The Low-Carb Curmudgeon

Aw Ma, do I gotta?

Well, I guess I should behave as if I live in consensus reality. That includes occasional commentary on stuff that hits the news. And it beats the hell out of Jimmy’s interview with Nutty Anti-Low-Carb Person.

All righty then. For those of you who still think we’re at war with the Soviets because you have been living in an underground bunker for the last fifty years, we now have cable television and one of the channels available is about pretty much nothing but food. And they have cooking shows. And the star of one of those cooking shows is one Paula Deen from Savannah, Georgia, who has become notorious for cooking everything in butter–including, apparently, sticks of butter. (Or maybe that’s exaggeration. I haven’t been following her show, because I don’t give a sweet shit, despite the fact that she hails from one of my very favorite cities EVAR.) Now it transpires that she was diagnosed type 2 diabetic three years ago, and is just now going public about it because she has worked out some sort of endorsement deal with a pharmaceutical company to hawk diabetes meds.
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Someone I know on Facebook posted an article on their feed today about some 80-plus-year-old dude who can bend himself into all sorts of interesting shapes because he’s done yoga all his life. It was pretty neat, I must admit, but the first thought that came to mind was something like:

Why do people always try to motivate me to do something by holding someone up as an example who’s doing things about which I could not possibly give less of a shit? I’m supposed to feel guilty now because I’m less than half this dude’s age and the only shape I can get into is rotund? Why? How many people aspire to bend themselves into pretzels? What practical applications does that have in someone’s life? I know I don’t have to be like everybody else but let’s face it, I have more in common with the rest of humanity than I have differences. And, if you had to browbeat me into it, is it really motivation? I thought the definition of motivation in the personal-development sense is that it’s self-developed and self-driven.

OK, it wasn’t that articulate, more like a whole lot of half-formed thoughts and feelings that flashed through my head in the space of thirty seconds. And then, all Aspie*-like, I downloaded my brain directly to a Facebook comment, and now that person’s miffed at me. Understandably so.

Still, I think my questions are worth exploring. Call it vanity.

I didn’t have a weight problem til the year I was twenty-one, but I never–and I mean never–had a perfectly flat, washboard set of abs. There was always this itty-bitty pooch from about at navel level down to the beginning of my pubic bone. I wasn’t fat, and pants hid the pooch very well, but I’d have been self-conscious going around in a string bikini because of course conventional stupidity says that region of your body must be flat as an ironing board.

My stepmom took note of it at some point and I guess she decided to try to fix it, judging by her behavior. She used two approaches. One, which didn’t last very long, was making me do formal exercises every day. She was especially interested in making me do situps. I don’t remember how long that lasted but I don’t think it was more than a year. The other thing she did, which lasted far longer, was constantly nag me to suck my gut in. Between that and people’s rude remarks about my ass after I hit puberty (I have wide hips), it’s a wonder I didn’t wind up with an eating disorder.

You might be excited about the notion that a parent in the 1980s took the initiative to make a kid exercise. In practice, it was almost humiliating. I felt like I was putting on an entertainment show for my parents, and it didn’t even make me feel very different. My pooch sure the hell never went away. (And now, of course, it’s grown. Massively.) In fact that might be one reason Reba finally let up. As I said, I don’t remember.

But most of my experiences with sport and exercise had to do with gym-class humiliation (I sucked at basketball, for instance, and rather than show me how to play it properly the other kids just made fun of me instead), gym-teacher indifference, drill sergeants yelling at me because I was no star athlete, etc. Practically no positive associations with either at all. I had ONE good year where my gym teacher was not insane or lazy** and where the other girls (single-gender classes) didn’t make fun of me and where I got to do interesting things like work out on weights and play field hockey. That was truly epic. Too bad it only lasted one year.

I would not at all be surprised if my experience were more the norm than the exception.

The minimum age for compulsory school attendance ranges from five to eight (nine? I’m not sure), depending on the state where you live. (I’m assuming a mostly U.S. readership. The minimum age is much higher in the Nordic countries, I know.) In most states it’s five or six. That’s an awfully young age to have to begin associating gym class with humiliation–and when you experience something that negative that young, it sticks with you always, able to be pried loose only in therapy, and then only sometimes.

You certainly can work around it. No doubt. But it’s always there, eating at you, and trying to be healthier in your movement choices is always a battle with yourself as a result.

And what form did that humiliation take for most of us? That’s right. Something like this: “What’s WRONG with you? Can’t you do ANYTHING right? C’mon, a BABY could do that! My GRANDMA can run faster than you!”

Now think about the language typically used in these “motivational” articles about old people, or fat people, or disabled people exercising.

And then, on top of that, when you’re all grown up and people are trying to “motivate” you, it isn’t about anything useful half the time. I don’t care if someone can turn themselves into a pretzel or run almost thirty miles. Not applicable in my life. Not translatable to reality***. Quit trying to make me feel guilty because someone else is doing something I don’t even want to do.

It would be far more appealing to me if someone offered to work out with me in a way that I found fun and enjoyable****, and then we just worked out, without it being about my worth as a human being. I would LOVE to find someone to monkey around with. Even three or four someones. People who won’t crack stupid jokes about the “fat and lazy,” people who don’t make everything into a serious competition–just people who want to play. I LIKE Mark Sisson’s model of healthy exercise. I wish more people practiced it. If I ever found a group like that, I think I’d be in seventh heaven.

But in the end, you know what motivates me? I motivate me. No one else. At the end of the day, only I can be responsible for my choices.

So maybe it’s time for those who would motivate to diversify their tactics. Or, hey, worry more about what you’re doing and just model that for everyone else instead.

Remember, kids: the word for today is modeling, not mauling. Thank you.

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*I don’t actually know if I have Asperger’s. But given my early speech issues, my odd way of looking at the world, my knack for putting people off the second I open my mouth (when they listen to me at all–good luck!) and the way normal people treat me like I have cooties, it wouldn’t surprise me.

****Getcher mind outta the gutter. Or is it just me? Oh well, I’m up for that too. In theory.

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