Work It Out

Exercise videos and exercise memories

Just a heads up that this newsletter discusses weight, exercise, and disordered eating behavior. If any of that is going to upset you, skip it.

I realized I was fat in third grade. I knew this because my pediatrician told me—well, what he actually said was that I was in the 90-something percentile for weight, and he certainly didn’t say it like it was a good thing, so I read between the lines.

“The doctor said I’m fat,” I told my dad in the car on the way home.

“He didn’t say you were fat. He said you were in the 90^th percentile,” he corrected me.

“Yeah, with all the fat kids!” I wailed, like I was the sassy child in a Very Special Episode of a family dramedy.

The doctor dropped this information on me with no follow up, no guidance, no further communication. No one else said anything about it, either. Certainly no one told me it was fine to be the size I was, that I was a growing child, that my body was meant to move and exist and that it was okay to just take up space. And why would they? Body positivity wasn’t a thing for elementary school children in the 1990s. And no one gave me any sort of direction on eating foods for their nutritional value (although that’s probably for the best, given the sort of information about nutrition I uncovered with my own research). It was just me, alone in the knowledge that there was something wrong with me, certain that I had to fix it but unsure where to start.

I went on my first diet in third grade.

That might not have been the start, but it was at least the first moment I remember my body being a source of shame. It was a thing I needed to change, but I didn’t know how.

One day in fifth grade, our class got separated by gender. The boys were whisked off to do…honestly, I still don’t know. The girls learned about periods, all of us crammed into the school library with the creaky floor as the teacher drew a diagram of a uterus on the dry-erase board. We watched a video about a girl who got her period and also developed an eating disorder…a real “two for the price of one” movie! At one point, while considering starving herself, she said, “I don’t have a pretty face, so I can at least have a good body.”

A lightbulb appeared above my head. As someone who also didn’t have a pretty face (I won’t go too much into it here because I wrote an entire book about it, but I had surgery to correct an underbite when I was a teenager), this seemed like a logical plan. That’s the thing about most anti-eating disorder books or films: they actually provide a lot of tips for young girls looking for ways to starve themselves. I learned most of what I knew (and got some new and exciting ways to loathe myself) from books that were supposed to convince me to not go on a diet.

I had to exercise. I knew that. But what I didn’t know was how. I was, and remain, a deeply uncoordinated person. My hand-eye coordination is abysmal and my reflexes are slow—I’d be bad at both softball and hitting the buzzer on Jeopardy. My only experience with physical activity was gym class, which was two days a week and filled me with so much dread that I would get sick to my stomach the night before. Every week, I’d think, “I just have to get through Tuesday and Wednesday and then I won’t have gym for another week.” So how was I supposed to exercise, the very thing that would help me lose weight, when I couldn’t possibly do physical activity in front of people without risking embarrassment?

Enter: exercise videos. At the time, I had a bedroom in the recently renovated attic of our house, far away from where the rest of my family slept. I also had a tiny TV of my own, the ultimate luxury, that I usually used to watch The Drew Carey Show. But what if I could use it for non-Drew Carey purposes…?

There was a channel that only showed exercise videos, and this seemed perfect. I could work out in the comfort of my room, all alone, where no one would ever have to look at my body or judge it and/or make fun of me for being bad at catching a softball. I knew a little bit about exercise videos because my mom had a copy of Sweatin’ to the Oldies on VHS, as was required for all 90s moms. And Sweatin’ to the Oldies was fun. Richard Simmons was encouraging and kind, the music was enjoyable, and the people working out had a wide range of bodies. Maybe I could find my own Richard Simmons.

And I did, in Denise Austin.

Denise was more cheerful and energetic than anyone I’d ever met in my life. She was always smiling, even while talking about burning fat. She encouraged me to grapevine my heart out. When I was with Denise, I felt accomplished and capable and happy, even though I was stomping around my room doing dance-aerobics moves.

And more importantly, the workouts worked. Well, what actually worked was skipping two meals a day while exercising for hours. No one questioned my actions (perhaps because I was doing most of them secretly) and I got so much praise for finally losing weight. And all I had to do was literally starve myself, go to bed with the sound of my growling stomach ringing in my ears, and work out for hours on end! Wow, who knew it was so easy? It never once occurred to me that this was technically an eating disorder because I was getting gold stars all over the place.

