I think most people do a bit of idle Facebooking (Yes.  I did just make that word up.) in the mornings, just to see what friends and family got up to overnight. While scrolling through my feed one morning not long ago, dropping a "like" here, and a random comment there, I came across a meme featuring a large woman riding a bike, clearly competing in an athletic competition, seriously intent, and completely into what she was doing.  The wording on the picture was about encouraging people more than we criticize, which was all well and good, but what struck me most about this picture was the woman's obvious commitment to what she was doing.  Her focus and dedication absolutely moved me.  I wondered about her journey, how she got there, and honestly, how I could get there. 

Turns out the woman in the picture runs a website for plus-sized female athletes, featuring them in all of their triumphs and trials. Me being a plus-sized woman who wants to get more seriously into biking and hiking, but have always been rather intimidated both by my size and my clumsiness, was intrigued.  As I read article after story after blog post about these remarkable female athletes, pursuing their goals without regard to anyone else's preconceived notions of what they should be, I started to realize that I am probably my own biggest critic when it comes to my fitness goals. (Well, okay that and whenever I decide to exercise after work on a regular basis, my son suddenly finds things to do at night so he can't possibly watch his sister while I go to the gym/track/whathaveyou, doesn't really help either, but I digress.) I am also far from alone in this ongoing self negating.

The comments on most articles about any woman that is not very small or thin bear me out on this.  Although there are plenty of comments from men, which is almost to be expected, the comments from women range from hateful (the usual amount of shaming comments) to heartbreaking.  The number of women that hate themselves, and anyone else for that matter, for not conforming to an image very few people can meet has reached epidemic proportions.  Dear GOD, don't let it be an article or post about self acceptance.  If a man between the ages of 17 - 35 can't get a boner by looking at your picture, you had better not even THINK about self acceptance.  All of this will be hidden underneath a layer of barely concealed contempt, dressed in snark, and condescendingly labeled "concern for your health".

What so many of these keyboard critics don't realize is that all of the most important things about a person's life start with their perception of themselves.  Anything that starts with self hatred is destined to end in failure, and self hatred starts where inability to accept that not everyone is going to look exactly alike begins.  This is not to say that everyone shouldn't strive to be the best possible version of themselves, so much as it is reminding them that no two people are meant to look alike, and to decide for themselves what that best person looks like.  Of course there are certain industries that thrive on personal insecurity; our job is to develop a healthy enough sense of self to let these industries cater to those they may.  We can always opt out of the get thin quick schemes and harmful nonsense diet peddling.

Loving yourself first means seeking out and prioritizing what's RIGHT about yourself, rather than obsessing over flaws.  I mean your real flaws, as decided by YOU, not dictated by a popular media that has an agenda, and a product to sell.  Learning to love yourself BEFORE you begin to make changes puts you in the right mindset to stick to whatever plans you make to  change what you feel needs changing, be it looks, finances, career or location.  Everyone has at least one thing about themselves worth loving; if you don't know what that is, there are probably one too many people in your life whose favorite form of entertainment is making sure they let other people know precisely what is wrong with them, never mind the fact that their gleeful negativity is the largest part of the problem. But I digress.

By developing a healthier attitude towards yourself, you improve your outlook on most other aspects of your life, which in turn gives you the proper foundation for dealing with whatever comes your way after that.  People that love themselves first develop a sort of resilience that carries them through failures, disappointments and thornier issues, all the way out to creating better habits, completed goals, and triumph.

Like that woman in the picture, who has completed marathons, triathlons, and is an avid competitor in sports.  None of this could have been done without first loving herself enough to ignore the negativity, and pursue what SHE was interested in. I've always strived to be more of an encourager.  It's nice to know that my thinking goes along the correct lines.

I want to be like her when I grow up.

I first learned to ride a bike at the ripe old age of 16.  Up to that point, I had been to afraid to try, as I didn't like the thought of falling off or getting scraped up or bruised.  But once my uncle had me try out one of the many bikes he kept in his yard for all of us kids to ride, showed me how to start, balance, and stop, I was hooked.  Biking lets you travel faster than walking, obviously, but you don't travel so fast that you don't have time to observe the world around you, like you do in a car.  It's being outdoors, in motion, and still being able to love nature.  It is almost the best of both worlds, if you ask bike enthusiasts.

I had thought about getting a bike for years when I finally purchased one a couple of years ago.   My enthusiasm for the purchase was renewed by going on a long bike ride with friends (on a borrowed bike) along the beach on a path that took us from the industrial southern end at Dockweiler Beach to the beautiful Ports at Marina Del Rey.  Riding a bike along the beach path is the ultimate California dream, and the warm spring day on which we completed the round trip inspired me to plan my purchase for sometime in the near future. I like walking (when it's not my ONLY mode of transportation), and being outside, but I also needed a form of non-weight bearing exercise since I had completely hosed my knees and lower back in separate incidents.  Even after I started doing research, asking friends for recommendations, and doing multiple internet searches looking for the perfect bicycle, it still took me a couple of years to purchase one.  Where money is concerned, I always at least TRY to be careful with large purchase, although I don't always succeed.  Money was part of it, but there are always other considerations.

