They don't measure up.

I am sitting here in the land of fitness. San Diego, California. All around me are people running, biking, hiking and lifting. As I sit on the beach, at least two dozen people have run past me with fit, lean bodies while several dozen people have biked on the road behind me. I've been to stores, bars and even bakeries and there is not an overweight person to be found. I have been to breakfast at a local eatery called, "Pipes" where they serve the largest portions of eggs, potatoes and pancakes and even though many people are eating muffins, there is not a muffin-top to be found.

People here are lean. They are fit. So, they must be happier, right? Back in Kentucky, I see overweight and out of shape people all of the time. I see people who hate their bodies and are embarrassed of what they have become; and at first glance, I must assume that does not exist in sunny California. Right? Wrong.

After years of working with women on their weight and self-esteem issues, I have come to pick up on the small cues that give off the inner feelings of a female. The way a woman will size up another woman in a bar or a gym...the way they either smile or smirk at another woman... it is telling of their level of self-esteem.

With so many hot bodies in California, the woman here must love their bodies and therefore, be super friendly to each other. They must walk around exuding confidence. Not so. While working out in the gym, I saw some pretty fit women that looked like they wanted to take me down. I am not saying they were jealous (these women looked unbelievable) but I certainly was intruding on their territory. As we walked in a bar last night, I was a few feet behind my sister and I watched women eye her up and at times, whisper comments about her. It astounded me! Why would women in California, with their hot bodies and puffed up, perfect lips, feel insecure?

The answer: Because in their own minds, they don't measure up.

Instead of being happy with who we are, we tell ourselves that we are not quite enough, physically. Our butt could be smaller or rounder. Our tummy could be flatter or more toned. Our inner thighs could be leaner. 190 pounds or 109 pounds, self acceptance and self love are hard to find. We all have good days, skinny days. We have days when the jeans fit right and we feel better about ourselves, but we also have bad days…days when our jeans barely zip or we feel bloated and ugly.

So, is the answer more cardio? More toning work? Should we eat less? OR, should we all be practicing the art of self love. Should we focus on our mind as much as our body? Maybe we should focus on celebrating each other. Maybe we should be praising each other for our good genes or our success in the gym or kitchen. Maybe we should be praising ourselves. Because Kentucky or California; New Jersey or New Mexico...it doesn't matter how hard we work, if we don't love who we are, we will never be happy.

F&!K the positive attitude!

Some people will tell you that to achieve a goal you have to have a positive attitude. Those people have clearly never achieved a goal by just being pissed.


Most people tell me that I am motivating. It's true that I often tell people to have a CAN-DO attitude. I do believe that if we tell ourselves we can't, we won't. I believe that we have to believe in ourselves. But a "positive" attitude can sometimes just give you a positive experience with a negative outcome. There are moments when you just need to get angry. There are moments when anger will drive you harder and longer than any positive emotion.


I have excelled at the sport of powerlifting through anger. Moments before I deadlift heavy weight I think of the one or two people in my life (who will remain unnamed) that REALLY tick me off. It gets me angry and I intentionally get myself worked up. Then, I pull the hell out of
that bar.


In the fitness industry, I see people that need to get angry all of the time. They spend their energy feeling embarrassed, ashamed or guilty, but instead, they need to get PISSED! Get mad. They need to decide that they have HAD it with whatever is holding them back. They need to
put some Limp Bizkit or Godsmack on their iPod and dive into the inner badass.


F&!K the positive attitude, GET MAD!!!!!


As I sit here and listen to the words, "F&!k you, I won't do what you tell me" on my radio, it gets me worked up. It is impossible to listen to this stuff and sit on the couch or get lazy. It makes me want to get up and prove something to SOMEONE! It takes me back to that struggling teenager that I was over 15 years ago. She had fire! She had passion! The 35-year-old in me can use her every now and then...especially when I want to accomplish something physical.


Bottom line, if you want me to accomplish something, just tell me that I won't and I will spend every bit of energy that I have proving that I CAN!

Every morning, I witness GREATNESS.

I am lucky. Every morning, I witness GREATNESS. It’s not the Lance Armstrong/Michael Jordan kind of greatness. It’s the kind of greatness that lies in all of us but often goes untapped or unnoticed.