Eventually, I started high school and things other than my weight captured my attention. School. Old books. Boys who didn’t know I was alive. I ate what I wanted and never exercised. I mean…literally never, not all through college. Sometimes I would see people running around the track and think, “Hmm, is that…fun?” Once I walked through our college gym and noted that there was a smoothie stand that looked good. And that was as close as I got to physical activity.

Until I was a year out of college and feeling aimless. I’ve always been someone who needs a project or fifteen to keep me happy. If I don’t have a project, my anxious energy floats around until it finds something, anything, to land on, and then that becomes my focus, no matter how destructive it might be. In this case, I was a recent college graduate, working at a manufacturing plant, unhappily living in my hometown, and not writing even though I really wanted to. One might assume that I could simply focus on…writing. But no, that would’ve been too easy. Instead, I watched a documentary called Crazy Sexy Cancer about a woman who cured her cancer by drinking green juice…and, well, that set off a whole new round of disordered behavior. I knew I needed to work out again, but this time around Denise Austin and her cheerful grapevines weren’t going to cut it. I needed the big guns. I needed the 30 Day Shred.

If you aren’t familiar with 30 Day Shred, it’s a video from Jillian Michaels, one of the hosts of The Biggest Loser, a terrible show where people have to lose weight extremely quickly for entertainment purposes. Jillian brought her “mean drill sergeant” energy to the 30 Day Shred, where she led us through a series of moves while admonishing us not to be weak. There were two women behind her: one who modified the workouts to be harder, and one who modified them to be easier. Jillian was in love with the woman who made them harder.

The sexual tension between Jillian and Natalie (the woman on the left)…you could cut it with a knife.

The workout itself was actually fine, but Jillian’s messaging was very 2000s. Basically she yelled at me for the length of the video and I was like, “That’s fine, I deserve it.” Some of the things she said that have burned themselves into my brain:

-“I have 500 pound people doing these exercises, so YOU can do them.” Oh, nice, a little shame both for me and for the people who were on her show!

-“Taking the stairs is a false message of lethargy.” Do you even know how often I refer to things as a “false message of lethargy” in my head?

-While doing lunges: “Think about going jeans shopping. Think about going swimsuit shopping.”

-“The neck is not invited to this party.” Okay, this one was more of a comment on crunch form and less of a shameful comment, but it still plays in my head on repeat.

-“I can always use a good chest fly.” Something I now say to myself whenever I’m working out.

I did this DVD a lot, while also enacting a series of strange food rules for myself that were about “health” but were mostly about restricting. One time I cried outside of a Subway because their bread was “unhealthy” and I couldn’t eat it. In general, I think if you’ve reached a point where something at Subway makes you cry, you know that things have gone horribly awry.

Eventually I moved out of my hometown, got a new job, stopped being so miserable, and quit doing the Shred. And then, right around 2013, I found…Adriene.

An angel.

(Cue triumphant music, light shining down from heaven, etc.)

I don’t totally remember what led me to Adriene, other than me trying to find exercise again, but as soon as I found her something clicked. Her work outs could be quite hard, but there was something different about her. For starters, she wasn’t berating me. Or talking about looking good in a swimsuit. Or yelling at me about how I needed to do more than take the stairs. In fact, she seemed way more focused on, as her slogan goes, finding what feels good than she did about losing weight.

When I did Adriene videos, I didn’t feel bad about myself. I didn’t want to change anything about myself. I just wanted to…do yoga.

At this point, I’ve been doing Yoga with Adriene videos for most of her ten year run. I am still not good at yoga (like, at all), but I’ve done her January 30 day challenge four or five times. I’m a paid subscriber to the Find What Feels Good app, which is actually very good (no ads, easy searchable, and a lot of exclusive content, including series and workouts that are more difficult than what she offers on YouTube….what, am I an unpaid salesperson for the FWFG app?). But doing an Adriene video never feels like a punishment or a means to an end. It feels like doing something good for me. I end her videos feeling good about myself, although sometimes I cry (in a cathartic way, not a “Jillian Michaels thinks I’m lazy” way).