First and foremost, where was I going to put it?  Although at the time I was still sharing a garage with a neighbor, the key was missing somewhere in our house, and I had yet to receive another key.  My daughter's bike was in the garage, and we could only get it when the neighbor went into the garage, which was inconvenient for my daughter because that meant she could only ride her bike when we got lucky enough to catch the neighbor.  I wanted to ride for exercise, which meant riding on a regular basis, not on whims.  If I was riding on a regular basis, when exactly was I going to do that?  There were some weeks when both my and the kids church activities ate whatever time I had after I left work, and weekends tend to live on busy.

Even with all of my concerns, I found my bike, the white beach cruiser above, within the price range I was looking for from a re-seller on Craigslist, made the purchase, found some strange way to cram the bike into my then small car, and brought it home.  I then spent a little more money with the bike shop a few blocks away making adjustments and repairs to the bike so that I could ride it without being in pain.  Then I sat there and stared at it for a few month, riding only occasionally.  Being a big woman, I was entirely intimidated by the thought of long street rides where people could actually, you know, SEE me.  That was a horror that had to be avoided at all costs.  No matter what your confidence level, having strange people yell rude things at you while you are trying to get healthy is... disconcerting at best, and completely demoralizing at worst.

That changed one Saturday morning when I decided that, rather than waste gas driving to a meeting that was only a few miles away, I would ride my bike there.  I would be riding early enough (and the route obscure enough) to not make me seriously noticeable, and the route I chose also took me around any heavy traffic (a particular talent in Los Angeles).  As I rode along side a small regional airport at the longest stretch of the ride, and I realized that it didn't matter what other people might think of what I looked like riding.  I was taking care of my health, at my own pace, and I got to look around and enjoy myself in the process.  It was a beautiful day outside, and I amazed the other ladies at the meeting by riding my bike there.  I rode home completely uplifted both by the meeting, and by accomplishing something I had wanted to do for quite sometime.  I came home planning longer rides, and thinking of purchasing a bike rack for my car so that my daughter and I could take our bikes to the beach, and she and I could ride on bike trails, completely undisturbed by cars, and with more than enough room for both us and walkers.  I had my ticket to ride, finally, and my ability to do so was only hampered by time and finances.

I put off the rack purchase for quite some time because life dictates that business be taken care of first.  Bills before extras, needs before wants, etc.  I would take longer rides when I could, and I allowed my son to use my bike, as he didn't have one, and it was quicker for him to get to school with it.  Our deal was that so long as he locked it up and took care of it, I had no issue with him using it.  And our deal held for six months, until he forgot to lock the bike to the railing outside my sitter's house one Friday evening, and the bike was stolen.

Earlier this year, I gave my son the money to purchase another bike for himself.  I have a car, and I didn't really need it to get around like he does. I walk around Downtown LA on my lunch breaks when I get the chance.  But it's not the same.  I honestly miss my bike.  I watch travel shows on tv, and see them taking lovely bike tours of other countries, and secretly long for my lost cruiser.  I drive along the beach, I see the bike trails, and I remember that warm spring day only a couple of years ago when I rode them, and I wish.  I wish to be back out there on two wheels, zipping along beach side, or planning a trip to see a City by bicycle.

One day, when I get caught up on bills (Song of the Single Parent!), there will be another bike.  Followed by the purchase of a bike rack so that my whole little family can go ride on the beach.  Then an actual vacation with a bicycle tour.  It'll happen.  Not immediately, as there are always other priorities, but I look at it this way.  Now not only do I have a specific goal to work towards, I have something to look forward to once I hit the goal.  Works for me.

I have avoided talking about New Year's resolutions because I am terrible at sticking to them.  Oh, I generally do okay with food resolutions.  If I can hold out on whatever I am doing until Ash Wednesday, it generally carries over into Lent, by which time I've already either defeated whatever bad food habit I had been trying to break (chocolate, rather than dealing with negativity), or developed some good habit I really thought that I needed (eating fish at least once a week).  Where I fall down, literally, every year, is exercise.

Exercise is the bane of my existence.  Not that I don't enjoy physical activity, because I do, it's just that for people like me, for whom hand-eye coordination is a myth, and accidents are par for the course, the key thing becomes not making an ass out of yourself in public.  If you've ever tried jogging, as I did once or twice, and tripped over the sidewalk, falling on your hands and knees in front of a large group of people, you know what I mean.  I am the only person I know that has ever pulled a muscle while stretching before exercising.  I try to get it right; I just don't succeed very often.

I didn't have a driver's license until I was 32 years old.  Prior to that I rode the bus everywhere I needed to go.  A side benefit of being transit dependent is that you walk a lot.  Until my late 20's, that was my primary form of exercise.  As I got older, and the pounds started to creep on, I started to realize that the residual walking you do when riding the bus was no longer enough to keep the weight off.  So I started adding other things to the routine.

