Tag Archives: fitness

The True Virtue of the Turkey Trot and Other Tips for Holiday Fitness

Rockin’ the turkey trot!

Thanksgiving will be here soon (at least if you live in the United States) and we’re swinging right into the major holiday season. Between the holiday parties and the extra cooking and baking and gift shopping and family obligations, it can be especially difficult to keep fitness in your schedule. Last week, I explained why the end of daylight savings time might be just the best excuse to start exercising EVER. In theory, you’re getting an extra hour of sleep and thus, I reasoned, you could trick your body into getting up an hour earlier without too much pain.

So how did that work out for you? Did you do it? If not, don’t feel bad. I’m not judging you. But if you feel sad that you missed it, guess what: you get another chance! Today is Veteran’s Day and many people (at least in the U.S.) have the day off. It’s a perfect day to slide on those tennis shoes and get in a little exercise. And if you are really especially clever, you can exercise your body and exercise your compassion at the same time by honoring a vet. You could walk out and participate in a Veteran’s Day event in your area. You could volunteer at a local Veteran’s Hospital. You could take a walk and explore a nearby battleground. You could even walk out to or march in a local Veteran’s Day parade.

You could even use today an excuse to start training. I’m training for an event which has become an annual tradition for yours truly–the Turkey Trot. I usually participate in a 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day that raises money for my local YMCA. The course is short, fast and easy. There are plenty of aid stations, and a large percentage of the participants are walkers like me. I can take my time and have lots and lots of fun!

Participating in the Turkey Trot does mean that I have to amend the rules of 1-hour pants day. I now have to add about an hour of sweat pants to the mix. But I have found that this is one race that is scheduled on a day that I am not expected to speak or teach or have any professional obligations. PLUS, I get to go right home, take a shower and a looooong Thanksgiving day nap right after. Awesome!

And if a Turkey Trot isn’t right for you, how about a postprandial stroll to check out the early birds who manage to get holiday lights up by Thanksgiving Day? You could honor their industry while strolling by on your way to a post dinner hot chocolate, or antacid.

Or you could always go out with your cousins and play a little football. Although I should mention that activity is not without risk.

I don’t want to give you the impression that you have to exercise during the holidays or any other times. That’s up to you. You are the President and CEO of your own corpus! But I am suggesting that if you’ve been looking for another little incentive or boost to get your fitness efforts going, you can honor the holidays and give an extra special gift to your body as well in the form of exercise (or the form of chocolate, ‘cuz chocolate is awesome too…)

And speaking of gifts, I’m pleased to announce that the third winner of The Fat Chick’s Great Pedometer Giveaway is Megan Page Montgomery! Hey Megan, just drop me an email at jeanette at the fat chick dot com with your mailing address so I can ship your pedometer on out to you! Yet another great excuse for getting started with a fabulous, shiny, new fitness program.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie

AKA The Fat Chick

P.S. Want to get access to FREE STUFF? Just opt in RIGHT HERE!

Fitness Training and Trash Talking

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Did you know that it’s “Fat Talk Free” week? I just found out yesterday and I’m super excited. A whole week dedicated to not trash talking our bodies?!? Sign me up! The day was created by sorority Delta, Delta, Delta. You can see their video here:

Today I’d like to talk about how to talk to your body while you are fitness training. We’re all familiar with the notion of trash talking in sports. That’s where you call out your opponent and do verbal intimidation to help you win (or at least get air time). If you want to see some amazing examples of trash talking in sports, you can follow this link to the Top Ten Sports Trash Talkers. Unfortunately many of us have also faced trash talkers, gawkers and mean people who have tried to derail our fitness attempts in various ways. From having people belittle your fitness efforts to offering unsolicited advice to throwing eggs at you while you run, other people can be brutal about your fitness efforts.

(Honestly, who throws eggs at people who are exercising?)

But as awful as other people can be about our bodies while we exercise, we are often the hardest on ourselves. It’s so easy to slip into the habit of disparaging our bodies when we work out. How often do you find yourself making negative comments about your body or your capabilities before, during or after exercise? Maybe you find yourself saying things like, “I’ve got to work out these flabby thighs. I hate my thighs.” Many of us do this so often, we hardly recognize it any more. When I catch my students saying things like this about themselves during class, I stop them right in their tracks and ask them to apologize to their bodies for being so mean. I’m serious! Because it starts with one little comment, one person engaging in a little bit of “Fat Talk” and soon the entire class is feeling bad about their bodies–whether they choose to verbalize it or not. Because trash talking your body doesn’t just affect you. It affects everyone around you. This is why trash talking your own body in public is kind of selfish. Because just a few minutes of saying hurtful things about your own body is all it takes to get everybody around you focusing on their own bodies in a hurtful and negative way.