And also, usually my back pain is better. Because that’s the other thing about working out as a 37 year old: suddenly, exercise is way more about the care and maintenance of my human body instead of a way to shame myself. If I don’t stretch, I get back pain now! If I don’t exercise, I feel bad, and I mean that physically. When I do exercise, I’m less depressed and anxious (I’m still anxious and sometimes depressed but, you know, less than I otherwise would be).

Over the past year, I realized that I needed to incorporate exercise more seriously into my life again, largely for those aforementioned mental health benefits. But also because, well, I’m no longer all that young. I can no longer treat my body like shit and see no consequences. Guided by the loving hand of Adriene, I want to take care of myself.

I’m still not ready to work out in a gym, or in a group fitness setting at all. It’s not that I think everyone’s going to make fun of my lack of coordination like they did in elementary school gym, but sometimes it is hard for me to let go of that feeling. Exercise videos give me the camaraderie of working out with someone else, but in the privacy of my living room and with an audience of my dogs/occasionally my son.

Over the past several months, I’ve gotten into a good routine of doing at least one video most days and I feel amazing. My absolute favorite YouTube instructor right now is MadFit. Her name is Maddie but I refer to her as MadFit, the name of her channel. She’s in her mid-twenties, a former competitive dancer, and positive in a way that isn’t over the top.

I got into her channel because of her dance workouts, which I would highly recommend. The Harry Styles dance party is my ultimate favorite and has made me cry on more than one occasion. Sometimes when I have a stressful day, I find that head-banging to “Satellite” is extremely helpful. The Taylor Swift dance parties are also great. Many of the 90s/2000s ones are too difficult for me and involve too many quick lunges. My one word of caution about MadFit workouts is that sometimes the dance workouts are too fast for a 37 year old with 37 year old knees and I have to sit out those lunges.

MadFit recently got her own app, which I bought during a half-off sale. At first I was skeptical about it, but now, big surprise, I’m obsessed. She brought in a yoga instructor who ends every workout by telling me that I’m perfectly designed and “not a fluke” and I love that. Jillian Michaels would literally never (she definitely thinks some people are flukes…she’s never said that, but it’s just a feeling I have). I refer to MadFit as my emotional support blonde 27 year old Canadian workout instructor, which is unwieldy, but true. No one on the MadFit app tells me I need to lose weight or change myself or work through pain or whatever.

My workouts for last week: not lengthy but I’m extremely proud of them! Although a little embarrassed to tell you I did something called “core play.”

My workouts are usually short—I aim for at least fifteen minutes a day but often do between twenty and thirty. Old me wouldn’t think that’s enough. Old me would want to put in hours of occasionally joyless workouts to see “results.” But this, I find, is so, so, so much healthier. Exercise is a pure joy for me now, something I look forward to every day. It’s not something I force myself through just so I can feel less guilt. I’ve turned into one of those people who views exercise as “me time.” Like, I’m actually having fun when I work out….I never would’ve predicted that back when I was furiously exercising to stave off shame or shrink my body.

I don’t want to pretend that I’ve cured myself of my years of weight related trauma through the power of YouTube workouts. Earlier this year I went to the doctor for a strep test, and when they weighed me I internally freaked out that the doctor was going to say something about my weight (even though, again, I was there for a strep test and I don’t think strep discriminates based on weight?). Sometimes I wonder if things would’ve been different if my pediatrician hadn’t commented on my weight back in third grade. Sometimes I wonder if I would’ve spent so many wasted hours starving myself in an attempt to “correct” a “flaw.” Who would I have been if I wasn’t obsessed with this? Maybe the saddest part is that, if he’d never told me that, I’m not even sure it would’ve made a difference. I was already surrounded by bad messaging, and some other comment surely would’ve lodged itself into my brain and triggered my obsession.

It's a constant struggle to stay out of that mindset, and I’m only sometimes successful. But what I know for sure is that divorcing exercise from weight loss has been one of the best things I’ve ever done for my mental health. Exercise is fun now, and it’s something I do because it makes me better, not because it makes me smaller.

So part of the purpose of this week’s newsletter was to spread the gospel of MadFit, but I also want to know: what are your favorite YouTube exercise videos? I would love to hear if there are some great, positive instructors I don’t know about.

Next week is a paid subscriber newsletter about everything I’ve been watching/reading/etc. this past month. I will also probably include Taylor Swift thoughts again :( See you next week.