Category: Health at Every Size

I hate to move it move it

On By MezzoSherriIn Be Your Own Beautiful, Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Memoir, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

So I mentioned that I had a less-than-wonderful endocrinologist appointment near the end of January. Basically, my A1C level is elevated after however-long of being stable.

And it could be a post-2020 dumpster fire kind of anomaly. After all, my stress has been through the roof since last fall, what with a very COVID Christmas, the presidential transition (and insurrection) and coming up on the first anniversary of this COVID life.* And to be honest, I paid just about ZERO attention to monitoring my carbs or sugar intake during the latter months of the year. Plus the fact that I’ve been sedentary as fuck since this COVID thing started. Most of my activity in recent years has been of the “functional fitness” variety: walking from the parking garage to the office building, being on my feet at work, airport and city walking during my almost-monthly business trips, plus the recreational activities of play rehearsals and dance choreography. And none of that has been happening for the last 11 months.

Two potatoes with cartoon faces drawn on them, sitting side by side on a dollhouse-sized couch.

So, the spike in my A1C level could be temporary. Or it could be a progression in whatever level of pre-diabetes/insulin resistance/whatever ethical doctors really call it I currently have.

Jury’s still out on that—more observation and follow-up testing over the next few months to see what’s what.

But regardless of what the diagnostic outcome is, feels like a good time to get my butt off the couch.

Which, alas, isn’t anywhere near as easy a task as that sounds.

Because this past week, I’ve come face to face with the depths of how diet culture has completely destroyed my relationship with healthful bodily movement.**

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Couch and Kitchen Vegetables

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Memoir, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Subtle BodyLeave a comment

I don’t exactly know what got into me this weekend. So many things I oughta/coulda been doing. Another business trip this week, this one including a presentation. So it might have been smart to be working on my slide-deck, or at least doing laundry and packing. Nope.

(Well, the laundry is in the dryer now, so that’s some small progress, I guess.)

The weekend is also a good time to be a bit more ambitious in my daily actions for the “Pleasure Project” (a.k.a. my RUHCUS). Another soak in the tub, a pedicure, or even the nice feeling of clearing all the uglies out of one of my dresser drawers. But nope.

My entire weekend agenda is pretty much summed up in three verbs: nap, read, watch TV. (1)

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The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, Flagrantly Feminist, Health at Every Size, Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head, Topics of Study2 Comments

We had one main project for the holiday weekend, but we were able to wrap it up so quickly yesterday that I’ve had some extra-luxurious reading time on my Saturday and Sunday. Which means that after a long dry spell, I’ve finished yet another book—this one, the latest choice from my fat activist/HAES/body love reading list.

Sonya Renee Taylor and her radical self-love/liberationist platform, The Body is Not an Apology, has been on my radar for some years now. I think it was my friend Alice who first brought Sonya into my awareness. Even if I’m misremembering this detail, I am going to stand by this poetic retelling for the rest of my days. There is something so just and sacred and fitting in a poet of Alice’s caliber bringing me to learn about a poet of Sonya’s caliber.

So as soon as Sonya’s book was released last year, I bought myself a copy. And then I let it sit on my bookshelves with all the other body love/goddess power books I’ve been ignoring in my quest to be super smart and fulfill all these reading challenges.

My decision to abandon reading challenge perfection in 2019 to make more room for actively self-nurturing titles put Sonya’s book back on the priority list, and then a guest teacher call with Sonya as part of the Mastery curriculum put this at the very top of that list.

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A white ceramic cookie jar with a red lid. The jar is decorated with a drawing of a rooster and the words: "Kellogg's, Good Morning"

Addicted to Air

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Flagrantly Feminist, Health at Every Size, Memoir, Self-AcceptanceLeave a comment

I’ve talked a time or two already about how my pre-diabetes diagnosis has me looking at various ways to reduce the amount of sugars and carbs in my daily food intake. What that also means is I have stumbled across so many books and websites that play on the tired old trope of “sugar addiction.”

I’m not going to amplify any of those sources here tonight—you can find them easily enough by making your own visit to Professor Google. Besides, you don’t need to know much more than the fact that this metaphor is out there loud and strong in the culture to be able to ride along with my complicated feelings on the topic. Mostly critique, but some small resonance, as well.