People define greatness in different ways. Many people think it is climbing Mount Everest or winning an Ironman. Some people think it is being a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

This is my definition:

Greatness is the mother of three that stays up late to clean the house and finish her office work despite her exhaustion, only to get up at 5 a.m. and workout the next morning.

Greatness is the mother who is 7 months pregnant and still gets up every morning to improve her body despite the fact that it is getting bigger every day.

Greatness is the 60-something woman who has never been much on exercise but commits to boot camp anyway, despite the fact that most of the participants around her are 30 years younger.

Greatness is the person that persists through an exercise program and remains patient despite their lack of immediate results.

Greatness is defying the odds. Greatness is getting up every morning when the rest of the world is still in bed. Greatness is persisting and continuing to work at something even when everyone around you seems to do it better. Greatness is shutting off your inner slacker and doing what is necessary even when it’s not always fun. Greatness is overcoming fear and participating in the unknown.

Greatness is in the most common people and in the most unlikely places. Greatness is all around us. I know, because I see it every day.

If a girl walks into a bar with a great butt...

Tonight, as I participated in a mini-powerlifting meet at Sixth Gear Performance, I was reminded that women, when supportive of each other, can be a strong and powerful group. Tonight, for a moment, I stopped to wonder if I truly loved the sport of Powerlifting or if I love being around strong women who support each other, yell for each other and remind each other that we are capable of anything. Seriously, these women are outstanding!

While growing up, I have seen some pretty scary stuff come out of girls. During my freshman year of high school, I was bullied. Not like name-call bullying, I am talking real-deal, made-for-TV stuff. While in my sorority in college, I remember a group of girls that would verbally pounce on each and every girl that walked in the bar with their mid-drift showing or a short skirt on. That girl would be the subject of ridicule for the whole night.

Luckily for me, I have also been surrounded by girls who have shown outstanding support and love for each other. During my senior year in high school, I was on a cheerleading team of 6 girls. Yes, only six. Unlike other schools, at Atherton, girls didn’t knock each other over getting to try-outs for the cheerleading team. They practically had to beg people to cheer. I was happy to accommodate and wound up around 5 gals that year that were supportive, motivating and inspiring.

In college, while the other girls were talking about and making fun of anyone of whom they were jealous, my best friends were getting crazy on the other side of the bar, oblivious to the fact that anyone else was even in the room. We had more fun than 3 girls should have at ANY time in their lives. And they ALWAYS had my back and have ALWAYS accepted me, despite my flaws (and I have a few:)

Now, not only do I have those same, supportive, confident college friends, I am surrounded by strong women who truly ROOT for each other…who want each other to succeed…who yell at the top of their lungs to help their partners get through a lift. I have gotten facebook messages, texts, phone calls and even hand-written notes (who does that anymore?) with words of encouragement.

I simply don’t understand what stops us from being like this all of the time. Damn it, if a girl walks into a bar with a great butt and is wearing a super tight skirt, we should be yelling, “Go get ‘em girl!” Seriously, I just want my friend Dawn to follow me around screaming “STRONG!” like she does in the gym. I would feel like the world’s biggest badass all of the time!

I got in a fight...

I got in a cyber fight with the “Strong is the New Skinny” chick. I know. Stupid, right? Why post anything negative on the internet and Facebook? Lord knows you will get creamed by all of the followers who couldn’t hear your tone of voice…at least that’s what happened to me.

Here’s the story. “Strong is the New Skinny” or “SINS” is a saying that was created by a very smart and savvy lady. She sells t-shirts, posts information and has thousands of followers. Great slogan. Great philosophy. I wish I had thought of it.

On Facebook, she started posting “motivational” quotes that have pictures of hot, “strong,” sweaty women in them. At first, I ignored it. The comments that came after those pictures often included, “I want her….She is so hot…I want to look like her” etc. It was getting disturbing. After the umpteenth picture, I let it out. I posted that I was tired of seeing these dehydrated models on the page of a site that was supposed to be about the way a woman feels, not how she looks. Or was I wrong? Doesn’t the word “strong” refer to a physical attribute that can only be judged by performance while the word “skinny” is a physical attribute that can be judged by simply looking at a person? Isn’t one about performance and the other about looks?Anyway, long story short, I got kicked off of their Facebook page (keep in mind, I did not use curse words or say anything demeaning) and had a long host of Facebookers ream me for being “in a bad mood” and “jealous”. In addition, most people argued the fact that these models were dehydrated.