(Fast forward to about 1:00 to hear a discussion about hating your thighs…)

I also sometimes hear my students trash talking their own abilities. They will say things like, “I’m so uncoordinated!” or “I just can’t dance.” And again, I stop them right there. Because if you tell yourself you are uncoordinated or that you can’t dance, you will believe it to be true. And if you believe it to be true hard enough, you will make it true. But there is absolutely no reason for this kind of talk. First of all, everybody struggles sometimes with exercise. Let me say that again. EVERYBODY STRUGGLES SOMETIMES WITH EXERCISE. I don’t care how gifted or athletic you are, when you try something new or significantly increase your exercise efforts, you are going to struggle. It’s hard enough to do new stuff without telling yourself, before you even start, that you can’t do it. It’s fine to laugh at yourself a little when you struggle. There’s no point in taking yourself too seriously. But if you tell yourself you can’t do it often enough, you’ll be right. Celebrate yourself for trying. Revel in the awkwardness that means you are stretching outside of your comfort zone and doing something new and fabulous for your body.

Trash talking has no place in amateur fitness efforts. It may have a place in competitive professional sports, if only to pump up TV ratings. But in real, every day life, trash talking will only harm your fitness efforts and the efforts of those around you. There’s only a few days left in “Fat Talk Free Week” but I’d like to invite you to take this time to practice happy body talk and happy body thoughts while you work out. Be your own cheerleader! Sit yourself on the stool in the corner of the boxing ring and massage your own shoulders. Tell yourself you can do it often enough, and you’ll be right!

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want to get access to FREE STUFF? Just opt in RIGHT HERE!

A Sensible Approach to Healthy Kids

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Folks of ALL ages dancing their hearts out!

I have to admit that the blog post I did on Monday broke my heart. The idea that it is even possible that a six-year-old girl may have died because of weight stigma is just so sad. I need to reiterate, that none of us can know precisely what that doctor was thinking. But the testimony she gave at her own trial makes me more than a little suspicious.

And you know what? It doesn’t have to be this way.

There are far simpler ways to help kids be healthy. Not the least of which is simply helping them find safe places to play and joyful places to move their bodies. Because one of the best things we can do to help kids be healthy is offer them fun ways to get exercise. Yet another study came out this week that indicates that cognitive abilities among kids have a lot more to do with fitness levels than BMI. But this fact, doesn’t seem to deter those who feel the best way to help kids be healthy is to send home a BMI report card. Despite the fact that BMI is very loosely correlated with health in young children, and that focusing on BMI makes kids more likely to develop eating disorders, and that focusing on BMI tends to lead to shame in kids which not only makes them develop other bad health behaviors, but also tends to make them gain weight, we are STILL PERPETRATING THIS NONSENSE IN SCHOOLS. Let’s focus on helping kids be healthy without increasing the risk from eating disorders. Remember this chart?

Helping kids be healthy can be positive and fun. This past weekend I led some fitness demonstrations at a local event. The City of Hope hosted its Foothill Fitness Challenge event here in Duarte and over 1,200 people showed up. It was so much fun! I led two fun dance demonstrations and was so excited to see moms and dads and kids all dancing together and having a good time. Check it out:

It made my heart so happy. Little kids and big kids and grandmas were all dancing together. If we want to help kids be happy, LET’S DO THAT! Let’s find some kids, put on some music and dance with them. Sure maybe it’s simplistic, but it’s also fun and is likely to do no harm.

So what do you say? I challenge you to connect with a kid and go out and play this week. Dance, bike, throw a ball around–whatever makes you (and them) happy.

Love,

Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

What fitness looks like*

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Today I was tagged in a post by the super awesome Kimber Simpkins pointing me to a gorgeous new slideshow on Mind Body Green entitled I Am A Yogi. It was posted by photographer Robert Sturman as the first entry in what he hopes to be a big group of photos on Instagram portraying yogis of all shapes, sizes, ages, races, creeds and situations. Sturman says:

Whether you’re a CEO, serving a life sentence in prison, living with cerebral palsy, living with breast cancer, a full-figured human being, a burn victim, living with HIV, living at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, 95 years old, or are just plain human, I invite you to post a picture on Instagram — just one per person, please! — and say a little something about yourself. Use the hashtag #iamayogicelebration and tag @robertsturman any time through the end of September.

I am pretty excited about these slides as I think it gets at a very important part of the work I and other allies like Ragen Chastain do in the fitness industry. This work includes helping the world widen their visual definition of how fitness looks.

This so important and so necessary in a world where fitness, especially fitness for women has turned into a code word meaning, “any and all activities necessary to make your body fit my culturally predetermined definition of somebody I would like to have sex with.*” Blogger Kevin Moore had a lot to say on his scathing teardown of the “strong is the new sexy meme” here.