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Help That Truly Helps

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Health at Every Size, Memoir, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance1 Comment

I’ve been talking around the fringes of my pre-diabetes diagnosis for a few posts, between the questionable nature of the diagnostic category, and my continued adventures re-engaging with yoga. But it’s feeling as if a more generalized circle-back on the topic wouldn’t be a bad thing tonight, especially since I am still 100% mid-tome in my reading of Wolf Hall.(1)

First things first: even though I am beyond cheesed at the suspect nature of the whole “prediabetes” terminology, given what I learned last week about the topic, I’m still choosing—at least for the moment—to continue using that term for my diagnosis. Because however problematic the U.S. medical system’s application of that term may be, it is the U.S. medical system in which I have to exist right now.(2) So I might as well keep using the diagnostic label all my medical professionals are going to be using on my chart.(3)

Now, I reserve the right to change my mind about this down the line. But it’s where I’ve landed for the nonce.

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More from the Floor

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Flagrantly Feminist, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Health at Every Size, Memoir, Self-Acceptance2 Comments

I’ve been staring at the computer screen and listening to Beethoven for I’m-not-sure-how-many minutes now, trying to figure out what to write about here on JALC (or even if I was going to write at all).

Ultimately, I decided to give it a try—in part because I want to postpone the wheels-falling-off-the-cart moment I feel almost inevitably coming down the pike at me. It’s gonna be an intense few weeks at work with various deadlines to meet, so I foresee a number of missed blogposts in the near future, as I will likely have to set JALC aside in order to devote my evening writing time to job-related stuff.

I’ll be doing some of that tonight, but first: a super-quick post with some more yoga observations I forgot to include last night.

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The View from the Floor

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head3 Comments

I’m already trying to “level up” my renewed yoga practice: not only did I follow through on my intention to attend class last night, I also went straight from work to attend a 6 PM beginner’s class tonight.

Now, in a perfect world, I’d up my class frequency while still having some recovery time between sessions. But these are the two nights that beginner classes are scheduled on, so this is the structure I need to work within–at least until I build enough skill/stamina to take on additional class types.

So here we are. After two classes in a row, I expect to sleep well tonight. I also half-expect to be sore tomorrow. And, in the interest of continuing to reflect on and honor my journey getting back to the mat, I’m going to share some of the impressions and observations that have come to me during this week’s classes.

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If I Lived In Iceland, I Might Still Be Healthy

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Memoir, Self-Acceptance4 Comments

Every now and then, when the endless brouhaha of U.S. culture and politics start wearing me down, I indulge in the mental fantasy of becoming an expatriate in Iceland. It’s one of those fantasies that’s almost completely divorced from reality: most of what I know about the country comes from seeing various friends’ vacation snapshots. I have absolutely zero understanding of what it would take to emigrate, and I presume that my professional skill set as a non-profit fund-raiser wouldn’t have much (any?) value on the Icelandic job market.

Still, any country that has such a well-established tradition of Christmas book-giving sounds like the sort of place that’d be right up my alley. So I continue to hold this Icelandic emigration fantasy—loosely, but holding onto it nonetheless.

Now it turns out that being in Iceland would also impact my recent diagnosis.

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Stretching Beyond My Comfort Zone

On By MezzoSherriIn Health at Every Size, Memoir, The Voices in My Head3 Comments

For all that I have complaints about my endocrinologist’s world view,* there was one thing she said last Friday that has really resonated with me. As we were going through my lifestyle assessment—job, schedule, usual meal choices and physical activity day-to-day—she sussed out the fact that the demands of my non-profit job, both in the sense of dedication to my org’s mission, and the general workload/stress, are strong contributors to my current landscape of sketchy nutritional choices and sedentary days. And the endocrinologist said:

You should be taking your health and self-care as seriously as you do your job.

And although I’d wager that she and I have drastically different definitions for what constitutes “health” or “self-care,”** it’s still a point well taken.

I’m not the first or the last non-profit professional to fall into this trap, but I do have a pattern of neglecting my well-being in an attempt to keep up with the workload and sustain an organization I legitimately, really, truly believe in and want to see succeed. And as I figure out my approach towards handling my new diagnosis, it’s worth recalibrating a little bit.

So tonight after work, I did something very brave: I went to yoga class.

Continue reading “Stretching Beyond My Comfort Zone” →