First, let me say, that the models were dehydrated. EVERY SINGLE fitness model does that before a shoot no matter how fit they are. That is undeniable. But what is worse is that it seems that I was the only one disturbed. In fact, most people were disturbed that I was disturbed.

So, here I am a few weeks later, still feeling the same way. I have never enjoyed how magazines, television and the media in general depict the perfect body. But what is bothering me today is that with the advent of CrossFit and the acceptance of a strong female figure becoming more the norm (thank God!), that image is also getting displayed out there as if it is the only way to look. All of the sudden, you see these greasy, toned bodies that let the world know, if you are going to be strong, you should look like this. The same movement that got women out of the “skinny” rut is putting them in a new rut to make them hate their bodies once again.

I am surrounded by a self-loathing world. I hear woman who are disgusted with their bodies every day. The same women that do all of the right things still hate themselves. They see these pictures of “perfect” bodies and in their minds, they just can’t add up. What they don’t know is that few people look like that in person. They are dehydrated, air brushed, tanned and manned. But whether we like it or not, these images are burned in our brain for us to compare ourselves to every day. We don’t even know we are doing it.

Well, no more. From now on, when I see those images, I am closing the magazine or turning off the computer. I am not buying the publications with them and I am not subscribing to fitness centers or working with trainers who value appearance over performance. It is great to look good. But I am going to be happy with the body that God gave me. I am doing the best with what I have and if that means that I don’t look like the chick posted on the “Strong is the New Skinny” page, then so be it. I will still be looking rockin’ hot in the latest SINS t-shirt!

Fabulous?

There are days when I love my body. There are days when I wake up, feel a flat tummy and am grateful for it after carrying two babies. Then, there are my self-loathe days…the days when I feel fat and flabby...the days when I hate myself for not being perfect…when I obsess over the extra piece of chocolate or that extra glass of wine that I had the previous night.

Today, my question is this: How can I find that fine line between self-love and the drive to be the best that I can be?

Some days, I know that I will look back on this time in my life, at pictures of myself, and think, “Damn, I wish I had enjoyed that.” And then there are other days when I KNOW I can BE better, LOOK better and PERFORM better. And I want it! I don’t want to settle for mediocrity. I want to be the best….look the best…feel the best.

So which is it? How do I choose between self-love and the drive to be the best?

My journey began a few months ago when I lost 13 pounds (by far, my lowest weight ever) to compete in a powerlifting competition. I was only eating 1,000 calories per day (probably half of what my body was burning) and exercising daily. In addition, I was walking for hours a day to keep my metabolism high without putting undue stress on my body. I was extreme. I knew it wasn’t something that I could maintain but I enjoyed the fruits of my labors. Until….people started making comments. “You look fabulous.” “You look sooo good.” Believe it or not, I started to get offended. What was wrong with the way I looked before? At 135 pounds, I was wearing a size 4 and had only 19% body fat. How is it that I look FABULOUS now, but I didn’t then? Instead of getting flattered, I got offended. I knew that my lifestyle was extreme which meant that when my lifestyle was NOT extreme, I would NOT look fabulous. Bummer.

Jump ahead to today. I am back in my 130s again. I still lead a somewhat extreme lifestyle in the sense that eat a mostly paleo diet and exercise every single day. I gave up diet cokes and week day alcohol as well as bread, pasta and potatoes. Yet, here I am in the 130s without a “fabulous” comment to be had. Do I like my body? I do. Do I get upset at myself for not being perfect and not maintaining the 125 lb. frame that I strive for? I do.

I hate complacency. I don’t ever want to become that woman that says, “It is what it is.” I want to be better. I want to be the best. But how do I balance that with self love and acceptance? How do I balance that with the desire to feel gratitude for my healthy body?

This is something that I work on and think about every day. I’ll let you know when I get there, in the meantime, don’t call me fabulous.