One of the first things I tried was buying home exercise DVDs.  I bought them; working out to them was a whole 'nother issue.  I am generally pretty good at following along with people, but I would get completely lost when trying to follow along with the videos.  Not to mention exercising at home came with an audience that found my attempts at fitness live comedy of the best sort.  It occurred to me that maybe I needed to do some sort of exercise that had an instructor or someone that I could follow along with.  Me being a natural introvert, I would have to stay around the back of the class or group so as not to be noticed.

Given that thought, I can only say I started with my son's martial arts class because I was feeling particularly optimistic that day.  Or maybe I was hoping that the instructors' and other students enthusiasm would rub off on me.  Most likely it was because one of my neighbors smoked a lot of weed, and I had a small contact high. Whatever the reason I decided to try capoeira, I will say that it is the one thing I stuck with for the longest, despite it being the thing I was the worst at.

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art developed by slaves in Brazil so that they could train to fight without being detected by their masters.   In order for the training to remain a secret, they trained inside a circle, which is still how training is conducted to this day. Although most of the warm ups and drills were done as a large group, so for the most part my clumsiness could go unnoticed, whenever we had to partner up to practice a drill, or to "play" (practicing fighting) inside the circle, my shortcomings would come into full focus.  I have to say, I gave it the old college try (During one partnered drill, one of the more advanced students demonstrated a combination of movements that I was to repeat. Completely perplexed, all I could do was stare at him and ask "What the hell did you just do?", cracking up both the advanced student, and everybody behind us in line.), but I was thoroughly out of my depth.  The lead instructors: Courtney, Tracey and Ellis, God love 'em, stuck with us for about six years,and through many challenges: my obvious lack of ability (and uncanny knack for pulling and twisting muscles I didn't know I had), my son's growing apathy, and my daughter's 15 second attention span for any activity that costs money to pursue.  It was a great experience for all of us, in that we made friends that we still have to this day, my son learned in some ways to focus his energies, my daughter got the gist of group activities and working with others, and I learned to push my physical boundaries (I hated the thought of not finishing a drill or exercise as I despised looking like a quitter) and I expanded my comfort zone (exercising in front of other people doesn't suck THAT much).  Time, money, distance and growing interest in other things ended our adventure in martial arts, but I still needed to exercise, so like so many other folks, one January, I decided I would head back to the gym.

The first place I tried was Curves, a women only, circuit training facility.  It was walking distance from my house (BONUS since I didn't own a car.), was supposed to be a quick, but effective workout, and wasn't terribly expensive.  It worked for all of about two months.  My issue?  It got boring.  Rapidly. And my kids had a strange way of developing some kind of emergency  EVERY SINGLE TIME I left the house to go to the gym.  Who needs to run when a panicked phone call about one sibling yelling at the other, and could you please come home right now, can get your heart racing? Not to mention my church activities started moving around, throwing my preferred workout schedule into disarray.  What I decided I needed after that was a facility where I could go whenever I had a free minute, and someplace I could take my daughter with if I had to.

I guess I thought I was being smart when I signed up for 24 Hour Fitness in December a couple of years ago.  I thought if I started in December, signed up with a personal trainer, and started working out early, I could beat the January crush, and I might even stick to it.  They even offered child care!  I have to admit that I did enjoy it for a little while.  The trainer, Scott, was a hoot, and it was nice to know what I was doing in the gym.  My daughter hated the child care, as she was often the oldest kid there, and had nothing to do.  She went back to being watched by my son (when he felt like it), prompting more panicked "Where are you" phone calls, and more activity moving with the church, butchering my workout schedule.  It was the gym rats that killed me though.  These are people that hang around the gym in their bathing suits, oops, I mean "workout attire", scoffing at the bigger people like myself, and sitting on the equipment, talking to their friends, in between sets of five or ten reps at a low enough weight so they can look like they are working out without actually working up a sweat.  Sweat being unattractive, you see.

So I am back to squares one and two: working out at home while getting in all of the residual walking from being on the bus.  Now that my son has a PlayStation 3 with two versions of the popular game Just Dance, working out at home is a lot more fun, and my critics occasionally cheer me on, since they benefit in points and trophys when I get a high enough score.  Like all home workout enthusiasts, every time I try it, I add to the home equipment.  

I have good intentions, even if my follow-through isn't great.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh often wonders what the hell I'm doing.  I know I'll get the exercise thing right, eventually, but like everything else in my life, I just need to start small and build up.  Like walking, it's a matter of taking one step at a time.



As much as I make jokes about it, and frankly as much as I sucked at it, capoeira is definitely worth your fitness consideration.  Omulu Capoeira Los Angeles, under the leadership of Mestre Preguica, put up with the kids and I for a good long while, and we learned a lot while we were there.  Look them up, and give them a try:   http://omulula.org/