Strong isn’t really replacing skinny; being skinny is no longer enough. Now, ladies, you need to be skinny and ripped. It’s an additional layer of self-loathing (perfectly suited for hypergymnasiacs), just in case people had started to get desensitized to the omnipresent and psychologically crippling display of corpse-thin women in the media.

I’m not saying that the women in these ads are not fit. I’m also not saying that they are not sexy. I AM saying that they don’t get to be the only visual definitions for the words “fit” or “strong” or “sexy”–at least not in my vocabulary.

Sure, sexy can look like those women, or it can look like these folks who performed with me at the More Cabaret Gimme More! Show this past Sunday. (All taken by the amazing photographer Robert Ray.)

That is an important part of the work that Ragen Chastain and I do with the Fit Fatties Forum where we have over 300 images of men and women of all sizes getting out there and having a glorious good time being fit and enjoying the skin they’re in.

I really think if we’re going to define the “new sexy” or the “new fit” that definition needs to be (ahem) a little broader.

Love,

The Fat Chick

*I know I’m ending a sentence with a proposition. So for the grammarians out there just add “…” and a word that you would like me to use to describe you. For example–“This is what fitness looks like…smarty-pants.”

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The Right Now Show 008: Fit Fatties Cross the Finish Line!

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In this episode, we watch the Fit Fatties as they enjoy the final leg of their virtual journey–swimming, cycling, walking, running and dancing across the USA. Watch as they issue a new challenge to Fit Fatties Around the World! The Fit Fatties are members of the Fit Fatties Forum created by Jeanette DePatie (www.thefatchick.com) and Ragen Chastain (www.danceswithfat.com).

Learn more and join the new challenge at http://www.fitfatties.com. And if you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe!

Love,
Jeanette DePatie
AKA The Fat Chick

Fit Fatties Across America–California, Baby!

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Well hello out there. I’m so very proud to announce we have reached my home state, California in the Fit Fatties Across America project founded by myself and the amazing Ragen Chastain! We’ve walked, shimmied, swum, cycled and boogied across this great country of ours for a total of over 2,500 miles! And it’s only just March. It’s just so darn exciting to see what we can do together.

I’m especially excited about the way that we are busting stereotypes with this cool project. Many people hold the prejudice that if fat people never exercise. They think we just sit on the sofa all day eating bon bons. (What the heck IS a bon bon anyway?) But our mighty group of plus-sized exercisers have racked up over 2,500 miles in just over eight weeks. It’s a testament to the power of the Health At Every Size approach to wellness, and it’s super fun!

Aside from the Fit Fatties Across America project, the Fit Fatties Forum is a great way to be inspired by exercisers of ALL sizes. Our forum currently boasts over 1,500 members as well as over 350 fabulous photos of fat people dancing, swimming, cycling, shimmying, lifting very heavy things, aiming arrows, and flashing some flaming hula hoops! The pictures are amazing. What a fabulous, myth busting, stigma shattering resource for men and women of all sizes!

Now, my loyal readers, I’d like to enlist your help. Some of us local California peeps are planning to meet at the beach to do the final leg of the Fit Fatties Across America project together on Saturday, March 19. But that means that as a group, we need to clock just over 200 miles in the next two weeks. Will you help us get there? If you’re not already a member of the Fit Fatties Forum, would you consider joining? It’s totally FREE! And if you’re already a member of the Fit Fatties Forum, would you consider entering your exercise totals for the next two weeks so we can reach our goal? And if you are a member of the Fit Fatties who lives in the LA area, would you consider joining us on March 19 to finish the last few miles of this great project together live, and in person? Let’s dip our toes in the big blue ocean together! Let’s show ’em just what a few fatties can do!

Love,

The Fat Chick

Baby Steps

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So often when it comes to integrating intuitive eating and moderate joyful exercise into our lives, we hear that we should take baby steps. And by that, what is usually meant is that we should take a series of very small steps, one after the other. And when it comes to making any changes to eating patterns and exercise patterns, I agree that baby steps are best.

But maybe what I mean by baby steps is less about how small the steps are, and is more about how the steps align with what feels good to our bodies. Babies and very young children don’t count carbs or calculate how many MET units they have expended in a particular workout. They don’t eat based on a point system or in order to look great for bathing suit season. Babies always look great during bathing suit season. Babies usually eat when they are hungry and quit when they are full. They eat what they like and what their bodies tell them they want. And they “exercise” because it feels good and is fun!

I mean check out the pair that is boppin and groovin’ in the exercise above. They are taking baby steps towards health. They are in a loving family situation, they hear music and they just rock out with their bad selves. It’s pretty obvious that they are having a great time!

Why not take some “baby steps” towards health this week? What would it be like to let your hunger and your taste buds dictate what and when to eat or not eat? How about putting on some music and bopping around in your chair or grooving around the living room? Why not put down your diet books and exercise books and just let yourself fully and unreservedly inhabit your body?

All I can say is go baby go!

