted to mean something. And I said, of course, I wanted to serve God and glorify Him, blah blah blah.

But according to the book TrueFaced, I was living in the Room of Pleasing God, where one dons a happy-faced mask and then slowly dies on the inside. This is a result of trying to resolve your own sin in attempt to please God, taking matters into your own hands and failing miserably. Jesus already took responsibility in erasing your sin and my sin—we can do nothing.

The world operates the same way—we live in the World of Pleasing People: teachers and universities, bosses and businesses, friends and colleagues. No wonder there’s so many problems!

What’s the way out of this mess? It’s found in the Room of Trusting God. It’s taking the path of grace, maturity, forgiveness, love. It’s being authentic and accepting yourself, accepting who God made you. (I highly recommend reading the book yourself.)

My conclusion is that, given the talents God has blessed me with, all I need to do is my best and trust God with the rest, and I will be successful. My success will be measured by God’s standards—I will fulfill the Destiny planned for me.

Whether that means I will sweep streets or win a Nobel, that’s up to God. It’s my desire to do my best in the place He has put me, with the knowledge that I am fulfilling my perfect Destiny.