Love,

The Fat Chick

On being a Shameless Woman: How Forbes Got it Right

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Ooooo, I’m so excited about THIS article from the Forbes.com site She Negotiates! In this piece, author Brooke Axtell talks about why shame doesn’t make us thinner OR healthier, and she rounds up an amazing group of experts including Dr. Michelle Segar and Dr. Linda Bacon. And I’m resonating so deeply with what is said here that I’m ringing like a big old bell! The article starts out asking a simple question:

The U.S. Diet and Weight Loss Industry produced over 60 billion dollars in revenue last year. With all the available information and products, why do many intelligent women continue to diet and exercise without achieving lasting results?

Good question! Why do we keep banging our head on this same wall over and over again? Why do we keep doing the same things we’ve always done before and expect different results. Why are we behaving in a way that could be defined as insane?

The article goes on interview Dr. Michelle Segar. And while I don’t intimately know her work and can’t comment on her personal feelings about weight loss, I couldn’t find much to fault in her interview here. Basically, her research indicates that if you start trying to change your health and wellness from a point of self-hatred you are doomed to fail before you even start. The article goes on to state:

Many of the behaviors that improve health, such as getting more sleep and making better eating choices, also lead to experiences, such as reduced stress, that contribute to happier lives. It is the positive experience that we crave and it is far easier to measure on a daily basis. Although many claim that their health is a priority, the truth is that we are far more motivated by wanting to feel good than to improve our health.

Yes, yes and YES! In my experience with all of the folks that I work with, it’s the immediate pleasure of having fun, of building relationships with classmates, it’s the better sleep and higher confidence and improved sex life that comes with exercise that keeps them exercising. You can create charts. You can pull out your calipers and scales. You can give the “deathfat” speech all you want. You can even give them a “gold star” for being “good”. But what keeps exercisers coming back for more is having a good time and feeling good both during and after exercise. Period.

This is such an important idea. So often people ask me why I call myself The Fat Chick. They ask why I can’t just skip over the issue of being “curvy” and tell people to have fun while they are losing weight. They ask why I can’t just “suggest” that they could or should lose weight. But I can’t. Because telling people to have fun while they are on the way to being worthy, while they are in the process of becoming okay just doesn’t work. I have to tell them that they are okay now. I have to let them know that they are worthy even if they never achieve the BMI or number on the scale they are seeking. I have to let them know that we will experience joy right from the beginning of our work together, not after some magic number or arbitrary goal is achieved. As the article states:

Ultimately, it matters why we exercise and eat healthy foods. This is important not only to sustain our efforts of authentic self-care, but also to resist the toxic messages of a 60 billion dollar industry that depends on women feeling ashamed of their bodies.

Amen, sister. Amen. So I’ll keep calling myself The Fat Chick, and I’ll keep focusing on feeling good and having fun. I will refuse to fuel the industry built on shame that keeps us down and holds us back. I’ll keep working with people of many different ages, weights and abilities. I’ll call myself and all of my students worthy on the first day and the last day and every day in between. To put it simply, that’s what works in the short term, the long term and the whole term.

Thanks for listening.

Love,

The Fat Chick

How to Never Clean Your House

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With the extremely hot (well at least for LA) weather we’ve been having I can tell you that our house is dirty. Not a little bit, needs some tidying kind of straightening. Not a little Mary Poppins “spoonful of sugar” kind of cleaning. Oh no. This place is a dump. In the heat we haven’t had the energy to keep up with stuff like we normally do.

So since installing a new room air conditioner which allows us to stay sane in 2 rooms of our house we’ve started to think about cleaning up. But we quickly ran into a problem. Everywhere you look is a mess. And every time we start cleaning one thing, we run into 10 other things that need to be cleaned. And after a very short time, we throw our hands up, grab the dog, jump in the car, crank up the AC and head to Sonic again. (Who by the way, has the best ice for crunching in the EN-tire world).

I know that we’ll eventually get this mess cleaned up. We’ve done it before. And when we do get it done, it will be in one specific way–one step at a time. Outside of wrinkling my nose like Samantha on Bewitched (I am SOOOOOO old) and cuing a tinkling bell sound effect, one step at a time is the only way I know to get the job done. And the same is true for any sort of health or fitness goals I have for myself as well. As much as sometimes I want to add more exercise and overhaul my eating and change my sleeping patterns and add stress management tools all at once, I know how that will end. I’ll end up grabbing my dog and my husband, hopping in the car, cranking up the AC and going to sonic again.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to wash the sheets. It ain’t much. But it’s a start.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Thursday Theater: Choosing what Kind of Exercise is Right for You

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There are a number of different forms of exercise to choose from. All three forms are good for you, but it’s a good idea to pick just one to start. Which one is right for you? Depends on what you need in your life right now. Check out this short video to learn more.

Love,
The Fat Chick